100 YEARS TO LIVE

THANKS and GRATITUDE for Life & "The Battle for Everything"


Having Thanksgiving and Christmas within 30 days gives us all time to pause, take a breather and an inventory of our lives. It is a time for reflection, family, friends, God, and giving. We are allowed to relax, and just “be” whoever we are at this time of our life.

I miss a lot about friends and family gone on; gone at 16, 18, 20, 25, 30, 33, 40, 45, 50… and beyond. I find myself considering that I will join them in God’s time, and reflective of what everyone living and passed on have meant to me. I consider the smiling faces of the departed, the reunion and “abrazos” for my brothers and sisters, the sweetness of arms around parents, and my heart fills with love and gratitude.

I am looking over my shoulder and living with the end in mind in moments like these; considering all the years gone by. I have become my father, and am very aware how “time flies.” I believe living with “the end in mind” is healthy. It argues the necessity for being “grateful” and causes one to pause and consider his ways when making decisions that have meaning for self and others.

Suddenly “having it all” takes second place to “having you all” in my life; and being who I was born to be.

We are still breathing if reading this, we are probably eating enough, and have a warm place to sleep. There is a lot to be grateful for, (even in scary and tough times for so many) especially if you have lived abroad in a third world or under-developed nation for any time at all. I think about just what we have as Americans...too much here to list in the "gratitude" department but I am especially mindful of those who, in their youth, died in wars, and the living who fought for ideals and their American comrades... I can't tell you how deeply I am touched by heroism and love that men and women freely show in laying everything that matters to them at the altar of freedom.

The American experience is 221 years old since the Constitution had its first birthday. I am 55. That means I have lived 1/4th of our nation’s history. If you are reading this and half my age, I have some good advice. So write me... Or just keep reading my blogs. I promise to be clear and won’t let you down. With all the chaos going on right now, just know America is always well, and will rise above financial, moral, or political chaos, if the dream of goodness, honor, and freedom remains bright in the hearts of its citizens. I believe the dream still does...

The Battle for Everything: If you are over 25, you are getting on into serious life and seeing that life can seem, at times, a “battle for everything;” the trials, loses, and accompanying emotions you experience will make you reevaluate values and beliefs. But, during the struggle there are moments of clarity; exhilaration, friendships, love, is when the bitter past accentuates the “sweet” joys of the present. Gratitude, a smile on the face, and the knowledge that all is not lost is the result. Hard times do not last forever, and broken hearts get compensating relief along the way. Having survived means more, and so does life...

I write tearjerkers; so I am told. I am reminded by Emerson how that really works: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” Emotion, even hard times, allows us to grow and consider what matters most as time so blithely moves on in this modern world of life tugging at us at light speed.

Once in awhile a popular tune really grabs me and speaks of a common theme we all experience. One by the group “Five for Fighting” is filled with sweetness, reflection, and speaks a fundamental truth about how fleeting life is. I wanted to share the lyrics with you as I look back with gratitude for every blessing, for being American, for making it through the many life-struggles, and having hope to continue to make a difference with my, “100 Years to Live.”

“100 Years to Live” from the album, Battle For Everything

I'm 15 for a moment, caught in between 10 and 20 and I'm just dreaming… Counting the ways to where you are.

I'm 22 for a moment, she feels better than ever and we're on fire, making our way back from Mars.

15 there's still time for you, time to buy and time to lose. 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live…

I'm 33 for a moment, still the man but you see I'm a “they…” a kid on the way, a family on my mind.

I'm 45 for a moment, the sea is high and I'm heading into a crisis, chasing the years of my life.

15 there's still time for you, time to buy and time to lose yourself within a morning star. 15 I'm all right with you. 15… there's never a wish better than this, when you only got 100 years to live.

Half time goes by, suddenly you’re wise, another blink of an eye, 67 is gone. The sun is getting high, we're moving on...

I'm 99 for a moment, dying for just another moment and I'm just dreaming… Counting the ways to where you are…

15, there's still time for you, 22 I feel her too, 33 you’re on your way… Every day's a new day... 15 there's still time for you…

Time to buy and time to choose, hey 15, there's never a wish better than this; when you only got 100 years to live.

Group -Five for Fighting

May you feel God's love and enjoy a HAPPY THANKSGIVING! JMP

FREE ebooks: Go to my website: create an account at my store. Don’t need to buy anything. Test drive the FREE ebook downloads for your computer found in the “History and Freedom” section. They are: US Constitution, Democracy in America, Federalist Papers.

REDEMPTION CODE: Constitution. (with upper case "C.") Go to www.powerthink.com/store

HEART MATTERS FOR A NEW YEAR

New Heart Resolutions!

New Year's resolutions invite us to challenge our brain in a behavioral contest of change; a sort of "mind over matter" thing where we determine to begin new habits, unload old ones, and become a better person. My recomendation for the New Year is to examine some of what I call "Heart Matters." I will be sharing one weekly blog per month on the topic for 2008.

After all, if your heart works well, so does your brain. Your body can live "brain dead" (not that you would want to) but your body is "dead, dead" if the heart quits. So I begin...

The Steady and Reliable Heart

Your heart is about the same size as your fist. It beats without instruction from the brain. It has intelligent and intuitive capacity. It knows its job and its job is nothing less than assuring your survival. Here are some stunning statistics revealing what your heart actually does to insure you keep on the go each and every day.

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  An average adult body contains about five and one half quarts of blood.


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  All the blood vessels in the body joined end to end would stretch 62,000 miles or two and one half times around the earth.


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  The heart circulates the body's blood supply about 1,000 times each day.


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  The heart pumps the equivalent of 2,000 gallons each day.


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  Heart beats per minute range from an average 70 to 120 and over an average life span of 70 years the heart will beat more than 2 billion times.

How important is the human heart? You can lose a kidney, a lung, have paralysis affect various regions of the body, lose parts of mental capacity, or even be “brain-dead,” but if you lose your heart you become dead-dead.I am the lucky survivor of two near death causing internal injuries where life-saving blood transfusions were given me within a space of two years.

Both life-saving events occurred while I was writing my first novel The Last Valentine. In fact I used that singular experience of near death from blood loss to describe the final moments of one of the main characters who had been fatally wounded in the plot’s World War Two battle. See, I understood first hand a stomach wound with blood draining from me at a dangerous rate. I could describe how our hero felt, minute by life draining minute.

Here is what it fells like to be dying from sudden blood loss. You get cold as the blood moves first from the extremities to the vital organs. What decides this blood transfer for you? Your brain? No, the heart decides. It just knows what to do as it furiously picks up speed to send blood where it needs to go to keep the body alive.

As the blood continues to seep out of you, the vital organs are prioritized, and those most vital have the blood rushed to support them. You begin to get the chills even in July. Your heart is racing yet you can barely keep your eyes open – the oxygenated blood that feeds your brain is needed elsewhere. Doctors race to stop the flow of blood and you will be given someone else’s blood while they patch you up. But dying from blood loss doesn’t hurt. As you lose consciousness you also lose concern. A strange surrender envelopes you as you drift into unconsciousness.

Because of my concern for HIV possible tainted blood supplies, which had occurred in the 1990’s, I begged my friend, Dr. Neil Whitaker to find any other way to save me but by transfusion. He answered. “Jim, I don’t think you understand. This could be the ‘Big Adios.’” I recall weakly asking, “You mean as in ‘hasta la vista baby?’ That ‘Big Adios?’” He nodded. “Okay. Send the blood in,” I strained in answer.

It is no wonder my thoughts have turned to the miraculous and moving feeling concerning heart matters as I turned out such titles as, The Last Valentine, Ticket Home, The Good Heart, Paradise Bay, and As A Man Thinketh…In His Heart. The gift of life, the receipt of blood donated anonymously by another, is humbling and causes one to pause in gratitude and wonder at the preciousness of life. Someone with a very good heart offered me the life sustaining blood to carry on, not once but twice. I think about that every time I see the American Red Cross symbol, or “Blood Drive” signs around town.

We often are tempted to extol the human mind as the most brilliant of all God’s creations, the most magnificent computer, unlike anything man can create in all its capacities to compute and process commands and thoughts in real time.

Interestingly, no matter how much the brain demands and begs for our attention, the gentle and forgiving heart just moves on, doing what it does a thousand times each day – sustaining your life, giving you mortality, offering you another chance at life—a tomorrow.

Take time to thank your heart, and to share your heart-felt feelings with others. I’m glad someone unknown to me donated what had once passed through the most magnificent of God’s creations –the human heart!