Category Archives: A.A.

FollowCraig: Plastic Plants

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Imagine being a teenager pushing a lawnmower as part of your weekly chores? Every week your dad reminds you; Craig “Cut The Grass”! We had rental houses as well so the grass cutting just seemed to never end. I swore that when I got older my house would have plastic plants and artificial grass, never to do this again. Today I’m 60 years old and just finished watering my freshly planted grass and flowers. What happened? So goes life, we get all wrapped up in our daily chores of work, paying the bills, raising children and dreaming of vacations. My life began to move really fast in my late 20’s and early 30’s. I was working all the time, first in the insurance business and later managing automobile dealerships. My ego was so very large back then, you should have seen me. Fancy clothes, gold jewelery, fast cars and big bar tabs. I remember buying a gold watch made from a 20 dollar solid gold coin, I was nuts! Craig was living a plastic life and yes I had plenty of Plastic Plants. Interesting thing about plastic plants and plastic lives, they start to get dusty and often begin to fade. Those little branches just start to drop off much like the plastic life. The family, fades, falls apart and nothing is shiny anymore. One day you wake up and nothing is real and the craving for something different begins to stir. You begin to search and travel some very risky trails. Life on a tightrope without proper balance, so close to falling, so close to hitting the bottom and never getting up. Then it hits you, plastic plants don’t last because they never needed water. Like life if you’re not needed and you don’t love your plastic world just dies. It took some time for me, it didn’t come easy but I found it; that little secret that had eluded me for so many years. Life and plants need watering. Gold watches, fancy cloths and fast cars speed away. Today I’m not a fake, I have faith, I love and am loved. I don’t have a single plastic plant, and every plant in my life gets a healthy dose of water and love. Now that’s the life!

You’re still reading, I’m still writing, so please keep following….

Craig

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FollowCraig: What color are your Grandchildren?

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Let’s be clear on this, I was born a white guy, into a Mormon family located in California. I didn’t have any control of over who my family would be? What a surprise, I am just like everyone else. Not one of us can pick our family, where and what religion or not we are born. For those of us lucky enough to live here in the USA; “the melting pot of the world” we are hopefully raised to be accepting of our differences and celebrate the common ribbons that tie our lives together. So why is it we have so much racism and fear of those who look, talk or worship different from us? I think it’s fear of the uncertain. As a Christian man, it fascinates me that so many people forget we are all God‘s children. We come in all colors, cultures and faiths. I heard a story the other day of two older German Lutherans who have lived in Los Angeles all their adult live. Over time the neighborhood has evolved and is mostly populated with people of Hispanic heritage. When they go to church they see so many people who are not white Germans, they wonder what color their grandchildren will be? They are afraid their own legacy won’t survive. Why do we forget that our color and heritage does not matter to God? We cannot change the family we were born to, nor the place we were born. We can however choose our beliefs and faith. So, what color are your grandchildren to be? I know the color of mine are love.

I’m still writing, you’re still reading, so please keep following…..

Craig

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FollowCraig: “Junior Seau”

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Suicide! Not all that many years ago my own family suffered the tragic loss of suicide. it’s a milestone of time one never forgets. For many years my response to others on this subject has been “the most selfish act anyone can do to others”. In our family it was the loss of my mothers husband and my stepfather. Today we hear of the tragic loss of the young man; Junior Seau. I remember watching the movie, What Dreams May Come and came to realize we can’t know the inner pain these people are suffering? I will never know really what pain my stepfather was living anymore that the Seau family can imagine what Junior was going through. My views have changed over the years about suicide. I don’t really think it’s something anyone wants to do and cause so much pain in all those around them, it’s only no other options are available and the pain is just to intense. We have no magic pill, no man made solution? I like to think that faith in a greater power would be enough and for some perhaps it is. So today rest in peace Mr. Seau, I for one hope you have found it. To the Seau family, if you believe as I do then you will know that he has just gone home to a safer place.

You’re still reading, I’m still writing, so please keep following….

Craig

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FollowCraig: You Gotta Let Go To Embrace The Flow…John Page Burton

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Some terrific writing from my friend John Burton. A must read!

You Gotta Let Go To Embrace The Flow…John Page Burton.

just keep following…….

Craig

FollowCraig: ?Peace?

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I’m a child of the 60’s, a baby boomer! The word peace had such a different meaning back then. The war in Vietnam was raging, the Beatles were riding in a yellow submarine and Tim Leary said just drop some acid and drop out! John Lennon’s song “Imagine” perhaps is the rare remnant of that turbulent time that transcends our generations?  We now think of peace as being comfortable in our own skin. I would love to see us all fight for peace in the world like we did back then. I for one have reached so deep for such inner peace that I have often forgotten about the real struggles in our world. Perhaps the real inner peace we are searching for comes from helping others find theirs? Suppose everyday, we just reached out to one new person who could use some help, a hand up or a kind word? Would that not really give us “Inner Peace”? I guess I still have some work to do, how about you?

you’re still reading, I’m still writing, so please keep following…

Craig

FollowCraig: Re-calculating Route

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Her clear discerning voice, reassuring confidence, always certain of her direction! If I make a left, right or wrong turn she is always there “re-calculating route.” Oh the wonderful GPS! Just the other day as I was driving and our in car GPS system once again directed me to exactly the right destination. Calmly and politely re-calculating my route each time I deviated from course. Always forgiving and re-calculating after each wrong turn I might make along my journey. So I began thinking that perhaps all those other wrong turns, you know the ones we make in life? The times we didn’t say no or yes when we could have. The times we told a white lie, when candor and honesty would have been the right thing. All those wrongs, all our little sins? Then for some reason, something happens in our life, we find ourselves asking a higher power for help or perhaps repent for a wrong? Then our direction changes and life is good again. Is it possible that this higher power, could just be our own GPS? Always there to keep us on course, to re-calculate our route after every wrong turn? I have learned that each time my life direction seems off course, when I can’t sleep, when I am worried or when I have just screwed up! I can just stop, go to God, ask forgiveness and follow his direction; my destination once again is clear. Call it prayer, surrendering, repentance or call it crazy but it always works!

I’m still writing, you’re still reading, so please keep following……

Craig

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