Faces, Smiling, and Makeup

Marie said my face looks good, I just need to smile more. These two pictures prove smiling doesn't help.

I have some things to say about my face. They are truth.

1. Makeup would help.

2. About makeup, that will never happen.

3. If my face offends you, I don't care.

4. If I offend you, I don't care.

5. If only my face offends you, we are both blessed.

6. If my face does not offend you, friendship has blinded you. Thank you, Marie, and others, for being my friend, in spite of my weird sense of humor, and my less than perfect face. ;-)

Prayer and Awareness

True prayer is awareness. True awareness is protection. Awareness of what is true is the greatest protection. 

All truth starts with the Living and Written Word. 

The most powerful and purest Truth is revealed on the Cross and in the Resurrection.

Truth is love. If we do not love, we have not the Truth. We must speak the Truth in love. We must love the Truth.

God our Father is infinite capacity.  God is not restricted by time and space.

We children are infinite potential. We are restricted by time and space.

When we direct our lives, we limit our infinite potential. 

When the Father directs our lives, empowered by the Spirit, centered on the Son, He releases our infinite potential.

To serve the Father, we must be willing to lay down our lives for the children, as His Son did. We must become servants, shepherds, soldiers, fathers and mothers. 

Cursed is the man, the political party, the nation who harms the least of the children.

Love the children, and you will find the Truth. 

Find the Truth, and He will be set free. 

Find the Truth, and you will find Eternal Joy!

Mike Dittmer - Thinking Clearly
http://thinkingclearlybymikedittmer.blogspot.com/2016/03/prayer-and-awareness.html
http://revmaddog1948.blogspot.com/2016/03/prayer-and-awareness.html

Dodging and Growling

Dodged the Walmart bullet again tonight. Went to Kroger to get milk. baby salad greens, an onion, green pepper, bananas, apples, AND also took home 9 boxes of 4 containers of sugar free tapiocas, which is only carried at Kroger. It was like they knew I was coming.
I will have to go to Walmart later this week. We're almost out of heavy cream for coffee. Walmart charges $4, everyone else charges $6. Since they're ultra pasteurized, I'll pick up 2.
The dairy steals it for free out of the sugar laden skim milk that the fat free freaks have convinced everybody is healthier. Read the carb count on the label for skim and whole milk. You do the math. Since these knuckle heads have been in charge of the American diet for the last 50 years, Americans have porked up on the fat free diet. 
Bad enough they steal the fat that's good for you, they over prescribe Lipitor so they can suck the fat out of your brain and muscles. Mary thought she had diabetic nerve pain, but we found out it was muscle pain. The doctor stopped the Lipitor and VOILA! The pain left. Now she has 90 days of Lyrica for pain and tubes of pain killer gel that she doesn't need anymore.
Ooops. Growling again. I'll go back to being good.

Engineers and Mules

I try very hard to be patient, because I know I'm dangerous. I once thanked the Lord He gave me a protective boss (Tom) at Standard Motors, but God let me know that He put Tom over me, not for my protection, but for everyone else's protection.

God them reminded me of three individuals who had quit after I spoke harshly to them. He also reminded me of two engineers who had left my area because I spoke harshly to them. One of them, a very dear friend, stayed away for a year after he was nagging me about something and I asked him if his wife ever accused him  of obsessive nagging.

Another engineer never returned. He had implemented one more cost saving idea. I told him the story my Dad told me of the boy who went to engineering school and came home to the farm excited about cost reduction. He begged his father to try it out on their mule.

Every day they cut the mules feed by one straw. Amazingly, every time they reduced the mule's feed, the mule got stronger, sleeker and worked harder. The mule started frolicking around the farm yard, even to the day the experiment got down to two straws a day.

Both the father and the engineering student son were excited about the results of the experiment. So the son asked, "Father let's go down to one straw a day!" The next morning, they found the mule had died."

After I told that story, the engineer got red in the face, and walked away without saying a word. The next week, I found that my area had been reassigned to another engineer.

Tom actually used me to motivate an engineer to move faster. While I was ranting about an alarm that wouldn't shut off, Tom called the engineer, (the same engineer who had earlier left my area to never return) and said, "Mad Dog said if you don't get down here and reset this alarm, he's going to hurt you!" I don't remember saying it exactly that way, but the engineer was down there in less than 60 seconds.

I now pray, almost daily, for the Lord to give me the wisdom not to wound those I love or respect. I did not start this prayer till after I met Mary. He has restored several relationships since then, at least one of them miraculously.

We are made in the image of God. Our brother is Jesus, the Lion of Judah, and our heavenly Father is always just around the corner. We need not walk in fear and anger, but in grace and joy.

Chief Lone Eagle - Pursued by Grace

My thanks to Phil Gambrel who brought back this memory. 
According to an article in the NW Indiana Times, quoting his Native American historian nephew and namesake Lone Eagle, Chief Lone Eagle, of Hammond, was a popular wrestler who was world heavyweight champion from 1948 to 1952.http://www.nwitimes.com/…/article_d1d01342-db9a-5fa4-bccf-1…
In the early 60's he worked with my uncle Art Cummings in the steel mills. Uncle Art was a construction welder. Chief Lone took advantage of his great physical condition to work as a laborer. Uncle Art invited him to Gary Aetna Church of the Nazarene, where the Bill and Carol Dittmer family also attended . Uncle Art had lived Hammond, Indiana when Chief Lone Eagle could be seen wrestling on Chicago TV, and Uncle Art was an avid wrestling fan. He was very excited about Chief Lone Eagle attending our church.
In 1964 or so, I was there when Chief Lone Eagle prayed to receive Jesus. He called my Dad Bill Dittmer to come by his home and pray because Chief recently learned that his wife had cancer. I got to go with Dad on this call, and Dad prayed with him to receive Jesus, then helped Chief pour all his liquor down the sink. It took a while. Chief had a large collection of liquor. Soon after, Chief Lone Eagle's wife was healed of cancer. Pretty cool, huh?
Chief Lone Eagle loved to sing about Jesus, and I was his accompanist on the piano. I Come to the Garden Alone was his favorite song. He was asked to sing at several churches, and when we went out, Chief Lone Eagle went out in full regalia, just like the picture. That full sized head dress is real eagle feathers, and Chief Lone Eagle was an authentic Chief. He would have a kid from the audience come up and punch him in the stomach, Chief let me hit him in the stomach once. It was like hitting a cement block.
Chief later drifted from God. He was working on the dike as a laborer that went out a mile into Lake Michigan, the end of which was a huge water inlet for city water.
I worked next to that dike as an electricians apprentice and saw how the cement trucks would unload cement onto the fork lifts, and the drivers would hurry to end of the dike. The drivers couldn't see out the front because that's where the load was. They drove like mad men.
A fork lift loaded with wet cement hit Chief Lone Eagle, went over the edge of the dike and into the lake with him and pinned him to the bottom of the lake in 60 feet of water. A crane operator dropped a hook to where they guessed he was. The water was too murky to see. They pulled up the hook, and had fortunately snagged the fork lift, with Chief Lone Eagle clinging to it. Chief asked God to save him while on the bottom. He stayed true after that.
I saw Chief Lone Eagle after that, in the early 80s, at a week long Zone Rally and Youth Revival at Hammond 1st Church of the Nazarene. I was helping on the piano. There were several hundred people from multiple Churches of the Nazarene in the area attending the services.
I loved playing Nazarene hymns. I played the evangelistic style with octave melody and octave bass notes that alternated with chords in a strong rhythmic style, similar to honky tonk. I added in double octaves, triplet runs, Floyd Cramer. The more stuff I put in, the louder the crowd sang. The louder they sang, the more stuff I would put in. At the Cross, Power In the Blood, When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, they hit all my favorites that week.
Rev. Crawford Howell, pastor of the !st Hammond Church of the Nazarene host church, led the singing every night and told jokes. He said one time he and I were at a revival when somebody hollered THE PIANO PLAYER IS A JERK! A moment later a drunk stood up and "I don't know who said THE PIANO PLAYER IS A JERK, but what I want to know is WHO CALLED THAT JERK A PIANO PLAYER?!
Chief Lone Eagle was there every night. When I'd pass him walking down to the piano, he'd say HI MIKE!, loud enough for everyone to hear, then announce to everybody "He played the piano for me!!"
Unbeknownst to me, the zone was taking up a love offering for Lynne and me and daughters Rebecca and Wendelyn. We had not told anybody we had run out of food. The week before, Denny and Jeanie Middleton, fellow Nazarene Bible College students and pastor at nearby Gary Aetna Church of the Nazarene had invited themselves over for the evening. 

We made sure there was food for the girls, but we were out of everything else that night, except for the ingredients for a cake. I had been promised a good job, but it hadn't come through yet. Lynne and I determined not to tell anyone.
After we had cake and coffee with the Middleton's, Jeanie started asking a lot of personal questions about how we were doing financially, then got up and went through all our cabinets and refrigerator. The next day groceries were dropped off at our house. 

Jeanie also passed the word on to the zone. On Saturday, after the Zone Rally, they presented us with a pickup truck load of groceries and a $600 love offering. Chief Lone Eagle was there. He was beaming.
I am including a link to a video of Chief Lone Eagle wrestling. Sensitive souls should not watch. He really was a great wrestler. 

Chief Lone Eagle died in 1988.
https://youtu.be/ZHcZj46cn4w

Journalling and Defining

One of the most powerful tools available to every parent, leader, and influencer is the process of defining.
Jesus used this when teaching His Disciples. "Whom do men say that I am?!" is THE question Jesus asked that became a turning point in their understanding. It's a good question to ask each other today. "Who is Jesus?"
The first teaching assignment given was when God the Father asked Adam to name all the animals. By naming them, Adam defined them.
Journals, and it's cousins, oral storytelling and also scrap booking (including Facebook?!), force the mind to focus on definitions.
Learning the language of music, science, and math is the foundation and the heavy lifting of each of these fields.
"What did you see, my child?" sounds like a kung-fu cliche, but it explains the power of these disciplines, which, coincidentally, uses the same root word as discipleship. 
This is also why I use Facebook as a journal. I know my interests are broad,and not everyone is interested in what I am interested in, but I journal as much to clear my own mind, forcing me to focus on defining what I see.
Words are power. Nothing is more powerful than the Living and Written Word. Nothing defines God more clearly than the event called the Crucifixion and Resurrection. It explains why I, too, am a disciple, a disciple of Christ.
And nothing gives me more joy, than when I can encourage you, my fellow disciples and friends in Christ.

Normal

In my family normal is relative, and my relatives aren't normal.

BOM BOM BOM BOM

Me: I'm looking for..?
Mary: TROUBLE??!!
Mary and I in unison, singing the bass guitar solo: BOM BOM BOM BOM!!
(well, you've come to the right place!)
Great minds..

The Infinite Potential of Simple Tools

The infinite potential of simple tools: (‪#‎homeschool‬, ‪#‎grace‬ ‪#‎christianworkers‬ ‪#‎worldchangers‬)
Imagine the delight and surprise of Moses when the staff he had in his hand turned into a serpent. He was sent by God to the greatest military power of the time, Egypt, on a mission.
LET MY PEOPLE GO!
He was doing what humans do best, whining. But God asked him a question that I will also ask you now.
WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND?
Never underestimate the power of the simple tools God has given you.
Moses used that staff at the command of God to reveal to Pharaoh that God's power is greater than the power of any nation. 
The staff turned to a serpent in front of a skeptical Pharaoh. When the counselors of Pharaoh duplicated the trick with their staffs. the staff-serpent of Moses ate their serpents!!
When Pharaoh thought he had the Hebrew children cornered against the Red Sea, Moses lifted the staff in prayer, and the sea parted! When Pharaoh pursued, Moses again lifted the staff and prayed, and the sea consumed all the chariots, the horses, the soldiers.
Ever hear of David's slingshot? Samson's jawbone of an ass? Gideon's fleece? The wicker basket that saved baby Moses? 
God delights in using the small, the despised, the overlooked to reveal His strength. The BEST example is the baby Jesus, Who went on to destroy the forces of Hell and Death.
When Lynne and I started on the journey of homeschooling, back when almost everybody disapproved, when it was questioned by friends, family, and the law, these stories strengthened us to move ahead. 
We didn't have the money to participate in private schools or homeschool organizations. But we knew we had a powerful tool in our hands. That tool was the children themselves, made in the image of God the Father, with built in tools that have infinite power in themselves. Every child has the power of observation, the power of comparison, the power of connection, the power of language.
The power of language is the basis of music, the basis of code for computers, and part of the power of math.
The power of comparison, along with language starts everyone down the pathway of math, algebra, trigonometry, calculus. One is more than zero, another word for nothing. One is less than two. Again, these simple comparisons and language lessons called math have INFINITE POTENTIAL.
Find what excites your little living, breathing, curious, energetic, question asking child made in the image of God and you will have all you can handle to keep up with them.
Be encouraged, brother and sister in Christ. There are great days ahead for you. God has already placed in your hand the weapon that will give you victory!

Best Spot

Once I lost my 2 coolant testers, so I went to the auto parts store and bought another. After I was finished I thought, "Where is the very best place to store this where I'll be sure to find it?" When I went to that spot, I found the other two testers.

The Pablo Montez Junior Story

The Pablo Montez Junior Story

by Pablo Montez

What I Was

When I was 8 years I started smoking.

At 10 years old I was molested and ashamed, and at 11 years old I started sniffing glue.

At 12 I was stealing cars, breaking into homes, and having sex. I started running away from home, skipping school, and having sex. I was locked up in juvenile homes and put in a foster home.

At 16, along with 6 other teenagers I was in a car accident at the speed of 120 mph. Five were killed. Only two survived - the driver and me.

At 17 I was arrested for breaking into a place of business while carrying a gun. This was my first time in an adult institution.

I got caught selling and doing drugs, and was again locked up in the Detroit House of Correction.

At 21 I began a long addiction to heroin, then cocaine, and then for 20 years I was addicted to crack cocaine.

By the time I was 50 years old I had lost everything - my wife, my home, my job, and most of my family.

I was $25,000 in debt. I was broke to my knees. I was missing something in my life and I had nowhere to turn to but God and His Son Jesus Christ. My life was empty.

What I Am

On a July Sunday morning in 2006 I went to a church.  I started attending faithfully. I got into the choir and started working in the food pantry, feeding people less fortunate than I. Like Paul the Apostle, I felt that I was the biggest sinner of all.

As I kept attending church and doing his work, I felt changes within myself. I no longer needed drugs to find satisfaction. I now had a joy that was springing up from within.

As Jesus was changing my life, my mind, heart, and soul, and my thoughts, the Lord me led to Fellowship Baptist Church. As I attended church the Lord directed me into doing the bus ministry - picking up children to bring them to know the Lord.

I am not where I should be, but I am not where I was. Each day I feel the Lord changing me as I pray and read His Word.

Christ Made the Difference

Jesus Christ made all the difference in my life. Since I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and let Him take control of my life, my life has not been the same. My life is worth living now.

If I wasn't walking with Jesus Christ, I would either be a drug addict.. 

or in jail..

or dead and hell bound.

With Jesus Christ in my life, I wake up happy with joy and peace that Jesus Christ gives me.

All the drugs in the world could not replace the joy, happiness, and peace that Jesus Christ gives me.

There is ONE WAY to have Eternal Life.

You must be BORN AGAIN. 

No Priest, Pastor, or Preacher, not even the Pope can get you into Heaven.

You must be BORN AGAIN.

How can you be born again? Know this:

Eternal life is a gift. We don not deserve it and we can not earn it.

"the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23b

"for by grace are ye saved through faith.. it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8,9

All are sinners and under God's judgement

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:10
"For the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23b

Christ paid the penalty for our sin

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

We receive eternal life by receiving Christ

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." John 1:12
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Contact me at 313-748-2070. To listen to a dramatic presentation of my story, go to
http://unshackled.org/media/2013/pgm_040713.asx
http://unshackled.org/media/2013/pgm_041413.asx

I wrote this down, with Pablo's permission, from his tract by the same name.  Mary and I met Pablo at the Big Boy Restaurant in South Lyon Michigan and became friends. - Mike Dittmer

#rmdo Johnny Depp, Tonto and The Lone Ranger, and Rick Van Wechel #humor #inspiration

This post is in appreciation of my friend Rick Van Wechel, who ministered by my side as my Minister of Music for 2 decades and worked along side me, then as my boss for over a decade.
He was the Tonto that came to the rescue of The Lone Ranger, me.. repeatedly, quietly, almost supernaturally.
After recently watching The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp, (a movie I am moving into my special list of THE TOP FIVE MOVIES OF ALL TIME), almost everything applies to Rick and I except that the insanity of Johnny Depp's Tonto and the straight thinking of Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger are reversed.
I am certifiably insane, but his thinking is always reality based.
From music to mechanics, he is gifted in all things.
He was always there at the right time with the right stuff.
He has a sense of humor that would make Johnny Depp seem dull witted.
However, he never used the word kemo sabe.. but I could say it of him now.

In Potawatomi it means FAITHFUL FRIEND.

Rick leading the music at Family Bible Fellowship, the church Lynne, my late wife, and I founded. That's me at the keyboard.

#rmdo My friend Pablo's Story #inspiration

Pablo Montez, along with another of our favorite waitresses, back in the days when Big Boy had a restaurant in South Lyon. Pablo now works at Brighton's Big Boy, and Michelle Johnson, another dear friend of ours, works at The Red Robin next door.

My friend Pablo Montez , who worked at South Lyon Big Boy, has a wonderful story, a testimony that gives Glory to God. It was made into a play on Unshackled, a ministry that takes the true stories of redeemed Christians and makes them into radio dramas. Here is a link to Part One which played on April 7th. Please share this with your circle of friends. 
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/unshackled/listen/program-3247-pablo-montez-part-1-328577.html
Here is Part 2 of Pablo's Story:
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/unshackled/listen/program-3248-pablo-montez-part-2-328573.html

Pablo won The People's Choice Award
for Wait Staff in South Lyon, Michigan, USA. Way to go, Pablo!!