What do you feel when you think about our upcoming trip to Asheville? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you for our trip to Asheville next month. We definitely need to get away together. Help us have good time, relax, and work on our relationship.

Dear Ruth:

Your MEQ today was the cute way your mouth looks when you say certain things. I think you are very fetching, charming, and cute.

The way I feel about our upcoming trip to Asheville is excited. It is like the feeling of a kid on Christmas morning when his parents have told him that Santa Claus is coming to town. Or like a kid who is going to get to go to Disney World with his parents on the next day. Can't sleep. Too excited. Lying there thinking about all of the fun things he is going to do.

Not that you can be compared to a bunch of presents under the tree. Or to the Magic Kingdom with all its rides. They are in no way even close to the excitement that I feel being married to you.

But the feeling is similar.

I want to hold you, squeeze you, pet you, love you. I want us to go out on romantic dates. I want us to make love in the moonlight. I want us to bath together, dance together, eat together, sleep together. I want to be with you every moment of every day.

We are going to have fffffuuuuuuunnnnnnnn!!!!!!

Love,
Me

How does it make you feel being in touch with our friends from the early days of our marriage? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you so much for restoring our relationship with our loved ones from long ago. Help us to work out those relationships again. Be with us as we do so. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ this morning was wanting to diablog before I left for work. I love it when you say "goody!"

I am excited about our renewed contact with our old friends. It gives me a sense of roots and permanence that I have lost in my wanderings. As you know, I have lived as a nomad. As Jacob said to Pharoah:

"As a stranger in a strange land have I wandered upon the earth. Few and evil have been the days of my wanderings, and fewer still than the days of my fathers before me."

If I could describe my lifestyle before I settled down with you it would be that: "A stranger in a strange land." I am in many ways a man without a country, community, village, tribe, or family. My relationships with any geographic area have been tentative at best. People ask me "Where are you from?" I reply: "Nowhere really." Which is true. Am I from Texas? It is misleading to say so. I have no attitudes in common with the typical Texan. I despise the place, really. I am much more like a Californian or Washingtonian than a Texan. But I am not really from either of those places, although I did live in California with you.

So I guess you are my family, tribe, village and country. And the friends we have shared. They are my tribe, village and country too.

My strongest feeling is one of connectedness. I am connected to the past in a way that I have not been for many years. It is like the feeling I felt when I held my son Samuel in my arms for the first time and wept. I knew that my life was within him. He was my connection to this earth, and mankind. And of course my connection to you. He made my presence on this earth have meaning. No longer was I a stranger in a strange land. I had a home at last.

My feeling is like that. A feeling of connection to family and friends. A feeling that binds me to this planet and makes me share its fate. I can no longer be ambivalent or apathetic about the state of this tiny rock spinning through space. Those whom I love, yourself included, occupy this space. And I must care for it lovingly. Connected warmly and firmly to the place where I finally belong.

Love,
Me

What would I like to do with the rest of my life, and HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Thank you for our lives together. Help us and guide us to know where to go from here. How shall we live? How shall we heal ourselves? How shall we provide for ourselves and our family? These are important questions and we ask for your guidance and support in figuring this out. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was holding my hand in the restaurant. As I told you tonight, I love being with you. I find your presence both comforting and refreshing.

This is a question I have been struggling with recently. I am dissatisfied and burned out working in IT. I am very, very good at it, can do it in my sleep, and make an awful lot of money doing it. But it does not jazz me anymore. It does not give me a reason to wake up and feel like going to work. I just do it to provide an income, nothing more. My passion is waned. I have no fire in that area of my life anymore.

What I would love to do is to establish a business helping people in the area of their health. I have been investigating what others have done in this regard. The four big figures are Pritikin, Ornish, McDougall, and Fuhrman. Looking at their web sites they have the following models:

1. A web site driving revenue by providing people a way to log in and access a community, get questions answered and so forth. The investment to do this is very low. Fuhrman has this approach. His web site is worse than I could do easily.
   
2. A residential approach. Ornish does this, as well as Pritikin. They have a facility where people come and get their health and diet under control. This is like a health spa / resort. The investment to do this is very high and the big name is what drives this.
3. A school. Various folks do this. It can be either online or live.
4. Write a book. That's what T. Colin Campbell did with The China Study. You need to be pretty well versed and credible to do that.
   

The bottom line is that people need a way to get the information on how to fix themselves. And they are not getting it presently. The supplement companies like Mannatech are lying to them. So is big government, the pharms, the medical industry and so forth. The people who are actually telling the truth are the four groups I refer to above. Maybe I could go to work for one of them? I don't know how to approach this. That is what I am struggling with.

My general idea is to help people with their health. I do not have much more than that. I am exploring at this point. I don't have more specifics.

I just know that this is what I would love to do for the rest of my life, given a choice. I know we need to make a living though.

How I feel about my answer is complicated. Right now I am fasting and I feel that my emotions are very pronounced during that period. (As well as mental clarity, sensations, and so forth.) It is kind of like being high on marijuana. Remember how that felt? Music seemed to sound better, food tasted better, etc.? I am like that now. I can feel every hair on my body. My mind ticks by like a clock. And my emotions are very clear and pronounced.

So I feel a sense of dissatisfaction and boredom with IT. That's the push. I feel drawn and energized by the idea of getting into wellness and alternative health care. It excites me. I am motivated. That is a strong feeling. Motivation. I guess if I had to choose one feeling as the most powerful it would be that one. I feel motivated.

It is kind of like the feeling I had while working for ATip, my first real IT job. That was in many respects the best working experience I have ever had, all things considered. While ATip was going well, it was incredibly motivating. Addictive even. I loved the creativity of it. I loved working. I enjoyed it so much. I undoubtedly did it way too much, and I know I became a severe workaholic at that point. I would definitely want to moderate that.

Maybe, though, if we did it together, it would be different. I would find that very exciting and motivating as well. I really want to work with you. I am so energized and comforted by you, as I said above in my MEQ.

But it would have to be something you would like to do as well.

Anyway, I have written a lot, so I will post for now.

Love, Me

Day sixteen ends

I am trying to finish my work for tonight but will take a few minutes to post. For lunch I ate at Doce. This is a fast food gourmet restaurant (strange combination!). It is possible to eat well there on a low fat, low sugar, vegan diet. I had some roasted vegetables (squash and onion) with a black bean and corn salad. I combined that with a large green salad consisting of field greens, grapes, melon, pineapple, tomato and purple onion. Balsamic vinaigrette for dressing. They did not have plain balsamic vinegar. I just kept it light. I also had an apple earlier in the day.

For dinner I ate a large green salad, some tofu, brown rice and green beans. The salad had an enormous variety of fresh vegetables, fruit and legumes. It would take too long to describe. Suffice it to say very light in oil, completely vegan, and ETL compliant.

Jon and I worked out tonight as well. Back and biceps tonight. Killer workout. I cannot raise my arms.

I will finish reviewing my preso and get to bed soon. More tomorrow.

What are your feelings about where our relationship is as of today? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you so much for Ruth, my precious wife. Be with us as we go through the period of having her be out of town for a few days. Be with her as she reunites with her mother. Help her to become reconnected with her family. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was the way you were taking care of our family by buying wood in case the electricity goes off tonight. I had not thought about it at all, and I appreciate the way you took the initiative to do something about that.

The way I feel about where our relationship is as of today is great. I am very much in love with you, as you could tell from the way we kissed this morning and a few minutes ago in front of Jeanae. Her "get a room" attitude was an endearing way of saying that she thinks it is cute that we are so twitterpated with each other.

I also feel very spiritually connected with you. I have a strong sense of hope and comfort that we are heading in a good direction. I am comfortable and secure in trusting and relying on you for practical matters. I feel very much that we are closely connected and that our relationship is very strong. My sense of connection with you is such that I feel much more comfortable being in your presence than I ever have.

I appreciate that you wanted to dialog tonight. I think we should dialog tomorrow as well, in order to get our tanks filled up before you leave for Florida. I will be fasting over the weekend, so it is a good time for you not to be around me. I am queasy and icky when fasting, at least I was 2 weeks ago when I did it. I am looking forward to the point at which I have broken through and no longer have to do that for a while. But for now I am stuck with it.

I will miss you terribly, but I am taking advantage of the time you will be gone to do the fast. That is a convenient thing at this point. I also want you to reconcile with your family. That is important for you and our children are very curious about the only extended family they have left. So that is good for them too.

My feelings for you are very, very strong. They are warm, loving, caring feelings. I want to be married to you forever and ever. I would marry you again today. You are the love of my life and all I will ever want in a woman. I find you utterly charming, completely fetching, very sexy, quite fascinating, and alluring. You are enchanting to me. I find being with you a source of endless solace, entertainment, and fascination. You intrigue me. I find you mysterious and wonderful.

My strongest feeling about our relationship is one of hope. I know that my hope lies in your love for me and my love for you, combined with the love we have for the Father. In that love I am secure and strong, and able to face the challenges of this life.

Love,
Me

HDIF about our new adventure in the area of health and nutrition? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you for bringing clarity to my health issues. I was certainly very discouraged and was becoming despondent and depressed. You have worked greatly in our lives in this area, through your saints. Thank you for Ray and his diligence in getting this information to us, and helping us to get started. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ this morning was the cute way you proposed that we ride on the train together. How I wish it was me going with you on this trip instead of you being with your mother! That would be very romantic! I loved the spark in your eye as you said we could "fool around". Coobers! Maybe we can fool around together later? Ok!

The way I feel about our new adventure in the area of health and nutrition is challenged, excited, and hopeful.

As I said in my prayer above, I had become very despondent, discouraged and depressed about my health. Your health was also a concern to me. I knew that you had some health issues which were nagging issues in your life. They were not an immediate concern, but certainly could become so. My issues had become very, very serious. I was having continuous suicidal thoughts. I simply wanted to be put out of my misery. Being unable to sleep at night moved me to tears. I was so frustrated and angry with my body, as I wrote to you in one of our dialogs during this period.

I have come to a point of knowing that if I persist in this program, avoiding the consumption of things that I still crave (like barbecue ribs, prime rib, steak, eggs, buttered toast, cheese, and so on and so forth) I will eventually become healthy again. I am slowly losing the weight. Have you been reading my health blog? You should check that out. It is encouraging what is happening.

I still believe that there is a way for us to become involved in the wave of health which must eventually sweep our country. Dr. Sharp told me this is beginning to happen. Doctors are becoming less resistant to nutritional solutions to the chronic problems plaguing our health. It is rare for a patient to be thrown out of a doctor's office because they healed their issue through diet and nutrition. It is being taken more and more seriously.

The pattern of Jodi O'Neill who dropped out of corporate America and now teaches cooking classes is something I would like to explore. I need to understand how we can use what we have learned to make us independent and self-sufficient in what must become the new economy.

I am learning and growing again. This is something I am very excited and challenged by.

The way it feels is like when you told me that I should get into IT. That was a very challenging and exciting time. I realized that you were right, that IT was the wave which was coming, and I jumped on that wave and we have ridden it for 20 years. This is the next wave. We need to ride this one too.

The first step is for us to heal ourselves. We are doing that together. The fact that you have been so receptive and open to what I have been saying is very exciting and comforting to me.

I love you tremendously. You are my sweetheart and the center of my heart. Know that I will always love you, and cherish you forever.

Love,
Me

How did you feel about our conflict and conversation and subsequent conversation about the conflict last night? HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Thank you for Ruth. Thank you for our precious relationship. Let us love each other in the love you have for both of us. Keep of strong and pure together. Let us walk together in you. Give us your love. Keep us in your hands. Amen!

Dearest Ruth:

Your MEQ today (which it is still early) is the loving way that you took care of all of the car insurance cards and made sure Jeanae had one in her car. I love the way you take care of the family.

The way I feel about our conflict last night and so forth is peaceful and contented. I followed up later because I thought that when you said "You are not listening to me," that you were communicating something different. Since I was listening to you and heard every word you were saying, the statement was confusing. I translated in my mind, incorrectly apparently. I find that you say this fairly frequently, and often I am listening to you. You asked me to tell you how you should say that. I think what you are really saying is that you do not feel heard. You do not perceive that I am appreciating, validating and acknowledging what you are saying to me. That is translated in your mind into the statement "You are not listening." But I am listening. Perhaps you could say "I do not feel that you heard me." That statement is more about you and what you feel than about me and what I am doing.

We need to figure out a way that I can disagree with you about something factual or about a decision like making a purchase without it being interpreted that I am not listening. Frequently, I am actually listening to you and heard every word you said. In the case of last night, I did hear you. I just disagreed.

Ironically, I think you were right. We did not purchase the adapter kit. The guy said we did not need it. Which was the case. In this case it seems like a reasonable thing to do. So as I said last night, if it is going to be that much trouble, then fine let's go ahead and get the adapter kit. I am fine with that. It seems like a great idea right now.

As you pointed out, you thought that I had delegated the issue to you. But in my mind I still had the ball. Perhaps it is a symptom of my new attitude about our house. I am very involved in the matters of running our home at this point. I used to leave this completely in your hands. No longer. I need to be very involved in the day-to-day decisions of our home, and I need to know what is going on. I am not passive any longer. I will also never again allow you to make a decision I disagree with (like buying a butt-ugly bedroom set) and suffer silently while disagreeing with the decision in my heart. That just breeds resentment and silent conflict, leading to passive aggressiveness later. I do not ever want to get back into passive aggressive behavior. We need to always have an open and honest relationship. Which is what I was doing last night. That was me being open and honest with you. If we have a few conflicts along the way, so be it. That is way, way better than things building up silently over time.

Again, as of this morning, I had completely forgotten about the conflict. I was no longer thinking about it at all. I am completely at peace and calm about our interaction last night. It is very healthy that we are able to have a sharp disagreement, pray about it, and then discuss it calmly. When we went to bed last night, I was completely calm and content. The feeling was like the feeling you get when you have a really, really good nights sleep. Everything fine with the world. The color would be the pale pink of dawn peaking above the horizon on a beautiful spring day, with new life returning to the world, a hint of fog, and a bit of chill in the air. The promise of a really beautiful day coming. That was what I felt last night.

The way I feel about my answer is great! I love you and and I know that our relationship is very, very strong. I have no doubts about you at all. I know that you are as involved and concerned about the things of our home and family as I am. The fact that we are partners in this, both taking complete and total responsibility, is a great thing to me.

I love you always,
Me

HDIF about Jeanae having a new boyfriend? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Please be with Jeanae in this time of her life. She is being sorely tested. Help us to find out more about this young man, Mitch. Give us wisdom to continue to be Godly parents to her.

Dearest Ruth:

Your MEQ today was the loving advice you gave Jeanae. As you told me what you told her, I found myself agreeing with you perfectly. It was like you were speaking for me. That level of spiritual oneness is rare with another human being in my experience. We are truly one in Him who makes us one. I love you and treasure you always.

The way I feel about Jeanae's relationship with Mitch is complex. I would say my strongest feeling is one of apprehension and concern.

I am glad to see her happy, though. In that regard, I feel relief and gratitude that she is no longer emo. Having Jeanae be emo was getting extremely old. I would never tell anyone but you that though.

I am concerned about this young man, Mitch. He is an abused child. As you know (being an abused child yourself) the wounds of that abuse run deep. The fact that there is a lot of injustice in the situation (with Mitch being thrown in jail and all) is further aggravating. I am concerned that Mitch will hurt Jeanae or our grandchildren. I do not want that to happen.

I suppose much of these feelings are due to the fact that we do not know Mitch yet. We really need to get to know that person who is having such a profound impact on our daughter.

My feeling of concern and apprehension is like the feeling that you get when you know you are about to have a car accident. You see the other car coming, hear the squeal of the brakes, and for a few seconds you know that you are about to crash. That is really scary. True fear and apprehension occur at that point. It is aggravated if there are other family members in the car. At that point, you have real concern for them and for their safety. That is exactly how this feels right now, except the process is much more drawn out that the car accident.

If it were a color it would be black. If it were a sound it would be the sound of those squealing tires. My feeling is a very strong feeling, probably a 9 or 10 at least.

I keep learning more about this boy, and the more I learn the more concerned I get. I know we have to let Jeanae experience life and all. Maybe I just don't want to let go of Jeanae. He has more of her life right now than I do, and that is possibly threatening me under the surface. I don't know. I only know that is how I feel.

Please help me to deal with these feelings. I have been very controlled with Jeanae in how I have responded so far. I need your loving support to keep it that way.

Love,
Me

What do you need for me to do for you to make your life more pleasant? HDIFTYT.

Dear LORD:

Thank you so much for Ruth and her loving question. Our relationship is so precious to me. Thank you for restoring our marriage. It would have been so lonely to go through life without her. Help us to remain constant and true, using your Word and Life as our guiding star. Amen!

Dearest Ruth:

Your MEQ today was listening to me. You did not interrupt but allowed me to continue to emote fully, even when I began to cry. I love it when you are so sensitive. I feel completely supported by you.

TBPH, it is kind of difficult to think of anything you could do beyond what you are already doing. You are great in bed. Our sex life continues to amaze and delight me. You are a sensitive and good friend and listener. You care about me deeply. You love our children.

In a word, you are pretty much perfect in my eyes.

I suppose if I had to choose any one thing I would say that I would like for you to exercise with me. I know I have told you that before, but you did not tell me that I had to come up with something new. So I will stick with the one I said the last time. Yes, that would make my life more pleasant for sure.

Take today. I pretty much had to work out today. I suspected that Jon would cancel on me. (He did.) Even so, working out with Jon does not involve cardio, and cardio is mostly what I need right now. I took advantage of the time when you were working and went to the gym.

It was lonely and depressing, but I did it anyway. I read a women's magazine. I figure out things about you from reading that stuff. You can tell me it's trash if you want, and I will not disagree. Still, it's a window into the female mind.

Nonetheless, working out is pretty unpleasant and lonely without you. I try to sneak it in so that it does not interfere with our relationship. For example, if I had not left today to go to the gym, then I would have ended up going after you got home. I am glad I did not wait for Jon for that reason.

Anyway, I just cram it out, forcing myself to do something I know is good for me but which I don't really like to do.

If you could go with me to the gym I know it would be much more fun. But I know that you don't need to work out as much as I do. So maybe you could go once in a while.

Having said that, you need to work out at least 3 times a week in order to get any benefit from it. I am not laying that on you, though. You need to pray about your life in that area and decide what the LORD wants you to do.

The way I feel telling you this is undemanding. I am OK if you do not do this. I do not want to become demanding or whining, ever. You are my precious, special love, and if you never go to the health club with me, that's OK.

Please receive this truly. I want you to come with me to the gym. But I am not demanding that you do so. That is a heartfelt, true feeling on my part. Undemanding. For sure.

Be free. But be healthy. Do whatever the LORD lays on your heart.

Love,
Me