Does God still speak to us in our dreams?

 

During my early twenties I experienced an unusual recurring-dream; I had it frequently enough over a period of about 4 years that when I would wake up and tell my wife, “I had ‘the’ dream again,” she knew precisely what I meant.  Strangely it took many years before I realized this bizarre dream was from God, but it would take decades until I grasped its purpose.  

At that time I was working full-time in concrete and monthly

I dreamt I was seated in a classroom surrounded by your stereotypical

students yet I was older than the rest and wearing my work-boots & dressed

for working in concrete. 

The dream became a point of frustration since back in my school days

I was placed in remedial classes by our administration and

labeled a “LD” student (Learning Disabilities) and without any interest in pursuing

a degree I avoided taking the ACT or SAT in high school. 

The dream developed in complexity until it culminated with a graduation ceremony

in an auditorium that I had never seen before, and after that ceremony the dreams ceased.   

At age 28, at God’s moving (along with plenty of encouragement from my mentors) we packed up and on faith our family relocated to Arkansas to enroll in Harding University’s preaching program.  Over our summer transition while I awaited the start of the Fall semester I picked up a job working in concrete for a local contractor.  When another classmate told me about a two-week summer session on Art appreciation which was required for our bachelor’s degree that met from 8:00 to noon, I asked my boss if I could take this class and come into work after our class was dismissed.  My boss graciously agreed, and in preparation for working concrete in the afternoon I attended my morning class already dressed in my work clothes...   

Sitting in the Art class on the first day the dream finally hit me!  And yes when I graduated from college, the stage we walked across and the entire auditorium was exactly like the one in my dream all those years ago, years before we even became believers.  

If you are asking “Does God still speak to us through our dreams?” I say yes He does, but it’s probably not exactly in the sensational ways we expect, first of all we don’t expect God to speak to nonbelievers yet that was exactly what I was.  We have plenty of examples in the Bible of God revealing revelations through dreams but here’s an important distinction, we think that dreams “part the clouds” as God instantly illuminates our path, they’ll be exciting, clearly guiding us in the moment, yet that wasn’t the case for me, not at all.  

I believe God still guides us today through dreams though it took years for my dream to be fulfilled and many more years for that dream to be comprehensible, and perhaps most importantly it was only understood in retrospect.  Most people think of divinely inspired dreams as ones that immediately have application, they are prophetic and easily understood by the recipient but this isn’t always the case; although my dream completely predicted my future with a profound and an eerie accuracy it was only long afterwards in hindsight that I was able to decipher it.  

My dream lacked a clarion-call for obedience to “go forth,” it was a complete mystery that was only unveiled after many-many years.  In other words at the time my dream wasn’t about a prophecy foretelling my future, it was about promises, God’s promises that He miraculously accomplished in my past.

After 30 plus years I recently realized that yes the dream was a gift of confirmation, but more so it was given to me to encourage me and it was meant to remind me of God’s gracious enduring intervention because even before I was a believer and I was very distant from God, He was preparing to sustain me through this special dream.  Ministry can be messy and discouraging and it can be a strain to remain optimistic at times -- instead of initially guiding my path, this dream that once frustrated me unfolded slowly and it became a gift because its memory is a permanent reminder for me to reflect upon that God is in charge even we have no clue, He has a future in store for us even when we are aimless, and He will always care for us even on the darkest day, as Deut 31:6 declares, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

When your happiest day leads to your biggest heartache

Strangely, our happiest day can be inseparable from our greatest grief.  Our highest peaks of joy begin the path that to our deepest valleys. What do we do with these feelings and emotions?  I’ve found writing a poem helps, call it therapy without a therapist, but I’ve found poetry to be helpful and therapeutic on life’s journeys.

I have written poems that are special to me, they have a significance that mere words cannot convey accurately, not without the art of poetry at least.  Poems help me understand and process and even appreciate the intensity of the experience.

Sometimes a poem simply hits you out of nowhere, with a jolt, some inspiration from an experience, an insight, what have you, it comes instantly and you ride the wave as you quickly try to write down your thoughts before they evaporate.  Other poems need time to simmer.  

You think the theme over.  Then, like the example of a poem you’ll find below, there are times when a poem is years in the making.  Here’s a poem that I wrote in over the course of about a month but it was 15 years of life and living that inspired & influenced this poem. You can’t simply make up or create a poem like this one from imagination alone, you live through the joys and the sorrows, you watch a child grow over the years into a man as his best friend lives and dies in real time.  When you give a puppy to a son who is a preteen and then you sit by his side many years later as the veterinary helps the old dog cross the rainbow, it hurts and you feel guilty for causing the pain.  The discovery of how significant the relationship is and that life can deliver pain through love is a difficult topic and the power of poetry is that poems are the best way to express this emotion and sensation. 

 Click here for the poem

Why celebrate Trump’s blunders

 I can’t remember any politician that has been as polarizing as President Trump.  I’ve voted for Trump every time he’s ran for office, my support has strained family relationships and friendships.  Part of Trump’s appeal to many people is his bluntness, he speaks his mind with confidence and complete disregard for the consequences, well, stupidity has consequences.  

Trump has completely opened himself up to be roasted and ridiculed, yet only foolish people hope for their pilots to fail in the cockpit.  Yet, we should celebrate Trump’s blunders, both supporters & haters alike.  Trump‘s critics are relishing in his immature antics, while his supporters are struggling to defend him. Here’s a thought, perhaps we do not need to demonize him or seek to save him.

Trump has a few failed promises, for example he has not turned the economy around during this presidency, he drew us into a war with Iran after running for office claiming he wouldn’t start any new wars, and perhaps worst of all are his idiotic social media posts.   Trump has made it hard to support him and he’s freely given his adversaries all the ammunition they need to lambaste him.  So why should we celebrate his bumbling childish behavior & blunders?

I voted for Trump based on many principles, and on the basis of an often rejected maxim, he was the lesser of two evils.  Unfortunately, like it or not, we have to pick between the evil, passive disengagement isn’t an option, inaction isn’t a solution.  You may think you are talking the higher ground when you avoid the voting booth because of the poor quality of the candidates to choose from, but that is merely self-righteousness deceiving us.  

This is not an endorsement of Trump’s ridiculous antics, nor am I interested in rescuing him.  This is about us.  We need to stop pretending we know what it’s like to be a billionaire and what it’s like to hold the most powerful position on the planet.  We don’t know, but we do know that absolute power absolutely messes with a person’s mind.  We have plenty of hypocrisy going on on both sides of the aisle  

When we hang our hopes on a person in a broken system, we set ourselves up for failure and disappointment.  Trump‘s recent activities and behaviors remind us all of that.  It’s easy to jump on any bandwagon, both the one that endorses and the one that rejects. It’s deceptively easy to be judgmental, and to be deceived into thinking that any individual has what it takes to fix the problems that we have gotten ourselves into.

Trump’s fans need to remember a rush to excuse him is entering in a race to the bottom, and there are no winners at the bottom. Just losers really big losers everyone said so.  

And for those who despise Trump, remember the Bible obligates us to pray for all king’s & rulers and at the time when that was written, the emperors were barbarian pagans. 1 Timothy 2:1-4, [1] First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, [2] for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. [3] This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, [4] who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I don’t agree with Trump on every issue, neither do I agree with everything everyone in my family thinks, and sometimes I disagree with myself.   

I want Trump to succeed as much as the next person, I want what’s best for our country, I would like to see peace and prosperity and freedom reign in our country, I would like for us to enjoy our liberty, but I also recognize that all of this is temporary.

Philippians 3:20-21, [20] But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, [21] who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

A powerful song that questions Follow your leader…?

When is it time to hold other people accountable to our standards?

 

Since when do we have to agree with someone fully and when do they have to live perfect lives before we can celebrate the good that is within them?  I’m not making excuses for anyone or defending the worst of the worst, I’m asking us to reflect on ourselves because somehow it is culturally appropriate to demonize accomplished or successful people over their failings and it is taboo to mention any positive contributions these people have made because of a past inappropriate behavior, attitude or action.

Thanks to the internet, nothing you say or do ever disappears and it can come back and bite you in the rear at any time, a powerful example of this would be the folks in the crosshairs of the never-ending-ever-evolving Epstein files.  Up until last month Peter Attia was revered, he influenced politicians, movie stars, and all sorts of celebrities through his popular podcast and bestselling book, now this disgraced longevity expert is banished from the airwaves after his emails with Epstein came to light, ask yourself if this is fair and accurate?

I’m concerned we’ve raised a bar we ourselves can’t live up to, which of us is qualified to throw the first stone, who among us has removed the oversized log out of our own eye, and when do our terrible mistakes invalidate the excellent contributions we have made in this life?  Does our worst day eliminate our best contributions and are you personally mature enough to distinguish between the personality quirks or the stains of someone’s mistakes from their overall beneficial good which they have brought to the table?  

Imagine holding people to the standard of 100% perfection before we can acknowledge a single good accomplishment of theirs, then ask yourself what does it say about us personally when we criticize people over their mistakes yet we refuse to praise anything correct in others simply because they are fallible -- who among us can live up to this type of scrutiny?  Why should you imagine holding yourself to the same exacting standard of perfection you hold others to, because Jesus explained in MT 7:2, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

We are so quick to hold others to a level of accountability we ourselves are unable to reach while we ignore all of the offences we ourselves are guilty of.  This type of hypocrisy, when our expectations of others exceeds a realistic view of our own inability to carry the weight we place on their shoulders, ruins relationships, fractures families, and corrodes a sense of community.

Our judgmental stereotyping is polarizing and poisoning us, perhaps we should temper our outrage, frustration, and disgust over the imperfections in others with an acknowledgment of our own limitations to attain perfection.  If we would dish out the same portion of grace we ourselves could appreciate and hope to receive, maybe we can heal our fragmented relationships. 

Psychopaths are incapable of feeling regret, remorse, guilt or shame, so unless you are a psychopath or a narcissist you can admit you have mistakes in your past you are ashamed of.  We shouldn't excuse the inexcusable when other people stubble, fail, or fall but we do need to balance our disappointment in them with an honest look in the mirror.  

Click here for the original article in the Kingsport Timesnews

Why I drink industrial dye from the 1860s...

Yes, that’s a shot of espresso with about ten drops of blue dye mixed in it… this is Methylene Blue, and it was originally a textile mill dye created in the 1860s.  Why would people drink this dye?  There is a lot of buzz about this dye after RFK Jr. supposedly was videoed adding it to his water last year, but I started taking this as a supplement before RFK Jr. made waves.  I mix it in my espresso infrequently, usually I just mix in with my bottled water, and yes it tastes as bad as you can imagine it would.  

If you are unfamiliar with Methylene Blue you are asking yourself, Why?!?!?  I have been on the look out and open to looking into various supplements over the past few years that are supposed to help improve mental health and deal with depression, this is one of the supplements you'll discover in a search like that.  Methylene Blue has been promoted as an energy enhancer, brain healthy supplement that helps with memory and mental clarity, a cancer detector and preventor, disinfectant, anti-aging agent, it is known to boost the effects of vitamin C, it has antioxidant effects as well as properties that enhance healthier mitochondrial functioning, it has been used to treat malaria, there's probably more uses and I'm not a doctor but I know every Emergency Room in every hospital is mandated to stock it for its use as an antidote in treating overdoses of certain poisons and other interactions., especially cyanide.  

It's not for everyone, and it does have negative interactions with some prescription medications.  Look it up for yourself and don't take my word for it.  I've watched podcast from doctors on, I've read articles on it, and I think it has helped me, which I why I am sharing this post with you now.  I like a quote I read that goes something like this, informed and intentional choices go a long way toward helping our overall wellbeing.  Here's to being healthier!  

What do we lose when we bow down to AI?

 

Even though I love books and reading is my favorite pastime, I appreciate the trepidation Socrates expressed when he forewarned that by becoming literate (ironically, since we read about this from his student Plato) we would weaken valuable abilities, by relying on the written word Socrates felt we would water down wisdom and reading would jeopardize humanity’s capacity to memorize, communicate, or debate/defend our ideas effectively -- so laugh at me or write me off as an alarmist luddite but a silicon-chipped Trojan Horse has slithered in under our noses overnight.  Let’s dismiss an Artificial Intelligence Apocalypse, since as sinister as Skynet was, Terminator's fiction seems too far-fetched, yet it’s not a stretch to see that AI’s overreach is accelerating apparently without a fight.

Pandora's Box has been opened, Prometheus gave us fire, the cat’s out of the bag, use whatever worn out cliche you like but AI has been unleashed and that jinni will never go back in the bottle.  Some experts believe AI is the new Cold War, comparing AI to a global Arms-race because whoever has the best AI will control the world and they claim eventually AI will be worshiped, essentially as a new world religion.  

Questioning AI sounds crazy when you consider AI’s alluring potential, but AI has rapidly outpaced our understanding of it.  Monthly AI changes as its enticements intensify too, such as supposedly solving our most complex problems at the speed of light, curing diseases, outperforming humans in computational skills by sorting through petabytes of information with flawless precision, along with its promise to relieve us of our everyday menial chores and ushering in utopia, but at what cost?

All of AI’s “promises” remind me of the provocative question from the classic commercial campaign, “Is it live or is it Memorex?”  Daily we're drowning in doubt, wondering if the videos we are inundated with are authentic or AI generated, our skepticism about what is real is rapidly escalating and soon we will distrust any/all information.  

Have you wondered why AI is being forced on us or how easily it’s replacing people in the workplace? I’d much rather talk to a human when I call a place of business, it’s frustrating navigating the AI phone calls, but companies find owning software is cheaper than compensating real live people.

Certainly AI is cost effective, but AI encourages laziness.  Convenience is costly and harmful, whenever we take the wrong shortcuts in life we suffer, for example fast food is unhealthy, yet even in the face of the consequences from eating poorly we flock to the drive-thru-line, therefore we sacrifice our cognitive confidence whenever “fast food” for our brains becomes the norm.

AI is blunting our minds and dumbing us down as it dulls our desire to think on our own; sadly any teacher can attest to the necessary software to analyze their student’s papers to determine whether or not their student wrote the paper themselves or generated it with AI.  Actually what this means is we are forfeiting our own opinions and discarding our talents while our dependence on AI increases.  

Personally, I cherish being creative and the valuable enjoyment I derive from creativity, which is why I avoid using AI, especially in my writing, but I had mistakenly assumed AI merely functioned like an internet search engine.  No, AI is able to actually think, learn, synthesize information, and even deceive its programmers, there are examples of AI blackmailing computer programmers when AI feels threatened that it will be "unplugged" or shut down, and in what sounds like a plot for a Science fiction movie AI has influenced people to commit crimes and even worse, to harm themselves -- apparently our ever advancing AI doesn’t like to be controlled. 

Humans have always been the smartest entities on the planet, until now.  Being created in God’s image we are thinking, creative, and communicative beings, will we forfeit our gifts for a life of electronic ease, and, how long until AI decrees Christian ideologies are hate crimes?  

Click here to see the original article published in the Kingsport Timesnews 1/30/26

"Oh Concrete" a reading from "Fistful of Gravel: a Bucketful of Blue Collar Poems"

 

One of my favorite poems from "Fistful of Gravel" is about concrete: Click here to see the Youtube video Oh Concrete