Here's my friend Allen, from Utah, with a salmon that he caught in Alaska last week:

                                             

BTW - that's a "sahmahn", not a salmon. Where I'm from, we said "salmon", with all letters pronounced - and we only ate them in "salmon patties". I talked to my Mom last week, and she said that she had eaten "salmon croquettes" at my brother Chuck's house, and I'm wondering - what's croquettes? Little bitty croquet players?

Allen caught this big honkin' fish up in Alaska, near the Inland Passage. As it happens, he laid the fish down, walked a bit away - and when he turned around, there was a bear who had decided that "finders keepers" applied with fish. It was a BLACK bear, not a BROWN bear, else Allen would no longer have the fish. He was willing to fight a black bear for this 35 pounds of fresh fish, but the bear backed down. (Allen has his own issues).

While he was up there, he bought a quarter-share of a fishing/hunting lodge that actually floats at the waterfront.

I hate Allen :)

I worked with Allen at Fidelity; we both had the same title. I was promoted to that level one year before Allen. Now I'm living in the middle of the desert, and Allen is still living a short drive from Deer Valley or Sundance, and he's buying fishing lodges in Alaska. That's the sort of thing that really leaves a fellow wondering Just Where He Went Wrong (tm).

Meanwhile, things are weird at the Puckett Pueblo. There's bobbles in the sale of the old house in Anthem; nothing disasterous, but enough troubles to make me realize just how precarious my financial life can be.  And yesterday the folks who were fixing Ethel's truck took it for a test drive and cracked the windsheild - and then explained that it's not their problem, since it wasn't the result of their actions.

These sorts of things - realizing that I screwed up my life and living, realizing that folks can simply do things to or about my possessions and I have no recourse or relief - have me thinking that St. Francis had the right idea.

Not long ago, we watched "Francesco", with Mickey Rourke playing St. Francis of Assisi (Silas just had a ball with that - see, his name's Francis, and he's from "A Sissy"...oh, never mind :) I really like this film; I have no idea how accurate it is. The production values were poor - the sound is terrible - but the imagery sticks with me.

See, Francis was the son of a wealthy merchant, and God spoke to him - as he said it, "Deus mihi dicit" (God spoke to me) - and he gave all of his possessions away. He gave up not only the possessions that he owned, but his right to his inheritance; when his father took him to court to make him behave, he took off his clothes right there in the courtroom and gave them back to his father, as well.

He said many times that, as soon as he gave away his possessions, he lost all of his fears.

I can understand that - I can appreciate that. I can even believe it.

I just can't imitate it.

Not because I don't want to - oh, I would love to. But you'll notice something about St. Francis - he wasn't married.

Can you imagine what would have happened had he gotten married first, and THEN tried to give away all of his possessions? I am certain that Mrs. St. Francis would have had a few things to say about it.

"You want to give away WHAT?"

"All of our possessions, dear, so that we can be free of fear and live as Jesus intended."

"You mean to tell me that God told you to give away our living room furniture? And what about those drapes, huh? - my GRANDMOTHER left me those drapes! You can just tell Jesus that, if He wants you to give away those drapes, He'll have to tell me about it, too! It wasn't Jesus' grandmother who gave us those drapes, was it, Mr. Oh-So-Holy-You're-Gonna-Live-In-Poverty?"

"But, darling, Deus Mihi Dicit! Deus Mihi Dicit!"

"Don't you 'Deus Mihi Dicit' me! You want me to throw out my good clothes and live on the STREET like TRASH? Now you go get back all those things you gave away, and stop at the store on the way back and pick me up some goat's milk and olives. And don't you be hanging around on the street corners will all those other friars, neither! 'Deus mihi dicit', my foot..."

That's one thing you'll notice about the great spiritual leaders. Most of them were either not married or they were polygamists. It's pretty simple - if you're gonna get married, then marry a whole bunch of women; if you just marry one woman, then she'll spew all of her angst and irritation at you - but if you marry five or six women, then they'll all try to please you and impress you, while backstabbing each other at every opportunity.

(N.B. - my buddy Rocco just came up with a great idea. Just get divorced - then your wife will take everything, and you won't even have to go to the trouble of giving it away. Unfortunately, I tried that with wife #2 - and it didn't work. I figured that I would let her have everything, and then I'd go live on the streets of St. Petersburgh, FL and minister to street people (I picked St. Petersburg because, while I didn't mind being HOMELESS, I didn't wanna be COLD) - anyway, the whole plan backfired. Wife #2 decided that she didn't WANT the stuff - instead, she wanted to go back to San Diego. So there I was, with a burning desire to follow Jesus like it says in Matthew 10:9-10 - "neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves" - and be danged if'n I didn't wind up, instead, with a Pontiac Firebird and a mortgage.)

So at one end of the human experience you have Allen, buying hunting lodges in Alaska and fighting bears for his catch, and at the other end you have St. Francis, in a coarse robe ministering to the lepers. Both worthy endevours, and no mistake.

And in the middle, here I am - no great possessions or triumphs, and no freedom from wanting them.

And I don't even get to be a saint, neither :)