Urban Gathering

Bogged Down

Do you know what the #1 grossing box office hit of 1976 was? I will give you a couuple of clues; it won 3 Academy Awards, grossed 117.2 million domestically and $225 million internationally. It was inspired by a true story. It’s film props were placed in the Smithsonian Museum. The script for the movie was the first screenplay sold by a young aspiring screenwriter who had previously used such pen-names as Q. Moonblood and J.J. Deadlock (neither of which sold any scripts!). The movie was shot on a low-budget of 1.1 million dollars and featured a realitively unknown actor.

The actor, was the man who wrote the script. The actor/screen-writer had slurrred speech and drooping lower lip, that was a result of complications his mother suffered during labor. Her obstetricians misuse of forceps accidentally severed a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of his face. Not exactly the picture purfect image of a Hollywood stud! He was a graduate of Devereux Manor High School, a private school for problem children located in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, and following graduation enrolled in a beauty school, to continue in the family busines. He later dropped out of the beauty school, after winning a scholarship for the American College of Switzerland in Leysin, where he studied drama and was well received in school productions. Returning to America he enrolled in the Theater Arts Department at University of Miami for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and pursue a career writing screenplays.

The struggling screenwriter took several acting jobs to help pay his bills He had his first starring role in the softcore pornography feature film The Party at Kitty and Stud’s. He was paid $200 for two days’ work. The actor later explained that he had done the film out of desperation after being bounced out of his apartment and finding himself homeless for several days. In the actor’s words, “it was either do that movie or rob someone, because I was at the end – the very end – of my rope”.

The actor’s other first few film roles were minor, and included brief uncredited appearances in Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971) as a subway thug, in the psychological thriller Klute (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and in the Jack Lemmon film The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) as a youth. In the Lemmon film, Jack Lemmon chases, tackles and mugs the, thinking that the character is a pickpocket. He had his second starring role in The Lords of Flatbush, in 1974, in whose script he had a hand in writing. In 1975, he played supporting roles in Farewell, My Lovely; Capone; and Death Race 2000. He made guest appearances on the TV series Police Story and Kojak.

On March 24, 1975, the screen writer/actor saw a boxing match on television at a friends, the Muhammad Ali–Chuck Wepner fight. Wepner was not expected to last past the first round. Before the fight, a reporter asked Wepner if he thought he could survive in the ring with the champion, to which Wepner allegedly answered “ I’ve been a survivor my whole life…if I survived the Marines, I can survive Ali. ”

To everyones surprise Wepner did last past round one. In the ninth round, Wepner landed a punch to Ali’s chest and Ali was knocked down. Wepner went to his corner and said to his manager, “Hey, I knocked him down.” “Yeah,” Wepner’s manager replied, “but he looks really pissed off now…”

In the remaining rounds, Ali opened up cuts above both Wepner’s eyes and broke his nose. Wepner was far behind on the scorecards but made a dramatic comeback. He lost in the final minutes of the 15th round, a technical knockout.

Being inspired, the screenwriter/actor went home, and in three days he had written the script for Rocky. And in a short while, an unknown became one of the biggest names in Hollywood, Sylvester Stalone.

Why tell Sly’s story? Because it is not so different for any of us. We all make mistakes, struggle and just get bogged down. But look, moments of inspiration can come from the simplest of things. Life altering moments! So if you are bogged down today, keep watching, keep looking? What inspires you?

“I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” – Jesus (The Message – John 16:32-33)

Proverbs 24:15-16 (The Message) Don’t interfere with good people’s lives; don’t try to get the best of them. No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; Soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces.

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Dashboard Icons

I love to travel.  One of the experiences in travel that I enjoy is riding in taxi’s.  What a unique experience.  Each one different.  Over the years I have found one thing fairly consistent in cabs, and that is the dashboard icons.  There are several that are popular, Mary and Jesus being the two most prominent I see in my travels.

My boss, has a dashboard icon on his VW truck.  It is a hula girl.  Kinda like a boble head, she actually does the hula dance when he drives.  Over the years I have gotten to know my boss fairly well and count him among my list of friends.  He loves Hawaii.  Often tries to vacation there when possible and would love nothing more than to be there living.  Why the Hula girl on the dash.  He says it serves as a reminder.  Why the dashboard Jesus or Mary?  Probably the same thing.

Why do we need reminders? I think we all find ourselves busy, sometimes entagled in the now and loose sight of what the goal is.  My boss keeps that in front of him, thinking about Hawaii every time he heads down the road.   

I like how the Apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 9:24 – 27 “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

In other words, Keep Your Focus! What are some of your personal dashboard icons you have in your life? Are they things that keep you focused on the goal?

Phillipians 3:12 – 14 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

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The Flower Garden

I have this manicured patch of weeds in my front yard!

A green thumb I definitely do not have. Gardening is one of those things that I consider work way more than relaxation. I think it goes back to my childhood. Living in rural East Texas, many folks have a garden each year. For us, it was a primary source of our annual groceries. What we did not eat fresh was often canned or frozen to be eaten later. Having three boys and one girl under the roof required alot of food, particularly as we hit our teen years! (I never knew quite how much until my kids have begun to devour everything edible!)

Because we had a large family, that meant we needed a large garden. Each year we planted somewhere around a 1/2 acre and my grandfather planted well over an acre. Thats alot of vegetables. I remember when I was small, my grandfather had an old mule, Jack. Each spring he would hook Jack up to his plow and spend all day Saturday going up and down the field, tearing up the soil and what was presently grown there. Later he upgraded to a rototiller after Jack passed.

Now vegetables are good (I used to not thing so.) but require alot of work, not so much for the vegetables but for the soil in which they grow. You have to break it up, clean it up, fertilize it, clean it again, break it again, make rows, plant seed, water, clean it, water, clean it, water, clean it and so forth for several months before you can reap your harvest.

Cleaning the soil was the part I hated. Cleaning the soil, basically meant pulling weeds. I have concluded nothing grows better in freshly turned soil, be it in east Texas or Northwest Washington than weeds. Man how I hated pulling weeds as a kid, and still do today.

Now my aversion to pulling weeds has posed a great problem for me. I moved into my house last December and it had this lovely patch of dirt that the previous person had been grooming for a flower bed. I thought how wonderful it would be to have those flowers in my yard. So as this year as developed, I realized as each passing day, the flowers werent there and the weeds were growing. Only a few at first, so I did not stress, but over time, it has become this lush green, ugly weed infested patch of dirt!

So yesterday, I got out there and started pulling weeds, and then I hired one of my kids to help, then I hired another, and then another! And low and behold it only took 7 hours with us pulling weeds to clear a patch of dirt 3 feet wide by about 30 feet long. I filled up my yard wast bin (55 gallon) over half full with weeds! What a sense of accomplishment. Cleaning the weeds and then turning the soil. It looked great. I even got so bold as to enlist the help of a neighbor to add a few plants.

However, when I awoke this morning and wanted to go bask in the glory of my accomplishment, I was shocked. Weeds! More weeds! They were poping up throughout. Argh!!!

Then as He often does, God challenged me. You see, that patch of dirt out front is alot like my life, and yours. Left unattended weeds will take root and grow. And the longer we neglect pulling the weeds the more will grow and they will spread. And when we do invest in cleaning them up, we can not sit back and think it is going to be pretty. No, it takes continual work. Weeds have a nack of always trying to spring up. Even when it looks like they may all be gone, there is always something more just under the surface that needs addressing.

Well as usual, I was challenged and boy did I find some weed patches. How about you? How is your garden today?

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
Hebrews 2:1-3 1 We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

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