The life and thoughts of Dave

Weird

2009-06-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

I have been a personal care attendant for several months now and can't find sufficient hours. All I have is ten hours a week. I've been out to a couple other places to interview with clients. One client was the one who's wife spoke for him because he was bedridden. " Do you know how to change diapers on 160 pound man?" she asked me. " I could learn real easy." I replied back. " "I'm sorry, I need someone with experience. " The woman looked very sad that she was not finding anyone qualified to take care of her husband. I was o.k with her reasoning not to hire me. I grew frustrated with the company I work for and I haven't called them for work in several months. It makes me angry that they aren't looking out for me. A couple of days ago, I was reading the paper and this article caught my attention. There was story of this woman who killed her husband because she was too stressed out to take care of him. This was the same lady that had interviewed me. I felt a little angry and sad that she wouldn't have trained me. Her husband would have been alive today and she would not be facing murder charges. I'm not sure if God is trying to show me something here. It really shocked me to hear this. Here is just a face in the news about some man that I never saw, who I was supposed to work for. I wonder if the outcome would have been different if she had hired me.

A poem

2009-06-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Monsters of Guadalupe

Dark pavement hearts
a parade of scowls
and stony pissed off
glares
for the filthy smashed
souls
spit out
of the mouth of
the poverty dinosaur
and the world has more
time to give their
turds to the toilet
than the bums
on Guadalupe St
that give every last misery
to the brown bottle
and lay like dead scarecrows
dehydrating in the sun
the dream babies
of hopeful mothers
and fathers
sucked away
by beer
and whiskey
and heroin
and jail
twenty or thirty
years ago they were
cute beautiful
infants
and now they're just sad
wilted sunflowers
dangling out
the tarnished
trash can
of failure

2009-06-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

The doom and boom economy

2009-06-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

If feel doomed by this economy. It is just starting to sink in that everyone can lose their job. No one is immune to the toll of this. So many people have given up on even looking for one. I am one of them . I don't care anymore about a job. If you do get a job, what if you're looking for another a month later because they've laid you off. Workers don't mean anything to these people (employers). The biggest problem with the world is that there is no such thing as a permanent job or that you're even promised to find one. Everyone thinks they're your dad if you don't have a job. What business is it of theirs that I am not working? I realized that the system is flawed. If there is no work there are no jobs or at least any that have more than fifteen hours a week and don't pay slave wages. These jobs won't make a landlord happy. Try to pay rent with this or even buying groceries if you can't afford a kitchen. I quit. You can not get ahead of your butt in this world if you aren't popular. I don't think I've ever been as disenchanted as I am now. You can be what you want to be if enough people kiss your ass. The power of positive thinking only works with sex symbols and rocket scientists. All the successful black people almost look white. If you are ugly or different or not white enough the world will tell you to go away. I don't care what you tell me, this is the honest to God truth.

Am I crazy

2009-06-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if God picks his days to hear people. Sometimes I think he doesn't listen to me at all. I need to have something tangible from him, so I know for certain that I am not losing my mind. Many times I feel crazy waiting for God. It's a good thing i don't hang with people that tell me I don't have enough faith when my life sucks. I've always sort of believed there was a God. If I hang out with Christians they'll tell me I am right. I honestly hope I am right that there is a Messiah because quite frankly I need one. If I talk to God all the time, why doesn't he speak to me,or at least say good morning. I thank him for the food he gives us and no matter how thankful I am, I never hear," YOUR WELCOME DAVID." If God loves us why doesn't he ever say that. Why doesn't he ever tell us that he loves to give, like we do. It would be a lot different if we could just hear one word in our life from God or if he was even a little nicer and said," David you bring joy to my heart." Or " David you're really screwing up right now!!!!!!!!!!" I want to hear God. I want to be frightened by his voice. If I was horrified at least I would know if he was real for sure. I know God is real, but hallucinations are real if you are done, checked out of this world ,crazy. Why does spirituality feel so unhealthy? Is there a horrible side effect if you really want to have faith? Maybe I do need medication. The crazy people really do hear something that is obviously God to them. If I really did hear God or had a conversation with him, the church would think I'm crazy. So, maybe I'm crazy for wanting to hear the voice of God. If God talked audibly there'd be a lot less confusion. No one could possibly dismiss the fear of the Lord.

I feel wrecked

2009-06-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm such a hypocrite. I long to live righteously and I get tired of hearing people say," Everyone is hypocrite, Dave. " This not how God wants us to live. I hurt inside because no matter how much I pray and fuss I always end up being hypocritical. I long to live in a way that the world will know that Christ lives in me. I have a nasty temper sometimes. It disappoints me ( breaks my heart) that I punch people back when they punch me. Can I have victory over this? I speak hateful towards people who hate me. Sometimes I really wish I was mean enough to seriously hurt them. God does not let me get to carried away but he does allow me to retaliate. I want so bad for God to take this away from me. It gets harder and harder to not be selfish. I long so badly to just die and go be with God sometimes rather than to sin. Sin tears me apart inside, it cuts me to the heart when I disappoint God. The cross is not enough for me because I love God so much, I wish I didn't need God's grace. I wish God just made us perfect. Will somebody pray for me right now? I am bawling right now and I can't even see the page. I hate to think that we are all doomed to be hypocrites. I have destroyed my witness with people because of my anger. I love God, but sometimes I really do hate my life. If I do everything right, everyone will walk all over me. I look like a bitch to all the people who talk trash to me when I don't do something about it. I can't be a man anymore because of Christ. Sometimes I feel like my heart is be pulled in two directions by tractors. Surrendering your life to God really does make you look like a blooming idiot. Christ is making me insane. I am crazy for Christ because I hate this fucking world we live in and most of the time, I hate the people too. This is what happens when you love people too much. You want to see great thing happen in peoples lives and they hate you for hoping and praying for them. I need help, the kind that only God can give me. Where are you God? I wish I could just quit loving God sometimes.

Everyone needs a jerk in their life

2009-06-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

I often prefer friends who anger me from time to time. Though I get angry, it helps me to see where I am living wrong. Offending me can be ugly but if you are in the right, I will tell you so, as soon as I calm down. You can not sharpen iron without a coarse stone, something to scrape it. If you want to stay sharp in Christ , you need to be scraped(rebuked, corrected and trained in righteousness).

2 Timothy 3:15-17 (King James Version)

15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

My feelings have been hurt many times over the years when people point out my faults, but without these moments I never would have grown. Jerks are just like a root canals. Nobody likes them much,but you need them sometimes. If you don't have difficult people in your life your patience will be very low. Some people are hard on you because they care about you. If your friends always makes you happy, you might fall off a cliff someday into some pit of deep woe. You need people to lead and follow and people to frustrate you till it's maddening sometimes. This develops character: Romans 5 (New King James Version)

Romans 5
Faith Triumphs in Trouble
1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have[a] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

My mom used to love this song

2009-04-27T23:27:00.001-07:00

The thirsty mosquito

2009-04-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

I discovered how Satan tries to get me, and by the way he does a good job of it. He tries to get me to be crass and foolish. His hope is that I will start justifying the smallest microscopic work of iniquity. He is like a tiny mosquito( but it hums Beethoven) that can crawl through the smallest crack in the window of your soul. He is loud enough that you can hear him through the glass. You let him in because you love his music. When he gets in, he starts sucking your entire life out of you. He has an appetite bigger than any other mosquito. It really feels beautiful when he bites you and by the time you start to feel it, you are totally drained of the lifeblood ( the holy spirit). This beautiful mosquito knows exactly what music you like. After you smash him, he comes back to life about three weeks later. Then it comes and you hear "Ode to Joy". He tickles your ears and you forget what he did the last time. Then the cycle repeats itself. I The trick is that we need to say to ourselves, "Hmmm... this sounds very familiar..." If we don't, we will have to face the music again. The music is always tantalizing to our ears and we open the window again. Maybe just one day, we'll be smart enough not to open the window. We will always hear the music until the day we die, but we don't have to open the window. He is very cunning, but once we figure out all his games, he isn't even good background music. I wonder if this is it. The slightest voice we hear, that makes us argue with ourselves, might make us fall completely apart again. We need to test the spirits. Here is a passage on this subject from ephesians chapter six.

¹⁰ Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. ¹³
¹⁴ Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵ and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; ¹⁶ above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. ¹⁷ And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; ¹⁸ praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

A possible defeat for Satan?

2009-04-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have been a funk lately. Satan has been really enjoying himself. It seems to be without fail that when you stop reading your bible, everything falls apart. It really is like water, If you don't drink it(read the word, the living water) you start to wilt. The devil likes to trick me into not reading the bible. I have been wrong on my theory of how I read the bible. I usually read a whole lot of it, then stop for several months. I am learning that Satan is waiting for us to get bored of reading...or to get bored of praying and worshiping. I had a revelation today. If you never cease to praise God, there is no possible way that you can sin. The only way this (worship) can be a continual happening is if you are tired of all the spiritual side effects. I repent for my godlessness, right now. I think we can link regression directly to being out of the word. The trick here is just like the trick to not missing church. You have to tell Satan he is a liar and tell God he (Satan) is right about your sin and entirely wrong about where our righteousness comes from. There is absolutely no good reason to stop reading your bible. I get tricked into this a lot. Hopefully this is the beginning of real sanctification in my life. I think I have finally isolated the virus( for myself) that causes me to get sick spiritually. I hope that people can keep me accountable for this. The Word of God is air, without it we start to die in the spirit. If you ain't got no water ( the Word of God) your boat ain't gonna float. I used " ain't" because ain't ain't a word and if you ain't got the word, you ain't got nothing. I see it clear as the moon that this is truly what causes everything to collapse in a person's life. May this be the secret that makes Satan absolutely powerless against us. I know that this is nothing new, but it just finally sank in. Here it is in scripture.

Romans 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Motives

2009-04-27T07:23:00.000-07:00

Everyone has motives, no matter how hard they deny it. If you put two men side by side, who are just as sweet and just as good looking, a woman will take the one with the most money. If women are all about security, they may not stay with their husband if he loses all his money. Money is the leading cause of divorce. Some rather shallow people will pick a lover only because they are beautiful. If this is the case, what happens when they get old? Some people are kind just to get the approval of others. What happens when there is no one around to see their generosity? They're more than likely, no longer generous. The guy who has all the parties, everyone loves this guy. Will people stick around if for some reason he doesn't do parties anymore? I have motives about things and it does upset me. I actually care that I do have motives. If your honest, most people would love to hang out with beautiful people than people who are not blessed with good looks. I think sometimes I am rather shallow in this area too. I need God to help me with this. Will we always be shallow? There are truths that are very painful. Someone is probably thinking, "David stop generalizing!!" I observe that men will stay around longer at a party if there are good looking women there. People hate it when I talk about this? Why don't you see many hideous looking people at parties. Most of the time they are not invited. If an unattractive person is invited to a party, it is because he is able to make a party fun. I have lost confidence in the idea that we are thoughtful people. I'm pretty thoughtless sometimes. I don't want to be, but I am. The truth of human nature scarcely changes when you are Christian. There are changes, but some of it is more pretending than sincerity. We pretend with the hope that things will change. Sometimes this makes me cynical about Christianity. Can we really be righteous? Can our hearts be totally sincere? I feel hopeless in these moments of my wondering and it really makes me doubt God. My heart tells me differently that there is a God.

Vanity

2009-04-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

The things that we deem the most important often don't amount to anything. Some people spend all their energy on being beautiful. This is vain and a form of self worship. These are the ones who make themselves a God. I know that sin is sin, but this might be the most worthless form of worship. Narcissism makes you empty of any value to the world. It takes your soul away. If you're always worshipping your appearance, how can you grow in maturity or spirituality? Everyone looks forward to some event. They spend a thousand dollars for it and years later they barely remember it. I love football. I waste a lot of time talking about it. I get upset if my team loses and doesn't get a decent bowl game and at the end of the year I forget about it. It doesn't matter anymore. We worry so much about being popular, and then we find out that one day a Homecoming Queen will die old and lonely. We all chase after the wind, even if it isn't even windy. Nothing on this Earth will be as important as your judgement from God. I don't have any friends from when I was a kid. People move on and they move further and further away. God is the best friend you'll ever have. He loves you whether you are ugly as a pug dog or as beautiful as a sunny day, and he never leaves you. I promise you that most of life is truly worthless. You don't have to worship your self any more there is a God who really, really LOVES YOU!!, so much more than you know.

Reflections on my 37th birthday

2009-04-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. I am 37 and trying to feel younger every day. Birthdays are kind of like New Years day. You definitely see where you have grown and where you have completely fallen apart. Ten years ago I spent my birthday with my sister in Hawaii. I was also in a transition in my life as I am now. I had lots of energy back then and could do lots of superhuman feats like carry sofas down the street, sometimes three blocks. I used to go to the thrift store and by furniture for my apartment. I seldom knew of anyone who had a truck, so I would carry couches and cabinets over my head. I didn't make many excuses for not doing anything, I thought I was a God of strength. I've spent a few of my birthdays entirely alone without anyone to celebrate it. I have been poor my whole adult life, but fortunately that is not what makes a good person. I used to be quite violent and angry when I was in my twenties. I really hated life and everyone in it. I used to yell and scream at people if I wasn't right or if they even slightly upset me. I was also severely depressed much of the time. If I could live some of these years again, I would have not ever started drinking and I would have tried harder in school. It's so hard to motivate your self when you don't care about anything. I used to see how long I could go without crying, and this I feel was one of my mistakes. I used to be embarrassed to cry. If this is inside of us all( the desire to cry) it must be very natural. Life is really hard when you are sensitive, especially when you are a man. I think in the years I've gotten less sensitive and more proactive. I often long to be sensitive in some of the areas I used to be. I wasted a great deal of my life trying to be " THE MAN". I had more women in my life then, but I felt like my whole life was an act. I didn't feel like I had any substance to me. I am glad I don't get in fist fights anymore. Much of the time I worried about how I would ever get violence out of my life. I owe all my thanks to God, who sanctifies me daily. I need him. If it weren't for his love I would not be alive, to celebrate birthdays. I do see drastic changes in my life. If I could tell you one thing, it is most definitely o.k. to weep if you are a guy. This is what God likes. He loves a man that cries. A man who cries is close to God.

What would God really do?

2009-04-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

I fall on my face a lot when I read the scriptures. The more I read the more it humbles me. I'm not sure what all I am right about. Reading the bible gets hard for me because everything has been forgiven at one time or another. There are places where God goes back on his word. Here is one of several examples of this:

Exodus 32: ¹⁴. "Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened."

This type of language appears quite a few times in the old testament. I know god is not confused or a liar. So, what does this mean. I tell you, honestly, I don't know. Either God is really fair or very forgetful. The Word of God says lots of things and then says the opposite in other places. I don't know how much to take literally because if you do, you won't know what you believe. There are at least fifty doctrines out there. Every one of them believes their right. If this is so, how do you know that you are really living right. This is why I am trying to stop saying anything about God. It used to be a sin to say the word "God" in public. It in itself was blasphemy. He must not have wanted us to say what he going to do. Maybe we might end up feeling ripped off when we go to hell and the people we judged so harshly are wearing crowns on their heads. I am not sure I want to delve too much into the mind of God. What if I am wrong about everything? I wonder if I should just be silent. If I am not God. How can I say what he will do, if there is a possible chance he will change his own mind. If he has before, can he do it again?

2009-04-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

The joy of a nose flute

2009-04-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Last night at my birthday celebration, while we are waiting to eat, my friend Corbyn gave me a present. " I got you a nose flute. I think you will love this and make lots of music with it." He said. I then tried to play it, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Corbyn then told me to let him try it. He figured it out and told me how to do it. So I then got the hang of it and five minutes later, I was able to play an entire scale. Everyone was laughing. I then played the Notre Dame fight song. Everyone was dying with laughter and they lost it when I played a Beethoven song with it. All with my nose. Then we went in and had the best barbecue in The State of Texas. I got the all you can eat. It was absolutely delicious. I had a great time there. On the way home, I played worship songs on the nose flute to Jeff and Kelly. They are my favorite friends of all but are only a few shy points ahead of my other friends. I only pick good friends. They took me home and I went to sleep. I woke up this morning and played jams all morning. I walked to the bus playing the nose harp. I went to the drag and started playing again. I danced all over the place. I noticed a whole lot of people smiling as they walked by. Some were even laughing. I made people fall over when they saw that I was playing music with my nose. I could not stop I tooted all over the place with it. I could tell I was making lots of people feel happy. I played it until my mouth was sore, right about the time the sun went down. I had a blast with it, it was only a two dollar present but it kept me happy and laughing all day. You should have been there.

Maybe I have gone crazy.

2009-04-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

I hope no one ostracizes me for what I'm about to say. I am beginning to wonder if gay people are going to heaven too. Every person is going to die with sin in their heart. No sin is any better than any other. Someone who loves God will die with greed in their heart, and another with porn in his, and another with lust. Every single person will have sin they have not repented for. Check out these verses in the book of Luke.
⁹To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood up and prayed about^a]">[a] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

¹³"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

¹⁴"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

WOW!! Is a gay person any more worthless than a tax collector? Do you have sin in your life? I am not saying I am right, but I do wonder about this. If a gay person dies two weeks after he gets saved, is he going to go to hell if he is still gay? I think we might have it all wrong. I was an alcoholic when I got saved. What if I had died with a bottle of liquor in my hand? Would I have gone to hell? Maybe I have gone crazy. If you think I have, have mercy on me.

Are you sucessful?

2009-04-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

The success of man will not be measured by what he has, or even what he gives away. God wants us to love him above everything we own. He wants us to bless the world with our time and money. Unless you die super rich, you will more than likely die broke. If cancer takes all your money will you be successful, or broke? God gives you what you have to bless the world with, not to hoard it, and to have some personal contest with your self. All joy is in giving. I never see many rich peoplethat look happy. If you have too much stuff give it away to someone who needs it. The bible says that giving will bring you happiness. I have been broke many times and the most joyous times I've ever had was when I didn't have any money at all. There are lots of things that don't even involve money that are fun to do. Volunteering can be lots of fun. God hopes that you will have the heart to do this. Volunteerism is not only a joy for you, but a blessing for others. The world needs you more than you know. There are helpless people out there that really could benefit from your love. People who can't eat on their own would starve if it weren't for the saints of this world. Your money could help to end extreme poverty. Your time could make a life of hell seem a little more comfortable. The rich man gets man's glory, but the glory of God is far from him, if he is selfish. May God show you what you are supposed to do with what you have. One more person's love does make the world a little better.

The essence of freedom

2009-04-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

I have always been a fan of free speech. If I don't agree with someone I would still want them to have the right to say what they want, even if they really make me angry. This freedom is the essence of liberty. If you are not allowed to open your mouth and say what you feel, then you are no longer a free person. I would fight for anyone's right to speak their mind whether they are white supremacists or any other group I cannot stand. Everyone has a right to hate somebody. It may not be godly or right, but in order to have what we want, and to keep it intact, we have to honor everyone else. Our own right to speak is kept intact by other people's right to say what they want to. When you take someone's freedom away, they might retaliate viciously, when their party is in office. The most beautiful part of freedom is the ability to say what you want to without fear. Judges make rules from time to time that dictate what words we are allowed to use. I don't care what anyone says as long as they don't physically harm others. Words are the fruit of belief and if you are not allowed to say what you want to, you're beliefs are persecuted too. The Right Wing is getting a dose of their own medicine now and they hate it. Now they are under attack for speaking out and I don't think this is right either. There is more than enough hatred to go around and no one is profiting from it but Bayer Aspirin and Tylenol. I personally make an effort not to be offended by other people. Sometimes I fail, but I do want to keep free speech intact. I wish you the best as well. Make God set you free from your fear and anger. I hope you get to feel his peace.

An odd sight on Guadalupe St.

2009-04-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

The other day I was standing with my sign at twenty- fourth and Guadalupe and I saw something I'd never seen before. This may have been the saddest sight I've ever seen. I saw three police motorcycles block Guadalupe. "Is this a parade?" I was thinking. Then a hearse and limousine came rolling out of the Methodist church parking lot. There were two cars following them. It was the smallest funeral procession I ever saw. It looked pathetic. It made me wonder. Did anyone like this guy? Was the man a bum, or was he some old man that outlived all his family and friends? I would have gone, if I had known that there weren't going to be many people at this man's funeral. I had to ask myself, "Does this happen a lot?" I've seen more people than this at a prayer meeting and there were ten people there. Does the funeral really say anything about you? Maybe the man had lot's of friends and they lived out of state. The curiosity got to me I stopped to see if I could find out who this funeral was for online just a minute ago. This woman was a teacher for twenty years and had a very small family. I wonder if her friends couldn't make it. She was from Orange. It is kind of a long drive. Maybe all the friends were too old to make the trip. Anyway,it just made me wonder. I hope her friends didn't forget about her. It was still kind of a sad funeral parade. Maybe at the end of your life you just don't have many people left. In the quick sand of memory your friends forget you and you forget all your friends.

It may not be dead

2009-03-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other day and discovered that square dancing, with a little work could really be cool. The biggest complaint I ever heard about it is that people don't enjoy the clothing. The first thing I hear from women is," I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a hoop skirt." A man will typically say, " the music is horrible." Those are the only two things that you hear about usually. What if square dancing was turned into a fashion event and the music was better? There is much hope for this old past time. It is very much part of American dance history. This was a way that people used to socialize. Why did everyone give up so fast on it? They could have recreated it with the times. I used to love watching it, when I was a kid. The dancers always looked so happy. It was obviously something that stimulated thought. I have to agree that the clothing was a little ancient, but it wasn't too horribly bad. It used to make me feel warm inside when we would go to the dance hall on saturday. There was a part of me that really enjoyed see it. I always wanted to do it but the clothing kind of scared me too. It seemed a little weird to wear a towel bar on your pants. Poker was brought back from the dead. Could you possibly do square dancing to hip-hop? I hope that someone is brave enough to rework it

and make it fashionable. It may not be dead.

My days as a carny man

2009-03-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

When I graduated high school my parents (my dad and my stepmother) bought me a train ticket and a suitcase for a graduation present. They more or less threw me out, I was confused and very much in horror. Did they love me? I was on my way to live with my mother, whom I hadn't seen more than three times in the thirteen years they'd been divorced. I lived there for a year and was spoiled for about four months of it. My mother and her husband were getting furious with me because I misused everything they gave me. I was never given anything as a child and they made everything so hard to earn it wasn't worth it. So, I gave up. My mother told me I had to figure out what to do, after a year of living with her. I had no real life experience and so, I joined the carnival. I was terrified, I felt like it was the only choice I had. The hours were very long and the heat was vicious. I hated it. You worked from dawn to midnight. When I was finished at night I would have to stop and rest two or three times before I made it home. This carnival was the last one in the world that traveled by train. The rooms weren't much bigger than closets and the things was roach infested. You slept on what seemed like old prison matresses. At night the roaches would crawl all over you. The living conditions were ripe for misery. The train was often very dreary. I worked for the company for six months as a ride worker and was very exhausted when I quit. The average work week at the fairs was a hundred hours. They paid you a salary of two hundred dollars a week. I will never work for the carnival again. I did love the train rides. it was the only thing I loved about working for them. Most of the people there were hardened ex- criminals or misfits thrown away by there families. I learned to love every single one of them, despite one of them giving me a black eye. As much as I hated the carny life, I never regret the times I had there. Hard gueling nasty work helps you grow up.

The search for reality

2009-03-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

I spent so much of my youth looking for what was real. Something that made me happy or stimulated me was always my classification for reality. If it didn't do anything for me it was not real. I wasted a lot of years looking for this and ended up more and more hurt. The more I tried to be real the more fake I got. One day I got tired of being real and just starting acting like Dave wanted to be and who he really was. Things began to change in my life. Everyone started telling me I was one of the realest people one could ever meet, but I'm not usually their favorite person to hang out with. If you are real, don't expect many people to come knocking on your door. Reality is frightening for a lot of people. Reality is truth. It has the same effect as a snake does. I am real and most of the time I'm real lonely and you will be too, if you decide to be yourself. If you're seeking reality in effect you are looking for social death. Everything is real, the fake people and the things we hate. Take a breath... It's real, whether you are or not. Everything that happens is real. Everyone is a real person, even if they act fake. People act fake, and the act of them being fake is very real. Genuine can also be genuinely fake. Some people are authentic phonies, "The Real McCoy". If your looking for real all you have to do is fart.

Sorrow

2009-03-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

I know nothing

the more I know

and sometimes knowing

when to shut up

is the most important

of all pieces

of knowledge there

is to be had.

And what I know

often makes me sad.

Are there some things

that aren't even worth

the time to hear,

even though

they're

sad as a

closed

casket

funeral.

Maybe God does

not want us to know

about every sad

thing in the

world

all we

would ever be

is sad.

How little things affect beauty.

2009-03-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

Beauty is weird how it works. Someone can be very pretty and be very ugly because they never smile. Little things can make or break people. I am starting to learn the importance of it. I'm growing up, and BOY!! I HATE IT!! The truth is upsetting, but it would make us all better if we took it to heart. If you dress like a slob, people will think you're a slob. Slob represents, "I don't care!" I never really thought about this until today. If you don't care about you, how can anyone entrust their heart to you? Here I am, being a hypocrite, but now I think I understand why it's important to care. If you go out of your way to look ugly, you will make others feel uncomfortable, and sometimes insecure. I feel bad now because there are somethings I may have to give up. Farting is fun, but maybe it does make people look ugly. I wonder how many people are beautiful, but no one can stand to get near their breath. I need to grow up. I hope you do too. I'm getting uncomfortable as I write this, but it's necessary. I need help, I need will power and control. Imagine a world if no one cared and no one showered or brushed their teeth. Everyone would have dog breath, except dogs would smell better. If your date sees you bedroom she may not have any further romantic interest in you. Your bedroom can make you look ugly. Your hair can make you look awful too. You may not care, but your appearance does make other people miserable. I'm discovering that looking nice communicates respect. WOW!! I do feel quite stupid right now. Everything that can cause a bad distraction can effect your image, including belching and farting. I think about me so much sometimes that I don't realize the importance of appearance. I am embarrassed when I think about this. there is more to good hygene than your health.

The mechanics of behavior

2009-03-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

Upon further review, maybe people cannot help who they are a lot of the time. I wonder if I am way too harsh on people. After all, sometimes I'm very nasty to others. I believe now, that everything that is evil is caused by fear. I am making an assumption but, I think the next thing I'm about to say is right. No one, I mean nobody, likes to be fake or mean to others. People are doing everything wrong that they do for a release, of either stress or grief or anger. Everyone is hurting when they do things that are atrocious. I wonder if I need to have more mercy with others. If people knew how to relieve themselves of their misery justly, there would not be any crime. This really makes me wonder if anyone is really bad. It makes me think to the comment that Anne Frank made about the Nazi's," All people no matter how mean they are, are good at heart." Not everyone in the world is going to be liked. Do many people like beets? You can't make people like them, no matter how hard you try. People will eat them if they are very, very hungry, but I don't think many people love them. People will like anyone if they are desperate, but rarely do they want to hang out with the ones that are good for them. Most people like meat and potatoes, the great stuff, but too much of this will kill you. If you only like what excites you, you will never grow. You will never change. As much as people fake love, no one wants to be fake. Some people don't try to change because they are frightened of being hurt. you can't love anyone without getting hurt once in a while, and hurt badly. Some people try and always fail because they're afraid that they aren't genuine. Love takes practice, no matter how weird this idea seems. You have to pretend to love before you actually can. You can't ride a bike without getting hurt the first ten times you ride it. After you fall down a few times you can ride it, and you love it!! Do we love swimming, right when learn how to do it. Love and integrity is a learning process. All behaviors are learned. All your favorite foods are learned, and so, is your ability to love.

The hardest thing to forgive

2009-03-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

The hardest thing I ever forgave has in some ways scarred me for life. It was nineteen ninety four and I was living in Orlando at the time that this event happened. My life was very fast, I would get wasted every night and stay up till almost daylight sometimes. In the month of may of that year, I met a woman named Michelle. She was a very sweet gal and I really began to like her a lot. I was beginning to love her. We would hang out together in this bar called Skinny's every other night, she thought I was very funny and she was starting to feel gooey towards me. I guess she still had feelings for her other boyfriend because the thing between us never became a relationship. After about a month I began to feel like I was being teased. I got angry with her and told her that I just wanted to be friends. I don't know if i meant it. Later that night when I got off work I went and bought her a rose and gave it to her. I was in love with her and she wasn't in love with me. I told her that I would be back later to talk to her. I went and watched amateur boxing at night club that was at that time called Zuma Beach. After watching a couple of really good fights and drinking a few zima's, I went down and chatted with my friend Rambo that sold sausages on Orange Avenue. We talked about all the pretty girls that walked by and laughed and joked until about one- thirty. I walked back over to Skinny's and saw Michelle with another guy, she looked happy and so I did not bother her and I went back to hang out with Rambo. We talked for about another hour, about everything from his days in Chicago to the homeless begging him for sausages. At two- thirty I staggered home drunk to the hotel. I crashed very hard and woke up at noon. I turned on the news and heard," Police are looking for leads in a horrific murder that happened dowtown overnight." Some of the details made me wonder if it was Michelle. I walked down to the scene of the murder which was behind Scruffy Murphy's which was right next door to Skinny's. There were police and crime scene units all over the parking lot. I walked over to the alley that the invstigators were walikng in and out of. I knew it was michelle. " Was that Michelle that was killed? I think this girl I've been seeing is the victim." I said. I was then asked by the FBI to walk into a nearby office to be questioned. That asked me rather intimate questions about her. They told me I was free to go afterwards. The next evening ,they announced that a very sick crime had been committed and announced that the name of the victim was Michelle MgGrath. I was sick for days and got even sicker when I discovered that friends of mine and hers were calling the Crime Line and saying that they thought I had committed the murder. I later took a blood test to clear my name. The FBI profiler was saying all along that I couldn't have done it, I learned later from someone who watched an episode of COURT TV several years later. It took me a few months after they caught the real killer to forgive him. I was sick and sad for several months. I forgave all the people that said that I did it. This took a very long time.

Works without love

2009-03-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

I've done lots of good works in my life, but I haven't always loved doing it. Sometimes i get so caught up in doing the right thing that I actually miss the point. If someone came up to you scowling and gave you a million dollar check and didn't seem happy about it, would you want it? For some reason I don't think I would either. There is something important about being a cheerful giver. It tells someone that you genuinely care about them. God wants you to be happy about what you give to people because he is using you to bless somebody. He wants you to show his love to the world. If someone who is mean and nasty offers me something, often I don't want to accept it. I love a cheerful giver. You can't give the way Gods wants you to if you have reservations about doing it. God doesn't just want you to give. He wants you to give generously. You can not give generously if you don't have love. If you do give someone a large gift, without doing it with the love of God more than likely you do it to make yourself look Good. God wants us to share what we have. If you're not into sharing, may God convince you of who his money belongs too. God gives people stuff in the hopes that they will bless the world with it. May we all do this and please God.

Two miracles at one time

2009-03-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

God decides what he is going to do, no matter how weird we think he is in the manner in which he does it. It is hard to put anything he does in a box. A man,Gary gets done having sex with a prostitute,Rachel, and is surprised to hear her talk about Jesus. She hasn't known Jesus more than a week and she hasn't done heroine the whole time. God was already working on her life even though she is a "dirty filthy bimbo." " I have to stop doing this, I think I really love Jesus," she says in tears. The man starts feeling convicted himself and starts to cry. " I have sinned against God." They grab each other very tightly and weep for several minutes. Gary leaves and says (wailing)," Bye Rachel. May god rescue us from our sin." They embrace each other for several minutes and he leaves. Gary ended up being a preacher and Rachel went to college and later became a school teacher. Five years later they married each other. They had a son, Glory. He ended up playing for the Miami Heat. This is not a true story, but this is not beyond what God can do. I believe that God can help people do whatever their heart desires. He may not always do what you ask him to, but he does have you in mind. God can restore all of your wasted years, and for you, I hope he does. Hope for a miracle every day. Maybe, just one day God will hear you cry out and show his power to you. An ordinary anything can become another ordinary someone else, in an extraordinary way. There is no limit to God.

The most high

2009-03-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

I had an odd supernatural experience this afternoon. I walked into the Campus House of Prayer telling a friend of mine and another woman that my life seemed plagued with ulterior motives. I was at the point of grief about it. I was in tears, telling them that everywhere I looked I saw false motives. I look back on this and think that Satan was trying to make me feel guilty. I say that I want to do all things for God and no matter how much I mean it, I find that motives start to show up. I love God with all my heart, he is all I have, but Satan shows up to remind me that I am alone most of the time. I was absolutely stricken with sorrow. Then my friend got on the piano and started singing and then prayers and weeping and wailing poured out of our mouths. All three of us were sobbing and praying at the top of our lungs and speaking in tongues. I got up out of the chair and started walking around the room exalting God. After several minutes of this, I became amazingly giddy. I started laughing histerically. I ended up on the floor. I felt like my body was a shining light and I felt the peace of God. The ladies left and said good bye after they got done praying. I layed on the floor for a few more minutes. When I got up off the floor, I felt like I was high on marijuana, not just high, but really high.My face felt hot and I was not able to think about much anything for about fifteen minutes.

Is God mean?

2009-03-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Has God been mean to you? Have you ever spent the time to see if it's because of something you are doing? Do you hate him? Maybe you haven't forgiven somebody and your life is in a stagnant spot because of it. The bible says that God does not even hear your prayers, if you have anger in your heart toward somebody. If you are a believer, maybe God is refining you for your purpose. A construction site is ugly and a demolition is even worse. In order for God to change the old that is in you, he has to rip out. More than likely this would be painful and leave you torn in many places. Maybe he is helping you and you don't even know it. God may not answer your prayers, because you pray for the wrong things, which may be poison to your walk with him. Would a loving father buy his son a chainsaw for Christmas, if he didn't even know how to use a hammer. God loves us enough that he looks out for us. He doesn't want you to go to Hell. If god doesn't answer a prayer it means maybe later or NO, possibly for a good reason. Did you ever see Bruce Almighty? The movie was silly but had some very obvious points to it. If God everyone what they wanted at one time, it would more than likely be the worst disaster known to man. God is far more practical than we are. His wisdom makes us look foolish on our best day. I wonder how long it would take me to wreck the world if I was God. Maybe the things he doesn't bless you with are toxic for you? If you knew this, would you thank him? You also cannot expect God to roll out the carpet for you, if you speak nasty about him. He loves you. He is only doing what is in the best interest of your soul. If he is called the lover of our soul he is definitely not trying to damage his reputation. He really does love you. It might take years to see what he will do in your life. So, don't give up hope.

Repentance revisited

2009-03-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

God is not mean, if you walk away from sin. He loves you and does not want anyone to be destroyed. His hope is that you will repent and draw near to him. The law is important and his statutes were not made to be broken. Although righteousness is achieved through Gods spirit, he does want you to strive and hunger for it as well. There is truth in telling people they need to repent, but the ways some people tell us seem contradictory to a loving spirit. I believe that these folks are a turn off. If anyone is teaching you that continual repentance is not important for salvation, you need to stay away from them. They are dangerous to your spiritual health. In effect this is a theology that leads believers to think that they are home free and can live in any bastard way they want to live. I urge you to cling to the law of God and the Old Rugged Cross. I hope that the damage that Zionist Christians have created will be erased by the love of God. May you see your sin as ugly to God, but may you also see the great hope he has for us. Nothing impure can dwell in Heaven that is impure, and the only way purity comes about is through repentance. Be sure and know that anyone who does not have Christ is still under ever letter of the law, down to not eating pork. If you repent you are a Son of God and all wrath will be thrown away, as far the East is from the West. There is no Diplomatic immunity for those who do not repent. Repentance is payment for your passport. It expires every time you sin, and is renewed again by repentance and submission to the law. Grace is your passport, it is the only way into heaven.

Who's an idiot?

2009-03-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Every idea is horrible until it works. Imagine what people thought the first time a surgery was performed. More than likely the first person that had an open heart operation died on the table. The critical eye calls every new thought idiocy. Who is an idiot? What is an idiot? The fool is the one who is too foolish to try something new. When all the old tricks don't work anymore, you have to create wild and new ones. Crazy is the word they use if they aren't sure you're idea will succeed. I wonder how many doubters mocked the Wright Brothers. Did people think that Thomas Edison was out of his gourd? Today we have airplanes and computers and devices, that at one time people never dreamed could exist. The crazy people invent everything and the rich people steal it. Crazies are the backbone of invention. People get jealous if you have a brain on your shoulders. Eggs are very delicious, but you would never know how good they were, if it weren't for the crazy man who ate the first one ever. I could just picture the moment... Some caveman is looking at a white oblong object dropped from a chicken's butt and he says," I want to try that!" In this day and age no one would be that inventive. You're an idiot until someone likes your ideas and crazy can become brilliant and brilliant can become crazy. There is a fine line between brave and crazy. You should never tell anyone what you're doing, if it's out of the box of normalcy( until you're finished). Everyone is crazy until some crazy guy decides that they're not and idiot anymore. Crazy and weird and normal are the most vague words of all. Some people say Hitler was crazy and some say he was brilliant. I think he was brilliant, but he had a lot of sick ideas. (and I think he was a dangerous lunatic).

Why I believe that predestination is absurd

2009-03-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time believing in predestination. This sets God up to be the" fall guy" for everything and leaves people to blame him for their horrible life. I do not believe that a god of love would create someone just for the purpose of going to hell and give them a crappy life on top of it. I have a problem believing that I am just a chess piece for God to get what he wants. If we were indeed just robots, why would he need us to be thinking beings? Why would we need to exist if he already knows where we will end up? I wonder if there are some events that are predestined and others that are own choice. If every decision has been made for us, why do we need to decide anything? Maybe God has a destination picked out for you and you have to decide if you want it. I doubt seriously that God would set himself up to be blamed for everyone's misfortune. That would make him imperfect if he created humans to be little more than crash dummies. A can of corn is predestined to be eaten. A lawn mower was created to cut grass. Predestined to me means that there is no choice in who you become. If all our steps are remote controlled by God, why does he talk so much about rebellion in the old testament. How can you rebel, if God has decided every action that will occur in your life. That would mean that God rebels against himself and he would be a kingdom divided against itself. So God makes you a godless person and he gets to blame you for it?

The importance of correction

2009-03-04T10:58:00.001-08:00

I like to pick friends that aren't afraid to upset me. This is important if you want to grow spiritually and maybe even a necessary part of it. I find that I change the most when people are disappointed in me. It is one of those things that you hate but afterward it's kind of like surgery. It hurts for a while and then you feel better than you ever did. I've learned a lot from difficult teachers and have flourished when I am around them. The things that make you the angriest are quite possibly the things that you need to hear often. If I didn't have people like this in my life, I would probably be in prison. Iron sharpens iron and a feather can not sharpen a sword. Jesus offended people many times in The Gospels. He was not cozy to every person he ran into. Jesus said," I did not come to bring peace but a sword." The bible also says that "the truth is a sword." A sword is unforgiving and lethal and bloody. If this is what the truth is, it definitely shouldn,t feel good when you hear it. I would even think that it would at the least make you cry. It does to me, I cry a lot when I hear the Word of God. Comfort keeps us from growing. Sometimes we need to feel discouraged. Why should we feel encouraged about living out of the will of God?? Some people's behavior should not be encouraged at all, and need to be stiffly scolded for their godlessness. How can we have integrity if no one pushes us to be integral. You should not be afraid to call out someone who calls himself or herself a child of God and acts like a harlot named Charlotte. Grace is for those who repent, not for those who don't care. Jude verse 23 says," on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment that defiled the flesh." If we tolerate sin then it will take over the whole world like a weed, which has started to happen. There is very little standard for honesty in this country anymore because no one has the guts to confront sin boldly.
I encourage you to find someone who isn't afraid to " rain on your parade." I hope that you find someone who makes you angry. It might change your life.

A thought for people who are like me

2009-02-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Every time a person gives up hope the world gets a little more hopeless. There are lots of things in this world that are very disappointing, but do they have to reign over your life. When you run out of hope nothing else will happen. It is the fuel for dreaming and invention and the voice that keeps us alive. Everything was created by hope and even our own birth was a product of it. The world would have ended a long time ago if everyone gave up. There have been plenty of reasons throughout history that would have been good enough for anyone to just throw up their hands and quit. Many Jews hoped long and hard enough to keep living and made it out of the Holocaust. We have had nastier days in history than these, that we are going through now. The end of the world happens when we die. Hard times make life more beautiful when the days are good. Giving up hope, I am beginning to see is selfishness. When you lose hope other people have to suffer and work harder to keep their joy alive. A world without hope is a burial ground and nothing can persevere in it's absence. After you lose hope there is only one thing worth doing, and that is to blow your brains out. I'm not suggesting that you do this. You might hurt a lot of people. Life doesn't care if you hate it. Even if you decide that nobody loves you, there is probably someone who needs you somewhere. No matter how hard a day is, unless you die, there is a tomorrow waiting for you. No two days are exactly the same. So maybe when you wake up one morning, the sun will be shining and there will be someone to bring you bacon and eggs and a smile. Just maybe, this can happen to you. Christmas is every day. We may not like what we get, but there is still Jesus and the hope he gives us for a better day.

A world of prayer

2009-02-16T19:06:00.000-08:00

Imagine how great the world would be if we prayed as much as we gossip. The only benefit of backbiting is that the person that you talk so badly about will learn to stay away from you. We should always speak with respect no matter how angry we get. If you say anything nasty about another person you are not helping to make them a better person. There is a great chance that prayer can help edify someone and help them grow where they need to. I am not perfect about this, but I do realize that we need to live righteously, and in a manner that pleases God. What if the people that you hate(by the way we shouldn't hate others) are praying for your good? If I knew this it would probably shame me. I try very hard to pray for the ones that hate me, even the meanest ones of them all. Prayer is one of the things that most people do at one point or another. It is possibly the only thing that can bring us together in unity. Good could only happen if we live like this; hoping for the love and the joy and prosperity of the people we hate the most. Imagine the energy of this. We wouldn't be able to hate anyone for very long if we pour out our souls for them. More than likely it is impossible. This is not unrealistic. I don't think that others ponder this idea very much. If we pray for others when we think they're wrong, we may get the results we'd like to see out of others. I don't think God has limits. He wants us to live harmoniously. This is the best way to seek peace with one another.

My thoughts on divorce

2009-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

Divorce is more prevalent among Christians than in any other sect or group of people. Why is this? If marriage is a holy institution why are we not the experts at staying married? It would seem that Christians should have the best and happiest marriages. I believe that relationships take lots of work and if you are lazy everything you do will fall apart. It's much easier to run away from a fire than it is to try to put it out. Pride is one of the things that ruin a marriage. I'm sure of it. No one wants to be the one to say I screwed up. No one wants to admit how bad they've been to somebody. When you surrender, you open up yourself to emotional rocketry from your partner and they're going to let you have it( lots of verbal abuse). If you want to heal something you have to go through the pain of healing. This means that you have to take your lumps. I don't believe that any marriage is hopeless, but I will say it is miserable trying to repair them. I've never been married, but I used to hate my stepmother. It took us years, but we worked everything out and now we are best friends. I now call her my mother and treat her as such. I love her so much. When I visit her, we have a total blast and we watch lots of hockey games. We laugh most of them time when we hang out. A marriage is only thrown into the trash when you put it there. If you are lazy you probably won't want to clean up the mess.

The logic of grace

2009-02-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

The darkest, sickest person can be saved. Almost every sin has been forgiven at one point or another in the bible. God wants every heart to repent even in the most heinous of men. He does not want any person to experience hell. I almost believe that repentance is the act of you deciding whether God loves you or not. You actually get to make the decision of whether you're going to hell or not. If repentance forgives all things then therefore the choice is all yours. God loves us all enough that he sent us a Messiah, a way out of darkness, and every form of it. King David killed his servant Uriah and married his wife. Although there was a price for his sin(his son having to die), God still saved his soul and still considered him a blessed one. This is an example of how deep God's grace is. Jesus was crucified with two robbers. One of them had faith enough to ask for his mercy and he was granted eternal life on the cross. Jesus showed mercy and compassion to the woman at the well who had had five husbands. God forgave Paul of blasphemy and bigotry and maybe even (or more than likely) murder. He erased the sins of Mary Magdalene( A WHORE) and showed her mercy before all men. The grace of god is very deep. There is no end to it if you repent,. but if you don't you can possibly lose your salvation.If we are always saved, why do we need to worry about sin, Ever? Why do we need to repent. This is why the theology of once saved always saved does not work. If we"re fine then, why can't we go out and rob a bank,if we have immunity from sin. The bible says we're still going to sin after we're saved. The bible tells us that we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why would we need to have fear and quake if we are permanently sealed? It is not o.k to sin, ever!! But God is Just to forgive it.

The erosion of freedom

2009-02-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

If enough people are offended by everything fun will be illegal. Joy is something that people hate if they don't have it. When they feel terrible inside they like to tear everyone else to shreds, especially if you are you loving life. The more fun you you have when someone is hating life, the nastier they will be to you. You can't hate others unless you're buried in misery. The whole goal of someone who is like this is to destroy all the fun that there is on the planet An agenda is completed and they look for more to pour their wrath. They write letters to the mayor and local government about everything from signs in people's yards to goats living in backyards in their neighborhood. They never stop . The pettier the issue they bring up the more of a guarantee that they want to be God. Leaving others is apparently something that was not taught to them. They are working tirelessly to make sure you are as bored, as much as they are. Fun is their enemy and these people like to scowl at you like you just stole something from them. But the truth is that all the while these people are trying to steal the very smile off your face. Sometimes I think that they just love to pester everyone. Local government loves to listen to these people just because they have money, and lots of it. Over the past twenty five years they've managed to make their own constitution. In their hearts these folks believe that the Bill of Rights is not applicable to today's issues. If the truth be told, the world was more treacherous then, than it is now. The selfishness of these, has eroded our liberty down to jail time. Everything is a crime, even sitting down. They can take you in for this one if they want to. I believe that just being a person will eventually get you arrested, just breathing. People always get offended and always push new laws when they do. When everyone is offended about everything, everything will be a crime.

The thirteenth

2009-02-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

Friday the Thirteenth is usually a blessed day for me. I don't believe I've ever had a bad one. Rarely do I dwell on it's reputation or even if it is true. Nothing bad has ever happened to me in this day that I can remember. Sometimes I think that is the day that God chooses to bless me with things. Today my friends took me out for lunch. So far it has been great not mention Eighty degrees in the middle of February. Isn't God wild? I don't have anything to complain about. It feels very hot oustside, but I can, very easily be happy about that. I've found money on the ground in the deepest desperation of poverty on this day in past years. I don't care about what it signifies. I don't give the devil any credit anymore. I try my hardest to dance on his head. Satan shall not prosper over a heart that loves God. Do people really take the day seriously? I would say that I love Friday the Thirteenth. Does anyone really experience bad luck on this day? If they do, does it have anything at all to do with the date. Half the time I don't even think about it when it comes around. I am usually think about more important things. May God do something beautiful today. I think I usually have a worse fouteenth than thirteenth.

Answers to prayer

2009-02-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

I've been experiencing some wild answers to prayer this week. My friend has some drug issues and a lot of times he seems eaten by it. Some days he tells me that he wants to die and that he has no more reason to live. The sorrow in his life is evident, in his sin he often stops to ask God to forgive him and to help him. For almost two weeks now I have been making efforts to have a consistant prayer life. He has been on my list and I lift him up to God every day. We always hug each other and say hello each day. To me he is a brother of sorts and he confesses his errors to me. Today he told me that he turned down some free drugs and he was amazed at his will power. I told him that I was praying for him. He told me never to stop doing it. Addiction is one of the things I've been praying against. A girl came up to me and said "I quit doing cocaine three days ago and Today I stopped smoking marijuana." This has given my hope quite a jumpstart. I am absolutely stoked about what God is doing. I help this guy on the weekends who is not able to do anything for himself. I dress this guy and do what ever he needs to do that requires his hands. I cooked him a Fillet Mignon Sunday night and the smell and the sight of it made me want one. Of course he didn't have on to offer me and I am too broke to afford anything.
Sometimes I beg when I run out of money. I don't like doing it very much. I had thought to myself how good that steak looked until about Tuesday. I was not able to get it out of my mind for about two days. Then last night, which if you read this late was on a Wednesday, these two sorority girls came up to me ." Are you hungry?" one of them asks me. " I have a steak here in this bag for you. " Aw hell yeah!! They laughed at my excitement. They walked off after a minute of small talk. I opened up the bag and there at the bottom of it was a very beautiful Fillet Mignon. It was still hot. I am amazed at how wild this God of ours is. I have trouble dismissing this as coincidence. God is amazing!!

Beauty

2009-02-10T21:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I dream

of golden streets

lined with jewels

and flying beautiful

creatures

that sing

of how great

you are

for beauty

is becoming

all the days

and wonders

and the pearls

of death

that I

cannot see

and the heart of

an old lady

that's lived longer

than her

very old mother

who died

twenty years

ago

and age makes

a beauty

that

your eyes

can only see

if you care

enough.

It's hard

to care

when no one

else does.

Every year

I see a world

looking more

and more

dead

and hope

becomes

ever more

elusive

like that

little black

mouse you

can never

catch

and

no matter

how hopeful

you are

everyone makes

you feel stupid

for thinking

big

no wonder

there aren't

many dreamers

anymore

they get persecuted

for dreaming

this makes me

feel dead

sometimes

nothing big

happens

if no one

thinks

big

A life with just God

2009-02-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

I wonder sometimes, if faith does have limits. How intimate can you be with a God that never sits down to eat dinner with you? You can't touch him or hold him and for the most part he is very silent. Can God really get rid of all my loneliness? Is he really every bit of what we need? No matter how hard I try to love God above everything else, I fail at it. I really do want to love God in a manner in which that he is all that I desire. My loneliness reminds me that I'm not married. The Call History on my phone tells me that almost no one thinks about me. If God is all that I need, why do I feel so forlorn and deserted? We need each other more than we'd like to admit it. God is my sustainer but I'm still thirsty for a companion. A dog just doesn't fulfill it either, that hole in my soul. In his word God tells us he doesn't want us to be lonely. It seems to be contradictory of his word for someone to tell you that God is enough. When we are ailing health we will find that we need people to help us. We can not live without each other here. Selfishness has told us that we have no use for anyone else. If we did not need each other we would not be able to talk. There would be no need for communication with others. You may think you can do everything on your own, but if this is true, why do we have police and public servants? Why do we have doctors and lawyers? Why do we have plumbers and locksmiths and people specifically hired to wipe your butt if you can't do it? I hope that you notice that God created needs. Someday you might end up lonely and you may not have a pat little answer for your agony. I believe that God completes us the most, but he doesn't do it all by himself. If he did we wouldn't have mothers and fathers for long. We would've been hatched. I am amazed at all the things that others tell you to get you out of their hair. Maybe I would not want them as a friend any way. It would be a waste being involved with a person who tells you dumb things to get out of any kind of social responsibility. Most people who call themselves my friends are never there for me. I have a few saints in my life that do not fail me, but they can not be there all the time. They are very busy ambitious people, but they love me and do the most for me when they can. I hope that my whole life is not like this. It is hell for me in the times when I don't have anyone dedicated to me. I am not totally hopeless, but sometimes I feel like I could just eat a mouth full of sod. It is hard enough just being me. Some days are so bad, I couldn't care if the sun fell on me, but I do love God. I won't stop loving him, but I do feel alone, even if I live in worship all day long. I need a God. He is the only thing that holds me together and keeps me from losing it. I have every excuse to blow my head off, but I probably never will. God does keep my path straight. He keeps me alive and somehow I still manage to say life is precious, when I feel like eating a bullet. I guess I can live a life with just God, but what kind of life?

The bully of our soul

2009-02-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

Guilt is the best weapon that Satan has. He wants us to believe that we have messed so bad that all our forgiveness is gone. Jesus died for all transgressions past, present and future. He will not give up on us. If accepting Christ was a perfect pill, why would we need him anymore? I've spent many days living in despair, not believing the grace that God has. I have a lot to be thankful for. He healed me from many of my days of misery. He forgave the darkness and the evil man that was inside of me. I have a long way to go. I'm still sad about a lot of things. I am full of adoration for God though. The joy of my salvation is the source of any and all happiness that I have. Heaven is truly what I long to see, more than anything else. I am still miserable quite often, but this is not permanent. This is not all that we have to look forward to. There is a life after all of this. Satan uses our misery and our guilt and dread against us. His greatest hope is that we will fall flat on our nose and quit. Guilt used to eat me. I used to cry every time I heard the word Jesus. I was watching a television show one night, about three years ago and things started to change a little. I was watching Jesse Duplantis on TBN one night. I think a lot of those preachers are nutty but this "wacko" changed my life. " If you are worried about cheating on your wife, you should tell her. She won't leave you alone after that." He said. A light clicked on in my head when I heard that. I started confessing my darkness on a hill top. Satan was having less of a grip on my life. I didn't feel so powerless anymore. There is great power in confession. Do you want to get free of sins shackles? Do you long for this freedom? Satan doesn't have power if you don't give him the chance to blame you. That is what he loves to do. His whole goal is to punk you out. Your guilt is no more than the prince of darkness trying to bully you. May God deliver you from his torment. May he show you his liberty... and his love.

Be generous

2009-02-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

God promised us that when we stop being generous that he would pour out poverty on us. In the lsat ten years there has been a war on the poor. People say nastier and nastier things about the homeless. Do they know what it is like to be homeless? If people had half the problems that the homeless do, they wouldn't say anything at all. There seems to be more and more reasons(excuses) to justify oppressing the downtrodden. This is a very hard economic time in this country. There are wealthy people that have lost all their money. No one at this present time is immune to poverty. I am amazed at all the Nazi styled propaganda that is surfacing about the needy. Generosity is a fruit of the spirit, or at least a reflection of it. If you love God, this behavior would be one of the traits that one should expect to see from you. You might be homeless soon. Are you helping to bash your own head? This country is shedding several thousand jobs a month right now. The hiring is far more selective even for the lowest paying, crappy, eleven hour a week job. Enjoy your job and your riches. You may not have any of it tomorrow. The government is having to bail out your lack of generosity. If you don't want to be taxed, then shut up and be generous with your money. Will there be anyone to help you if the world collapses? I pray that you learn how bad it is to be broke. You be amazed how cool God is when you don't have an I-phone or a video game system. Perhaps you should fast from all that, until everyone else can catch up.

2009-02-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

The danger of knowledge

2009-02-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

I think if I could read every book there was, I would be crazy. How would I ever be able to form an oppinion? Every author has them and some of them are dead wrong. It is also easier to read something that doesn't challenge you or make you mad. When this happens we only get the information we want to hear. If you want to be informed and you don't care if the content of the book pokes you in the chest, there is another danger. What if the author of this one is wrong too? If you are an idiot you will most likely read the books of authors who lack sound judement. How do we know who is the true gospel of a subject? Eveyday, a new title comes out with a newer fresher idea or story, but in the end they could be inaccurate as well. Sometimes I think"well read" means, "I have twelve books on philosophy and The Portable Beat Reader." In other words, "I own all the books that every cool and happening hipster owns." There are probably a million books out there and a philosophy for every one of them. I think that the person who has read the most books has very few oppinions. What good are ideas, if they always change and we're always looking for another to replace the last horrible one we discovered. I try to read less and less books because reading too many of them cooks up confusion. You can find lots of material to tickle your ears. In the book of Ecclesiastes it says that the overflow of knowledge will fill you up with sorrow. I used to think I new everything when I was younger. The more I read, the less I know and the less I know, the happier I feel. Books will eat your brain just like the television if you lack moderation. No matter what you believe, your beliefs will always change and so every thought that we have can be meaningless.

The days of my youth

2009-02-04T08:19:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe all the nastiness in my life that God has forgiven. I am amazed at how God continues to change me. The violent streak in me is almost gone. Alcohol is a social thing for me and is not my life blood anymore. I don't ever try to get drunk anymore. I am starting to understand my parents and the harshness they displayed toward me as a kid. I was wild as a gibbon and I don't know if anyone could handle me. Maybe someone who was a little meaner would have shot me. I was given a life anarchy until I was seven. I was rarely spanked for anything. Me and this kid named Chucky decided one day that we would play with some matches. It was right after Christmas and we had plenty of paper to light on fire. We did not know what fire could do. Fortunately, we got the cheapest lesson you can get about the danger it. The grass in his yard had not been mowed for a month or two and it was really high. Chucky lit a piece of ribbon and the flame burnt his finger. The pain made him throw it to the ground. The grass was dried out from lack of watering and erupted in to flame chucky and I were kicking and stomping at the flames. Chucky was shreiking in fear. "My mom is going to cook my ass for this one!!. Oh shit!!" I was eaten by horror. Then I heard a window open. " CHUCKEEEEE????!!!" I hauled ass to the house faster than diarhea. I through on my pajamas and got into bed. The air was consumed with sirens. My mom ,who was in her bedroom, didn't hear me come in. She ran out of the house to see what was going on. Fifteen minutes later she came back in the house and called me out into the living room. "Were you over at Chucky's house playing with matches?" I said,"Chucky did everything, which he did, but I didn't tell her that it was my idea." That kid is bad news!! You need to stay the hell away from him!! Do you understand me?" "Yes mom..." I was so glad his house did not catch fire. One side of the yard was blacker than asphalt.I did lots of really naughty stuff. I was very smart for my age and covered things up better than gravy. I thought I could get away with anything. I commited a burglary in someone's backyard when I was five. I thought the lady next door was awful nice. A very nice christian woman. So, I tore up her newspaper one day, just to see if I could make her mad. Honestly, I didn't think she would be. I got to see her wrath later. It isn't pretty when an angel gets mad. I got in a fair amount of trouble for that one. For the most part my parents were invisible. It almost seemed like they didn't care even notice that I was alive most of the time. I was quite a pirate. My parents were separated a lot of the time. one day thing got nastier and nastier between my mom and dad. He starting hitting her with a belt. I had never seen my mom cry before. It killed me inside. I felt so bad for her. When I was six my parents divorced. My mother and my sister and I left California and my dad behind. The night before we left, my dad said. "Your mother doesn't love you, but I do." We flew to D.C and stayed at my grandmother's house. She really did not like me. All of a sudden there were rules. I did not know that they existed. When she got mad at me she would dig into my arms like a cat. There were always deep purple gouges in my arms from her doing that. I was afraid of her. She was as close to a monster as you could get. I was inside of a nightmare. We moved away from there into an apartment. I went back to live with her for a month when my mom had gall bladder surgery. I cried all the way to her house. To my amazement she did not touch me even once while my mother was gone. She was very sweet to me , like a grandmother. But Iwas still terrified of her. After what seemed like forever I went back to live with my mother. She(my mother) was at work all the time and we rarely saw her. In the summer it was back to good old anarchy again. I would share all the food in the fridge with the neighborhood. There was nothing when my mom came home. Amazingly, she would just laugh her head off at me. She would just die at my boldness. I got away with everything again. It was great. Then she found this boyfriend named Dennis. He didn't put up with any crap. He would spank me a lot for the things I did. Sometimes, he was really cool and that was the greatest. He would watch these really cool violent movies on t.v. I wanted to be all the bad guys. One day I decided that it would be cool to pull a knife on a lttle girl. I got in some ass scalding water for that one. Then the last straw came. A little boy named Kipper hit me with a wooden baseball bat on the leg. It really hurt I picked up a plastic one and hit him as hard in the face as I could with it. He ran of screaming like an injured cat. I was frozen with fear. It was martial law from then on. I was grounded like a prisoner for a month or two . The state threatened to take me away. My mom threw me to my dad as fast as she could. I was excited to go live with him. I did not know that it would not be so horrific. I was spanked all the time for things and was always in trouble, no matter how hard I tried not to be. I spent years being scared of my stepmother. Things got so bad that I didn't care how bad I pissed them off. The punishments got more and more severe until I was almost always locked in my bedroom. I wished that i had never been born on many days. I felt like I was in hell. I really began to believe that they would kill me if they could get off on it. I was a terror. I don't know if it was all my fault . I thank God for his mercy every day. I am no longer that horrible kid. I am loved by this great God. I am so greatful for his grace. By his love I never ended up in prison.

A wild crazy song

2009-02-03T05:54:00.001-08:00

God has never left

2009-02-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

When you hit the bottom of life's ocean, you realize how much you need God. When everything is good we forget who he is. One thing goes bad and we say," Where is God?" I tend to forget where he brought me from and the misery I was in when I found him. A man's memory lasts a minute beyond the news. It's weird that we remember the bad things that others do more than the awful days of our own life. The memories of blessings don't stick around much longer than the weather. How do we lose these movies so fast? The worst things in our life somehow become the foggiest memoirs of all. I don't usually hang on to all the details. Sometimes we totally lose sight of how good God is. We forget to praise him when things are great. We know that there are germs on our hands and we never forget that they're their. You can't see a microbe but you know that they live on everything and every where, but we do not remember God who is omnipresent. It's amazing!! We know that we need to wash our hands but don't even think that our souls need cleaning. A dirty hand will outlive a dirty soul. God is in every square inch of the Earth, even if he did leave us he wouldn't be far away. God promises that he won't ever forget us. It is written in John 10:28, "And I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. God does not leave us and he never will. God is holding onto you in your dark days of doubt. It is hard to fully know God if you own lots of things and life is always perfect for you. How can you have intimacy with God if you are intimate most with your possessions? If you love anything more than God you will know it...hmm...the empty feeling you get when you're burnt out on your toys? If you truly love God how can you burn out on him?

A different type of abuse

2009-02-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

After a whole life of different nasty types of abuse from people, I discovered a form of it that can destroy your whole soul. This is a long story, but I will get to my point. Ten years ago I had a severe meltdown into depression. My father had died the year before and I could not suck down the feelings anymore. I never dealt with it, I didn't have time or the money. When you work bad jobs, you don't have the luxury to take time to heal from a death in the family. Anyone would go broke from doing this. One day I had enough of sorrow, more than a plate could hold and I just walked out of my job. I sat around and lived on public housing until I got the inherritance. It was about ten thousand dollars. On a whim, I ran to the greyhound and got on the bus. I went down to Mexico. I was amazed out how wild the place was. You could buy someone's soul down there for four hundred dollars. or so it seemed. I drank(which I no longer do anymore to get drunk) and hung out at random peoples houses that I met. Everyone wanted your money. I spent money on all the things you should not spend it on. I was severely depressed and in need intimacy. On the edge of my life, I had decided I would kill myself when the money was gone. I had sex with prostitutes and did very nasty things with them. This destroyed my heart, I knew I was sick and needed lots of help. I cried every day and got more and more sad. That and the Montezuma's revenge made me want to die. I wanted my mom and my dad and a thousand angels to come hold me. I knew I had blown it and thought that God would never forgive me. I was not able to commit suicide. I whittled down the money faster than I had thought. I called and asked my mom if I could come home and stay for a while. She didn't seem even bothered that I asked. I rode the train to Washington state worried about myself like I had never been before. I stayed at my mom's house and cried and looked for a job and could not find one. I went to Spokane a few times to distract myself from my misery. I loved Spokane. The place seemed almost perfect to live. I was too drained to look for work, so, I didn't make any effort to set up there. I left Washington when the money ran low. I was falling apart and need some arms to fall into. I rode the Greyhound to Kansas City to see a friend of mine who at the time wintered in Austin. We spent a few great days together and then I had to figure out something because I only had a thousand dollars left. I was getting more and more frail emotionally and crying at the drop of a hat. I felt like my soul was fingernails that were dug into the edge of a cliff. I was falling into a deep lake of misery. I met this girl one day and she brought me and another homeless guy to a lunch party at her house. I tryed to tell them about me, but I could not stop crying. They took me to church with them. I took Jesus back that night. I felt a little comfort for the first time in months. I still did not know what to do. The next day I went back there to the church to see if they could help me. Everyone there said they could not do anything for me. I fell down under a tree in front of the church, full of sorrow and wept. This big guy named mike, that I had met the day before at a the party walked out of the church. He came up to me and said, "Are you still crying? Weren't you crying yesterday?" I nodded my head and said that I didn't care if I died underneath the tree, I don't think I've ever felt so sad before or since then. I was just sorrow. He invited me out to lunch with his girlfriend and I cried all the way there and all the way through lunch. "You know, Pastor Troy is building a ranch for summer retreats, maybe he can use your help." This was enough to get me to stop crying. He let me sleep in his apartment under the church that night. The next day he introduced me to Troy. They did a criminal background check on me and then sent me to work at the camp the days were long and hard sometimes sixteen hours. I learned that they didn't pay you anything and barely fed you. When I was so hungry and exhausted that I couldn't take it and I hitchhiked back to K.C. I called Troy and told him his camp sucked. He then told me I could stay at his house. I started working there at the church as a janitor. I confronted him and told him I wanted to see some money for my work. He said," I can only pay a hundred and fifty every two weeks. You can stay at my house until Mike gets married. Then you can live in the apartment." I worked all the time with the church;it seemed like every minute. The paychecks were always very late and sometimes I starved. I would see Troy go out and eat with ten people all the time. He always had money to eat out, but he didn't care about the men that worked for him. Temper seemd to be a major part of his life. He yelled at everyone that worked for him. I heard him insult people.Sometimes he would insult me about my weight or my appearance. He and his staff would manipulate you and tell you that life was not all about you if, if you didn't let them suck up every minute of your life. They would tell you that God wanted you to submit to them. They always sat around and surfed the internet. After a while, I realized that Troy would always give these sermons that made it easy for him to manipulate you. They were always very similar in nature. "Shut up no one want to hear your drama" "No one wants to be around a fat person" Almost all of his sermons were in some way insulting and elitist. My whole experience there was for the most part, a giant guilt trip. I stopped going after a while and eventually left K.C. I came back to Austin totally exhausted about church. For the most part I try not to get to involved too deeply with church. I don't want to be hurt how I was ever again. Spiritual abuse is the worst kind ever. There is no one to run to when you hate church. I love God enough that I was able to recover from all the damage. Don't let anyone manipulate you.

AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE

2009-02-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

Quote

Talking about YouTube - Genesis - Land Of Confusion

Fear God?

2009-02-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

There are Christians out there that have no fear of hell. Peace is one of the things God blesses us with, but you can only obtain it if you live with a heart of worship. Godliness is the state of adoration of God's spirit. You cannot be holy if you have no respect or reverence for his grace and mercy. If you have no fear of God then you would not care about his mercy. This is why the terror of God is important as well. This fear is what keeps us righteous. Fear keeps us appreciative of his grace. We should rest in his grace but not live in it. Grace is not Mardi Gras, but forgiveness. This indicates that the law still exists. If the law did not exist there would be no need for God's atonement. Coziness will lead people straight to hell. Mercy is given to us. It is not a right of passage. If the bible says that there will be Christians in hell, it must mean that some doctrines are wrong. If you are told that it is o.k. to sin, then you are probably being fed heresy. A relationship with Christ is not an open season to sin. Why do we need to repent if sin is okay? Why do we need Jesus, if the law is totally dead? If the law is dead, why do we still have jails? It is important to realize the purpose of grace. If grace was anarchy they would call it that. There will not be immoral or unclean people in heaven. Jesus cleans our heart, but it is not supposed to pursue filthiness. We are to live in away that honors God. If you are not changing, God does not live inside of you. If you truly love God you will always long to change. His word is what convicts us, and if we twist it, we are ignoring God. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Sometimes people should be fretting about there sin. Are you afraid of God's wrath? At times every one of us should be. The bible says that God does have anger.

About the homeless

2009-01-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

We live in the richest country in the world and we have homeless people. Do you know children don't grow up longing to live on the streets? They have names that were given to them, in hopes that they would have the best in life. Most of them were made up of the dreams of their mothers. At one time someone really loved them. It is hard to make it in life when people don't love you. There are people in this world that noone can love enough. God made us all to need each other and we try our hardest not to need anyone. We are going against nature. We need to stop asking why someone is homeless and start seeing if there is anything that will help them. You cannot be lazy and homeless. It takes an immense amount of work live like this. All you ever think about is food and when you will find it again. You can't go out and look for a job often, because you won't get to eat. I don't know why people hate others who are flailing in despair. They kick you the hardest when you're down on the ground. I don't ever see a manager at a business ask homeless people if they need work. I've heard people say that they don't hire bums. I think people who tell the homeless to get jobs should get punched for it. They sure as hell wouldn't hire the person themselves. I hope that so many jobs are lost that the people with the loudest mouths will know what it is like to be destitute. They have all the answers for the homeless and they've never gone without a lunch in their life. I'm glad these people know so much about the streets, they'll find out how little they know when if they end up here. Some people have an answer for everything. I hope they get to find out what it's like to live like this. Maybe they would learn to shut their mouth.

The discovered truth of Ecclesiastes

2009-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

I am starting to wonder if much is really important in this world. Everything we hope and dream for ends up being boring if we (by some miracle of God) get what we want. The dream is more exciting than it happening. Once it comes true, then we have to dream again. I used to be real excited about getting laid when I was younger, the feeling that I had afterwards was always shame, no matter how great it felt. The odd thing is that after you've done it two or three full nights, it starts to feel more and more like work. It's amazing how bad you can feel about doing something that's natural. Sex used to be the only thing I ever thought about. I wish I had waited until I married somebody. This is a stain on me. It doesn't go away easy. So, the trophies in a man's mind, aren't as good, once he has a lot of them. Naked girls start looking like naked girls, instead of godesses. One day you don't care about getting laid. You just end up sickened by your self. It is definately not as important as I one thought. I still think I would love sex, but it is part of something and something else completes it. It doesn't make you complete. It will make you empty if you misuse it. Love completes sex and I hope I don't slip up in this again. I want to wait until I'm married, I really do. I think marriage would be great, but for how long? I am afraid that if I had a wife I would get sick of her. I worry that I would be a lousy husband. I want a wife, but I wonder if you can really love somebody forever. I'm scared that I can't. This is supposed to be one of the most important things in life, but as I get older it just sound like pure terror. What good is a beautiful wife if she doesn't love you? You die and people forget about you. There are graves that noone knows about anymore. Everything seems like a waste, even if God has a reason for them. I hate life more and more, and I love God more and more. He is the only relevent thing on this Earth. Everything elses kind of makes me sad in the end.

How real is real?

2009-01-22T12:45:00.000-08:00

How do we avoid being fake? It seems impossible and even with God it doesnt't change much. I wonder why this is. I don't want to be plastic with people. No matter how much I try, there are people in this world I don't care about. It even saddens me that I am phony. I wonder in my heart if there is any hope for me. It doesn't seem to get any easier, no matter how hard I try to fix it. The more effort I make to be real, the more artificial I feel. Is this possible to love with an undying love. Why does love die? Aren't we made to love each other as God loved us? I wonder sometimes if God is even in me. Why do I care if I can't do it? This leaves me baffled as a squirrel in traffic. The wall in my chest never seems to leave no matter how much I want it to. It doesn't like to let people in very far. I need help with this. Why do I care if I'm hurt? I've been hurt most of my life. I wonder sometimes if what I seek is a gifting that only certain people have. Maybe there are certain levels of compassion. I wonder if we are all called to love in different ways. This is a deep mystery to me. I will not stop seeking the answer to this. Is it possible to rejoice in our sufferings? Maybe it's a process. I don't want God to catch me like this when I die. It is very weird that it is so hard to do what Jesus asked us to do. He gave us one commandment that is harder than all of the rest of them put together. Is this love made up? Is this too high of a standard? God knows who we are and he wouldn't set us up for failure. Are you stumped yet. I weep for every sad heart and lost soul screaming for help. I don't know that I love them. I don't know if I'm doing enough. Do you ever feel like this? Do you care as much as I do?

Quote

Talking about YouTube - love (john lennon)

The weakness of atheism

2009-01-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

I hear atheists sometimes tell me I am weak because I need God. This is true to a point, but I think everyone is emotionally frail without him. Jesus came for the weak and the strong. For the weak at heart to feel strong and for the strong to realize that their strength doesn't compare to God's. What good is emotional durability?... if you get to go to hell in the end? To me, I feel that atheism is where the weakest ones end up. I don't wish ill of them. It is harder to admit there is a God than it is to deny him. Church is full of people who ignore the call of God. No one calls them out on it. If you really believe in Christ, you will want to quit serving him all the time because of the persecution you recieve. Jesus promised that christianity was not going to an easy way of life. The inability to serve God is weakness. I am not weak. Tribulation comes more when you are a follower than if you don't give a damn. There is power in God, he is the vindicator of the weak ones. Many of the atheists I meet are rather pernicious and reptilian in nature. How do they get so angry that they hate who made them. I love them even though they are trifling. I hope God shows them that they are feeble and that they need him too. God wants their hearts as much as mine. Atheism bothers me. It creates the perfect enviroment for lack of morals. I've seen the power of God. Atheists don't seem to have a whole lot of power in this world. May they have lots of luck being the real haters. They are the haters. If you hate God you have to be venomous with hatred.

What does an Angel look like?

2009-01-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

Angels don't necessarily look like something michaelangelo painted. The word angel means "messenger." Sometimes the spirit of God enters a person right here on earth to deliver a message or a blessing to someone. You don't have to see some creature floating in the air or an orb of light to have seen an angel. Sometimes they are filthy and homeless and sometimes they stand in the pulpit. What does a messenger of God look like? I wonder sometimes if I've entertained angels unaware. What if you ignore an angel because of his appearance? We should treat everyone like they are angels, even the people we hate. You might miss out on a blessing if you think you are too good for somebody. What if God really wanted to tell you something but you didn't want to listen to some dirty man sitting on a street corner. Angels come in different shapes, sizes and dimensions. Some might have wings and some might not have a fiery glow to them. You could miss an angel because you wouldn't talk to someone who had half of their face blown off. Angels can be ugly or use a walker. God has no limits of who he'll use to shame the wise. The Holy Spirit loves every human being and operates however he wants to too. The Holy Spirit gave a donkey the ability to talk to his master(2 Peter 2:16). This proves that you do not know how God will choose to speak. If you believe the bible ,you must accept all of it. The word of God is incomplete without reading every word of it. If you do not think miracles can happen then you don't have a real honest belief of God. God can make an angel out of a can of green beans if he wants to. He came as an angel in the midst of a burning bush and said , Moses!! Moses!! and then he said," Here I am. If God will appear as a bush he could appear in a can of Bush beans can't he. You don't kow what an angel looks like. So, be vigilent and expcet that God may want to talk to you. Hebrew 13:2 says," Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels unaware.

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Talking about YouTube - Possible Angel Caught on Video

Inside a lonely heart

2009-01-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

If you love people more than they love you, you're crazy. It is sad that you are not allowed to do this. What do you do when you love others so much and they don't love you. It is a crime to care too much. Some would say that it is called stalking. I have a problem like this. I don't want to harm anyone, I just want to love people. I don't think that this is fair. You can get up to a year in jail just for liking someone and persuing them when they don't want to be around you. It's sad when your not loved. I've grown more accustomed to it. This used to really kill me inside, but I have Jesus now. Whether I am accepted or not by the world, I have a much larger prize then any other relationship. Loneliness is a one word description of my entire life. I get so used to it sometimes and don't want to hang out with someone when they ask me. Why is the world like this? It just doesn't seem like this would happen in a place that is run by a perfect god. I guess it is a plan that God has, to get me to need him? No one is happy enough, in whatever place they are at for long. I don't even know if I care that I am happy or not anymore. It just seems like a waste of time to persue happiness because it doesn't hang around for much time. Joy is far deeper. It is an emotion you can have in the worst days of your life. There is an odd verse in the bible that says," Count it all joy when you fall into various trials." I hunger for this ability, sometimes I think I am getting closer. God does not unite us as much as we'd like him to. I believe God, that there are betters days to come... but I may have to die first. My hope is not on Earth anymore. I've lost my mind for god. Who else is there? Heaven is all I think about. this place is dead... there is nothing here that excites me more than the day I get to see my father in heaven. Imagine if there was no God.

The consequence for greed

2009-01-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

You will go to hell if you believe you are not supposed to help out the poor. This is an obligation if you serve God. You cannot serve God and your own greed. Mark my words. There is poverty in this country and oppression that keeps people from being employed. You may dream up ways in your head to say it is not true but you are a liar. I hope God has mercy on you for being pigheaded and not repenting of it. God knows about this and he will not forgive it, if you go to your deathbed not caring about it. This happened in the bible,where a man went to hell for not feeding a poor man. I don't understand why people think they will get off on their selfishness. Rest confident in your greed be a tightwad with everything you have, see what happens when you die. The poor of this Earth are special to God and they are his. Does he say that the rich are his? He says exactly the opposite. This is what he did say," It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kindom of heaven." I would not try to play with verses and say that this not true. You are going to fry in hell if you love money more than you love God or his people. This is not a threat this is a promise. I don't believe that God makes threats to people. Generosity is a fruit of love and if you do not have it, you don't have love. I don't care how nice of a person you think you are. If you are not kind to the poor you have no respect for God. Don't think that God is going to overlook any kind of unrepentence. I promise you he will surely not. I am sick of being gentle about this. The word of God will not be erased just because you hate what it says. Is your bible three pages thick? There are multiple thousands of verses in the bible. Read it well and know that it is an abomination to neglect poverty. Is this a hammer over your head? Well, good,maybe you need it. if you hate the poor and the homeless, I refuse to be your brother in Christ because I don't think God wants me eating or praying with you. I hope you repent soon.

A hope for the end of bigotry.

2009-01-20T12:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't imagine what it is like to be black. The hardship must be hard to bear. I have a rough time being poor and relatively uneducated. To have all this and be black would be far too much for me. Today forty some odd years after the civil rights movements, we still have racial discrimination in hiring. So just being black would make it rather difficult for a person to get a job anywhere. I'd don't think that minorities have the same fair shake that we do. They get discriminated against when trying to get an apartment.It's still happening today. We have made vast improvements, but I believe that we are regressing a little bit. There is a lot more to be done. We need to outshine all the deepest hatred with love. I regret that sometimes I have prejudices. I pray every day about this. I wish that I did not hate people. "Oh God have mercy on our bigotry," I pray. Why can't we start and forget every wrong that a person does to us, whether they're black or white. We need to have love in our hearts for everyone if we are to be forgiven by God. God does not forgive anything if there is no love in our hearts. He doesn't even hear our prayers. We might as well be talking to the moon if our hearts are filled with racism. I am happy for the blacks and their first president. May he do a lot of healing to our country. America needs it. What if one day,you end up living in an all black neighborhood when you are dying, and there is only hatred to be offered. You will go without help when you need it most. Hatred will one day, full on wreck this country if we continue in this manner. I believe that political correctness eventually breeds bigotry. So, we need to be careful that we are not too gentle or to mean or we will sound racist. God bless America and let us strive for peace and unity that pleases our god. Today is a day of hope for our people that every race may get the respect they deserve. Who would ever think that we would see the day? May God bless Barak Obama and us all.

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Talking about YouTube - Inauguration Aretha Franklin Inauguration Musical 2009

A poem I just wrote

2009-01-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

Rescued

My hopes and my dreams

were a whirling

commode of despair

having lost all sight

of life and its beauty

I was dead

even with

my beating heart

alive

no longer living

inide

my earthy soul

hungry

for death

and torn up

dried out by

tears

and hating the

light of day

nothing had

any meaning

I was dead

the core of my being

growing

more and more

lifeless

I felt like

a rag doll

tattered

by a dog

and rained on

for days

and one day

I met you

and all my misery

blew away

Oh God

this is what

I'd still be

if I never

found

you

2009-01-16T20:19:00.003-08:00

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Talking about YouTube - Emperor Constantine

The author of lies

2009-01-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

One of the names that Satan has is the "great deceiver." Liars can't lie as good as he does. He is also called the "Author of lies. Hell is a place, he doesn't want you to believe in. If you do, and you believe you could end up there, he loses his grip on your soul. The biggest lie demons whisper in your ear is that God is unforgiving. Satan does not want you know about God's grace. His lies keep you shackled to despair and to condemnation. God does not want you to go to hell. If you go to hell, it is very much your own decision. The spirit of God has to be rejected in order for you to go there. You have decided that something else is a god above the "Most High God." There is nothing greater than He. The latter prophets such as the "Lady of Guadalupe" and Joseph Smith, as well as buddha, are likely false angels of light. The bible warns us to stay away from people who teach a different gospel than what was originally taught. Their are lots of prophetic angels but not all of them are from the"God of Jacob." There is only one true God,and he would have to be the most perfect being of all. I don't believe there are many ways to God. If this was so, there would be many Gods and many gospels. The Romans and the Greeks believed in this idea. None of them do anymore. The first christians were fed to lions and dismembered in front of the whole world to see. It was a public event. There were so few of them. Many years later a roman officer, what today is called a general(Constantine) was changed by the Holy Spirit. God showed him that the gods of Rome were not real. In a vision, he was told. that if his army bore the cross as their symbol, he would walk away victorious. The odds were greatly against him. He triumphed!! He went on to become the emperor.Jesus outlived every mythological god. If there was more than one true God, then the Gods would always be fighting. The whole world would be chaos, with many Gods pouring out wrath at one time. If there are that many Gods, then it would make us more confused than we are. Three of the four main religions believe in the "God of Jacob." And most religions believe that Jesus was at least a prophet. I know of two other religious groups that are waiting for a Messiah. It has been two thousand years since Jesus walked the Earth. Most people believe he was very powerful. There has not been any other religion that has claimed a Messiah...none with the authority that Jesus had, before his coming or after. 2 corinthians 11:14 says that," Satan masquerades as an angel of light." So there are false angels and prophets out there. It is important to pray about every angel you hear and ask God if it's real.

WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE YOU READ THE NEXT POST

2009-01-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

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Talking about YouTube - Real ghost caught on CCTV in hotel elevator, Singapore

My thoughts on paranormal events

2009-01-15T16:55:00.001-08:00

Paranormal activity is real and unimagined. I believe in UFOs and ghosts and demonic manifestations. These are not only documented happenings but are becoming more and more substantiated. I don't believe in them in the same truth as most people would. The undead are spirits, but they are spiritual deception. These phenomenons are demonic activity that makes efforts to convince us that God is not real. These are actual attacks on our soul. Satan is doing his best to trick us. He can have his way with you, if you believe that God is a well plotted hoax. This is not all my own idea, but I am convinced of such. When these aliens abduct people, why do they return the bodies? This is odd. They could take their specimens with them and study them on their planet. It would cost them a lot less money. Now ghosts puzzle me too. What good does it do for a soul to walk around, and do the same activity for a hundred or so years? What objective is obtained by this? What do they learn? They might know how to open doors quieter than they have in the past, but this rarely happens. Is there any purpose behind them opening and closing doors? They can't eat or do laundry. Why don't they at least clean the toilets for you? Isn't it their house? I wonder if they get really bored. Their is no good spiritual purpose for ghosts. What do they need a house for if they don't get cold? Why do they need their house at all. It might be a possible punishment for loving your possessions more than God. I don't have any answers, but I do believe, that old specter in your house is a deception. If you don't believe in God, there is a very good chance that you are going to hell. Now I don't want you to think that I'm in any way attacking you, I just believe that it is so. I hope with all my heart that you don't end up there. I love you.

About Drama

2009-01-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we make things bigger than we need to. Most of our hardships are a like a train moving through town. They're here long enough for us to know about them, but they do disappear. I've gotten upset a lot over things, that ten minutes later I wouldn't even care about anymore. If you have a brain, there is a way out of almost every circumstance we run into. When I stop freaking out about what has just happened, I feel stupid. The remedy was not as bad as I thought it would be... nothing is broken... and I still have my teeth. There are very few five- alarm emergencies in a persons life, and if there are, there are people who get paid lots of money to help you out. They usually roar down the street and they let you know that they are coming. You can hear them ten blocks a way. If you aren't broken or smashed or dismembered or sick... it is not an emergency. Most trials that come our way vanish as fast they came ,if you have a calm mind. A clear head solves things faster than if you panic. The most extreme things, sometimes, are easier to handle than the smaller things. You don't have much time to think sometimes, but it works out best if you are able to think fast. You can't do that if you freak out. I wonder if we are all thirsty for drama. Yelling and screaming doesn't solve any problem. Drama is only for the theater. People don't wan to hear it, unless they pay for it. May be we do like drama. It is really expensive to go and see a play. For me I don't have a need for it.

A POEM I WROTE SEVERAL YEARS AGO

2009-01-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

New Orleans

Is it an old city

that wears black clothes

and grieves for it's soul

in the purplish grey light

that wakens winter's sad morning

and muddy shredded sleeping boots

hanging of benches by the river

I mean the tramps

and it cries through the eyes

of sick old haggard men

who sit on the steps

by the river

smoking Bugler

where water licks their shoes

and between bites of stale

yesterday pastries

they long for the love

they cannot get

and their dead mothers

and more "Mad Dog"

and me for

more beer

and this old city is a

grey mourning lady who cries too

and the hope in her arms

is a dead terrier

shrieking for life

from it's eyes

for the song of

horses hooves at night

and carriage wheels

and piano blues drifting out

windows to the

ears of the moon

for the ghosts of what

she dreamed of

not to be the

dreams of ghosts but what

she wanted them to

and this is the real blues

the unsung song

that no one has sang

that sings without lips

to the ships

and Algiers and

my emptiness and

a dawn that wants to

orange but can't

and I am slurped

out of my skull

a numb empty cranium

freshly pulled from

ill luck's

bag of crawfish

and my heart

is a faucet

that wants to cry

for this old city

that seems like

it wants to die.

The blame for tragedy

2009-01-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

It is wrong to blame God for all the bad things that happen. Many of the tragic events in the world have nothing to do with him. If you eat twenty cupcakes a day,you may end up having a heart attack. You have cancer because of your twelve pack a week cigarette habit. That's two hundred and forty more than you need to inhale. Driving after nine in the evening increases your chances of dying in a car crash, especially an alcohol related fatality. Walking around in poorly lit areas alone may put your life in added danger. Are you starting to get the point at all? Most untimely deaths are caused by either alcohol or making bad judgement calls. You shouldn't do things that have high risks. This tempts God. Most murders happen late at night. If you are out partying it up, You may not be in control enough to be aware of your surroundings. How is god at fault when you add risk to your life? I believe that God does have some involvement when people tempt him or people have cursed themselves. You should be very careful about what you say... right now I'm being a hypocrite. You can say things that anger God enough to strike you dead. I believe it. The bible says that " you reap what you sow." A lot of christians will tell you that God doesn't punish people anymore. I've experienced it in my own life. If you make poor choices you will suffer greatly. This is an indicator that everything has a punishment. Smoking, drinking and drugs all have diseases associated with them. Gluttony has a punishment. Married people usually don't catch STDs unless someone is cheating. You are more than likely to get aids if you are gay or a prostitute or an IV drug user. All of these things that promote sickness and death are forbidden in the"Holy Bible." God does pour wrath out on people who hate him. If I offend you by this, I have only stated the obvious,possible consequences of promiscuity and lawlessness. Every sin can have a very serious punishment. I hope you don't think I'm just some God nut, I love you. I want you to know that everything has a cost. If you die early, more than likely it is of something that you did.

In the pain of activism

2009-01-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

The battles of life can be immense on your soul. There are so many tragedies and sorrows sometimes, that anyone will feel helpless. Everyone who has a bleeding heart wants to save the world. You alone cannot save it. This can then make someone callous to sadness. Defeat is the birth of bitterness. The only way not to be defeated is to expect that you may not win. The activists in this world are very strong. You can't do it for years and not have your heart torn up at least once. It makes everything in you crumble when you don't get enough people to see injustice. Some people say," Those children in Africa will starve because nobody cares enough." This is the wrong attitude. Jesus was one man and he changed the whole world. Mohamed was one man. Ghandi was one man. The Pope is one man .Martin Luther King was one man. Every struggle and every belief meets resistance. What if Nelson Mandela gave up and decided that jail was not an option. Cruel governments have collapsed because of persistence. People discovered, maybe way to late, that Bush was not a good president. Many people went to jail for speaking out and were persecuted by the radio pundits. You never know what activism will end up doing. The power of God is the end impossibility. He is not limited in his miracles. Joseph was a prisoner who ended up being a king. Mandela walked out of prison as a political cantidate and then was elected president. You never know what is going to happen in this wild, crazy world because... there is a God. The hopeless have been vindicated before. God is amazing and you cannot lose sight of that. This story is nothing short of a miracle. God does hear us. In these places, in these lands of the heartbroken.... the people SING!!!... without clothes or food or shoes . We don't sing in America when life sucks. These people's hearts are shredded and they don't stop praising God. That is why miracles like this happen. Do not give up on what you believe in. One day your world of peace may come and if I'm wrong about that, Jesus will. Miracles happen every day, but no one wants to give God any credit. Hope is all we have and it is the "Father of Everything". Hope is faith and faith is God. Nothing is impossible. Impossible is a word used by people who don't believe God. When he comes out of the sky everyone will be devastated to their knees and they will weep, even his people. Don't quit on God... he loves us and he knows of every sorrow...He can take away the pain of your soul... he doesn't care about how bad you've been, he cares about how good you want to be. He will heal every sad heart that has truly had enough of the world. Do you want God to save you? The word changes one bloody heart at a time and sometimes many. God never ever gives up and neither should you.

I love you enough to make you hate me

2009-01-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

A hypocrite might be aggravating and make you hate God. I can understand that, but the thing I've discovered is,is that there are all sorts of them. I would say that everyone has been one at one time or another. We are broken people and we need God. The truth does not change whether the person who tells it is living it or not. This is what we need to focus on. You can find violent vegans and hippies that hate people and anti -war activists that are willing to fight police. So, are you a hypocrite? I imagine that we all want to be good people even if we seem hateful. I want to. Sometimes the truth about the bible makes people very angry. Nobody likes to hear that God is not happy with them. There are things in the "Word of God" that bug me and even irk me. There are things that make me feel guilty. If the bible says homosexuality is wrong, I have to honor that, whether I like it or not. If I am am totally living out the "Word of God" then I am going say things that will "CHEESE"people who are living in sin. I would like hear that I can behave however I want to, but I don't rule the Earth. I am not God. I don't care if I make you angry. I care about you enough to tell you things that hurt. Is this hatred ?Am I telling you that God hates you. No. I love you so much that I'm willing to have you hate me for my words. I don't care if you hate me I'm just doing what God told me to do. I'm not judging you. Jesus said, " I did not come to bring peace, but a sword". A sword does not make you feel good. The bible also says that "the truth is a sword". Jesus will make people hate if they don't honor his word. I wish people would not confuse love with hatred... they are so close. Love is more than just joy. Someone who loves you will try to stop you from falling off a cliff and someone who doesn't care will stand there and watch you fall. If I try to shove away from the edge.... it could be painful... but I still love you. God is not a hypocrite... he loves you and you should not let the behavior of others separate you from the saviour. God knows who does what and he forgives hypocrites and he forgives you. Rest your soul in that.

WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE YOU READ THE NEXT POST

2009-01-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

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Talking about YouTube - A Little Good News

God talks to us in the newspaper

2009-01-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

If you look at the newspaper more than likely something will make you sad. I believe that God made them so that we would know that life is fragile. Our sorrow should not stop us from reading it. The world needs hope and if you shut your eyes and ears there is no one to pray for better days. God wants us to pray for each other. We need to be there when broken souls cannot be strong enough to talk to God. Bad news helps us need him. If everything is always great and gooey we will forget who made us. What if bad news decreased because of our intimacy with God. He is the "Hope of nations." What good is a God who does nothing? I would not believe in a deity that had no power. This God has more power the a warehouse of hemmies. Prayer is the cure for everything that is curable. We cannot possibly need God if we are comfortable. Comfort will kill your spirit. It will mush your mind flat as a potato. If we did not love comfort so much, the world would be a radically different place. Do you love it when people pray for you? I don't know about you, but I need lots of prayer. There are people in despair, right as I am speaking now. These souls need us!!!!!!!!!... our prayers... our hope for them, these people who saw the last flicker a long time ago. There are lots of sad souls out there that need Christ. When your warm and calmed in the life boat... it's time to search for more bodies.... that need to be rescued. You are part of the hope of the world. Don't you see this? Do you get it. This world is not about you and never will it be. This Earth is about God. There are lot's of smashed hearts out there that need a "Messiah". Don't forsake the newspaper. It is one of our links with God and it will always give you something to pray about.

A PARTY FOR THE CHRIST

2009-01-12T22:14:00.000-08:00

People get wild and zany at parties and get excited for weeks about the national championship, football and basketball and every other. You won't find a church that has a hundred thousand in attendance in America. The bars and the avenues are packed up on the weekends but you won't find that kind of crowd Sunday morning. I would love to go hear a sermon and a sea of roaring worshippers around me. Nobody gets as excited about God as they do about their favorite team. God did something that The Florida Gators could never do. He saved you from going to hell by sending Jesus. Are you excited about this? Does your soul scream for him? It is something to be very excited about. Everything looks pale to me when I get deep down with Christ? We should throw a huge party every month just for Jesus. We can scream and throw our hands in the air and have a huge loud blast of joy and worship our savior. I get this excited for church. Every single Sunday is a God Festival. You should hang out with me. I get crazy when I praise God. He is all I have and all I will ever need. This God of mine is not fake and he breathes life into me. He can give all this to you... love... joy...peace... patience... kindness... faithfulness... gentleness and self control. Nothing else in the world will give you this to the level that God does. And still the world is not ecstatic about God. Are you excited yet? Is your hair on fire? I hope it is. There is no one like God. Lets get this party started. I brought some music along with me. Are you ready to rock out for Jesus? HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! (For maximum effect press music button after this article)

A reflection on music

2009-01-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

Every tribe in the world dances and has it's own music. In the most remote parts of the Earth you will find people playing drums and wind instruments. I am led to believe that it is part of our spiritual being. In the book of Genesis in 4:21 it says Jubal was the father of all those who play harp and flute. God created us to be musical. The bible says that there will be music in heaven. It even says that all the saved souls will sing a song in together . This is absolutely wild to me that music was important enough to talk about in the word of God. The world today does not think its important for children to learn about music in school. I wonder what God thinks of this. God must love music too. I wonder what the music sounds like in heaven. If it is a perfect place then everyone should dig the tunes there. I wish more people played the harp. It is almost a forgotten instrument. There was this girl that I knew a few years ago who learned how to play harp at the university. One day I see her at 23rd and Guadalupe playing the most beautiful song I'd ever heard on the street. Everyone was stopping to listen to her. At one point there was a crowd of twenty people and they kept putting money in her basket. This was probably one of my most memorable happenings hanging out on the drag. I was real happy for her. I know why they used the harp so much back in the days of the prophets. You hear it and you think that God is going to come out of the sky. It is like chocolate on the tongue to my ears. God has to love music. If we are made in his image than for sure he must. I wonder if he even dances.

The cold world around us

2009-01-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I look around me and wonder if the love in this world is growing cold. Every year people get stiffer and a bit more nastier. Less and less people say "hello' when you're walking down the street. They glare at me. It's real hard to keep from losing it sometimes. I feel like I'm from another planet sometimes. They used tell you in the eighties to be yourself. I am myself. I don't think a lot of people really like who I am. What's wrong with having fun? Why can't I be zany? That is what I like. I think people tell you to be yourself so they can kick you the rest of your life. Every day I am sucked into the idea of conforming to boredom or being normal as they call it. The world wants you to work lots of hours, shut up and hate your life. I don't do either and I don't hate my life and people hate me for not hating it. I wish things were not so weird in this world. What if all the people who say random smart comments to you in the grocery store are right about what they say. And you say"oka-aaay" like they are retarded. What if you are retarded? There are people who are destroyed in life and others continue to hurt them by not making them feel valid. It gets harder for me to cope with. I promise you if you love your life more than anyone else, they will kick at you to no end. The greatest crime that you can commit is to enjoy your life, just ask the people in China. They don't want large crowds of people being freed from the "dumb shit". Enjoy you're life how you really want to and the cops will show up. I am never going to cave into this crap. I'm going to enjoy my days here that God gave me. Life is waiting for you to give up and eat cow shit. Oh, if you don't like me saying "shit", I'll tell you, every living thing makes it. I think we should say "shit" because every time someone says "poop" they sound like a five year old. There is no such thing as freedom because you're only free if you're doing the same things that other people do. The world puts so much emphasis on success. I see all the successful people. They can buy everything they want but then they still hate their life. Is this what makes people grow cold?They have more stuff than a jungle but they don't ever have time to use it. They spend money to get the dust off their toys because they are so busy. They are miserable because they are too greedy. If you wait until you retire to enjoy life,more than likely you'll be to old to enjoy it. If you let your love grow cold enough you might end up lonely and so much that no one will talk to you after a while. If you pretend to be happy long enough it's like piano lessons or anything else. You will end up being that happiest person.......... you can only become the best if you practice more than everyone else.

IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL

2009-01-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

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Talking about YouTube - It is well with my soul

My dad

2009-01-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

My dad was a quiet man, you only knew he existed if he was mad. Once in a great while he would laugh about something. He rarely ever said a word to anyone. His mind I'd say was not usually on planet Earth. I only know that he worked at a Nuclear power plant and that he was in vietnam for thirteen months and he was a medic. I knew him for twenty-seven years. He died without me knowing much about him. My dad was a corpse long before he died. He didn't live life or seem to enjoy it. We had one or to civil conversations in the whole time I knew him, There was nothing living inside of him. Almost all of twenty years his face was glued to the television. I wonder if the radiation at work ate his brain. Is it normal for your dad not to talk to you for twenty-seven years? Very strange of a man I think. I didn't end up at all like him. But I'm exactly the opposite of him and I'M STRANGE. I am the funniest person in my whole family. I don't feel that my sister and brother have a sense of humor. Where did I come from? I'm the only person in my family that loves adventure. I love wild and crazy and ridiculous. I refuse to allow any of my days to be crappy if I can help it. There is too much fun to be had to just waste a life thinking of disasters. I try to celebrate every single day. My life could be miserable if I wanted it to. I probably have more excuses than anyone to not be happy. I wish my dad had been like me. I wish that someone was like me. I don't know what my dad wanted me to become but I don't think I care either, because I would never want to be him. I still struggle in my mind at how to love him. The minister at his funeral said, "Emmett loved People but he didn't know how to show it." Crazy that a preacher would say that. Well I hope my dad went to heaven. Maybe he is happy there. I hope that his soul is at peace.

The hope of tomorrow

2009-01-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

In one second you can ruin all the days of your life. You can fall off a cliff or go to prison forever in the blink of an eye. You never know what will happen one breath into the future. One minute it's ninety degrees and the next minute it's eighty-three and the next day it could be snowing(. at least with the insane weather that Austin has). A brick might fall on your head right where you're standing and then you're struck dead on your birthday. The WHOLE WORLD changed in a day, after nine-eleven. God does what he wants to and he might even lift you up out of your days of hell..... and maybe not. I once heard someone say "yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery ,but today.... is a present. " It is the only thing you have to live for in the moment...... you might be gone on Monday. Enjoy what you have, you might get it yanked away before you quit whining. There's music to be heard and beautiful souls to see and bright sunny days you're missing while you sit around and "belly ache." You don't know what God has in store for you. I don't know what he has for me. My hope is a pesky fly. It does not go away easy because I know there is a God. My hope does not die. No matter how terrible the day, because the sun rises and the the sun sets and even they're not all the same. Today might be your best one ever. You don't know who is thinking about you. A tooth brush is a blessing and so is a smile and a breath of fresh air. You'll know how much a blessing life is when you can't breathe. There may be a job for you tomorrow or a new friend or a new fresh song in your ear. Sorrow is like the weather, it goes away. I rarely cry about the sad days I had in the past. Every day is a new day and its your choice if you let it fly away. You can sit around and eat worms, but why, when you can have cake . You don't know what's around the corner...... it just might be your day!! Dreams are made up of hard work and sorrow and many bowls of Ramen. I hope you live to see one come true...... Bless you.

A morning without church

2009-01-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

I can't go to church this morning, some bug has got me . Church is one of the things I love the most. For a long time I was hating it. Wherever I worship the spirit will come, but something about church just blows the hair off my head. Though the music tickles my ears, I don't believe that that is what makes me lose it. Little Richard will make me dance my backside up a mountain, but it doesn't fill me with the soul of God. My soul doesn't sing when I sing" My SOUL SINGS" I howl to that song and cry. I lose control of myself sometimes when I start my praise engine. I feel like a screaming jet whose wheels almost get off the runway. Sometimes I think if I got anymore revved up I could fly. Worship really is food to me, rocket fuel for my week. Do you ever feel God like this? I wonder sometime if I am crazy because of how much I long to hear God's voice. Every morning I look in the Bible to see if God is trying to tell me something, just for me. I need to hear stuff like this..... When I feel like my life has no meaning and I dig my fingers deep into the cliff of sanity.......... screaming at the sky in despair. I always hear God in some way. A lot of the time it's not what I want to hear. I need church. It is my backbone. I need God to help me love the people there. Some people like to steal your joy at church. "Oh God help me love them......" How do you love someone as God has loved you? I don't care if I'm pretty enough for church. Am I pretty enough for God? Are you pretty enough for God? Is your soul pretty? That is what God will see, only the beauty of your soul. I go to church for God.... because I love him..... more than my harmonica.... more than my cd..... I want to throw it away. I don't want to be a musician anymore. I just want to love God. Maybe God will never bring me a wife but his gift surpasses any joy of marriage."God I love you......you are my dad.....and I don't care what you give me, for I will praise your name when I eat dust or when I am in lake of misery. The things of this Earth are growing very dim for me. I breath your hope God. Nothing means anything to me, no matter how much joy I have. Without you Oh God I am just a fire slowly burning out to blow away in the wind.... to become nothing......... nothing but ashes. Oh God tell me today that I'm not crazy. I need you........ more than my life. I am hungry for your word...... Lord, give me peace today. May all the people of this Earth see your glory. I hope I haven't lost my mind, but if I have, maybe the mind that I have now is better."

Crazy beliefs are as crazy as all the others

2009-01-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

Everything is a myth until it happens and we're all dumb enough to believe in something stupid. I'm discovering that people aren't any more crazier than me or any less. No matter what you think about God or creation you will sound weird to somebody. Some of us think that we were carried to Earth by space ships. I've encountered a few weird hippies that believe God is a woman. A few tell me that God is made up of everything in the universe. That would mean that everyone is God. I know that I'm not God.... I can't be......... I need him too much. These people wouldn't tell to your face, but they're hungry for Jesus too. So, I don't think that God is everything but everything is made up of him. I don't believe that anyone is wrong for what they believe, even though they make me angry. But sometimes I wonder why should I be upset.....I don't want anyone mad at my beliefs. The hardest thing in the world to change is the heart of another human. It's an impossible feat. You can't make a dog be a human but sometimes a dog will try to be one on his own. The more I think about this ,the more I feel we should all leave each other alone. If you told someone who lived in a place that never ever saw the sun you could not convince them of the existence of daylight. The peace of God should be enough for us all. Everyday I am more and more glad that I am not God. If I was I'd probably just retire. We need to stop trying to play God. Did you get the beliefs you have by someone shoving them down your throat? People don't necessarily believe what they want to, they just base their beliefs on the craziness of this world. That is how everyone decides what is really true. If you go to China or Turkey or Mexico or any other country you'll find out that they often don't think like Americans do. If China has the most people, maybe we don't think the way most people do. So, have some fun. Learn how to play a fiddle. Grab yourself a milkshake and be happy you don't believe what some people do. Enjoy your life and maybe a cheeseburger or two and if you're a vegetarian eats some tofu. Peace...........

BOB ROCKS THE WORLD

2009-01-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

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Talking about YouTube - Slow Train Coming - 06 Do Right to Me Baby

Road trip of July 2007

2009-01-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

I had enough of life and darted off on a bus to Oregon, dreaming of better days. My heart could not take anymore of Texas for a while. Leaving with just a smile and duffel bag and no job to return to, I looked at the sky and said," God will take care of me." I love the greyhound. There are so many beautiful things you can see, that you can't in an airplane. It gives you an insane amount of time to get some sanity. That is, if you want be sane. A bus is a gigantic short story book waiting to be written. There are fights and broken hearts and people weeping and loud shouts for Joy. And crazy people and nasty bus drivers that yell at the top of their lungs sometimes. And conversations to deep for a scuba diver . Once in a while someone will have a stroke. The Greyhound is a two day movie. You just don't know what will ever happen. So it's always a joy for me to take the bus. Two days later we're Just outside of Grants Pass, Oregon. I kept thinking about my friend Anthea, who lived there. I called her up asked her,"Could you use some company for a week?" WHAT??!!! ARE YOU KIDDING??!!! I am so glad you're here. You know its so weird because I have the day off today."

"I'll be there in about 20 minutes."I said. " I 'm SO EXCITED Dave". She was standing there waving as happy as four old in a candy shop when the bus showed up. We walked for five miles to her house because there was no bus and she had only a bicycle. We laughed and joked and picked up[ dinner on the way to her house. I was really glad to see her. We ate lunch together for a few days and I loved the town . It was very quiet you could hear your own heart when you got off into the neighborhoods. You could almost hear voices in your brain. It was so quiet. I did lots of Jesus placards there. The main road in the downtown area was a fairly major highway. I loved the place. You saw thousand of cars pouring through there but not many people stopped in the town. The town was extremely beautiful. They had this really pretty, old style soda fountain in the drugstore. I sat in there for most of two days drinking floats and ice cream sodas. They were so delicious. You could stay there for a week with ten dollars. All the drinks were ridiculously cheap. I talked with quite a few wonderful souls at that place. The town was so green. Every morning it smells like pine trees . I wondered why they didn't name the town "Christmas." Too bad they don't have many jobs there. I went to an a Assembly of God church to visit on Sunday, the people there were very stuffy and almost mean. Maybe because I was wearing a tie- dye and my red plaid hat. A week and a half got me wondering what other beautiful secrets Oregon had . So I took the bus to Eugene. Eugene was just as green but most of the forest was on the edge of town. Eugene has lots of nice people but they smoke a lot of weed there. So much that they aren't afraid to sell it downtown in front of God and everybody. I never saw so many beautiful tie-dyes in one town. Everyone was complimenting my Tie-dye. I went down to the river a few times and meditated and stared at the water. The parks are very quiet there. I was on a quest to find hippy christians. The second time I went to the park I saw this building with a group homeless people eating beside it. I walked inside of the building and there were all these older people wearing tie-dyes and they were singing worship songs along with a guitar. "Are you guys really christians?"I asked. The guy playing the guitar asked," What does a Christian look like?" "I don't know, but the white Jesus looks a lot like a hippy." I replied with a big smile. There were lots of cool things about Eugene but I didn't really know why I didn't like it. I stayed there for about five days. Then I got back on the bus and went to Portland. It was too pretty of a city for me. There was too much green there. I don't like a whole lot of green. It looked like Starbuck's owned the town. I hated it. I decided that the next day I'd ride home to washington State to see my mother. I stayed there for eight months.

ON BEING NEEDED

2009-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

I've had issues with feeling needed in my life. It's been a lonely journey most of the time. What does it really mean to be needed? People can't handle their life so they ask you to help them across their river of fire. Is that what being needed means? Are we all yearning to be someone's smoke trooper? Maybe I don't need to be needed that way. Is their a difference between being loved and being needed? I don't really think there is a difference in the world of man. You always hear people say when they break up with somebody," I love him/her but we're not in love anymore." This means that he/she is played out and" I want another movie." If we don't tickle each other for a season or two it's over. I've heard people say "I can't love someone if they don't have anything I need." If love consists of what people can do for you then it is one sided. Do you ever do anything for anyone just because you love them? My picture of human love is very scratched up. I wonder if it even exists at all. There are doubts in my mind that make me believe love is a fictional word, kind of like freedom. You're free but you are never really free and you are loved but you're never really loved either. Sometimes this world really confuses me.

Miracles on Guadalupe St.

2009-01-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

There have been some things happening on Guadalupe St lately that is affirming my faith . I keep seeing dirty, smelly, homeless punkrockers and hippies and gypsies looking at me like I'm "the Messiah". I am only delivering the message. I've had to tell people I'm not Jesus. This is very weird and awkward when people ask you ," Are you "the Messiah or a prophet or something?" I get revelations that are way beyond my own mind sometimes. God does say that prophesy is a gift of the holy spirit. I've also seen more and more of these people reading bibles. I hold signs on the street and see eyes melt into sorrow when they read them, and in some tears. A guy I've known of for years (whom I don't particularly care for) has started to beg me to talk to him about Jesus. he goes to prison a lot and gets out after a couple of years. So there are long stretches where I don't see him. I don't ever miss him. Sometimes I wonder if he will ever stay out of trouble. I don't trust him. Maybe God wants us to reach out to people even if we don't trust them. This scares me. What if my own preservation is causing me to sin? We need to be o.k with the idea that we might die or get ripped off or beat up for the name of Christ. "I want you to tell me about Jesus."he says. "Why do you want me to do this? I asked.

"I don't see anyone walking in christ like you do, David. Do you remember the time you were sleeping and I threw that big rock at you".

"Yeah, it hurt really bad and you almost hit my head with it."

" You didn't beat me up after I threw it at you. You didn't even hesitate about forgiving me."

" I only did what Jesus would do." I need to do more with him(Billy) and I have to get over the fact that I don't trust him further than I can throw him. He doesn't look as ominous as he used to. I used to think that Billy was beyond the help of any prayer.

A Dream

2009-01-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I am still thinking about. It was very weird and vivid. I dreamt that I was out walking around at night and came upon this giant,beautiful carnival. Every color was very bright and it looked like a movie scene ....... a cross between Whoville and a Disney film. Everyone there was extremely bright and gorgeous. There we people standing on a platform giving testimonials about how great the place was and what it had done for their life. They all said it was a great place to live and that they got everything they could ever want. The women were coming up to me and asking me if I wanted to be a slave. People with all kinds of beautiful voices were praising this place through a microphone. "You will get everything you want"......."the food is great here"...... "you get to stay here with all these pretty girls"...... " We don't believe in money here. I was being torn in two hearing all this stuff. "Do you want to be a slave and stay here with us". I was horrified because I was scared to leave and scared to stay. I felt that in either choice I would miss out on something. My flesh was tearing at me. They kept tugging at my shoulder and telling me I needed to stay there with them." I'm scared I can't stay here." Then I woke up and thought for a second, is God trying to tell me something? Was I about to die in my sleep? Was that heaven? I hope I made the right choice. Was God showing my heart to me? Was Satan at work trying to trick me into going to hell?

What crazy prayer will God not answer?

2009-01-08T06:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we as people get so dense that we think we don't have anything to pray about. There are endless things to ask for God's help on, but the average faith in America looks at prayer like wishing. Wishing is hoping for something and knowing.. that you probably won't get what you're asking for. Just what prayer will God answer? It was election night in 2000. At the time I was living under a church in Kansas City, Missouri. The apartment was about the size of a garage. The voter returns were coming in and I was on my knees praying the whole time. The air was tense and it was only me and the television alone in a dark basement. "Lord don't let Al Gore win the election, If he wins he'll wreck the whole country." This was the extent of my prayer in short. Things at that minute were not looking good for Bush. I had been excited for that election like no other because I was sick of hearing about all the scandals and new allegations about Bill Clinton. I did not want anything around to remind me of it. My stomach was a huge knot. ABC broke for a commercial. " Please God, Don't let him win!!!" When the News came back on......" We have a late breaking development in the race in Florida, Bush has slid past Al Gore he is ahead by less than a hundred votes. I flew off my couch and was dancing with my hands in the air. "YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was laughing my head off and praising God for his power and might. I did not know at the time that George W. Bush would end up being called "the worst president ever." I grew to hate everything about the him in the past eight years. There is a big moral to this story. Be careful what you pray for. God is so powerful he might deliver the most ridiculous prayer of all. Be serious when you pray and think about the results of the prayer.

1 John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

2009-01-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

No matter what color Jesus is he loves every person and freak of nature you can think of. The son of God is still the Son of God and would be if he was neon green. The story of Christ did not originate on American soil but he does love America ,though not any more or less than any other country. If Iran got richer than America and launched missiles bigger and faster than ours, would anyone say," Jesus loves Iran more than us."? The Germans were very close to making the atomic bomb. If they had won the nuclear arms race the Nazi's would have claimed Jesus all to themselves. America is losing it's wealth. Does that mean Jesus hates us? America obtains everything through theft and using the military might to get it. Does theft have God's blessing? I hope that people wake up soon enough to not burn in hell. God does not pour out blessings on greed and wicked politicians. They obtain everything they have by stealing it. I hope that their wickedness is not dragging you to hell with them. The Lord of Heaven and Earth hates bickering, it is just as much as an abomination as being a homosexual or a murderer. I pray that Jesus will bring every bleeding heart to their knees. Oh repent of your hatred everyone. God knows if you have it and he will not forgive it. God tells us that we are commanded to love on another as he loves us, that's right, as he loves you. How great is God's love for us? I hope we can love other people like that. God requires it too. Who ever hates his brother, is what? A murderer.

When the bad and the ugly create good things.

2009-01-07T13:55:00.000-08:00

I used to get drunk out of my mind all the time and call my mom collect and cry. Nothing made any sense to me in my early 20's. Many of the people I met died tragically to the point I thought one day it would happen to me too. I did not think I would live to be 30 and therefore didn't want to or plan to. My head and face were getting more and more scars from fights and I was visiting the emergency room more than the church in those years. I lived on the streets and in various old abandoned buildings. In 1995 two days before Christmas I decided to buy a whole bottle of vodka for myself. Then I went Down to the river to drink it. I sat down on a bench and some guy I really hated asked me for some swills. I told him as loud as I could to F off. A few minutes later the guy left and there weren't any girls there so I left too. But before I got off the riverwalk two men ushered me over to them. " Do you know where I can find some LSD ?"one of them asked me. "No." I said. "And I wouldn't tell you if I did." He asked me a bunch of questions about if I liked to fight alot. "yes!! I love it!"I replied back. Then I got the surprise of my life when he pulled out a bright, shiny badge, and then he said, "You're under arrest!" He then knocked the bottle of vodka out of my hand and dove on top of me. The next thing I knew I was in handcuffs on my way to New Orleans Jail or Orleans Parish Prison. I sat in a cell with eight guys for three weeks not knowing when I was going to get out. I cried there more than I ever had to God in those days. Not long after I got out I quit drinking and started going to church alot. Over the years God has changed me to where I can't live without him. I am just as broken as I ever was sometimes but my hope is solid in him now. That is who I love and I feel so bad that I wasted so much time drinking . I wish I could have found him sooner. Going to Jail was a blessing but at the time I didn't see it that way. one of my biggest and greatest discoveries is that being jailed can either punish you or turn you into the sweetest person ever. I love God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luke 1:37 "For with God nothing will be impossible."

2009-01-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

My hope in this world is not based on what happens in my life or what new toys I can get.God is bigger than your bank or anyone you know. His stock is everlasting and it does not depreciate in value. Your treasure is the same now as it will be forever in his kingdom. He is the way maker. There is nothing that he cannot do. Praise the God that made all the things you love, who makes impossible things possible. May God show you that he really does love you!!