I'm not NEO and I've never been inside the virtual world of the MATRIX; but in my 40 years I've dodged more than my fair share of Bullets.

Just the other day I was out at my local Walmart shopping for my Aunt Carol. I was working my way down the list rather quickly. Next item to find: Pringles. I needed a can of Pringles and some Pop Tarts and I'd be done. I was walking along fairly slowly, double checking the list when I bumped carts with someone. I looked up, ready to apologize and the silly grin I must have been wearing melted off my face and dripped to the floor.

There in front of me stood a woman who I dated seriously several years back. In like 5 years this was only our second or third face to face encounter. To say that it was an uncomfortable run-in would be a gross understatement of the facts. Our relationship didn't end well at all and I was put in a position at the time of being cast as the Villain of the peace. Seems after all these years that's still the way I'm looked upon by this woman and her family. Oh well.

The point is: If I had stayed with her I would've been eating a bullet-sinking my battleship-going down with the Titanic! We're talking EPIC AND CATASTROPHIC FAILURE ON A COSMIC LEVEL EVEN DOC BROWN FROM BACK TO THE FUTURE COULDN'T COMPREHEND! (That's bad!)

It got me to thinking: How many bullets has the Good Lord allowed me to dodge? How many times have I put my robes of blind and stupid on and then charged out into the freeway like a deer on a mission to die? Probably more times than I want to count.

I've done some dumb things out of ignorance, out of stubbornness, and a few things simply out of even my ability to rationalize why ( and by and large I've always found a way back on the path). Maybe not the easiest path, or the best path, but a path that hurried me away from my own failings. For that, I am most grateful. I keep thinking about that saying that God favors the foolish. Yeah, well, there's also a passage in the Bible that says in effect, "don't tempt the Lord because he'll make ya sorry for it."

I just hope that as painful and embarrassing as my many mistakes have been that I am indeed learning from them enough not to tax God's patience too much!