Donny's Ramblings

To me, Halloween 2006 is:

1. My brother’s 30th Birthday
2. A great opportunity to spend a fun night with my son, watching him wander his neighborhood in a really cute penguin costume, overcoming his shyness and knocking on doors because that candy reward is SOOO worth it, dad!

Growing up in Pentecostal churches, I heard all of the legalistic reasons why Halloween shouldn’t be celebrated. Thankfully most Christians don’t seem to have a problem with Halloween anymore. Perhaps on this issue the evangelical population has finally realized that what really matters is what’s inside one’s own heart. Hopefully that attitude will continue to spread into more aspects of life. If we all lighten up a little we’ll enjoy life more.

Those who still have a problem with celebrating Halloween can suck my big toe.

Indulge me as I give a rebellious outsider’s view of one of the reasons why so many people are turned off to God due to his beloved Saints. I’ll call this “What I’ve Learned About God From Watching Christians.” You may find such ramblings to be petty, but judging from the title of this website it still appears to be mine. Neaner Neaner.

Since Brother and Sister Stick-Up-Their-Butt seem to lack a sense of humor, let me assure you I am writing tongue-in-cheek (kinda). I promise not to allow my views of God to be influenced by people. I’ve done that before, which is part of the reason I got to the place where producing porn seemed like a good idea.

After so many years of being away I guess I’d hoped God’s people would have evolved to some higher level of communication in their relationships with both Him and their fellow Christians. Alas, that does not seem to be the case. Please pardon the apparent attitude problem and read on. Perhaps I’m too easily bothered, but I know there are others like me who are bothered by the same seemingly small issues. There’s a point to be made at the end of this blog entry. Kinda like a monster waiting at the end of the book, but better.

From observing the Saints, it appears God made us all to be robots. He wants us to say the same things, and not only that, he wants all of his creation to repeat the same phrases throughout eternity. In every language.

It seems God doesn’t want a “personal relationship” with us after all. He wants a structured one. He has protocol for speaking with or about him, at least that’s how it appears. Brother Stick-Up-His-Butt seems to think we have to speak or pray in certain ways while communicating with God. Pardon me for assuming God hears everything we say and therefore is used to hearing us talk like, well, normal human beings. I’ll try to remember to put on my holiness cloak the next time I pray or speak with a fellow Christian.

It’s only been a month since the surrender and I’m already saying to myself, “I need to stop going to church so often!” I feel God’s presence all over me while praying alone, so perhaps with time I’ll get over my issues and begin to feel more from Him during services.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been loving the sermons. Bill Giovannetti from Neighborhood Church is a great speaker. He delves out information I can use in real life. Kris Vallotton from Bethel is likewise talented. I love listening to both of these men. I just have a problem speaking with some of the church parrots I meet each week. I’ve never been much of a parrot fan.

Donny’s definition of parroting would have to be something like: “when everyone in a particular group of people use the exact same terminology or use the same phrases, over and over and over again”. I get tired of people who think they impress me by speaking verbatim with phrases written a few thousand years ago.

If you walk into a protestant church in just about any country I bet you’d hear them saying the same things Christians say here, just translated into their local language. The same “power phrases” are repeated by everyone. Parrots, I tell ya! Parrots!

“Squawk! Glory to God! Squawk!”

Do people even have a clue what they’re saying? Do they comprehend the words that escape their own mouths? Seriously, now. How many of you, off the top of your head, know what “hallelujah” means? No! no! don’t go look it up. Just tell me what it means. What do you mean you don’t know? If you don’t understand why do you say that word so much?

This morning I drove by a church that had a sign out front advising that “Children’s Hallelujah Night” would be this coming Wednesday. For some reason I don’t feel motivated to take my son to Children’s Hallelujah Night.

“Squawk! Glory in the highest! Squawk!”

Somebody please tell me what that phrase means. Why do we teach each other to repeat it? Why do we teach it to our kids? It doesn’t really mean anything to everyday life.

“Squawk! God is Good! Squawk!”

Of course he’s good. He was good when you told me that last week while shaking my hand with your fake smile. He’ll still be good next week when you repeat that exact same phrase yet again. Sorry if you were expecting me to respond with “yes he is”. I’ll work on that.

“Squawk! God, you reign forever! Squawk!”

I guess God would forget he reigns forever if we didn’t tell him all the time in song.

“Squawk! How awesome is the Lord Most High! Squawk!”

Since Jesus is the “Lord Most High” that might explain why I never hear “Most High” referring to anything in normal conversation, unless I walk in on a group of stoners debating who’s hitting the bong most.

“Squawk! God bless you, brother! Squawk!”

I don’t remember sneezing, but thank you anyway.

“Squawk! Praise the Lord! Squawk!”

Right now? I haven’t even had coffee yet. Maybe later, k?

“Squawk! Squawk!”

I spoke with one Christian girl just a few days ago about some ideas I’ve been having. Because of the words I used, she questioned whether or not my ideas came from some sort of cult. I re-worded my thoughts using terms she’d hear in church and all of a sudden she exclaimed that she totally agreed with what I was saying.

Not everyone is like this, of course. There are Christians who understand a real relationship with God doesn’t require a totally new vocabulary. I am hopeful that number increases as more people experience the freedom of being able to just be themselves… as more people realize they are loved “as-is”.

Wouldn’t it be nice to bring non-Christian friends to church and have them meet real humans instead of robots or parrots?

Last Sunday I met a couple from Pennsylvania, John and Kristi, who had come to town on vacation. A quadriplegic friend of mine asked me to drive her to church so they could pray for her. It wasn’t long ago that Kristi herself was in a wheelchair, unable to walk. She believes God healed her. She’s now able to walk and function as normal.

We spent a total of 10 hours at the church. John mentioned that he was going to rent a pontoon boat and spend the next day on Shasta Lake. He invited me to come along.

A day on Shasta Lake will raise the mood of even the grumpiest sourpuss. We launched the boat at 8:30am. John wanted to head directly to the nearest resort to purchase a fishing license. The lady who’d rented the boat to him included two decent poles and a tackle box filled with enough lures to keep a person busy for weeks.

After a quick stop at Bridge Bay Resort we headed out for the fertile fishing grounds I assured John he would easily find on the world’s greatest lake. He jokingly said a prayer to God to help him catch fish, a prayer God would soon answer.

I told John my favorite way of fishing was to let the line out, get it down 20-40 feet, and troll along slowly. This way the boat did the fishing and I was free to relax and drink a good beer or two or six. John thought the idea sounded great, minus the beer. His drink of preference was Dr. Pepper.

Not long after saying the prayer, John reeled in his line to discover he’d caught this beauty (click to see it). That turned out to be the only catch he made all day.

Later in the afternoon, after sleeping in until 1pm, Belinda called to tell me she’d accept my invitation to spend some time on the boat with us as long as we promised not to preach at her too much. We picked her up at Bridge Bay. She ended up with the biggest catch of the day: a 20-foot pontoon boat!

John’s lesson of the day was to learn to be more specific when praying for fish.

The Drew Marshall Show, billed as “Canada’s Most Listened To Spiritual Talkback Program”, interviewed me live on the radio on October 21st. Today they finally released the recording of the show on their website. Click here to listen to it. You can stream it off the website on that page, or download it to your computer.

Then click on that little envelope icon down there next to the comment link and email this post to everyone in your address book.

Just a quick note:

Growing up a Pastor’s son, I was expected to win Bible quizzes. That being the case, I memorized and studied a lot of scripture. It always bored me. I loved winning Bible knowledge contests, but talking about the Bible, for the most part, bored me almost to tears. It meant nothing to me. I’d never had a “real” experience.

Since September 25th, a lot of that “knowledge” keeps coming back to me, but now it means something. I get excited when something will pop into my mind that made no sense before, yet makes all the sense in the world now.

I’m calling it “new revelations from old knowledge”.

On a side note:

Blogging about things I have problems with seems to be helping. It’s almost like a form of prayer for me. “God, I’m having a problem with _______. I’m going to write about it, accept feedback from your people, and meditate on that feedback.”

Two days ago I wrote about my lack of desire to read the Bible. Today I pulled it out and enjoyed reading several chapters. I’m already realizing that I’ll be the type that needs to dig deep, study word meanings, and understand things for myself. One reader told me to check out Logos software. It’s not currently available for Mac users, but should be early next year. You can bet I’ll pick up a copy as soon as it’s available.

I’m also beginning to enjoy church more than ever before. I text messaged Belinda while on my way to church tonight and told her “Church is Chicken Soup for the Buddha’s soul.” No, I’m not referring to the founder of Buddhism. “Buddha” is a nickname she gave to me (take a look at my stomach and you’ll understand). The name has stuck and now several people call me Buddha… or Donkey Kong, although I don’t remember how or why Donkey Kong came to be.

Thanks again to all of you who leave feedback, write emails or send prayers. It helps so very much.

I am SOOOOOO not looking forward to having a boss again. I have a problem answering to other people. It just gets way down deep under my skin to have another person telling me what to do all the time. I guess it’s time for Donny to learn some valuable lessons, one of which is to humble himself.

Next week I will most likely start working for someone else. In a perfect world visitors would be showing up to this blog by the millions, and each of them would be clicking relevant Google ad links, generating tons of money. Alas, the millions of dollars in advertising revenue isn’t rolling in from simply sharing my life with the world.

If you have no sense of humor, allow me to offer assurance that I didn’t really expect such things to happen. I actually expected life to become much more difficult than what I’ve been experiencing. I expected to hit rock bottom and have a very rough time getting back on my feet. God seems to have other plans. What a relief!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still lose most of my “possessions”. Said possessions include my home. There’s simply no way I can afford a $3600 per month house payment, $1500 per month in car payments (and the insurance that goes with said cars), $2500 per month in support to my ex-wife, and on and on and on… In my former life, bare minimum monthly expenses totaled a hefty five figures per month, not counting payments made to models.

I’m sure there will be times when I miss being able to pay my share of the 2006 Mastercraft X-Star upon which Belinda and I, along with my friend Jamie and numerous other party-loving friends and acquaintances, spent most of this past summer. Jamie and I were partners on the boat, and it currently sits just a few feet from where I am typing this blog entry. That’s not going to remain the case (sorry, Jamie, it’s all yours now… come and get it). I’ll probably miss traveling. I’ll probably miss the ability to go out on a whim and buy almost anything I want.

I know I’ll miss dining out twice a day. I’m not much of a cook.

I can’t begin to describe in one blog entry all of the things money offers. I won’t attempt to deceive you, my Constant Readers, by saying money doesn’t provide for nice life experiences. In my case, it most certainly did. But all of those things combined are so insignificant compared to the beautiful experiences, inner peace and freedom I’ve come to know since surrendering my life to God. Even breathing seems easier than it was before.

In the back of my mind I always had a tiny twinge of guilt about the way I generated income. I’d make up reasons and excuses to justify what I did. I’d tell people I found nothing wrong with my business. I had some pretty decent arguments to support my claims, and I lied to myself so well that sometimes I’d actually believe those lies.
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If you’ve read all of my blog entries since the surrender you’ve probably noticed something: I’ve changed direction more than once. I almost jumped at the first job offer, which would have resulted in a move to Seattle. On a recent interview I had with XXXChurch.com (which is available on their blog) I stated that I’d be moving to San Diego to live with my mother for awhile. I felt I needed to get away from Northern California in order to “clear my head”. I’m still having a problem finding my direction, but some of the great people I’ve been speaking with have assured me it’s normal to feel the need to make drastic changes immediately after giving one’s life to God. “Just calm down a little” seems to be a recurring recommendation.

Two local Pastors have voiced the opinion (on separate occasions and without knowledge of my conversation with the other) that I need to stay right here in the Redding/Chico area. To be honest, I really like that idea. That would keep me close to my son.

Last Friday I interviewed with a company in a nearby city that handles internet marketing services for a handful of well known, large corporations.

Tomorrow I have an interview with a company that, while out of the area, would allow me to spend quite a bit of time with my son.

A good friend made a phone call yesterday which resulted in an offer for local employment with an automobile dealership.

God has provided these good, solid choices. I greatly appreciate that. And so, by this time next week, I’ll be calling someone else “boss”. That may not be what Donny Pauling finds most appealing, but it’s real work. And it will suffice until the time comes for God to use me to help others.

Speaking of those advertising links:

Even though I receive $1 per download, I am not kidding at all when I say you should download Firefox if you’re currently using Internet Explorer. Seriously, just do it. Now. Come back and read the rest of this blog entry after you’ve done so. It’s the best thing you can do for your PC to help avoid getting spyware and viruses. If you insist on using Microsoft Internet Explorer you really should not complain when your computer runs slowly, due to spyware and viruses that could have been prevented by avoiding IE. Firefox is a great browser, and it’s so much better for the health of your computer than using Internet Explorer. I use it myself, and I’m on a Mac. Click here to download it now. It’s free.

Today is exactly one month since “the surrender”. It really feels like much longer than that.

My ex-wife has always been a Christian. I’ve mentioned that before. As such, she has always taken my son to church. I’m telling you this so that I can now make sense of the title for you. It refers to how my son used to sing that song: “The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the book for me…” blah blah blah. You probably know the rest. Caden used to sing it “The Bee Lie Bee Lie Eeee”. I don’t remember how old he was at the time.

On my mind today is the Bible. I have a Life Application Bible, New International Version. I can’t seem to get myself to open it much. I just don’t know where to start. And even when I do open it to some random scripture I can’t seem to spend much time in it. I just close it back up and go for a drive, listening to K-Love. I’m not a big fan of the music played on K-Love but for some reason it still raises my spirits and brings God’s presence into my car. And it’s so much easier than reading the Bible.

I’ve been going to church a lot, and I don’t bring my Bible with me most of the time. That’s partially because one of the churches I keep going back to has wireless internet, so when the message is being given I just log into eBible.com, type in the scripture the preacher mentions, and then see what it says in several different translations. I type fast, so I take a lot of notes in Microsoft Word for Mac, and simply copy and paste the scriptures into those notes.

Then I go home feeling like I’ve done my Bible reading for the day. I can’t be the only one who feels this way, I’m sure.

Thank you so much for your email this morning. I took your advice and purchased Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I’ve begun reading it already. In fact, I just stopped reading at the beginning of Chapter 5 because I was so excited I had to stop to write to you, and since this book has touched me so much already I wanted to do so right here on my blog. So many people read this blog and they need to know what an incredible book this is.

Thank you for taking the time to analyze me and reach out to me in understanding. Yes, you called it right. And I agree, after reading the first 4 chapters, that this book could have been written by me.

I like it so much that I forced Belinda to listen as I read a few chapters to her. She laughed in parts. Yawned in others.

I copied and pasted the email you wrote into Microsoft Word for Mac. I did this because I wanted to see how long your email was so that I could tell on you to those who read my blog. It was 7 pages, man, 7 pages! Two thousand five hundred seventy words, to be exact. And I read every one of those words and was touched that you took the time to write them.

Your email shows that you have an obvious love for people, and you must read people well because you read me perfectly. This is indeed the book I need to be reading right now.

Thank you, my new friend. Thank you very much.

- Donny -

PS: to all the others who recommended this book, thank you as well. This particular person happened to email me a 7 page letter and explained to me (amongst other things) WHY he thought I should be reading this book. And since he made so much effort, I decided to drive down to the Christian bookstore right away. He was right on.

Really quickly I’d like to tell you, Constant Reader, that Playboy doesn’t produce hardcore porn. Their subsidiaries, which the company completely owns in their entirety, produce all of the hardcore titles.

Yes, I find this as silly as you do, but a clarification request was made. Playboy wants to keep the bunny image as softcore. God knows they’d possibly lose some of their fan base if people knew that > Playboy is a > PORN company.

For those who you who wonder what the difference is between hardcore porn and softcore porn let me try to explain. I say TRY, because the lines are apparently a few shades of grey. I was a producer in the business for a long time, yet after the conversation I had today I am a bit confused myself.

Two people having sex with graphic depictions, zooming in on insertion or on one person stimulating the other? Hardcore.

Two people appearing to have sex but no insertion being shown? Softcore, I guess. I say “I guess” because today I’ve been informed that Playboy doesn’t produce “hardcore” porn. And since I’ve seen videos for sale in the Playboy store that depict interaction between two people, videos that have the Bunny stamped on them, yet don’t zoom in on the “business area” while the couple is having sex… well, after today’s conversation I now know that must be softcore porn.

See, I have always been under the assumption that softcore porn involved a model alone, and hardcore involved that model with another person, male or female. Silly me. I apologize for my ignorance.

That hardcore lesbian content I referenced in other posts that we were asked to shoot? That was to be released under the name of one of the companies that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Playboy Enterprises, Inc, but wouldn’t have the Bunny stamped on the cover of the DVDs. Even though the performance of said company affects the stock price of Playboy Enterprises, Inc and even though one can look said company up on Yahoo and find public record that Playboy owns 100% of said company… well, all that matters is that you readers must be made aware that PLAYBOY doesn’t produce HARDCORE content.

SOOOOO… I’ve now told ya. You’ve been informed.

Confused? Me too.

Since surrendering my life to God on September 25th, 2006, I have received so much advice from other people that it’s almost overwhelming. Several different books have been recommended. In response to all of those recommendations I have:

Not read a single one of them!

Why not? Because the number is so large I have no idea where to start. So I’m bringing it here to my blog. Some readers were very helpful recommending music. Let’s see if you can now help me decide what books I should read.

Speaking of reading: I’ve always loved to read. Part of that reason is because my parents threw out the television for 7 years while I was growing up, not long after I started school. That had to have been one of the best things they ever did. Instead of filling my mind with random moving images that held no educational value, I filled my mind with random moving images created by my imagination in response to words I read on paper.

As part of the strengthening process, I am anxious to read something written by Christian authors. I’d like to start with something non-fiction. But it also needs to be interesting.

Anything come to mind?