Month: June 2020

As I sat at the back of the AA meeting, cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other I watched the parade of people ‘testify’ about their sobriety: “Hi my name is blah blah and I am an alcoholic!” Then each one droning on and on about how they had stayed sober for days, weeks and some even for years. Sob stories about how they had been working the 12 steps. Yippee, another soul saved from the demon drink. I didn’t believe one word of it. I bet most of them, just like me, left this room and headed for the nearest saloon. And if they did not, well, too bad for them and more for me.

I felt pretty good tonight, in fact, I had been to the saloon BEFORE the meeting, so I had no problem sitting here listening to all this blather. And I was lucky so far, my court ordered ‘sponsor’ was no where in site. Three more months of this stuff and I could quit wasting every Tuesday and Thursday nights sitting here with all these losers.

As I sat watching the clock and listening to some girl probably no older than myself drone on, I felt a hand on my shoulder. My heart sunk; I knew that oh so caring hand. Yep, it was ‘Saint Jim’ my savior in the flesh! Darn (not the word I used).

“John! he whispered in his soft tones. “I am sorry, my brother, I had an emergency. Another dude I care for had a crisis and I had to run over to his place to sit with him for a bit. I hope you have been enjoying the meeting anyway. I see a lot of good folks are here tonight. I bet there were some righteous testimonies, huh?”

As usual Jim was rubbing me the wrong way. Always calling me ‘brother’ and using words like ‘righteous’! I wasn’t his brother and there was nothing righteous about any of this. It was all a lot of garbage (again not the word I thought or used)! But as usual I put on a fake smile and said through gritted teeth,

“Oh yeah, BROTHER, this has been a blast and man, you missed the most RIGHTEOUS stories. Whew, I am so glad I was here tonight!”

My words dripped with sarcasm, but Jim refused to engage me. Instead he plopped his over 200-pound bulk next to me and start to giggle. I mean literally giggle. Like he was a 10-year-old schoolgirl. Bringing himself under control he leaned over and whispered,

“John, you crack me up! Here you are being offered the greatest chance you will ever have to change your life. To learn to live without being burdened with the weight of addiction and you just sit here letting the parade pass you by. But believe me, man, I am not laughing at you. It just I can either cry or laugh and I choose to laugh and also pray you can see the GIFT, free and clear that can be yours for the taking!”

With that I looked him in the eye, breathing my alcohol-soaked breath on him, “Yeah, Jimmy, such a gift only a guy like you and the rest of these losers can offer. I like being me! I am sorry for you all, that you need some, what do you call it? Some Higher Power to live your lives. Well, I am stuck here for three more months than I am gone! Take that up to the front and TESTIFY about it.” With that I grabbed my coat and fled the room, not caring if I would not get credit for this meeting or not. GIFT MY (Expletive) I do not need your charity!

Can you tell by the negativity of the above story how much pain I was once in. Have you ever been there? Are you there today? In so much pain that when someone throws you a lifeline you toss it back and say, “No thanks I would rather drown!” If you have or are feeling that kind of pain, I am so sorry for it. Yeah, I know, that like Jim, I sound like I am just offering you some words. That is what I felt back then. But the truth is, that is not what I am offering at all. I will say it as honestly as I can. That man who sat there in an AA meeting cursing everyone and everything, saying he was ok with his life was a liar and deep in his pain. Hiding behind resentment and defensiveness . And if you are feel either of those emotions reading this, I know the pain you are in also.

So, what can I offer you that you have not heard before? Just this, I know that pain you are feeling can be lifted. I know that worthlessness you feel can be turned to usefulness and it starts with the simple prayer every AA person knows by heart, it is called the “Serenity Prayer”. Maybe you have said this before but this morning say it slow, feel the words and try to believe:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world

As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life

And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

Ok, You still say I have heard it all before. Believe me, I had too! But why continue living in your pain? I did for years and I lost so much. This morning if you can read just this prayer and think that maybe your life can be different. Maybe you can look in the mirror and not hate what you did last night. If you can grab the lifeline and hang on. Your world can be changed. Take if from a guy who took the long way around. Don’t wait 40 years. Today is your day. So, let’s say the prayer again together knowing the “He” in the prayer is real and the promises in the words can be yours! Pain or Serenity today you have the choice!

Blessings

John

6/29/20

The light coming through the slit that passed as a window several feet above me seemed to be almost mauve in color. I lay on my bunk and watch the dancing dust particles reflecting in the purplish light. I really could not remember if it were sun rise or sunset I was watching. Time in a jail cell has no real meaning in seconds, minutes, and hours, only in months, weeks and days. But as I pondered this the stark, white light buried deep in the ceiling above me clicked on. Morning, I thought.

It was the same routine every day. Lights on in worldly time, 7:00 am. Lights off every night at 9:00 pm. It was my and I am sure most of us doing substantial time, calendar. For me it meant I had been inside the county jail for 21 days. And if I wanted to be as precise as one could on ‘jail time’, 21 days and somewhere around 12 hours. Of course, I could have lost a day when we were on lock-down. I think that lasted 3 days, but it was hard to tell because the ‘calendar light’ never stopped shining during that time. But anyway, as I looked at it I was less than halfway through my 60-day sentence. That thought, brought tears to my eyes. At least 39 days left in this place, with nothing to do but think and read. Yeah, they did have a library I could read! But mostly I could think. Count the ceiling panels for the umpteenth time, 42 full squares and 18 partials. Or maybe count the linoleum tiles on the floor of my cell. Strangely enough even though I thought both were 12”x12” there were 48 floor tiles with 9 partials. All the while thinking. Or maybe regretting was more the word. Second, upon second, hour upon hour and day upon day regretting.

Here I was 32 years old. Already married twice. My first wife hated who I was than and detested who I have become. Mostly because I hid from her and did not pay my alimony. My present wife was too busy partying to care that I was now spending two months away. I had not heard a word from her since I had been inside. I guess I didn’t care much about that. But what about my son. Yeah, my boy! I spent a lot of time in here regretting about him. We were once so close. From the moment he was born, he was ‘my boy’. But then the terrible divorce and nasty custody fight. But mostly the thing that kept replaying like a looped tape in my head, was how I had traded him for grams of speed and gallons of booze. I had run from his world because of the world I chose to live in. The world that was partially the reason why I was in here. Regret with no hope of ever finding a way back from here and 39 more days to sit and hate who I had become.

Aww regret! Which one of you reading this can look in the mirror and say, “Not me, dude, I don’t regret a moment!” But if one of you can than it is you who should be writing a blog and not me. Because for me, any time I hear the Sinatra song and these lines, I shake my head:

“Regrets I’ve had a few
But then again too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”

I shake my head because I cannot believe for a moment that anyone who lives life doing it, ‘MY WAY’ can ever say they had few regrets. But who am I to question old ‘Blue Eyes’? Or Paul Anka who actually wrote this tripe full ballad. For I did live most of my life MY WAY, but I also lived a life of regret.

So, what is the moral of all these disjointed thoughts? I guess it comes down to that living in regret is almost as bad as living the life that created those regrets. As an addict, I would spend hours, days and even weeks indulging my urges. In those times nothing was off the table be it gluttonous need for alcohol or drugs, gambling away hard-earned money or sexual excesses sometimes involving such terrible things, I cannot repeat them here. Then I would spend more hours, days and weeks regretting. Only to repeat the cycle over and over. Do you know what I am talking about? Maybe for you it was or is not any of the things I have listed above. But you overindulged in food or even religiosity. Then the regret comes.

The terrible part of this cycle for me was that even after I, through the grace of God, quit indulging, the regretting still continued and until this day sometimes does. But a young minister said something to me not long after my wife passed away. He saw my faith was waning and I was living my regrets. Here is what he said, it is pretty simple so don’t expect a thought you have never heard:

“If you spend all day thinking about yourself, you cannot spend this day thinking about the needs of others.”

Simple, right! He then handed me his Bible and had me look up these verses:

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service.  Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1: 12-15)

The young minister added this:

“Paul who wrote a huge amount of the New Testament, had regrets. But as he was instructing this young man how to serve others, he gave Timothy and us the thought we should carry every day. No matter our sins Jesus came to save sinners even terrible ones like Paul and well… maybe even a terrible sinner like John Weston. Spend time today dwelling on that! Then, like Paul, share Jesus and what he has done in your life and you will have a day you will never regret!”

I did not have to spend 60 days in jail because I was let out in 45 because of overcrowding and so called good behavior. But I still wasted all those days. More regrets, right? No, I know now that every step of my life allows me to see that “Jesus Christ came to save sinners like me.” But even so I still begin some days with thoughts of regret but gratefully  then I remember the words of my young friend or sometimes the words attributed to several preachers, but whomever said them said them I am grateful also: “When I look at myself I don’t see how I can be saved but when I look at Jesus I cannot see how I can be lost!” Today living HIS WAY there not a regret in sight!

Blessings

John

6/22/20

 

 

 

 

“How many times have I heard this song?” I mumbled to myself as Patsy Kline’s ‘Crazy’ fired up on the too loud jukebox AGAIN. I surveyed the bar to see if Crazy Harry was in the room. Normally when that song was repeated time and again the man all knew as ‘Crazy’ would play his theme song until one of the bartenders would chase him out or take away his jukebox privileges.

Sure enough, there he was hanging on a stool only feet from the ‘box’, swaying to the sultry tones of Patsy. I wondered in my bored state how many times he had played this song. Does he play it at home? Like when he gets up in the morning does, he play it and sway in the bathroom while brushing his teeth? Eating supper does his mom play it so he can digest his food? Does he own a car and have a cassette tape that only has this song looped over and over again? Idle thoughts but I decided that ‘inquiring mines want to know’ so I picked up my drink and moved down the bar to where Crazy was still swaying as if Patsy was standing right in front of him singing her heart out.

He did not notice as I sat down. The music was so loud here I thought that I would have to apply the sponge earplugs I used on the job when working next to a jackhammer. But the song was in its final throws and I waited it out:

“I’m Crazy for trying

And crazy for crying

And I am crazy for loving….

You

It ends with that unmistakable piano lick and then there was blessed silence.

Harry sat there as if mesmerized, was that actual tears in this guys eyes? Jeez, he really is crazy, I thought. Then, as if coming out of a trance. He swung round on his stool legs flailing hitting the stool I was on and almost catapulting me. Only then did he notice me sitting next to him and with great surprise and almost horror he said, “Oh John, I am so sorry, man! I did not see you sitting there! I didn’t hurt you, did I?” His eyes were full of real compassion and his voice with real concern and I was shocked because Harry and I had never talked and yet he knew my name.

He continued to sit there hands almost shaking now. I felt like this had been a really bad idea. This guy is in no shape for me to be asking all kinds of stupid questions. I was about to wave him off and go back to my end of the bar when he spoke in a calm voice that I had a hard time believing came from this wreck of a man, “Stay, John, it is ok, I will be good.” Then leaning over in confidence, “I really am not Crazy, you know. I am Harold J Tompkins Junior.” He leaned back beaming as if he had accomplished a feat of magic. Then he startled me even more saying, “And you are John Weston, the boss. Your crew guys are Bob Miller, Jim Watkins, Tommy Linders and Pete Unsel. They all work for you but don’t like you at all.” And with a look of disapproval and a wag of his finger he continued. “You could be nicer, John. You are a child of the Father! Because God loves us all!” With that it was as if something clicked off in his brain. His eyes went blank and he turned back toward the jukebox. It was as if, for a moment, someone, or something else spoke through Crazy Harold J Tompkins Junior. A message and I knew no matter how many drinks I had that night, I could not shake it.

Have you had one of these kinds of moments? A moment when you feel you have been touched by an angel. Back when this happened to me, I certainly did not think about it in those terms. In fact, I really was at a loss to explain it, so I buried it in the vast recesses of my booze-soaked brain. The strange thing was every time I heard the song ‘Crazy’ after that, it would come back to me. I would see the clarity in Harry’s eyes, the knowing that I was a man who needed something more than I had in my life. And if I could not admit it then, I have admitted it in the years since I was saved by grace, I needed to know that Father and feel his love.

Why do I bother you with this story, you might be asking yourself? Simply because I want you to know today that even if you have not been the best person that you could be, “You are a child of the Father. Because God loves us all!” Here is how the Apostle John put it,

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (1 John 3:1)

I did not know the message I was given back in that smoky bar sitting next to a man I thought of as ‘crazy’, I missed it all together. The reason I did was that I did not know who God and his son Jesus was. I did not see the love HE had lavished on me until I saw this:

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2: 4-5)

God does love me and you this much. And I believe that he will go to unbelievable and supernatural ways to get that message to us.

For me it took way more years than it should to hear the message delivered by an angel of God sitting in a bar. I am praying that it does not take that amount of time for anyone reading this today. Hear what my dear friend Cheri Peters says and today know it is true, “God is ‘crazy’ about you and so am I”! It is comforting for me to know in our politically correct world crazy can be a wonderful word!

Blessings,

John

6/15/20

The woman sat simmering. I barely knew her except that she was the wife of one of my crew members. She had showed up at my door about a half hour before and asked if she could come in. Next to her sat a little girl, she could not have been any more than 5 or 6 years old. She seemed to sense her mother’s tension and clung to her, face buried in her side, only peeking out at me just briefly. With big, round, dark eyes, she looked for any sign of movement from me. I sat perfectly still. Such unease I had never felt. Why were these two here? I did not want to get involved in someone else’s personal struggles. I wanted to be left alone. But there they sat.

I could not remember her name, so I addressed her as, ‘Mrs.’ Saying, “Mrs. Gowan, why are you here….” I did not get the whole sentence out before she began a fierce tirade, “You are the reason I am here. You are the man who fed my Billy the drugs that have turned him into a monster! He was a good man and husband before he hooked up with you! You are the (expletive) devil!”

The rage and anger coming out of her mother frighten the girl even more and she began to whimper. Her mother wrapped an arm around her and said, “It is ok, baby, we are not going to stay here. Maw-Maw is waiting for us. We are going to visit her for a while.” She turned back to me and now spoke softly, “I have no more words for you. The poison you spread is killing my marriage and my baby here and my husband too! I just needed you to know it. I just wanted to know why.”

As she rose to her feet, I wanted to tell her that it was not my fault. I wanted to say the drugs she was talking about did come through me, but Billy had been doing speed long before he met me. Yeah, maybe I had encouraged him, like I did all my crew. I wanted to tell her it was the way of the world in our trade. All the bosses fed their guys speed. It was not my fault that Billy wanted more and more every day. But as she rose and stood waiting on my reply, all I could say was, “He wanted the stuff, and I can’t help it if he can’t handle it.”

Her tears were forming now, and her shoulders slumped. She guided her daughter to the door. Stopping as she turned the handle, she said with her back to me, “Mister, I pray some day you will pay for the misery you have dealt. Billy is not a perfect guy, but he looked up to you. He said, ‘John said this, and John said that.’ You could have done better by him. You could have been the man he thought you were!” With that she opened the door and was gone.

Thirty-five years removed from that day and the words still ring in my ears. The frightened eyes of that young girl still burn my dreams. In fact, they disturbed my sleep last night. There in the dark around midnight I heard the voice of anger and of plaintiveness. I saw those eyes. Ghosts that haunt me still. And the guilt. Yeah, man, I was guilty. I fed Billy’s demon and not only his so many others. The guilt! How do I deal with it in the middle of the night? How do I deal with it right now? There is only one word, Grace.

I, like so many others who have come to know and accept Jesus as our Savior after living a life of unbearable sin, have only one word of salvation. Grace. You see, what I had to learn is all here in these verses:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2: 8-9)

Grace, an undeserved and unmerited favor from God, is my only salvation. I cannot remove the stain of my sin or the horror of when I realized that I had led others to sin. I cannot do it in the middle of the night when Satan brings those sins back to my mind. I can only, once again, fall at the foot of the cross in faith and know that his blood, given without condition washes me clean.

It is at that moment when God’s Word is my bridge and door to know sins are forgiven. It is then that I, like King David who committed the most heinous of sins, murder can cry these words:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.” (Psalm 51 10-15)

In these words, Satan can find no place. But I am reminded and refreshed once again that I am forgiven. Sleep returns as I can surrender even my guilt to him who died to take it. Shadows of the past fade as I am reminded of those verses in Ephesians, ‘By grace you are saved through faith. And this not of my own doing…” For now, I can rest but never without praise and thanksgiving. Another day to serve my Savior and others, how blessed am I!

Because of God’s grace over the years I have tried to make recompense for my actions. To ask for forgiveness, not because I needed it or deserved it, but because I hoped to show that grace comes even to those who lived and spread darkness. I have never been able to find what happened to Billy, his wife, or their child. But my prayer is that one of them may read this and know that I am a changed man, through Jesus Christ. I cannot change what I did but can offer them the save saving power that saved me, Grace. May you who read this know it is yours today. Seek it!

Blessings

John

6/8/20

 

What do I do on a day when I sit down to write a Christian blog where I express the transforming power of Jesus Christ and do not feel that power? I guess that is what I am trying to do today.

Like most of us I feel that the world I lived in just a few months ago no longer exists. But that is not what is blocking my writing juices. No, I am a true believer in God’s Word and if that is true, I would expect all of what is happening to occur. I guess it comes down to and what I did not expect is the hatred and divisiveness I see within the community of Christ’s followers.

Now, let me say this before you are ready to believe I am taking sides in this political argument that is raging. I am not. As much as I am a citizen of a free country who believes that we have the absolute right to express political views, I believe more strongly that we who espouse that this earth is not our home should be refraining from any kind of rhetoric that would create more divisiveness or spread unproven or debasing theories.

I came out of that world. Those of you who know my testimony know that there was a time that I would have not only condoned hatred but would have used it as a weapon on anyone who opposed my world view. What you might not know is that I was raised in a home where deep prejudicial feelings were rife. My father was a man who was taught hatred at the knee of a man who lived it. His father, an immigrant from England, came here with ideas of superiority of race and hatred toward those who would challenge those ideas. I never met the man; he was dead long before I was born. But I saw the results of it in my father’s own feeling toward others he held in less esteem than himself.

I was a boy and a teenager in the turbulent years of the 1960’s. Through the murders of John Kennedy, his brother Bobby, and Martin Luther King. I lived in Chicago and watch whole neighborhoods burned to the ground as ‘race riots’ spread like a plague. In my house I only heard one side of the argument and it never took in any thoughts of sympathy and the frustrations of a people who had been held in bondage, first as slaves and for generations as lower class citizens at best. I heard only hatred and prejudice. I absorbed that hatred. And even though I did not take on the views of my father, I pretty much never hated a man for his skin color. I hated and brewed anger just the same. I never thought a thing about it. To me it was just the way of the world. One thing I knew for sure hatred is a powerful weapon and I used it whenever I could.

But then, not that long ago, I started reading a book that taught me a completely different way to look at this world, its history, and its future, it is known as the Bible. There is a section in it I want to share this morning, it is rather long but it is what every Christ believer, every person who has experienced the grace of God’s forgiveness needs to have and hold right now. I believe it is so important that each one of us who claim the name Christian should read it and then fall on our knees seek forgiveness and ask for the power to live it. So here it is:

 

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.

He said:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5: 1-12

This is the lesson that I found no way to argue with back when I first read it. It burned me with its unyielding truth. I wanted to be part of any group of people who could espouse this and live it. I wanted to be known as a follower of the man and God who spoke it. So, I was baptized into that group and joined with them in worship. But I kept seeing something I recognized from my youth. That same superiority expressed by my grandfather, later by my father and then by me. It was here among those who claim to believe in these verses. And I see it even more in this time where we who claim to be Christ-like are spewing Facebook nonsense and allowing political allegiances to overtake what Jesus expressed and espoused in his teachings, in his life and in his death for us on the cross, love. Love of his Father and love of his human brothers and sisters. Love even of those who hated him.

So today, I cannot write my usual blog that expresses God’s saving power toward this sinner. Even though that is so much a part of it. I am writing to ask and plead for us, Christ’s followers to read these words of his and seek Him today. If this is all we can do today it will change the world.

Blessings

John

6/1/20