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| ISBN-13: | 9781450248884 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 09/02/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 198 KB |
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Dear Peanut
Life Lessons from Grandpa GrumpsBy Bill Johnson
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Bill JohnsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-4886-0
Chapter One
The Beginning
Dear Peanut,
I received my first picture of you today, and I can only say that I hope you will have many years to grow into the handsome and/or beautiful person God intends you to be. Right now, on the computer image that I have seen of you, you look to be a smaller version of what we call a peanut. I am sure your picture does not do you full justice. We look forward to seeing you strong and more fully developed in the outside world in just about half a year from now.
I must say that I was moved and excited to know that you have taken up residence inside my daughter's womb. She is a nurturing and good person. I do not think you could have made a better choice when you somehow found her as your temporary home. I would expect that you will benefit from 1) her health, which she will give to you over the next six or seven months, 2) her heart, which you have already stolen and now hold in the palms of your tiny peanut hands, and 3) her soul, which is full of truth and kindness.
Peanut, it is going to be your job over the coming months to grow beyond your first name and to do so in as much health and happiness as you can. As a human being, you will need to have much of these qualities stored up inside of yourself to deal with future events. Soon you will be out here with us, where you will find your life to be sometimes challenging, often incredible, and always interesting. When you decide it is your time to join us here on the outside, you will find that you have many, many family members to teach you, love you, and mentor you. Because your mother and father are who they are, all of this will come to you naturally and abundantly.
The world you are coming to is a wonderful and miraculous place. In the beginning, you will not question this or even remember your time in the womb, where you are now. You will be too busy enjoying the soft touch of other human beings, the scent of your mother's skin as she feeds you, and the sounds from all the new people excited by your arrival here in the light.
There will be some immediate adjustments you will have to make in how you do things. You will have to learn how to communicate with your mother and father about your wants and needs. Sometimes they will not understand you. Sometimes they will ignore you. When this happens, you will feel things like frustration, anger, and anxiety. You will have to learn how to express these feelings in acceptable ways in order to not alienate people around you and to get want you want out of life in an effective manner.
Where you are now, almost everything is taken care of for you when you need it, almost instantaneously when you want it. Life here is not going to be like that, and you will need to accept this fact, adapt to it, and make the best of its reality. Many people here living in the light never quite learn how to do this, and as a result they do not live lives that are as full and happy as they might otherwise be. When life calls to them for an adjustment on their part, they call back to life that it should adjust to them instead. They learned this during their time in the womb, Peanut, where you are now, and where that is what you are supposed to learn. But, when they came down the birth canal to live here in the light, they did not learn a new lesson. I want you to learn it well now so that you can be thinking about it for the next seven months or so. It is that life here is about accepting change and adjusting to it. Those who do this succeed and find joy in living. Those who do not do this seem not to succeed, and they find disappointment in being alive.
Do not be afraid when it is your time to leave the womb for the sunshine and oxygen that is just down the birth canal from you. All of us here will greet you with smiles and sincere expressions of joy. We will not let you down or leave you to find your way alone. We will support you in your efforts at adjusting here to life. Be ready to do your part.
We will be here waiting for you.
With much love,
Grandpa Grumps
Social Interaction and Communication
Dear Peanut,
I have decided after thinking about it, since I am your grandfather, that I am going to undertake the responsibility of telling you about what life is like here in this world you are coming to. It is my intention, therefore, to write something to you once every few days or so in order to share some of what I have come to know.
If you are like me, you may find a benefit from receiving as much information about your upcoming entry into the world as possible so that you will feel prepared for all that comes at you. Your grandmother (and my wife, who are the same person), would say this is just another example of my need to control my environment. She would assert that perhaps I should not teach you lessons, that you would do better to learn about life out here on your own accord. However, and again if you are like me, you may find that feeling a sense of control, of being prepared as much as possible for whatever comes, is not such a bad thing. Life out here sort of leads us all in the other direction and into chaos far too often.
I think I am sometimes too direct and often too blunt with the way I say things, Peanut. I have often been told by your grandmother that I come across as too powerful and dogmatic in my communications. So, I hope you will be patient with me if you find this to be the case. I tend to believe that if something is a zebra, we should not call it a horse out of social consideration. And, if I feel enough passion about something to write or speak about it, I am certainly not going to be ashamed of that same passion and try to subdue it in order to be more socially acceptable.
That is one of the first things I want to tell you about. Living with others and having social interactions is a mixed bag at best. We human beings can be the most unique and wonderful of creatures. You will soon discover that fact for yourself, and you will take pride in it. But, at the same time and for some reason, we also can be less than forthcoming and often false with each other when we interact. I don't know why this is, Peanut, but I do know that it is a fact. When it happens to you, and it will happen to you, you will find it hurtful and unnecessary.
You may hear a friend speak to you in the shade of a lie sometime, and you will wonder why this has happened. You will watch an associate at work manipulate others in order to advance, and you will think that this feels wrong somewhere inside you. You will speak from your heart someday to another person, and you will be misunderstood for your intentions.
It will be important to realize that forthright and direct communication with others is not something that many of us practice in this world. We are encouraged to temper our thoughts and feelings in a manner that is deemed socially acceptable. I do not know who does the deeming, and sometimes I get confused about what is socially agreed upon as acceptable. You will have this happen to you also. I believe you should not let this stop you from engaging others and relating to them passionately with every cell that will make up who you are becoming.
Above all else, Peanut, I hope you will always try to speak the truth when you learn how to talk. Being a truth teller out here in the light is a unique quality to have as a person. Not all will value it, but everyone will respect you for possessing it.
I send you kind and good thoughts from Houston. We are waiting.
Grandpa Grumps
The Luck of the Draw, and God
Good morning, Peanut,
It has been another few days since I last wrote to you. I hope you have been well and growing strong. I know in talking with your mother that she has been doing everything she can to insure your happiness and health. This is something that you can count on her to do each and every day, even after you have joined us here in the light. She is a dedicated and responsible person who already loves you. Your father is very much the same way. The luck of the draw (that is a poker term, Peanut, and poker is a game we play out here to pass our time with one another) has been good to you regarding which womb you are attached to.
I think today maybe we should talk about whether there really even is a "luck of the draw," or whether this is something else entirely. You will hear people talking about "luck" and "fortune" once you join us. Some human beings depend on luck or good fortune the way you are now depending on your mother for sustenance. I certainly would agree that when it comes to the less significant aspects of our lives, such as the outcome of a poker game or sporting event, there is such a thing as luck. But, on larger issues, such as which womb a fetus ends up gestating inside of, or which people we love and trust as we live out our lives, I think there is a greater factor.
I believe in a power that exists beyond my awareness out here, which is larger than my ability to think, which looks over me much as your mother looks over you while you are inside her body, growing. I think all human beings know instinctually about this greater power. We sense our need for it and its involvement in our lives universally, throughout history, time, place, and event. The fact that this power and our need for it is so universal among people and consistent throughout time is the very evidence that this power exists.
We call the power by many names-God, Yaweh, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Manna, a higher consciousness, and Karma. We personify this power by referring to it as Him or Her. We often trivialize it or distort it through what we call religion, and we talk about it and worship it within groups among ourselves in places we call churches.
Peanut, for me, this power is God. It is not the god I was taught about as a child in a church by a dogmatic minister. It is not the one you may hear about who will make you feel ashamed, who might judge you as lacking, or who could terrify you at night when you lie alone in your bed. When you hear about such a god who makes you feel these kinds of things, you are actually probably hearing about the man or woman who is telling you about their god. Listen closely, and you will find that these people are often talking about themselves when they talk about their god.
The power I am talking about loves you no matter what, when you are in a bad mood or a good one. The God I know supports me every day of the week and every minute of those days. The God I hope to teach you about is a power far greater than even your mother and father and is always there for you no matter what.
We are waiting, and we will be here, just like God.
Grandpa Grumps
Losing Track and Being Busy
Good evening, Peanut,
I have been very busy today and sort of lost track of myself. I intended to write to you sooner. I hope your day has been good and that you are enjoying the womb and your mother. The next six or seven months are going to go by pretty fast, and we will soon be talking with each other in person. It is an exciting time out here, waiting for you in there.
I think tonight I want to discuss being busy and losing track of myself. Human beings are very busy people, Peanut. We are busy with work. We are busy with play. We are busy with each other. We busy ourselves by worrying, planning, anticipating, feeling threatened, and being threatening. Before we know it, the entire day has gone and we are busy with sleep and dreams, only to get up in the morning and become busy the next day all over again. Somewhere in the process as the days go by, some of us, perhaps many of us, lose track of ourselves. Sometimes a few of us lose ourselves entirely. When we look in the mirror, we see a stranger, or at least someone we never intended to be.
I don't know why we are so busy, Peanut. It seems to me that the purpose of my life has always been found in family, friends, and the quiet times. The joy in my life has been felt when I slowed down, not sped up. There is so much for me to become aware of and to enjoy when I am not so busy. There are flowers to smell. There is music to hear. There is my wife (your grandmother) to look at, to touch, and to love.
You are soon to enter life. You are beginning to live. You need to be aware, when you do, that there is an end to life also. This end will seem to come to you here on the outside almost as quickly as your time inside the womb will seem to pass over the next few months. Religion teachers have talked about life in the light passing "in the blink of an eye." You may not have eyes yet, but when you do, they will open and close very quickly, Peanut, and this is called blinking. It happens before you even know you have done it. This is what the time you will spend on earth may seem like as you age and approach its end. You will wonder how you got to this time in your life and how it has gone by so rapidly and unnoticed.
I believe it will be important for you and me to discuss this further once you get here. I don't think when we talk that I will be the one doing the teaching on this subject. For the most part, my fifty-six years outside the womb have not been meaningless simply because I have tried each and every day to take the time not to be too busy. People and society, however, pull me in the direction of staying much too busy all of the time. It becomes almost a constant effort to remind myself not to go that way. There are times, like today, when I get caught up in all of the business, and I simply lose the day.
I think when we are together, you will be able to remind me, and to teach me if you will, of just what is important in life.
Stay healthy, continue to grow, and know that you are loved. We are waiting.
I look forward to your arrival.
Grandpa Grumps
Fear Choice/Growth Choice
Dear Peanut,
Once you get here, Peanut, through the birth canal and into the light, you will find that some days have themes to them. For instance, on a particular day, everything will seem to go your way. The theme for that day would then be, "It's going to be my time today." On another day later on, almost everything that happens may seem to go against you. The theme would then be something like, "I can never catch a break." Our days and nights just seem to have these themes to them for no predictable reason. Today, the theme for me has been, "There are idiots among us." Here I have been blunt. I will endeavor to explain my statement and theme.
Where you are now, there is consistency. Your developmental life is unfolding in a rational and meaningful way. My daughter is taking care of her body, watching her food and liquid intake, and insuring that through her as your conduit, you can depend on your environment and the person you are attached to. You know what to expect and things make sense.
Life out here is not always like that. Often, people are inconsistent. Human beings do not take care of themselves, nor do they always make the right choices. Imagine your own sense of shock and discontent tomorrow if my daughter went out tonight and chose to get drunk, or to smoke dope, or to ingest cocaine. She must take into account how her decisions will impact your life inside her. Out here, we often do not make decisions based on such considerations.
When facing a choice in life, I believe there are only two options human beings have. We can make a fear choice or a growth choice. That is really all we are ever choosing between out here away from the womb, Peanut. I will try to define these two choices for you as best I can right now.
A fear choice is characterized by the existence of an immediate reward in the short term, which relieves us of our anxiety and worry but usually causes a delayed set of problems further down the road. A growth choice is characterized by the lack of immediate rewards and a need to temporarily live with anxiety and worry in the short run but leads to a better payoff and larger rewards in the long term. That sounds complicated but it really is very simple.
We can choose to live for today and probably be uncomfortable tomorrow. Or, we can choose to plan for tomorrow and probably be uncomfortable today. I have found repeatedly that there is more happiness and success in my life when I choose to plan for tomorrow and am uncomfortable today. Life presents us always with a choice between the immediate and the delayed, the short and the long, the easy and the hard.
I cannot tell you how many people among us out here choose the fear choice. Many of us do not want to delay our gratification. We act as if immediate rewards and feeling good in the moment are an entitlement in our lives. The result is that living life becomes complicated, overwhelming, and undirected. Then we ask why and how we arrived at some miserable place we never intended to be.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dear Peanut by Bill Johnson Copyright © 2010 by Bill Johnson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Epigraph....................xiForeword....................xiii
Author's Note....................xv
Preface....................xvii
Introduction....................xix
Acknowledgments....................xxiii
Letter One The Beginning....................1
Letter Two Social Interaction and Communication....................4
Letter Three The Luck of the Draw, and God....................7
Letter Four Losing Track and Being Busy....................9
Letter Five Fear Choice/Growth Choice....................11
Letter Six An Inner Voice....................14
Letter Seven The Two Wolves....................16
Letter Eight Roads....................19
Letter Nine Thinking and Feeling....................22
Letter Ten More About Feelings....................24
Letter Eleven Doing....................26
Letter Twelve Seeing Life as a Blessing....................28
Letter Thirteen Birthdays and Time....................30
Letter Fourteen True Friends....................32
Letter Fifteen Kicking and Doing Something....................34
Letter Sixteen Accept Life as Difficult and it Becomes Easy....................37
Letter Seventeen Sex and Gender....................39
Letter Eighteen Grace....................42
Letter Nineteen The Existence of Evil....................45
Letter Twenty A Limited Perspective....................47
Letter Twenty-one Male and Female....................49
Letter Twenty-two Dying....................52
Letter Twenty-three Our Secret Place....................55
Letter Twenty-four Being Gentle Among Wolves....................57
Letter Twenty-five Miracles....................59
Letter Twenty-six More About Miracles....................62
Letter Twenty-seven The Difference Between Growing Up and Growing....................65
Letter Twenty-eight Christmas....................68
Letter Twenty-nine Miracles, Once More....................71
Letter Thirty Suffering....................74
Letter Thirty-one The Perception of Threat....................77
Letter Thirty-two Dogs and Love....................80
Letter Thirty-three Taking Things Personally....................82
Letter Thirty-four Mindfulness....................85
Letter Thirty-five Perceptions and Flying Monkeys....................87
Letter Thirty-six Fathers and Sons....................90
Letter Thirty-seven Thinking In Pictures....................93
Letter Thirty-eight Becoming Sick....................96
Letter Thirty-nine Strangers and Friends....................99
Letter Forty Stages of Love....................102
Letter Forty-one Taking Things for Granted....................105
Letter Forty-two It Is So Simple, It Is Hard To Believe....................108
About the Author....................116
Bibliography....................118