"The Most Underrated Beverage..."

"The most underrated beverage in the world." That's one of the truisms, "Bernieisms", or perhaps simply one of the most oft repeated phrases of my dearly loved father-in-law Bernie
We'll be out at a restaurant, or eating at someones home and the question will come up as to what each person wants to drink. Someone inevitably will say, "Water please." When that happens, you can pretty much make book that Bernie, or someone else in the clan - we're all Bernie indoctrinees - will say, "Water, the most underrated beverage in the world."

It's a running joke in the family.

Anyway, I thought about that the other day as I read about a company in California, "Wayne Enterprises" (I'm resisting the Wayne tangent) is selling bottled "Holy Water."
It started out as a local thing, now it's getting national exposure, and the company owner is hoping to establish a charity or something with the funds raised from each 99 cent bottle of water.

I suppose I'm now a quasi-baptist since I'm attending a "non-denominational" church, but I was dunked. I believe you need to get dunked and in all honesty to paraphrase Kinky Friedman, I think there are few folks who deserve to be dunked and held under water a little bit longer than others.

This story of "bottled Holy Water" made the news wires in the "off-beat" sections. Something to sort of giggle at and move on.



The water though is actually "blessed" by both Catholic and Anglican priests, and the company isn't making a fortune having sold a few thousand bottles and sent a couple thousand more to troops in Iraq.

I'll admit it sounds a little silly, especially since the labels carry a warning that "sinners who drink the water may experience burning, intense heat, sweating and skin irritations."

However, I also starting thinking we're all essentially containers for Holy water, or at least have the potential to be, and when you do surrender to God, you realize how fragile and how strong such vessels can be.

Maybe it's the most underrated beverage beyond this world too.

Some Days

I'm good at what I do...but there are days when I don't like doing it.

The radio industry has gone through a lot of changes in the 30 plus years I've been involved in it, and much of it has been an exciting ride.

Some days though it gets to me.

Amy and I have been having increasingly frequent conversations that perhaps it's time that I seek a new path. I don't know, there are exciting opportunities ahead perhaps and I'd like to think I could be a contributor to help maximize those.

But some days it gets to me.

It was a chaotic morning, exacerbated by computer glitches that made it doubly hard to do what I do, but I went through my usual routine of reading every newspaper in the state, calling contacts I've developed over the years at 2 a.m., seeking out information on events that had occurred overnight locally, editing, writing and re-writing stories assembled by our news team, etc.

During that process, I had a source mention something which I had heard nothing about. The other local media somehow missed it.

It was a very startling story, a lead story, a gut-wrenching story. I had some difficulty confirming facts. It took a while to piece together something I was certain was accurate, but I did.

This is what they pay me for, the ability to perhaps see things others have missed, know how to pursue those things at a time in the morning when there aren't a lot of folks available to talk to, and make sound judgments about the information's validity.

I have carte blanche. If I say a story airs, there is no one between me and 50,000 watts of radio power to stop me from airing it on the primary station where I've worked for more than 21 years.

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"Why do people kill their children?" she asked me.

After I left the radio stations, I stopped at a client's office to help with a computer issue, involving a woman I mentioned in a post last month whose granddaughter was born into this world with unimaginable health problems and whose entire lifetime was spent in a swirl of medical miracles bathed in prayer. The woman was asking me the question knowing we were both thinking of a time only a few weeks ago when I hugged her at the graveside of that little girl who died at the age of two months.

I had no real answer of course.

Some days it gets to me.

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The story I unraveled today was horrible. The bodies of two very small children were found decomposing under a house on San Antonio's southwest side. The "newsman" in me took over this morning and the story was on our radio station before it was in any other media. As the day wore on, news conferences were held, TV stations did bulletins, etc...but in truth, the story I had assembled in the pre-dawn hours had virtually all the facts of the case before there was any "official" confirmation.

I admit a certain bit of pride ran through me during the course of putting it all together - being first, being right. In a sense it was validation to me that I am in the right position, that I'm not being under utilized, that I'm worth what I'm paid.

That feeling didn't last long.
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"I'm sure drugs, or some other demon is at the root of this story," I answered, "However I've fought many personal demons including drugs and I have no way of understanding how someone could do something so horrible. I suppose Satan works in mysterious ways too."

My words were of little comfort to her...or me.
-----------------------------------------

When I got home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and not think about events like those of this morning. I literally wrote the previous post from my laptop as I was about to shut my eyes and try to put this day behind me.

Then I checked my company email and was informed that one of the stations I anchor news for, which has made innumerable changes to their news product in the past weeks and months, was making another. They want to further de-emphasize my role. Ironically, at one time I was asked to leave the news department entirely for this one station so they could have me on air more, but people higher in the food chain refused to let me leave my news duties.

In radio time, with all the changes and the lack of continuity among decision makers, that is now seemingly eons ago.

The email informed me that now I'm going to be squished into 40 pre-recorded seconds per hour, under the edict that I not report any stories that involve anything bad, or might be conceived by anyone as bad. The 40 informative seconds should be headlines that appeal to children and their mothers, which under almost no circumstance should include information about unhappy events.

I'll do it.

My pay stays the same, at least for now, so in that regard I suppose I should be happy.

I'm not though.

Some days it gets to me.

I suspect before long that station's new primary decision maker - who has never actually spoken to me directly - will decide the station needs yet another new direction, most likely one with a young female voice.

They'll want "news" from someone who doesn't get up at 1 a.m. and spend the early morning hours ferreting out information, making hard decisions, and taking pride in making the right ones.

I can see it coming.

That person will be someone who hasn't had a day when it gets to them.

Maybe it will be that day when it stops getting to me too.

Thanks!

I don't really have time to write...or frankly the energy at the moment, I'll write about why after a solid nap perhaps...however, I wanted to share an image I captured a second ago, and say thank you to the folks who put links up to the Find Cheryl Huish website. I typed her name into Google moments ago and this is what appeared.




Click to enlarge if need be.

For a website put up two days ago to go to the top of Google's rankings...that my friends is the work of a wonderful community, the true body of Christ.

Bless you all...I'll keep you up to date on the search efforts.

Notice The Lines?

I'm going to give notice.

No, not to my employer.

Yes, to you.

Okay, I was being dramatic.

Blogger has been good to me, but it does seem rather silly to have go through Blogger to post my thoughts, whims, various hallucinations, etc..when after all I am "Philosopher King" of a web hosting/design firm.

Admittedly, I don't do a whole lot in that capacity, attend functions of State, occasionally field calls from a few folks, encourage my lackey, and I've fired a couple of clients. Yeah, I'm a great businessman.


Anyway, I'm going to shut down this blog...not today...not sure when.

But, I'm not going away.

I'm only going to move it - God Willing - a step to the left while jumping to WordPress, which seems to meet all my criteria...in other words, it's also free.

Eventually the web address for the blog will change. It will be simpler and I'll leave this blog up to point you there, but my plan is to make the address "www.michaelmain.com" which is currently my "homepage" but I don't really do anything there, I updated it for the first time in years a week or so ago and was rather embarrassed by its look so I didn't bother to put links to family photos and such, they're still there, and will be included in the new blog as a link, but truthfully, I don't think many people come to my homepage too often to see the same stagnant picture of me poised like Edward R. Murrow...at least I hope not, that would be kind of creepy.

I got rather excited about the prospect today, downloaded software and plug-ins, etc...and then got sidetracked by something more important.

A family in our apparent new church home is going through something unimaginable...the wife, who has some medical issues, is missing.

Amy and I met with her husband Sunday, and oddly enough I had Amy's phone (another story) as I was coming home from work today and he called asking if we might be able to put up a website to help find his wife, something we had already offered to do.

As soon I got home, I - The Philosopher King - actually designed the initial site...sort of. I'm having Amy debug it before publishing it - and it needs a lot of debugging. It's nothing fancy, it's not intended to be, so it's really perfect for the upper reaches of my web design prowess.

After talking with the husband, we decided on a website name, I got some other details and suggested a few things. Amy registered the domain and I hope it will be up in a matter of hours.

The woman's name is Cheryl Huish and the site will be www.findcherylhuish.com.

Her husband's name is Chuck and they have two small kids.

This is an odd situation for me...because I'm also covering the story of her disappearance as part of my duties to my employer - where I am not "Philosopher King."

I've been a newsman for a long time, and I know the drill in many of these types of cases. It could turn out any number of ways.

So I have to set some boundaries, I have to cover the story, but I also have to draw a line between what I know from having spoken and prayed with Chuck. It's certainly not the usual, "This is off the record" kind of conversations I've had with many people over the course of my years in the news business, but I have been in slightly similar situations in years past. I believe Chuck knows that information shared with me in God's sanctuary is not going out for broadcast without his permission.

Some years ago, our then next door neighbor was assaulted by a young girl whom she taught at a local high school. It became big news and the neighbor's husband came to me almost immediately asking how to deal with the media. I told him and his wife then something I suspect most folks in my position wouldn't have, I said, "Don't."

I told her to heal, and refuse all interviews. I said the media trucks would soon leave from in front of their home (and ours). When she was physically and emotionally ready to deal with the news media, I told I would counsel her.

That worked out well, some weeks after the initial incident, I was checking in on her and she said she was ready, so we brainstormed a bit, and decided that maybe the law should be changed to better protect teachers.

Admittedly, I ended up doing her first interview, but I quickly pointed her to other far more influential reporters for additional interviews, and then things steamrolled as they do in the news churning industry and soon she was everywhere, an advocate for change...a woman with a cause and the bruises to prove it. Eventually hearings were held in Austin and the law was indeed strengthened significantly, on the first try - you'd have to know how the Texas Legislature works to fully appreciate that.

Some good came out of a bad situation and the media was no worse for wear.

This situation is different though. I do not know Chuck Huish. I met him Sunday. I have never met his wife, or their kids. Amy felt compelled to personally pray with him after our church service, and I ended up speaking with him as a result. Amy and I offered what we could, help with a website, and if need be I suppose some help in dealing with the media attention.

It's a fine line, but one I see very clearly.

I do not know how this story is going to run its course, but I do know Cheryl Huish is still missing...so, for me, it's an easy thing to do.

So now I'm going to serve notice to you on a related matter, which might require you to decide if there is a fine line for you to examine. I'd like to request those of you with websites, or blogs, to consider putting up a link to www.findcherylhuish.com.

Why?

Well, it's one way to get that website "ranked" in the search engines - gosh, I announce I'm going to eventually leave Google's "Blogger" service and now I'm enlisting quasi-conspirators to help jiggle Google's algorithms a bit.

Still, that's how it's done. The more folks who link to that site, the more Google will take notice. Right now, odds are that if you type Cheryl Huish into Google tomorrow morning, it will point you to this page. My goal is to soon have the search engines point you to the site set up for the family.

If that's not something you feel you want to do or can do, I have one more request...will you pray for her? For her children? For her husband? For some resolution?

I don't think there's really too much of a fine line there...in fact, in my experience, that line...that line of communication...is wide open to us all.

By Your Command

**Before reading this post, you should read the post prior by Amy**

It's 6:09 a.m. and no, I didn't just get home.

Winston woke me up, as he always does, on the only days I can possibly sleep in...6:09 seems to be his trigger these past few months. So, I got up, fed the dogs - I'm going to have to video Winston eating soon and put it up here since we've now timed him wolfing down his food in seven seconds or less, but that's another story for another day perhaps.

Amy is still sleeping.

Let not your hearts be troubled, all is well, although Winston is still whining a bit. I suspect hoping he might be able to fool me into feeding him twice in my sleep deprived state.

Today is March Fourth, a date that helps me to remember it as our anniversary because it's the only day that's also a command. It seems somewhat ironic that last night Amy told me to, "Get out."

I followed her command and marched forth to our car, drove around, prayed, and did exciting things...I went to Wal-Mart...and then to a movie.

Then I came home.

As Amy said in her "Hijacked post" we've been enduring a number of stressful issues as of late, and I am the type of person who tends to like to - sometimes all too suddenly - confront such things, conquer or be conquered, but at least move on. Amy has a propensity to let things slide, hope things will get better without conflict....she is a patient soul.

So on fairly rare occasions we bump heads, usually mine leading the charge as I have the thicker skull.

It's funny to me that once we physically shored up the foundation of our home, the other things we considered foundations in our lives upon which we leaned so heavily seemed to go adrift.

Our church home became an uncomfortable place, friendships we thought would abide through all time seemingly vaporized overnight with no explanation and truthfully a disgraceful amount of cowardice, and Amy's health and stamina which had been rapidly improving began declining significantly.

In the midst of this, there was Moldova, Shell, and other issues which challenged us, and fatigued us.

And last night, for a few hours, it all stormed over us.

That storm has passed, and we are stronger.

They say faith untested is faith unfounded. I suppose the same goes with love.


Thirteen years ago today, I made a vow before God that I would love and honor Amy, that I would treat her children as my own, and that I would do so for all of my life. When the pastor who presided over our wedding asked who gave this woman into my care, Amy's father stood up and pronounced loudly, "Her Mother and I!"

Amy and her family were just crazy enough to have faith in me, and not run away laughing which I seriously thought they might.

Our lives are indeed in a season of disorganization, emotionally, physically and spiritually, but that vow I made before God is as strong today as it was March Fourth, 1994, and this is but a season among a lifetime of seasons.

Amy, I love you more today than 13 years ago if that's possible.

You know my faults, my fears and my failings, and yet you stand by me, you champion and encourage me.

In your eyes I see the man I am, the man I can be and the man, with God's grace, I will be in seasons to come.

What more could a man ask of a wife, a lover, and spiritual partner?

Hold my hand today as we kneel and pray before our God...but I ask you don't bow your head. Instead look into my eyes, and you will know I see it too.

I love you Mrs. Main....march forth a bit longer with me would you please...until the end of all seasons??

With all my heart...

Happy Anniversary dear.

Love,

Mr. Main




p.s. For the curious: The movie I saw last night? Amazing Grace.

Blog Hijack!! Take Us To March 4th!

Hey, folks... it's Amy. I've hijacked Michael's blog tonight.

Michael is out driving. I'm not sure where, but I know why. I told him to leave. No, I didn't tell him to leave forever, but I DID tell him to leave. Why? Because I was angry. No need going into the details of "the fight," because the reason is irrelevant.

First of all, you need to know that Michael and I rarely fight. We have discussions, semi-heated discussions, and sometimes even minor arguments. But we don't blow up and have knock-down, drag-out fights. However, once or twice a year, we have "the big one." I honestly can only remember the reason for one of them and, in hindsight, it seems pretty stupid. So was this one. But tension is high (for reasons mentioned in Michael's previous posts), and we're hanging by our last nerves... and those aren't long for this world. Since the bulk of all or most of our stress has been focused on one or two things, it's only natural that we would "turn on each other" in the absence of that focus.

I had a bad health day today because of major Charlie-horse-type cramping all over my body that I've experienced the last two days. I feel like I've run a marathon, done 100 sit-ups, worked over my left calf with a baseball bat, and made hand-squeezed orange juice for a thousand people with my right hand. Needless to say, I didn't do much. It was hard walking up the stairs to write this. But I was drawn by a much more powerful force. I was compelled by something stronger than the pain, bigger than the "fight," and much more important than my stupid pride.

True love.

In 22 or 23 hours, Michael and I will have been married for 13 years. Yes, he's put up with me that long. I think his name should be thrown in the ring for sainthood. For 13 years, he's forgiven and forgotten. I cannot remember a time when he threw something from the past back in my face.

How stupid can I be? What was I smoking? I look back at the last 13 years and wonder where they went. It seems like only 13 days. I told the man that I love with every ounce of my being to "get out." I told the man that completes me to leave. I showed so much anger toward the most wonderful husband on the planet that I'm scared to death that he won't come back for quite some time. In my heart, I know he'll be home soon... after he's driven around for a while, sat someplace and thought, and he'll even come back and tell me he's sorry and that it's all his fault. But it's not. Sure, it takes two to tango and it takes two to argue. But I acted like a spoiled child and said things that no wife should say to her husband (no, I didn't curse at him... this time ;-)

In Ephesians we read about how to treat each other. Here is the passage from verses 2-33 (from "The Message"):

Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, "not by domineering but by cherishing." So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church, a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor, since they're already "one" in marriage.

No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.

Here's the thing... and wives, listen up! (Husbands, too, because you have the HARDEST job!) Every modern woman looks at submission as being a doormat. But the Bible is very clear about what submission means. Paul starts out by telling the church to submit to each other... to be "courteously reverent" to each other, out of respect for Christ.

He goes on to say the same thing about wives submitting to their husbands... just like they submit themselves to the Lord. We read that our husbands lead us the way Christ leads the church -- not by domineering, but by cherishing.

The hardest task belongs to our husbands. Love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it. "The Message" says, "go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church...a love marked by giving, not getting."

If a husband loves his wife like that, she can't help but respect, honor and submit to her husband.

That's how Michael loves me. He loves me more than the Spurs. He loves me more than computers and his blog. He loves me more than the Cowboys (that's kind of easy right now). He loves me more than anything on this planet. He goes ALL OUT in his love for me, exactly as Christ did for the church. He loves me in away that is marked by giving and not getting.

Michael, I don't have a card for you. I haven't completed the projects that I've promised to, but I WILL. I don't have anything special planned for the big "13." But I plan to be at your side as we worship. I plan to serve you communion and to be served by you. I plan to kneel with you by the fireplace and pray (it's your turn). I can keep those promises.

But here's one more promise, and you can take this one to the bank.

I love you, Mr. Main. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. Forsaking all others, I will keep only unto you, for as long as we both shall live.

Happy anniversary, Darling.

Love,
Mrs. Main

"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." - Matthew 19:6

Smokin' Out My Funny

When I was kid, my parent's had a cigarette box. Something you don't see much anymore since folks don't let people smoke in their homes, much less have an ornate box of cigarettes at their disposal for guests.

Ours was musical, it played "When the smoke gets in your eyes" which I suppose was humorous at the time.

I actually found something similar on Ebay, on the first try, although I don't recollect the one in our old family home looking like this particular one.



I'm not really sure why I thought of that today.

I think it might be because lately I feel like I've been in a haze when it comes to writing. There have been a number of things that have happened to contribute to that, none of which I'm going to outline here, but one thing I've noticed is...I've lost my funny.

Have you noticed it too?

I've been going through old blog entries and even in some of my darker times, I think I wrote with more of a sense of humor.

Lately I write less, and when I do write I seem preoccupied with unhealed wounds, unfinished business, apparently lost friendships, and disappointments. Yeah, I'm getting freakin' whiny.

I want my funny back.

And I'm gonna get it too.

Of course, I didn't say I was going to get it back today.

I suppose the joke is on you.

However I did find this guy in China today who has found a way to smoke through his eyes.



Hey, it's a start, and no I don't know how he exhales...nor do I want to.