Moutains — Here I Come!

Well, in a little less than 24 hours I’m heading out.  Georgia in the rearview mirror.  It’s been a good year.  Made some friends…had some laughs…pissed some folks off that probably needing pissing off and now it’s time for the next step in life.

Where to from here?  Huntsville…er, no…Asheville…well, maybe it IS Huntsville.  Anyway, I know it’s got a ‘ville’ in the name…and it’s in the mountains…and there’s friendly folks waiting there.  So either place that the dog stops and lets me off will be ok with me.

What have I learned over the past year?  Alot.  Really too much to sum it all up here in “Nelson’s top 40″ or something.  So I’ll sum it up in one brief phrase:

Don’t let the bastards get you down.

You know, as you go through life, you’re not gonna please everyone.  So why try?  No matter what you do there will always  be some tight-ass so-and-so that thinks you need to march to the beat of their drum.  Life’s too short for that.  I’m gonna continue to be me… like it…don’t like it…don’t care.  I’m gonna set my sails to the wind and follow the path that I feel the Lord has laid out for me.

Now don’t misunderstand me…I’m not gonna go out of my way to upset folks and make their lives hard.  But by golly, I’m not putting my thoughts and feelings on the back burner just ’cause some body who spent tons of money and wasted alot of time at college thinks they’ve got this thing called life figured out.

No sir.  As long as I can continue to lay my head down on the pillow each night and be happy with the way I’ve lived my life that day…I’m ok.  Public opinion be damned.

Jesus was kinda like that too.  Remember over in the gospels when he was talking about the meal?  He told a whole bunch of folks there on the hillside that they have to eat of His body and drink of His blood.  Well, seems like a bunch of them were college graduate types that had a whole lot of  book learning but very little understanding of what life is really about.  You know the type…point out to them how young and experienced they are and they get their panties in a twist really quick.  But if you tell someone who IS knowledgeable of life and knows where the landmines are how little they know, they’ll shrug, lift their cup of coffee and say “I’ll drink to that”.  Anyways, these college graduate types that were sitting on the hillside, heard Jesus and they talked among themselves and said, “This is a pretty rough teaching.  Who can tolerate this?”  And yah know what?  They got in their cars and left.  Jesus didn’t go running after them.  He didn’t say, “Hey wait a minute guys…you didn’t understand what I said…hey now…c’mon back.  We’ll throw the frisbee, roast marshmallows and sing Kumbayah!”

Nope he let them go.  He looked around Him and he saw the only ones still hanging around the grill were the 12 original members of the club.    He peered into their soul by way of their eyes and asked, “You wanna go too”?  Jesus was ready to start a new chapter in His ministry if He had to.  He was ready to walk away from everything and everyone — or rather He was ready for everyone and everything to walk away from Him.

Lesson?  Hang on to your integrity.  Don’t say one thing during devotion time on the mountain top and then share a different devotion in how you live out the rest of the day.  Be consistent.  Be true to yourself.  It worked for Jesus and hey, I’m supposed to be a follower of His, so it’ll work for me.

So it’s off to a “ville” somewhere.  Been to both before briefly and they both seem to be kinda nice places.

But first I’m gonna grab a cup of coffee and read up on landscaping.