A Frayed Knot, Afraid Not, & Afraid... NOT!

This piece of string walks into a bar.

The bartender says, "Hey, Buddy... We don't serve your kind here!"

"What 'kind' might I be?" the string returned, feeling somewhere between annoyed & incredulous.

"We don't serve strings here!"

The string left in a huff.

10 minutes pass and the string comes back in, but this time he looks like something from a yoga brochure. He was cortorted & looked more like a pretzel than a string. At the same time; his hair looked wild & unkept, flying every which way.

The bartender, however, wasn't fooled. "Hey, Buddy... Ain't you that string that was just in here?"

"Oh, no!" the pretzelized wild man offered incredulously... "I'm a frayed knot."



What makes that funny is, of course, the play on the words "afraid knot."

But what does THAT expression really mean? Does it mean,'"a sense of fear about something NOT occurring."? Or is it just a polite way of saying, "No."

Let me suggest a third form...

"Afraid?"

"NOT!"

Looking For A Champion

I watched the new Alice in Wonderland tonight with my kids for Daddy-Kiddo Movie Night.

I really enjoyed it, actually, which surprised me... For some reason, I thought it wasn't going to be any good. But it was very good. (Seriously... Johnny Depp is amazing, no matter how you slice it.)

If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it.

Anyway... I don't want to ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but the story line revolves around Alice becoming who she was "foretold" to be: the "champion" that would save Wonderland from the red queen by defeating the Jabberwokky.

It's really interesting to watch Alice come to the realization that the "champion" everyone else sees in her is really there! I found myself really enjoying her journey of self-discovery.

One thing I thought was really neat was that she ended up having to take a "leap of faith" to fulfill her "destiny."

I think I liked it so much because I identified with her. Not just for myself, but for all of us!

There is a champion inside each & every one of us, waiting for the opportunity to slay the dragons that seek to destroy us. Some of our dragons are bigger & more vicious than others... And my dragons may be bigger--or smaller--than yours.

The point isn't mine versus yours, it's YOU versus yours! (And ME versus mine, of course.)

I'll tell you one thing: from now on when I look in the mirror, I'm not just looking to see if my hair is in place.

I'm looking for a champion.

Whatchew Talkin' 'Bout, Dad?!

The world lost an iconic figure this week: Gary Coleman.

It's been sad to see his life unravel over the last few years, especially since he so endeared himself to our culture in the 80's sitcom, "Diff'rent Strokes."

It's ironic that he made a name for himself by playing a little boy, yet he was actually much older than the character he played. (It seems like I remember him having some sort of medical condition that caused him to develop far more slowly than is normal, but I could be wrong about that.)

Now I have my own adopted son, & while I am by no means a man of means like Phillip Drummond, my son looks a LOT like Gary Coleman:




He can already cut his eyes & give me that look... I wonder how long it'll be til he says to me, "Whatchew talkin' 'bout, Dad?!"