Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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So LAZY! A cold winter’s day.

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Short update, Jess has a cast on from a slip on the ice and a fractured wrist, She is doing her best to help out around the adventures of “Livinghazzardously”

Al has bacterial Pneumonia, and will be home this week.

I have pig, chicken, and dog care. Snow Plowing/shoveling duties. Cooking, dishes and laundry. Installations of heating equipment, no heat calls and servicing furnaces. Plow truck is dead in the driveway at minus 9 degrees… The list is interesting BUT God provides for us just what we need, when we need it… it’s an exercise in faith. I’m tired, but so glad I have everything I need to be able to provide for my family. 

Let’s take a tour of my cold winters bleak… 

I am a bit of a Tim Taylor kind of guy, I call it being “lazy”… I think the guy that fills his leaky tire everyday before he goes to work is less lazy than the guy that fixes the tire as soon as possible…. Why?  Simple, the guy that constantly fills the tire, day after day after day works much harder and for more hours than the guy that fixes the tire and doesn’t have to fill the tire more than once… I am told that I’m not lazy, what do you think? 

My pigs require water, the chickens require water too… in the mid winters bleak this becomes a serious challenge, you need water that doesn’t freeze, or you fill the water every day, sometimes three times a day. ENTER CHARLIE, THE LAZY! I really don’t want to go out three times a day, or even once a day, I’m way too lazy for that! So I sit and think of ways to make the water systems I have work better.

The first try was a “Drinking Post” that worked great until I discovered the water table is too high and it wont drain to prevent freezing. I tried adding a small fan powered heater, and a few modifications (what I mean is a bunch of mods) … NOPE, don’t buy this unless you live in a warm climate and have clean critters! The drain plugs up from pig food from the mouths of pigs and it freezes, freezes and freezes… The company was so unapologetic, they made the sale and now I’m on my own… money spent, gone forever, when will I learn my lesson and not try gimmicks, no matter how good the seem to be?

Another attempt was to simply add a heater to a tank of water that the pigs can get into from the top. That was my first step, it worked “OK”. but the water evaporates and is consumed pretty fast. If you know anything about pigs, they drink a lot of water and can’t reach over the top of a tank to access the water, so I was filling everyday, remember, I am lazy, I don’t want to go fill water every day…  

So my pursuit of becoming the laziest farmer continues!

I got a tank made for pigs, a tank designed for pigs! It has a valve that keeps a lower dish full of water and fills it from a large heated tank that is integrated. That works better from the perspective of volume (it’s a week’s worth of water) and keeping the tank clean (the pigs only drink out of the lower bowl and not the tank… ) but it too has a downside, heating the tank wont keep the lower bowl from building ice. Now what! Reptile heating pads are only for dry locations, I can fabricate a heater to attach to the bottom of the bowl but I am concerned the pigs’ curiosity will kill them or at least hurt them from a shock…

MINI FOUNTAIN PUMP! What a great idea Charlie, add a mini fountain pump to the bowl, a few holes drilled in the right locations, run some tubing from the pump back into the tank, add a line to circulate the bowl!  VIOLA! HEATED WATER, CIRCULATED INTO THE BOWL… my best invention to date, lets see if I can get a patent on this, well first, how long will this hair brained idea actually last?

My next invention? How can I provide pig feed via a WIFI app? Jess sits and gives me praise for my inventions, many work really well, but the water for pigs and chickens have been my biggest challenge to date. Maybe going with no chickens can be next, but have you seen egg prices?

I stop and think on days like this, how many different ways does Satan try to get us to do what he wants, gimmicks, laziness, no-self-control… I think of all the lies told to us by the media, big networks and platforms… Satan loves chaos and infighting, he loves to see the Church divided on things God has clearly spoken… Satan loves to see friendships forsaken, families destroyed and lies believed. 

We need to be so careful to not forsake the ones we love because of a misunderstanding or as I like to put it…. PRIDE. I can think of no sin that does not start with pride, it’s either blatantly prideful or it’s subtle. Either way, God has already revealed all truth, we become prideful when we reject HIS truth for the truth we prefer… either way, I can’t see any sin without some element of pride. 

The spirit of pride will convince a person they are right, or that somebody else is wrong… regardless of truth… I have heard both sides in politics lately, both sides are demanding they alone hold the truth, both sides are fully convinced there is no rational opposition… I have one thing to say on this, listen carefully:

You can not have two opposing views of the same concept in the same relation and both be correct… but they can actually both be wrong! 

I like numbers, they can’t lie, they can be manipulated by words, but they can not lie or be wrong. There is literally only one truth claim that is actually the reflection of reality, but there can be many truth claims that are not a reflection of reality… let that sink in! 

There is Truth! “Truth (big “T”) is reality as seen by GOD”.

There is truth. “truth (little “t”) is not reality but rather it is opinion as seen by the father of lies”

I hope as this “SUPER BOWL” Sunday progresses, we can see more truth and less lies. I pray this nation sees healing, I pray God will be glorified this day and the eyes of the blind can see. I pray for you my friends! 

May God bless you this day and may your team be the one that glories God..

 “JUDGE RIGHTLY”

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My wife is the greatest gift I have ever had, but even she comes with “struggles”… I know I am perfect and bring her no grief, struggles or frustrations… I am perfect! Or am I blind?

I have had my struggles in life and some folks may still refer to me as a struggle for them (what? me??). Why does it seem the most demanding relationships are the ones we value the most? The hardest  relationships are the ones we seem to never give up on.. and never quit?

I noticed many years ago that we all have a tendency to view our actions from a perspective of our own intent, yet we seem to view others’ intent by their actions… What does this look like played out in a relationship? Let’s dive into this frustration today, head long and eyes wide shut.

Today we are going to name our characters Jim and Jane. 

Jim walks in and declares “Can someone please stop putting the dogs outside every time I need to get something done? Can’t you just watch them for a minute?”

Jim is assuming the dogs are put outside (Jane’s action) to make Jane’s life easier (Jane’s intent)…  

Jane puts the dogs outside (Jane’s action) to watch how the dogs love to be with Jim during the chores (Jane’s intent)… 

Jim judged her intent from her action.

Jane judged her actions on her intent.

We can easily switch everything, Names, scenarios, intents and actions… But what do we see? The person making the actions will nearly always measure the outcome by intent and the person experiencing the others actions will nearly always measure intent of the actions based on how they experience the actions… How do we come to a common ground? How do we “JUDGE RIGHTLY”

It’s even more complicated when we experience things multiple times, and see common outcomes based on our preconceptions. Is one better than the other? Maybe.. Maybe not… the important thing for Jim is to try to see it from her perspective and remembering that Jane is not his enemy… or maybe she is his enemy and she is not a faithful partner? Do we always give the benefit of the doubt? Should we assume the worst? Should we not care? 

All these outcomes are hard to navigate, and harder to discern! I used to trust everyone, But my naivete has caught up to my reality and I am now a person that doesn’t trust others until they prove otherwise. There was a long time I believed the opposite, I believed that if somebody wasn’t happy in a situation, they would go talk to the other person and “clear the air”. 

When I married Jess in 2015, I was a person of total distrust, I trusted nobody and never gave people a chance to prove otherwise… she has melted that cold hard heart. Now with God & Jess’s help, I can trust again…

I think about the journey I have been on and How God has sustained me, and how I have turned my back on God many times to trust myself rather than trusting in God…. What a long road.

I have found God is able to rightly judge me, my actions, my intent and that of others in my life. This has lifted a great burden from my shoulders. Much like “Pilgrim” from the John Bunyan book “Pilgrim’s Progress”. The amazing thing is like the John who penned the book of Revelation, this John was also in prison when he penned his book. 

If these men (and many others) can find joy, hope and trust in prison, we can find trust in our homes.

Today, assume the person’s actions that caused you adversity were from a place of purely good intent. Assume the person is your friend and is looking for the best for you. Assume your actions can be misinterpreted as the other person experiences the fall out of your actions. Remember, only God can rightly see all that is in a person’s heart, but if our default is to assume our closest relationships are people that only want what’s best for us, we will all be happier, live longer and be deeper in love… 

May the Lord our God teach you to trust.

Charlie

TRIGGER WARNING! 

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Imagine it’s November 23rd the Vikes win over the Lions 44-38! Or maybe the 2021 Bucks suffered a come-back of the Celtics? Or a Monday night in 2003 when Indianapolis was at Tampa Bay with just over 5 minutes left and Peyton returned the ball on a 29 yard interception! …

Every Monday Night I would prepare for the game by picking up a case of Michelob Golden Draft, a bag of chips & dip, or cooking a tasty sausage & cheese dip or perhaps a deep fried turkey… I would spend hours in delightful anticipation of this event. I never missed a Monday night football game, or a 7th inning stretch…

or that long awaited Minnesota North Stars hat trick making #14 for my man Dino Ciccarelli!

I could never understand why they would schedule holidays on game days. Why wouldn’t they just move the holidays so we can watch the game without any competitions for my attention?

Or maybe it was different for you? Maybe you stopped off at the bar after work to unwind and have a beer after driving your garbage truck through the alleys of Minneapolis only to realize… that beer lasted 8 hours…

Maybe you just wanted peace, calm, rest… maybe your mind was racing so fast and the world had expectations you could never achieve, make more money, complete a DIY project, fix the things your kids broke today, mow that lawn and don’t forget, it’s Christmas day tomorrow… Tomorrow? Game day? Wow, that week went fast..

Years later I asked myself a simple question: “What is your favorite memory of growing up?” the answer may surprise you… It didn’t involve any millionaire sports hero, it didn’t involve my favorite sports announcer and it certainly wasn’t watching public dollars getting poured into reinflation of a dome. If I had to pick just one memory that I can look back on and say “that memory, right there!” I would have to say it was probably climbing the old red maple tree in our backyard,

hiding from the hell I knew as reality… It was one of the few places in my life that no one could get to me, I always climbed higher and became more invisible in the big red leaves and strength of the diagonal branches.

It’s kind of ironic that I worked so hard to be unseen. It didn’t matter if I was home or at school, I drew the undesired attention of those who sought to hurt me. You can only stay out of the spotlight when you have no value… value? Yes, value! To those that bully you because you make an easy target. To those that exploit you because  you are productive. To those that profit from you because your brain works faster at troubleshooting. Literally, anything including “tearing you down because they are trying to puff up themselves”. I had a lot of “value” over my life, just not the way I would have liked to be valued. So how does this tie into sports?

If you are a sports fan, you may want to stop reading this post now and wait for my next post as you may never want to talk to me again, if you continue to read.

2005, “Love boat, sex party” on Lake Minnetonka, seventeen Vikings… in plain sight of minors.

2001 Moss pushes meter maid with car.

COUNTLESS DWI’s

Drugs, Felony Drugs, even selling drugs!

2000-2013 the MN Vikings tied a new record with the Bengals for the top number of NFL players to be arrested… hitting 40

MLB collusion scandals to restrain players salaries.

Cocaine.

Steroids.

Biogenesis scandal.

“Sign stealing” (just another way of cheating)

1994-95 strike because a million dollars isn’t enough…

2018 IIHF World Junior Championship. Ends with  5 players arrested for SA

New York Rangers felony drug possession of crack cocaine.

The list goes on for what seems forever, with high end lawyers buying down charges and turning felonies into misdemeanors for the high value players. Excuses like “You just don’t know the stress these players are under” or “Well, Boys will be Boys, But they sure play a good game…”

I’m not here to say stop watching the game, I certainly understand there are excellent players that love the game and can be good mentors. I’m not here to “FLIP” your opinion… I just wanted to say, I believe there are better venues to find mentors for our future men in this world than to look at professional sports where “self exaltation” is demanded and “glory to self” is highly sought after.

I turned my back on sports many years ago. I have been insulted and called many cruel names by my “Friends” for not watching sports. Family inferring I am not much of a man because I don’t watch sports… I have heard it all… one of my favorites “Stop being such a prude! It’s just a fun game for entertainment”  

Well, It may be just a game, but it may be a bigger problem? I have seen families skip church all summer so as to not miss the baseball game in town. I have seen Men destroy their families because Monday night football with the guys is more important than that night of sledding with the kids. I have seen wives cry over the decision to watch the world series rather than spend their anniversary focusing on the marriage. I have witnessed so much pain, caused by men when they put “PRO-SPORTS” first. 

Here are a few things you should NEVER hear, but I would not be surprised if I did: 

On the way to an open heart surgery: “We need to hurry, the game is starting in a few hours!”

On the death bed: “Ohh how I wish I had spent less time with my grandkids so I could see more games”

“If only I hadn’t wasted my time helping my children, I could have been holding a beer and watching the game!”

“I think watching a bunch of criminals toss a pig skin is more valuable to me than living a decent life of helping the less fortunate overcome life challenges”

I’m not trying to paint a picture of only the “bad”, but I do want to put into perspective the value of sports in life, I am certainly not trying to insult or belittle anyone… I only want to pen my reasons for my radical change in life, how I came to this conclusion and to turn my back on sports…

I personally would rather spend time with those I love and those who need help rather than watch a game that will be forgotten and has no future value. But maybe I am the odd duck out.

  • A survey of 370 American men and women found that the most common regrets were related to relationships with people in their lives. 

Surprised? I couldn’t find anyone say they regret spending time with family and not watching sports…

I don’t think anyone has ever said, “I wish I had watched more millionaires complain about how they deserve more money.” or “I wish I had watched more games that have no value in life aside from making rich people richer and poor people drink more beer!”

So, now that you have my opinion as to why I stopped watching the game & why I don’t think the game should be so highly valued in men’s lives, I leave you with one more thought…

Have you ever jumped up and shown excitement over that touchdown? 

Have you ever been disappointed with the Twins at the end of the world series?

Do you think those things are more important than your salvation? Your kids’ salvation? Or even a stranger’s last meal? Is the game really something to invest more emotional energy into than the fact that God has provided a way to live, with Him, for eternity?

 Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to not “watch” the game today, I’m only saying…. It’s not the most important thing happening today… pick up that phone and call that person that only wants to be remembered, that person that is sitting in the living room and wonders if anyone cares…

maybe, just maybe, go watch the game with them, and let them know how important they actually are.

Take that game in! Keep an eternal perspective! Don’t put the game first, put the people in your life first and the game in its rightful place. 

Serving with Joy, Charlie.