Ale for the Soul

"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."  (James 4:14) Not too long ago I made a post concerning how fast time seems to fly by.  Nothing has changed in the perception of time as it slips through my fingers like the sands of the hour-glass.  However, the passage of time seems to have sped up to almost break-neck speeds.  Where has half this year gone too?  What have I accomplished to show good stewardship of the amount of time given to me?  Abstractly each one of us is given the same sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, and most of the time 365 days in a year.  (Keeping in mind we have 366 days every fourth, or leap, year.)  Whenever I indulge myself in the hobbies of reading books, researching the family tree, or other such personal pursuit, I see the steady march of time seemingly without much accomplishment.  Does this mea...

Recently I re-learned a valuable lesson I had allowed to fall into dis-use and neglect.  The lesson is planning for the future.  Even if the vision and goals for my life are in flux or fuzzy in lacking detail, there are a multitude of pro-active measures I can take to stay prepared and on the ready for the time when my plans may be implemented.  In previous posts I discussed getting accepted to the University of Texas in Austin.  Actually getting accepted caught me very off guard as I was expecting to have my application denied once again, as I was during the first application process.  Life is full of the unexpected, and I must be prepared, as much as humanly possible, for such surprises.  In this particular case, planning ahead involves: commitment to the goal at hand without hesitation, looking months in advance for all possible options, creating and utilizing a network of contacts in and around the relative issue or circumstance, saving money, expecting...

In addition to Father's Day, today is also the first official day of summer.  Personally this is my least favorite season as I tend to thrive during the seasons of fall, winter, and spring.  Summer usually makes me restless as I really focus on evaluating life to-date.  What have I accomplished?  What are my goals encompassed in my life's vision?  And, what am I doing to move in the direction of my goals?  Maybe this why people sometimes say, "These are the dogs days of summer."  For whatever reason, I have a hard time finding my stride or maintaining my momentum or drive during this time.  Summer is a time of transition, deep reflection, re-casting a life vision, and creating a call to action.  Unsettling?  Yes!  Necessary?  Yes!  A time of growth?  Yes!  Fun?  No!  Life is interpreted as per a person's perspective.  Fellow brothers and sisters of humanity may have a different take on summer, but ...

Today is Father's Day!  Unfortunately my father passed away in 1997, but he continues to live through the lives of his wife and three children.  Like many people, I did not fully appreciate my time with him until he passed away.  Regret does exist, but I do not allow it to hang around my neck like an anvil of guilt.  Now I honor my father by researching our family tree and to learn as much as possible through photos and other family documents.  On occasion someone who knew him will share their experience of interaction with him and express high sentiments of who he was.  I must confess, however biased my opinion may be, he was a true gentleman exhibiting such attributes as character, honor, and integrity.  My father was a genuine example of how a man should live in a world which does not honor or value such characteristics.  One day I hope to become a father, as well as an extension of who was and the influence he had in my life.  To my fathe...

Moses, out of his frustration with and anger toward the Israelites, violated one of God's direct commands.  In addition, he took credit for something God had performed on Moses' behalf.  As a result, God decreed, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."  (Numbers 20:12)  This part of scripture is comforting and damning simultaneously.  First, I find comfort knowing someone as great as Moses succumbed to his humanity...in other words, I'm not the only one who has made a royal mess of his life.  The scripture passage is also damning because it reinforces the hard part of life: there are consequences to our actions, and those very consequences can be too hard to stomach.  God promised the Israelites, and, by implication, to Moses as well, the very land of promise.  However, his actions disqualified him from partaking of and participating i...

Due to the indiscretions of my youth, I have been marked with a scarlet letter similar to what is discussed in the book of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Even though the incident occurred many years ago, time has healed some issues but not all.  In looking for housing and employment in Austin, I could have had both many times over had I not gained this black mark on my background.  Not only during this time of searching, but also in many cases over the years, I often contemplate society's platitudes concerning the need for forgiveness, redemption, and rehabilitation.  In other words, giving people a second chance not based on their past but on the change which is evident by a person's current lifestyle.  People make mistakes.  This is the lot of human beings living out their life's course while placed in this earthly realm.  Maybe the generalities spoken concerning a second chance are for everybody else except for the person who has it in their...

Henry Ford once stated, "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal."  Those very same obstacles turn in to bogeymen, or as I like to call them, giants in the land.  They become dreadful and seemingly wield more power than they truly have over what I can apparently do or not do.  However, this is simply the conjuring of my over-active imagination, and exasperating the lack of belief I have in my ability or capability to grasp a hold of the goals as laid out in my life's vision.  If I'm not standing firm in who I am and in my relationship with Almighty God, I will sink in to and drown in negativity's cesspool, therefore never performing my life's destiny.  By keeping my eyes on the goal, I will lose sight of the obstacles as they become mere blips on the radar.  Accordingly, I will continue to maintain faith in Almighty God and in who He says I am.  As a result, I will rise above like an eagle soaring at great heig...

Life often cycles through good times and bad, as well as times of ease and also of difficulty.  Growth takes place in the tough or bad times, and I use what I have learned during the good or easy times.  When I am in process of striving toward a goal in the vision I have cast for my life, obstacles usually make themselves available to throw a wrench in my plans.  Sometimes these hurdles are simply the normal course of a person living out their life.  But the greater majority of the time it is facing the consequences of poor choices made in years gone by.  Either way, I must blow through the hurdle(s) in order to reach my objective and to become a better person by enduring the resulting refiner's fire.  What I absolutely must not do is begin to feel sorry for myself, descending into the mire of self-pity and victim-hood.  The "Woe is me...!" mentality is a cancer to health and success.  No, life isn't fair a good deal of the time, but I must keep d...

Yesterday, June 6th, marked the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Continental Europe through the beaches of France.  It marked a defining moment of the war and turned the tide against the Axis Powers.  Collectively, each country and their respective military can look back at their sacrifice on that day with joy.  Individually, not only the military effort on that day, but also each and every man before and after have had a defining moment(s) in their life.  These moments show what we are really made of: true character and fortitude, or a mere flash in the pan of talk with no internal substance.  The Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 3:12-15 states, "If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder wil...

**This is the speech I delivered at Toastmasters this morning**                 Exactly 84 years ago today, on June 4 th , 1931, my father was born.  It seems fitting to honor him on the anniversary of his birth.  During the next few minutes I will celebrate the life of my father by re-visiting his early years, his rich life experiences which shaped him into the man he was, and how I personally remember my father. Phillip Lee Wright III was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Phillip and Kathleen Wright.  Later, his mother would re-marry to Elliott Schwab, who adopted her son as his own, bestowing the family name to become Phillip Carter Schwab.  Growing up he was surrounded by a very loving family, consisting of both parents, two Grandmothers, and his maternal aunt and uncle.  Young Phillip would finish High School and eventually earn an Associate of Arts degree at a university.  (As I continue to research the li...