Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"Mythologetics"
Mythologetics (mi thol e jeh dix) n. The vigorous defense of indefensible theological positions:
God wants you rich, and if you are poor, you are out of His will. God wants you healthy, and if you are sick, your faith is lacking. Jesus didn't come here as God. God is subject to the will of man.
Jesus is NOT God. The Holy Spirit is only God's "active force." There is no Hell, one just ceases to exist. Our bible only has necessary changes, they were not made to support our particular positions.
There is no "Trinity." (that word is not even IN the Bible) Those who believe that believe in three gods.
God was once a man, and man will be a God. Jesus and Lucifer are brothers in the spirit.
God is whatever we believe him to be, male, female, tree, bird, river. He IS all, and is IN all. There are millions of paths to what we call "god."
Jesus was a great man. No less, but no more. Another in a long line from Moses to Muhammad.
Mary was divine, and different saints should be prayed to for certain needs. Forgiveness of sin requires that we, in part, do atoning work.
There IS no God! Evolution is the engine of creation. No further questions need be asked. The Bible is a well-written work of fiction.
If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we go to Heaven. It's kind of like a cosmic football game. And God knows my heart. I'm basically a good person. Sin is only that of which I personally disapprove. There is no Truth other than what I personally believe.
Everybody goes to Heaven... racists, adulterers, thieves, fornicators, homosexuals, liars... everybody. Stay as you are.
God only asks that we be "spiritual," that we be "spiritually grounded." Whatever way we are born to be is the way He made us, and to try to change would be violating His perfect will for our lives.
God wants you rich, and if you are poor, you are out of His will. God wants you healthy, and if you are sick, your faith is lacking. Jesus didn't come here as God. God is subject to the will of man.
Jesus is NOT God. The Holy Spirit is only God's "active force." There is no Hell, one just ceases to exist. Our bible only has necessary changes, they were not made to support our particular positions.
There is no "Trinity." (that word is not even IN the Bible) Those who believe that believe in three gods.
God was once a man, and man will be a God. Jesus and Lucifer are brothers in the spirit.
God is whatever we believe him to be, male, female, tree, bird, river. He IS all, and is IN all. There are millions of paths to what we call "god."
Jesus was a great man. No less, but no more. Another in a long line from Moses to Muhammad.
Mary was divine, and different saints should be prayed to for certain needs. Forgiveness of sin requires that we, in part, do atoning work.
There IS no God! Evolution is the engine of creation. No further questions need be asked. The Bible is a well-written work of fiction.
If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we go to Heaven. It's kind of like a cosmic football game. And God knows my heart. I'm basically a good person. Sin is only that of which I personally disapprove. There is no Truth other than what I personally believe.
Everybody goes to Heaven... racists, adulterers, thieves, fornicators, homosexuals, liars... everybody. Stay as you are.
God only asks that we be "spiritual," that we be "spiritually grounded." Whatever way we are born to be is the way He made us, and to try to change would be violating His perfect will for our lives.
Monday, January 19, 2009
More Time, and Righteousness, Credited to my Account
I'm not supposed to be here.
I'm not supposed to be typing, and double-checking, and breathing right now.
Saturday night, Kathy went to the store to get us something to eat. The line being too long, she left without it. Sam's Club has these really big oranges in this really big bag for a really low price, and I had to have some, so I jumped in the car to go get them.
I am a lead-footed driver, and I like D'angelo. I was indulging in both. The expressway is about a half mile from our house, and I was on it quickly and and moving swiftly, about eighty or ninety, weaving past those without 265 horsepower at their disposal. The music was blasting and I was feeling pretty good, having spent a whole week with my wife and my babies. Being a husband and a father with so much now to lose, I don't drive like I used to, but this was such a short trip...
I was in and out of the store in ten minutes. The off ramp where I get off does not merge for those -- like me -- going left. There is a two-lane stop. As I approached, I saw that an suv, a Tahoe, as in the left lane, and that the right lane was empty. I took the right lane so that when the light turned green, I could jump out quickly and beat the Tahoe on my left. I was racing the whole world and winning.
The music enveloped me -- "...she's alwayyys in my hair, my haiiiiir!" -- and I was focused on that red light like a drag racer, ready to launch!
The light turned green!
For some reason now, I didn't hit the gas. There was no voice that spoke.
I couldn't see around the hulking Tahoe from my Maxima, but I noticed that the Tahoe didn't move either. I'm talking about a span of about one second.
Whoooooosh!! From the left, an eighteen wheeler barrelled through the intersection doing about sixty miles an hour!
Everything changed right then. I sat there at that light in the night at the tail end of a short meaningless trip and shook my head soaking in all that that momentary hesitation meant.
I pulled off slowly, and made my left turn, loing to the Tahoe, and like the aftermath of throwing a giant stone into a pond, the water of my whole life flooded in on me and overwhelmed me.
I thought about Kathy, who waited confidently for me to get back home not ever thinking that I was a pureed mass being poured into a body bag a half mile -- and an eternity -- away. I thought of how torn to pieces she would be for who knows how long.
I thought about Max, who loves me so absolutely right now, who calls ME every day when he awakes, who yells for ME at night when he has a nightmare, who needs ME to teach him all this stuff I can't wait to teach him.
I thought about Diana, who smiles so wide at me when the cobwebs clear from her eyes at three o'clock every AM when I feed her, making sure she gets that extra meal she slept through earlier. I though about how she stops crying when I pick her up. I thought about telling her about boys and God.
I thought about how many times I have fed them and changed them and comforted them and taught them and loved them and watched them love me back. And I thought about the fact that no matter how much they love me, one small push on the gas pedal a few SECONDS ago would mean that They would only see me through pictures.
Max would ask, "Where's Daddy? When's Daddy coming back?" for days, weeks, and maybe even months, but with each passing second he and his sister would forget me a little bit more until in a short while they would remember me no more. Not at all. All the lessons and laughs would go unfulfilled.
I thought about my parents. I am the oldest and the only son. Gone. With just the slightest release of the brake pedal. I know how much they have loved me.
I thought about my three sisters.
And my few close friends. My church family who would have to hear the news on Sunday morning. I thought about all my musician friends...
My life didn't flash before me. An alternate future played before me like a dvd on 3x. I saw my body crushed amid broken glass, twisted steel and torn rubber on the street while everyone I loved went on obliviously until the phone rang. I thanked God so much and so many times in that half mile ride.
I am supposed to be dead right now. That is not an overstatement. I am supposed to be as dead as someone mauled by a bear, or crashed in a plane. Based on the way I was driving and jamming -- I've done it many times before -- I was supposed to press that pedal, and no one but God stopped me. I should be sloshing around in a bag in a drawer. But I am not.
I walked into the house, put the oranges down, sat in a chair in front of my family, and cried. Hard.
Tears of joy and sorrow. Boiling water and ice cubes in the same glass.
Shortly after I began to process everything, I thought about the biggest point of all:
As graphic a picture as the Lord had stapled in my brain, as close a call as I had, as surely as He had saved my life, He did MUCH more than that on a hill, far away!
The picture of eternity in hell is infinitely more horrible than a broken body and crying loved ones. Yes, He surely saved me -- and my whole network of family and friends -- from an excruciating circumstance, but it all becomes translucent in the face of that from which He ultimately saved me.
And everything I do from here out should be in light of that fact. I have the picture. I have the time. What will I do with it?
I'm not supposed to be typing, and double-checking, and breathing right now.
Saturday night, Kathy went to the store to get us something to eat. The line being too long, she left without it. Sam's Club has these really big oranges in this really big bag for a really low price, and I had to have some, so I jumped in the car to go get them.
I am a lead-footed driver, and I like D'angelo. I was indulging in both. The expressway is about a half mile from our house, and I was on it quickly and and moving swiftly, about eighty or ninety, weaving past those without 265 horsepower at their disposal. The music was blasting and I was feeling pretty good, having spent a whole week with my wife and my babies. Being a husband and a father with so much now to lose, I don't drive like I used to, but this was such a short trip...
I was in and out of the store in ten minutes. The off ramp where I get off does not merge for those -- like me -- going left. There is a two-lane stop. As I approached, I saw that an suv, a Tahoe, as in the left lane, and that the right lane was empty. I took the right lane so that when the light turned green, I could jump out quickly and beat the Tahoe on my left. I was racing the whole world and winning.
The music enveloped me -- "...she's alwayyys in my hair, my haiiiiir!" -- and I was focused on that red light like a drag racer, ready to launch!
The light turned green!
For some reason now, I didn't hit the gas. There was no voice that spoke.
I couldn't see around the hulking Tahoe from my Maxima, but I noticed that the Tahoe didn't move either. I'm talking about a span of about one second.
Whoooooosh!! From the left, an eighteen wheeler barrelled through the intersection doing about sixty miles an hour!
Everything changed right then. I sat there at that light in the night at the tail end of a short meaningless trip and shook my head soaking in all that that momentary hesitation meant.
I pulled off slowly, and made my left turn, loing to the Tahoe, and like the aftermath of throwing a giant stone into a pond, the water of my whole life flooded in on me and overwhelmed me.
I thought about Kathy, who waited confidently for me to get back home not ever thinking that I was a pureed mass being poured into a body bag a half mile -- and an eternity -- away. I thought of how torn to pieces she would be for who knows how long.
I thought about Max, who loves me so absolutely right now, who calls ME every day when he awakes, who yells for ME at night when he has a nightmare, who needs ME to teach him all this stuff I can't wait to teach him.
I thought about Diana, who smiles so wide at me when the cobwebs clear from her eyes at three o'clock every AM when I feed her, making sure she gets that extra meal she slept through earlier. I though about how she stops crying when I pick her up. I thought about telling her about boys and God.
I thought about how many times I have fed them and changed them and comforted them and taught them and loved them and watched them love me back. And I thought about the fact that no matter how much they love me, one small push on the gas pedal a few SECONDS ago would mean that They would only see me through pictures.
Max would ask, "Where's Daddy? When's Daddy coming back?" for days, weeks, and maybe even months, but with each passing second he and his sister would forget me a little bit more until in a short while they would remember me no more. Not at all. All the lessons and laughs would go unfulfilled.
I thought about my parents. I am the oldest and the only son. Gone. With just the slightest release of the brake pedal. I know how much they have loved me.
I thought about my three sisters.
And my few close friends. My church family who would have to hear the news on Sunday morning. I thought about all my musician friends...
My life didn't flash before me. An alternate future played before me like a dvd on 3x. I saw my body crushed amid broken glass, twisted steel and torn rubber on the street while everyone I loved went on obliviously until the phone rang. I thanked God so much and so many times in that half mile ride.
I am supposed to be dead right now. That is not an overstatement. I am supposed to be as dead as someone mauled by a bear, or crashed in a plane. Based on the way I was driving and jamming -- I've done it many times before -- I was supposed to press that pedal, and no one but God stopped me. I should be sloshing around in a bag in a drawer. But I am not.
I walked into the house, put the oranges down, sat in a chair in front of my family, and cried. Hard.
Tears of joy and sorrow. Boiling water and ice cubes in the same glass.
Shortly after I began to process everything, I thought about the biggest point of all:
As graphic a picture as the Lord had stapled in my brain, as close a call as I had, as surely as He had saved my life, He did MUCH more than that on a hill, far away!
The picture of eternity in hell is infinitely more horrible than a broken body and crying loved ones. Yes, He surely saved me -- and my whole network of family and friends -- from an excruciating circumstance, but it all becomes translucent in the face of that from which He ultimately saved me.
And everything I do from here out should be in light of that fact. I have the picture. I have the time. What will I do with it?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Ann Coulter: Darth Vader with a Pope Hat on
Ann Coulter is a worse representative of Christianity than the Grand Wizard! Will somebody pleeeze tell her to stop invoking God in her tomes? She is a poorer example of a Christian than Mick Jagger is of health and vitalicky! (Popeye) But is she an accurate portrait of a Conservative?
She could simply read from the Book of John, and would make Christianity wither like tomatoes on a vine in the desert. Regardless if she stumbles upon a valid point every now and then, the arsenic dripping from her tongue ruins any possibility of wooing anyone to her position. Those drawn to her point of view/methods are the same carrion-eaters who have subsisted on the flesh of the weak from the beginning.
Is SHE the true face of conservatism? Is her "cookie crumbs in the bed" personality the attitude of true evangelical thought? I hope not, but those like she and Hannity and Limbaugh and the rest of the talk radio consortium seem to be the arrowheads of the movement.
When I learned the definition of a harridan, her face shot up in my mind.
My CHRISTIAN views are pretty to-the-book conservative, but I part ways when it comes to how political conservatives treat people different than they.
There go the rest of my readers, I guess...
She could simply read from the Book of John, and would make Christianity wither like tomatoes on a vine in the desert. Regardless if she stumbles upon a valid point every now and then, the arsenic dripping from her tongue ruins any possibility of wooing anyone to her position. Those drawn to her point of view/methods are the same carrion-eaters who have subsisted on the flesh of the weak from the beginning.
Is SHE the true face of conservatism? Is her "cookie crumbs in the bed" personality the attitude of true evangelical thought? I hope not, but those like she and Hannity and Limbaugh and the rest of the talk radio consortium seem to be the arrowheads of the movement.
When I learned the definition of a harridan, her face shot up in my mind.
My CHRISTIAN views are pretty to-the-book conservative, but I part ways when it comes to how political conservatives treat people different than they.
There go the rest of my readers, I guess...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
How I Learned the Bible
"How you gone just sit there and let all them people in front of you? I got somewhere to be! D&%n Good Samaritan! If you ain't gone drive it, park it!" exclaimed my father, stuck in traffic behind a courteous slow driver.
"Ohhh." I thought, putting two and two together... "A 'good Samaritan' is someone who helps someone else for no apparent reason." My parents used to use that one a lot.
"G@d! Je$us! Man, PASS the ball! Quit being so d&%n selfish!!" Shouted my father at Andrew Toney, who played for the Sixers back in the day.
"Ohhh!" I realized, "Jesus is God in the flesh, and He committed the most unselfish act of all. I get it now."
"If I come in this house and these dishes ain't washed, It's gone be Armageddon up in here when I get back!" Said my mother upon reaching the end of the rope.
"Ohhh! Armageddon is the battle that occurs at the end of the world!" I discovered after a few times of failing to meet a deadline due to procrastination...
"I don't know why you askin' ME for no money! I'm poor as Job's turkey!"
"Ohhh!" I gathered. "Job was a man, like Daddy, who had had a lot of kids, and was incredibly poor at some point. And if HE didn't have nothing, you KNOW his turkey was broke! Sorry for asking, Dad."
Great teachers I had.
(How I learned Civics) "Bring less than a 'B' in here if you want to! It's gone take a act of Congress to pull me off you!!"
(How I learned what color rice was)"Boy! If you don't turn of that TV and do your homework, I'mma be on you like white on rice!!"
"Ohhh." I thought, putting two and two together... "A 'good Samaritan' is someone who helps someone else for no apparent reason." My parents used to use that one a lot.
"G@d! Je$us! Man, PASS the ball! Quit being so d&%n selfish!!" Shouted my father at Andrew Toney, who played for the Sixers back in the day.
"Ohhh!" I realized, "Jesus is God in the flesh, and He committed the most unselfish act of all. I get it now."
"If I come in this house and these dishes ain't washed, It's gone be Armageddon up in here when I get back!" Said my mother upon reaching the end of the rope.
"Ohhh! Armageddon is the battle that occurs at the end of the world!" I discovered after a few times of failing to meet a deadline due to procrastination...
"I don't know why you askin' ME for no money! I'm poor as Job's turkey!"
"Ohhh!" I gathered. "Job was a man, like Daddy, who had had a lot of kids, and was incredibly poor at some point. And if HE didn't have nothing, you KNOW his turkey was broke! Sorry for asking, Dad."
Great teachers I had.
(How I learned Civics) "Bring less than a 'B' in here if you want to! It's gone take a act of Congress to pull me off you!!"
(How I learned what color rice was)"Boy! If you don't turn of that TV and do your homework, I'mma be on you like white on rice!!"
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Contra Diction
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who, almost arrogantly, pronounces each and every letter of every syllable of every word she speaks, grates on my nerves sometimes.
We know you're smart. We know you're Ivy League educated. But do you have to go out of your way to elocute even the soft sounds at the ends of words? "...spiked(a) the punnncchh att my best(a) friend(a)s graduation(a) parttee." She sounds as if she is spitting out fish bones when she says words like, "terrorrisstss." Gotta get that darn, tricky "ess" in at the end! Wouldn't want to appear ordinary.
If she just spoke like the rest of moderately educated humanity, she could save about fifteen seconds of dialogue per every minute of talking. She could winnow her show down to a half hour!
She sounds like a COGIC preacher.
It's like listening to Niles Crane recite Shakespeare while gargling marbles. I feel like the next thing she is going to say to me is, "turn(a) lefffft in two pointt threee my-uls."
Maybe it's just me... I've been ill-tempered lately.
We know you're smart. We know you're Ivy League educated. But do you have to go out of your way to elocute even the soft sounds at the ends of words? "...spiked(a) the punnncchh att my best(a) friend(a)s graduation(a) parttee." She sounds as if she is spitting out fish bones when she says words like, "terrorrisstss." Gotta get that darn, tricky "ess" in at the end! Wouldn't want to appear ordinary.
If she just spoke like the rest of moderately educated humanity, she could save about fifteen seconds of dialogue per every minute of talking. She could winnow her show down to a half hour!
She sounds like a COGIC preacher.
It's like listening to Niles Crane recite Shakespeare while gargling marbles. I feel like the next thing she is going to say to me is, "turn(a) lefffft in two pointt threee my-uls."
Maybe it's just me... I've been ill-tempered lately.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
What's so Amazing about "Amazing?"
Why do some people use that word so much? Especially in reality shows like "The Real World," "The Bachelor," "Rock of Love," and any other show where people who don't know each other and are thrust together for the sole purpose of hooking up while we voyeuristically watch? Celebrities wear it out, too! "The director was amazing." "This movie was amazing!" "Angelina was just so amazing that I just had to leave my first wife -- who used to be amazing. Not so much now...
Overkill indeed! And it's always spoken with three "a's" in the middle of it for emphasis and extra amaaazingness. "I had an amaaazing time." "You're an amaaazing woman." "Your body is amaaazing!" You would think they were juggling chainsaws and baking a cake while breastfeeding twins and bathing a cocker spaniel while looking super-hot! Now THAT would be amaaazing!
It is so awkwardly obvious what is going on. It is the verbal equivalent of buying a woman a drink in a club. As subtle as renting a porno movie.
They can't ALL be amaaazing, can they? If they are, why are they lined up to do reality shows? If they are all amaaazing, where are the regular people? If every thing, situation, and blonde, and brunette is so amaaazing, why is the world so jacked up? If every parent, every child (mine are!) and every relationship is amaaazing, what do we say when we see a nine-month-old who can read, or a savant who can't speak but can play Chopin, or Stevie Wonder, or Ben Carson, or that father who pushed his paraplegic son through an entire marathon because of a prior wish? Nope. Can't call it amaaazing because you guys totally, literally diluted the uniquity -- if you will -- of that term to make some floozy think you were intense!
Save the superfluous superlatives for superlative situations. (I had to sit back and admire that one! Sorry.)
That goes for "miracle," and "genius," too!
Overkill indeed! And it's always spoken with three "a's" in the middle of it for emphasis and extra amaaazingness. "I had an amaaazing time." "You're an amaaazing woman." "Your body is amaaazing!" You would think they were juggling chainsaws and baking a cake while breastfeeding twins and bathing a cocker spaniel while looking super-hot! Now THAT would be amaaazing!
It is so awkwardly obvious what is going on. It is the verbal equivalent of buying a woman a drink in a club. As subtle as renting a porno movie.
They can't ALL be amaaazing, can they? If they are, why are they lined up to do reality shows? If they are all amaaazing, where are the regular people? If every thing, situation, and blonde, and brunette is so amaaazing, why is the world so jacked up? If every parent, every child (mine are!) and every relationship is amaaazing, what do we say when we see a nine-month-old who can read, or a savant who can't speak but can play Chopin, or Stevie Wonder, or Ben Carson, or that father who pushed his paraplegic son through an entire marathon because of a prior wish? Nope. Can't call it amaaazing because you guys totally, literally diluted the uniquity -- if you will -- of that term to make some floozy think you were intense!
Save the superfluous superlatives for superlative situations. (I had to sit back and admire that one! Sorry.)
That goes for "miracle," and "genius," too!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Happy Anniversary, guys! Thank you for sticking it out when so many don't. When marriage is seen as something to do, or not do, you have persevered.
Thank you for thinking enough of us to insulate us and to give us two parents who think more of us than of periodic pain. Thank you for being mature and true to your vows to God.
My kids will know that love is more than hugging and kissing -- that love is staying and working -- and hugging and kissing. They will know because I know because YOU knew. Your children love you, and their children love you.
[caption id="attachment_552" align="aligncenter" width="330" caption="23 Dec 63"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_566" align="alignleft" width="558" caption="And Now..."]
[/caption]
Thank you for thinking enough of us to insulate us and to give us two parents who think more of us than of periodic pain. Thank you for being mature and true to your vows to God.
My kids will know that love is more than hugging and kissing -- that love is staying and working -- and hugging and kissing. They will know because I know because YOU knew. Your children love you, and their children love you.
[caption id="attachment_552" align="aligncenter" width="330" caption="23 Dec 63"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_566" align="alignleft" width="558" caption="And Now..."]
[/caption]
Merry Christmas
No profound or erudite or smartly worded phrase can embrace the so seemingly mundane birth of a poor baby to poor parents so many incalculable days ago.
No gift given to child or friend can equal the present wrapped in human flesh and blood.
No act of kindness one to another is as sublime as that of a willing shameful death on a tree that others might live.
No forgiveness of great transgressions says as much as one man's act of substitution.
But to try is to admit that we know, in some small way, that this day, this time, is much more than we are able to signify.
Thanks, Jesus. I love You so much, but if I loved You with every ounce of my being, it would not be enough to exchange for the gift of kindness, forgiveness, and love You showed us all with one excruciating, blessed act.
No gift given to child or friend can equal the present wrapped in human flesh and blood.
No act of kindness one to another is as sublime as that of a willing shameful death on a tree that others might live.
No forgiveness of great transgressions says as much as one man's act of substitution.
But to try is to admit that we know, in some small way, that this day, this time, is much more than we are able to signify.
Thanks, Jesus. I love You so much, but if I loved You with every ounce of my being, it would not be enough to exchange for the gift of kindness, forgiveness, and love You showed us all with one excruciating, blessed act.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Are we who WE say we are, or who GOD says we are?
I'm just saying...
This is not to be insensitive to those who are gay, but can a Christian pleeeeze be allowed by you to rightly, sincerely practice his faith?!? Would you , who strive so ardently to exercise your rights, seek to deprive someone like me from expressing mine?
I was just watching Rachel Maddow -- an openly lesbian show host -- lambasting, or just basting -- Obama for daring to align himself, however tenuously, with "controversial, immoderate, Falwellian pastor, Rick Warren. "He believes in a LITERAL interpretation of the Bible! He believes in Creationism!! He's an extremist bigot! (just like all the rest of those Christians!)"
Warren has done such abominable things as uphold the Christian sanctity of marriage and compare abortion to the Holocaust!!! What horror. How dare a Christian PASTOR, allied to the word of God, actually uphold what that Author prescribed and proscribed!
They have (gay organizations) been up in arms since election day about Proposition 8, and have been angry with black folk for voting against it. In essence:
"We voted for your thing (Obama), so we expected you to quid us pro quo on our thing (the right to change the God-invented definition of marriage from one that can actually PRODUCE MORE HUMAN BEINGS to one that makes us feel good on the inside)."
Hmmm... Funny how they are cool with that exchange, but on fire about Blagojevich...
The left have been just as angry at Obama in the last few weeks as the right. Maybe he IS going to shake it up.
He says he is a Christian, the President-elect, and as such shouldn't he be allowed to practice his faith? I mean, regardless of his job, a man can not -- and by law MUST not -- cast his faith out the door, be it Christianity, Hedonism, Islam, or Atheism! And the bottom line is that any plain, honest, and un-convoluted understanding of Christianity says that certain behaviors are wrong.
And gays, being the sensitive and caring people that they are would not, I KNOW, ask someone to change the way he thinks in his own mind and heart just to havehimsay "I am of the opinion that whatever you do is fine, and I will assent that opinion with my vote." I know that the warm and loving gay community would not force a man to -- in that man's mind -- sin willfully, stage a mutiny, against the Captain of his very soul just so they can engage in sexual intercourse in whatever way they are lead.
I am not insensitive to the desires of the human heart. I know those words will not lessen the anger of any gay person who will read them, but I mean them. Of course I know people who are gay, and who are in agony. I have family members who feel sexually attracted to the same sex. And I love them. I am not, by that same Christian edict, permitted to cast a soul into loveless oblivion because I disagree with their way of life. But my arm will not be twisted to make me say that what I, I, believe to be wrong is now right. I think I am, doggone it, mature enough to disagree with a behavior and still like a person! Goodness!
Just as I know that you, gay community, do not dare suggest that you HATE those with whom YOU disagree. "Hate." Ever throw that word around? Can we just stop tossing gasoline on a fire and quit using such an extreme word for a difference of durn opinion?!? You guys have the whole nation punked! Scared poopless. It is almost admirable!
Obama claims to believe the Bible. As such, he will be allowed by the gay community -- I KNOW -- to believe that way in his heart. "Thought Police?" Ever used that term, Maddow?
In my opinion, you can do whatever you do. You can drink till you pickle yourself, take every drug known to man, hook up with prostitutes, lay up with men or women, wear long dresses or short skirts, dreads or braids, or smoke Camels -- you can pinch my nose, tie my arms and feet and pour the Kool-Aid down my throat -- but you can't make me like it!
Man ain't even got a toothbrush in the White House yet, and he's gettin' killed on every side!
This is, though, the other side of the coin of this momentous election: While it is great that this country has taken so great a step, certain groups of people were dancing in the streets because they thought -- or knew -- that the lid was off that girl's box and anything is about to go!
This is not to be insensitive to those who are gay, but can a Christian pleeeeze be allowed by you to rightly, sincerely practice his faith?!? Would you , who strive so ardently to exercise your rights, seek to deprive someone like me from expressing mine?
I was just watching Rachel Maddow -- an openly lesbian show host -- lambasting, or just basting -- Obama for daring to align himself, however tenuously, with "controversial, immoderate, Falwellian pastor, Rick Warren. "He believes in a LITERAL interpretation of the Bible! He believes in Creationism!! He's an extremist bigot! (just like all the rest of those Christians!)"
Warren has done such abominable things as uphold the Christian sanctity of marriage and compare abortion to the Holocaust!!! What horror. How dare a Christian PASTOR, allied to the word of God, actually uphold what that Author prescribed and proscribed!
They have (gay organizations) been up in arms since election day about Proposition 8, and have been angry with black folk for voting against it. In essence:
"We voted for your thing (Obama), so we expected you to quid us pro quo on our thing (the right to change the God-invented definition of marriage from one that can actually PRODUCE MORE HUMAN BEINGS to one that makes us feel good on the inside)."
Hmmm... Funny how they are cool with that exchange, but on fire about Blagojevich...
The left have been just as angry at Obama in the last few weeks as the right. Maybe he IS going to shake it up.
He says he is a Christian, the President-elect, and as such shouldn't he be allowed to practice his faith? I mean, regardless of his job, a man can not -- and by law MUST not -- cast his faith out the door, be it Christianity, Hedonism, Islam, or Atheism! And the bottom line is that any plain, honest, and un-convoluted understanding of Christianity says that certain behaviors are wrong.
And gays, being the sensitive and caring people that they are would not, I KNOW, ask someone to change the way he thinks in his own mind and heart just to havehimsay "I am of the opinion that whatever you do is fine, and I will assent that opinion with my vote." I know that the warm and loving gay community would not force a man to -- in that man's mind -- sin willfully, stage a mutiny, against the Captain of his very soul just so they can engage in sexual intercourse in whatever way they are lead.
I am not insensitive to the desires of the human heart. I know those words will not lessen the anger of any gay person who will read them, but I mean them. Of course I know people who are gay, and who are in agony. I have family members who feel sexually attracted to the same sex. And I love them. I am not, by that same Christian edict, permitted to cast a soul into loveless oblivion because I disagree with their way of life. But my arm will not be twisted to make me say that what I, I, believe to be wrong is now right. I think I am, doggone it, mature enough to disagree with a behavior and still like a person! Goodness!
Just as I know that you, gay community, do not dare suggest that you HATE those with whom YOU disagree. "Hate." Ever throw that word around? Can we just stop tossing gasoline on a fire and quit using such an extreme word for a difference of durn opinion?!? You guys have the whole nation punked! Scared poopless. It is almost admirable!
Obama claims to believe the Bible. As such, he will be allowed by the gay community -- I KNOW -- to believe that way in his heart. "Thought Police?" Ever used that term, Maddow?
In my opinion, you can do whatever you do. You can drink till you pickle yourself, take every drug known to man, hook up with prostitutes, lay up with men or women, wear long dresses or short skirts, dreads or braids, or smoke Camels -- you can pinch my nose, tie my arms and feet and pour the Kool-Aid down my throat -- but you can't make me like it!
Man ain't even got a toothbrush in the White House yet, and he's gettin' killed on every side!
This is, though, the other side of the coin of this momentous election: While it is great that this country has taken so great a step, certain groups of people were dancing in the streets because they thought -- or knew -- that the lid was off that girl's box and anything is about to go!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
'Res'dent Obama!
I just thought this was funny, so I put it on YouTube so I could put it on the blog. This is Max showing me he knows who the new president is. (McCain was, "BoCain") Kathy and I laughed and laughed!
The last word is not necessarily a commentary on his views, he is just in perpetual potty training mode.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7BbPHcYSw]
The last word is not necessarily a commentary on his views, he is just in perpetual potty training mode.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7BbPHcYSw]
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Ingreat?
I want to be great.
I struggle with this. I know that God says that He will give His glory to no man. I ask myself constantly if the reason I have not yet achieved my goals is that I want to be glorified in some way. Maybe God knows (I want to say, "Maybe God THINKS," but I know He doesn't wonder) that I would not be as humble as I need to be if He allows me to do the same things as those as whom I know I am at least as good. (prepositions! whew!)
Or maybe I simply have not worked hard enough.
I play music and I write words. I often think, when I see humorists and columnists and hear certain saxophone players, "I KNOW I can do this! I'm at LEAST that good! Why can't I get a break?" I know I'm kind of good, but I want to be great. And not obscure. And I begin again to wonder if what is blocking me is simply my thought process.
Maybe my thinking has to change... Maybe I have to think more about what greatness will mean for God than what it will do for me.
From day one I have been Charlie Brown. I was the insignificant kid, the ridiculed kid, the unremembered kid. I was the one who the girls looked at from the edges of their eyes. I was the one who either ate alone at lunch or went and found others with whom to eat.
I was never at the center of the action, always at the outer ring. Never the life of the party.
When I started to play music, it wasn't to get girls or to be cool. I just wanted to learn how to play an instrument -- something no one in my neighborhood did. All through school, the fact that I could hear a tune and reproduce it and improvise a little bit did nothing to initiate me into that cool musical circle.
When I grew up and began doing it for a living, my mother, who worked at my high school, would ask me to come back and play for assemblies. My own band director (with whom I rode to school EVERY DAY for three years!!!) was shocked when he heard me, remarking to my mother, "I had no idea Derrick could play like that! When did this happen?"
He had not bothered to notice or nurture my talent. He never pushed me. While the cool kids were taking theory classes and playing in the jazz band, I was at home picking out Grover Washington and Spyro Gyra solos. Teaching myself.
When I was in the eighth grade and on the verge of academic mediocrity as a student in the first Optional School class in Memphis, my English teacher brought a knarry tree stump into the classroom and asked us to write a story based on what we saw. I, thinking myself a failure at English, got the highest grade in the class. In me was born the love for words I now have. I changed at that moment. And a lot of the arrogant kids in the class looked at me differently -- although being good at English doesn't make you cool.
Writing didn't become cool for me until I began getting paid to write love letters for guys -- something I was scared to do for myself for a long time.
This very blog is all about me trying to be great. It is more than a geek with a computer corrupting journalism. It is me trying to not just rant, but to make literature. I want to leave my children with something that shows them that their father did not just consume resources, but that he THOUGHT. I want to not get to God's throne and have Him disappointed because I left unused some gift He gave to me.
I want to be great in His eyes AND send my kids to college. Can't you do both? There is the rub... That which makes ascent uncertain...
Being so consistently rejected bred in me this thing, this need, to prove them all wrong. To prove to -- whomever -- that I was worthy of note. Not of exaltation, but just valuable enough to be heard, to be listened to. It is the same drive, I think, that led Michael Jordan to prove wrong the coach who cut him when he was a kid. The same drive that made my father put cement and a pole into buckets to make his own barbells back in the fifties when kids laughed at him and called him scrawny.
I hate being treated as "less-than." HATE it! I am the first one to esteem my neighbor as greater than myself, as long as my neighbor doesn't presume to beat me to the point! I'll get in the back seat as long as you don't insist that I belong there. It is for this reason that arrogance is one of the things I hate most in the world.
I want to show all those who belittled me and dismissed my contributions that they are what is wrong with the world. (But it doesn't consume me as much as it may sound)
Maybe in a twisted way, though, that is revenge... I don't know. I mean, I don't have a desire to hurt anyone, or to repay in like fashion, so maybe it's not vengeance. But maybe my thinking is wrong. Maybe I need to focus more on how GOD would be proved worthy of note if these things happened for me the way I want them to... I know I am not arrogant -- I am PROUD of how humble I am! I make way too many mistakes to have an exaggerated idea of myself.
God, however, sees things in a different way than do I. Maybe my thinking is out of synch with His. Maybe if I can figure out how greatness and fame intersect, that last door will open.
Or maybe it is just not time yet.
I know He has not closed the door though, because I have continually been able to support myself, and because step by agonizing step, I have done a little bit better. I have worked with some pretty big acts and have played as though I belonged there.
We all live and eat by having people give us money to do something we are good at doing. Our gifts make our way for us. That is all I want. No Bentley, no floor length mink, no gaudy jewels. No breathless fans or VIP status.
Just ample recompense for art rendered. Commensurate compensation.
Lord, I don't want Your spot or your shine. And if I don't speak up enough, it is of shyness, not of usurpation. Create in me that right way of thinking, and even closer fellowship with You.
I'm not so haughty, reader, as to think that my life is so compelling that you just HAVE to know about it. I just hope the words are interesting enough to keep you reading them.
I struggle with this. I know that God says that He will give His glory to no man. I ask myself constantly if the reason I have not yet achieved my goals is that I want to be glorified in some way. Maybe God knows (I want to say, "Maybe God THINKS," but I know He doesn't wonder) that I would not be as humble as I need to be if He allows me to do the same things as those as whom I know I am at least as good. (prepositions! whew!)
Or maybe I simply have not worked hard enough.
I play music and I write words. I often think, when I see humorists and columnists and hear certain saxophone players, "I KNOW I can do this! I'm at LEAST that good! Why can't I get a break?" I know I'm kind of good, but I want to be great. And not obscure. And I begin again to wonder if what is blocking me is simply my thought process.
Maybe my thinking has to change... Maybe I have to think more about what greatness will mean for God than what it will do for me.
From day one I have been Charlie Brown. I was the insignificant kid, the ridiculed kid, the unremembered kid. I was the one who the girls looked at from the edges of their eyes. I was the one who either ate alone at lunch or went and found others with whom to eat.
I was never at the center of the action, always at the outer ring. Never the life of the party.
When I started to play music, it wasn't to get girls or to be cool. I just wanted to learn how to play an instrument -- something no one in my neighborhood did. All through school, the fact that I could hear a tune and reproduce it and improvise a little bit did nothing to initiate me into that cool musical circle.
When I grew up and began doing it for a living, my mother, who worked at my high school, would ask me to come back and play for assemblies. My own band director (with whom I rode to school EVERY DAY for three years!!!) was shocked when he heard me, remarking to my mother, "I had no idea Derrick could play like that! When did this happen?"
He had not bothered to notice or nurture my talent. He never pushed me. While the cool kids were taking theory classes and playing in the jazz band, I was at home picking out Grover Washington and Spyro Gyra solos. Teaching myself.
When I was in the eighth grade and on the verge of academic mediocrity as a student in the first Optional School class in Memphis, my English teacher brought a knarry tree stump into the classroom and asked us to write a story based on what we saw. I, thinking myself a failure at English, got the highest grade in the class. In me was born the love for words I now have. I changed at that moment. And a lot of the arrogant kids in the class looked at me differently -- although being good at English doesn't make you cool.
Writing didn't become cool for me until I began getting paid to write love letters for guys -- something I was scared to do for myself for a long time.
This very blog is all about me trying to be great. It is more than a geek with a computer corrupting journalism. It is me trying to not just rant, but to make literature. I want to leave my children with something that shows them that their father did not just consume resources, but that he THOUGHT. I want to not get to God's throne and have Him disappointed because I left unused some gift He gave to me.
I want to be great in His eyes AND send my kids to college. Can't you do both? There is the rub... That which makes ascent uncertain...
Being so consistently rejected bred in me this thing, this need, to prove them all wrong. To prove to -- whomever -- that I was worthy of note. Not of exaltation, but just valuable enough to be heard, to be listened to. It is the same drive, I think, that led Michael Jordan to prove wrong the coach who cut him when he was a kid. The same drive that made my father put cement and a pole into buckets to make his own barbells back in the fifties when kids laughed at him and called him scrawny.
I hate being treated as "less-than." HATE it! I am the first one to esteem my neighbor as greater than myself, as long as my neighbor doesn't presume to beat me to the point! I'll get in the back seat as long as you don't insist that I belong there. It is for this reason that arrogance is one of the things I hate most in the world.
I want to show all those who belittled me and dismissed my contributions that they are what is wrong with the world. (But it doesn't consume me as much as it may sound)
Maybe in a twisted way, though, that is revenge... I don't know. I mean, I don't have a desire to hurt anyone, or to repay in like fashion, so maybe it's not vengeance. But maybe my thinking is wrong. Maybe I need to focus more on how GOD would be proved worthy of note if these things happened for me the way I want them to... I know I am not arrogant -- I am PROUD of how humble I am! I make way too many mistakes to have an exaggerated idea of myself.
God, however, sees things in a different way than do I. Maybe my thinking is out of synch with His. Maybe if I can figure out how greatness and fame intersect, that last door will open.
Or maybe it is just not time yet.
I know He has not closed the door though, because I have continually been able to support myself, and because step by agonizing step, I have done a little bit better. I have worked with some pretty big acts and have played as though I belonged there.
We all live and eat by having people give us money to do something we are good at doing. Our gifts make our way for us. That is all I want. No Bentley, no floor length mink, no gaudy jewels. No breathless fans or VIP status.
Just ample recompense for art rendered. Commensurate compensation.
Lord, I don't want Your spot or your shine. And if I don't speak up enough, it is of shyness, not of usurpation. Create in me that right way of thinking, and even closer fellowship with You.
I'm not so haughty, reader, as to think that my life is so compelling that you just HAVE to know about it. I just hope the words are interesting enough to keep you reading them.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The Devil You Know
Last week, while Christians were lamenting the loss of the Lord's party and portending the end of the world because a pagan black Muslim OBVIOUSLY managed to circumvent the will God by being elected president, a far greater slaughter was being perpetrated on those who sought to find salvation.
Ravenous wolves were feasting on the poor of pocket and of knowledge via satellite in front of the ENTIRE world! And Christians did nothing. They sent up no hue and cry. They shed no tear. They kicked no dog. They tossed no popcorn. They cried no foul. They mourned no loss.
Rather than trust in the sovereignty of God and even for a moment consider the source of the joy, they cried, "God must be dead!" Rather than speak for those unable, they turned the channel on the carnage and let it go on unseen.
TBN was broadcasting their periodic "Praise-a-Thon." (I call it the "Preys-a-Thon") I am often asked why I watch this trash. I do it because it is like having the devil's walkie-talkie. I do it for the same reason the feds bug mafia phones.
The most valuable thing we own is not our 401k, our homes, our economic stability, or our very lives! The most precious thing we own is our soul. And while souls dangle over the abyss, Christians cry and launch invidious invectives while these heartless hyenas prey on the desperation of those who have been taught to do church the wrong way for years.
They wrench passages out of context and hit the undiscerning over the head with the wrench.
Evangelicals claim to love God and thereby, His people. Especially the unborn. How noble. The unborn have one advantage over those who in ceaseless waves place their own butts into the gaping mouths of roaring lions: The unborn are not in danger of the flame.
While Godly people were crying in their chai tea about an OBAMA(!)having the gall to get elected, these "mend" and "womend" of God were sinking their fangs deeper into the souls of the seeking. Preying on greed and ignorance. And no one raised a finger to stop it.
You know why they are pimps? Benny Hinn, Paula White, T D Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Steve Munsey, Rod Parsley, Eddie Long, the Crouch's, and the rest? Let me tell you who may not know one of the things a pimp does; A pimp pushes the envelope. He will say to himself, "I'm gonna see just how far I can go with this female... I'm gonna tell her to do the craziest, nastiest thing I can think of (hear me, R. Kelly?), and if she does it, I GOT HER MIND! And once I get that mind, thass IT! I can get anything I want! I can get her to do whatever to get money and give it to me. I'm the baddest pimp out there, an' I'm gonna prove it by buildin' up the biggest stable out there!" I know guys who have done this! (I've been to college. YOU know it's true!) I have seen and heard withering things.
A pimp has an ego that is never filled.
I have seen it. I have heard preachers brag to each other about how they "preached 'em under the pews!" They brag about who has the biggest congregation, the most cars, and yes, the most women.
Listen to this; [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFkah218N54&feature=related]
And this; [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSc1Rf4YITU&feature=related]
This stuff is the equivalent of a guy telling a girl, "Let me (perform all manner of perversion on your body -- I cleaned it up)."
I guarantee you these guys were backstage afterward comparing (biceps). They were bragging,"Man did you see how those phones lit up when I quoted Matthew to 'em? They eat that stuff up! I'm telling you, the more predictions you make, the more they love it! At the end if I told 'em that at the ascension, Jesus turned into a crow and flew to the moon to build timeshares, they would have knocked each other down to sign up! They want MONEY, baby, money!! And it takes "money" to get money! My congregation gave me a Rolls Royce Phantom when I told 'em the Trinity was nine people and Adam could fly!"
Pimps! Pimpin' h&es an' slammin' Catlack doe's*
And rather than fight THAT fight and save SOULS, evangelicals were crying and expressing fear (and bigotry) because their candidate lost. God lost. Do you know how many evil kings ruled over Israel? My goodness! Sunday, five days after the election, my pastor in an effort to quell growing despair and disrespect, quoted 1 Peter, 2: 13, which basically commands us to respect the authorities placed in charge. I was not allowed even twenty-four hours to enjoy the fact that this country had taken such a great step. It was like wrecking a new car as soon as I drove it off the lot. Regardless who you voted for the fact that America grew to this point deserved more from the Christian Right, who is already tagged with the label of not caring for minorities.
We need to get our priorities in line and do something about those who do ETERNAL harm. GET THIS TRASH OFF TV!!
*doors
Ravenous wolves were feasting on the poor of pocket and of knowledge via satellite in front of the ENTIRE world! And Christians did nothing. They sent up no hue and cry. They shed no tear. They kicked no dog. They tossed no popcorn. They cried no foul. They mourned no loss.
Rather than trust in the sovereignty of God and even for a moment consider the source of the joy, they cried, "God must be dead!" Rather than speak for those unable, they turned the channel on the carnage and let it go on unseen.
TBN was broadcasting their periodic "Praise-a-Thon." (I call it the "Preys-a-Thon") I am often asked why I watch this trash. I do it because it is like having the devil's walkie-talkie. I do it for the same reason the feds bug mafia phones.
The most valuable thing we own is not our 401k, our homes, our economic stability, or our very lives! The most precious thing we own is our soul. And while souls dangle over the abyss, Christians cry and launch invidious invectives while these heartless hyenas prey on the desperation of those who have been taught to do church the wrong way for years.
They wrench passages out of context and hit the undiscerning over the head with the wrench.
Evangelicals claim to love God and thereby, His people. Especially the unborn. How noble. The unborn have one advantage over those who in ceaseless waves place their own butts into the gaping mouths of roaring lions: The unborn are not in danger of the flame.
While Godly people were crying in their chai tea about an OBAMA(!)having the gall to get elected, these "mend" and "womend" of God were sinking their fangs deeper into the souls of the seeking. Preying on greed and ignorance. And no one raised a finger to stop it.
You know why they are pimps? Benny Hinn, Paula White, T D Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Steve Munsey, Rod Parsley, Eddie Long, the Crouch's, and the rest? Let me tell you who may not know one of the things a pimp does; A pimp pushes the envelope. He will say to himself, "I'm gonna see just how far I can go with this female... I'm gonna tell her to do the craziest, nastiest thing I can think of (hear me, R. Kelly?), and if she does it, I GOT HER MIND! And once I get that mind, thass IT! I can get anything I want! I can get her to do whatever to get money and give it to me. I'm the baddest pimp out there, an' I'm gonna prove it by buildin' up the biggest stable out there!" I know guys who have done this! (I've been to college. YOU know it's true!) I have seen and heard withering things.
A pimp has an ego that is never filled.
I have seen it. I have heard preachers brag to each other about how they "preached 'em under the pews!" They brag about who has the biggest congregation, the most cars, and yes, the most women.
Listen to this; [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFkah218N54&feature=related]
And this; [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSc1Rf4YITU&feature=related]
This stuff is the equivalent of a guy telling a girl, "Let me (perform all manner of perversion on your body -- I cleaned it up)."
I guarantee you these guys were backstage afterward comparing (biceps). They were bragging,"Man did you see how those phones lit up when I quoted Matthew to 'em? They eat that stuff up! I'm telling you, the more predictions you make, the more they love it! At the end if I told 'em that at the ascension, Jesus turned into a crow and flew to the moon to build timeshares, they would have knocked each other down to sign up! They want MONEY, baby, money!! And it takes "money" to get money! My congregation gave me a Rolls Royce Phantom when I told 'em the Trinity was nine people and Adam could fly!"
Pimps! Pimpin' h&es an' slammin' Catlack doe's*
And rather than fight THAT fight and save SOULS, evangelicals were crying and expressing fear (and bigotry) because their candidate lost. God lost. Do you know how many evil kings ruled over Israel? My goodness! Sunday, five days after the election, my pastor in an effort to quell growing despair and disrespect, quoted 1 Peter, 2: 13, which basically commands us to respect the authorities placed in charge. I was not allowed even twenty-four hours to enjoy the fact that this country had taken such a great step. It was like wrecking a new car as soon as I drove it off the lot. Regardless who you voted for the fact that America grew to this point deserved more from the Christian Right, who is already tagged with the label of not caring for minorities.
We need to get our priorities in line and do something about those who do ETERNAL harm. GET THIS TRASH OFF TV!!
*doors
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The First Joke I ever Wrote
A wife is like a straight-jacket:
You gotta be CRAZY to get one!!
Wrote that in my bitter single days.
You gotta be CRAZY to get one!!
Wrote that in my bitter single days.
Um a Souuuuul Mane!! (shameless plug time)
"Soul Men," starring Samuel L. Jackson, the late Bernie Mac, and the late Isaac Hayes, opens tomorrow. Go see it! I played on either the score, the soundtrack, or both. Help me out so that my checks will be a little larger! Thanx!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Brand New Funky, PRESIDENT!
Here we are. The world has not cracked in two. The stars have not refused to shine. Life is as it was. But...
NOW, as I shake off a headache from so much unexpected, hard crying, I feel that after two hundred and thirty two years the final missing piece has been found and placed into this American puzzle.
The long cracked foundation has been sealed. A black face is the face of America!
I had never felt fully part of the American family until now. I had always looked at history from the perspective of a mistreated child. I had always wondered how the words of that founding father, Patrick Henry:
could be so hypocritically immortalized in light of the fact that these very men themselves owned human beings! I could never fully reconcile the brutal irony.
Tonight, though, it has been made manifest that no more American doors are locked to me and mine. As I held my son as he held me and asked what was wrong, I told him that I was happy. Happy that now for him greatness not only included intellectual achievement or financial success, but also the highest office in the most powerful nation on the earth.
I was happy that now his maternal great-grandmother, who fought the Klan for the right to vote, and who hid freedom riders in her home on "Number 8" in Jim Crow Mississippi, had not fought in vain. I was happy that his paternal great-grandfather, who genuflected and called eight year-old white boys, "sir," and lived a life of menial servitude while raising seventeen kids to honorable adulthood, had finally won.
I was happy to know that the last time black people collectively cried this hard was when, forty years ago, a bullet burst open the face of the face of the search for equality, and that now his sowing bore African fruit.
African! An African name! After so many African names went unremembered and changed. An African man who came to America not in bondage to anything but hope. The way it should have been. The way it is. An African man willingly cleaved in a Godly manner to the hand of a white American woman and produced a descendant not steeped in the brew of oppression, and destined to caulk that fundamental crack.
I did not know this would mean so much to me.
I care about the plight of the unborn, and about the tenuous religious freedoms we have. So, how can I be happy knowing that innocent babies will continue to die?
I can do so the same way I did it the last eight years when "immorality" and infanticide increased in the last eight years. I can do so by praying to God that He work through His body, the Church, to effect change in this culture a heart at a time.
Obama's election does not for me signal the end of all hardship. His election does not mean that all problems will be Divinely washed away.
What it DOES is symbolize the fact that there is hope that in this country, with its keloid scars and twisted sinews, people of ALL races -- primarily black and white -- can grow past ingrained adversity and see each other as the same. But different!
We have loved and desired to be loved in return. We love those who love us. And those who don't. We embrace the white guy who plays basketball like we do, or who dances like we do, or sings like we do, or swaggers like we do. All we wanted was to make it known that we are worthy of humanity, and the fact that so many NON-black people had to come together and lift this symbolic individual to the highest human height, means that we are getting it!
I remember when, in 1988, Doug Williams lead the Washington Redskins to the Superbowl championship. was so proud to be black that day. His win meant that we could do it, whatever IT was. There have been a number of those moments, where door after door is knocked down, and this is the last one.
Some racists have said things like, "I'm scared if Obama wins, the BLACK gone take over!" I submit that this sentiment comes from those who know that they have not done right with the power they have had and are projecting their own unGodliness onto us.
Obama's election does not mean that white folks have to stay out of the fast lanes on the highway, and give up their floor seats and fifty-yard-line spots in sporting events. We will not raid your country clubs with booming music, spinning rims, gold teeth, and chitlin's. We have just been allowed an invitation to the American house party, and are glad to not have to any longer stare trough the window.
So, rather than be defined by the thug image, the gang lifestyle, we have President Obama -- cool, dignified, brilliant, clean-cut, erudite, straight, true to who he is, and in love with one dark-skinned, kinky-headed woman, and living in the same house with his kids.
50 Cent, you don't define me! You never did, but I shake you off! P.Diddy, Pacman, T.O., O.J., Snoop Dogg, American Gangster, drug dealer, dropout, deadbeat baby-daddy, you are not who I am. You never were, but you never will be.
Get off the stage! Put the mike down! Pick up a book!
My son will not emulate YOU. My daughter will not desire you!
'Cause we got a brand new, funky, President!!* Gimme Five, America!
*James Brown
NOW, as I shake off a headache from so much unexpected, hard crying, I feel that after two hundred and thirty two years the final missing piece has been found and placed into this American puzzle.
The long cracked foundation has been sealed. A black face is the face of America!
I had never felt fully part of the American family until now. I had always looked at history from the perspective of a mistreated child. I had always wondered how the words of that founding father, Patrick Henry:
[ "It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" ]
could be so hypocritically immortalized in light of the fact that these very men themselves owned human beings! I could never fully reconcile the brutal irony.
Tonight, though, it has been made manifest that no more American doors are locked to me and mine. As I held my son as he held me and asked what was wrong, I told him that I was happy. Happy that now for him greatness not only included intellectual achievement or financial success, but also the highest office in the most powerful nation on the earth.
I was happy that now his maternal great-grandmother, who fought the Klan for the right to vote, and who hid freedom riders in her home on "Number 8" in Jim Crow Mississippi, had not fought in vain. I was happy that his paternal great-grandfather, who genuflected and called eight year-old white boys, "sir," and lived a life of menial servitude while raising seventeen kids to honorable adulthood, had finally won.
I was happy to know that the last time black people collectively cried this hard was when, forty years ago, a bullet burst open the face of the face of the search for equality, and that now his sowing bore African fruit.
African! An African name! After so many African names went unremembered and changed. An African man who came to America not in bondage to anything but hope. The way it should have been. The way it is. An African man willingly cleaved in a Godly manner to the hand of a white American woman and produced a descendant not steeped in the brew of oppression, and destined to caulk that fundamental crack.
I did not know this would mean so much to me.
I care about the plight of the unborn, and about the tenuous religious freedoms we have. So, how can I be happy knowing that innocent babies will continue to die?
I can do so the same way I did it the last eight years when "immorality" and infanticide increased in the last eight years. I can do so by praying to God that He work through His body, the Church, to effect change in this culture a heart at a time.
Obama's election does not for me signal the end of all hardship. His election does not mean that all problems will be Divinely washed away.
What it DOES is symbolize the fact that there is hope that in this country, with its keloid scars and twisted sinews, people of ALL races -- primarily black and white -- can grow past ingrained adversity and see each other as the same. But different!
We have loved and desired to be loved in return. We love those who love us. And those who don't. We embrace the white guy who plays basketball like we do, or who dances like we do, or sings like we do, or swaggers like we do. All we wanted was to make it known that we are worthy of humanity, and the fact that so many NON-black people had to come together and lift this symbolic individual to the highest human height, means that we are getting it!
I remember when, in 1988, Doug Williams lead the Washington Redskins to the Superbowl championship. was so proud to be black that day. His win meant that we could do it, whatever IT was. There have been a number of those moments, where door after door is knocked down, and this is the last one.
Some racists have said things like, "I'm scared if Obama wins, the BLACK gone take over!" I submit that this sentiment comes from those who know that they have not done right with the power they have had and are projecting their own unGodliness onto us.
Obama's election does not mean that white folks have to stay out of the fast lanes on the highway, and give up their floor seats and fifty-yard-line spots in sporting events. We will not raid your country clubs with booming music, spinning rims, gold teeth, and chitlin's. We have just been allowed an invitation to the American house party, and are glad to not have to any longer stare trough the window.
So, rather than be defined by the thug image, the gang lifestyle, we have President Obama -- cool, dignified, brilliant, clean-cut, erudite, straight, true to who he is, and in love with one dark-skinned, kinky-headed woman, and living in the same house with his kids.
50 Cent, you don't define me! You never did, but I shake you off! P.Diddy, Pacman, T.O., O.J., Snoop Dogg, American Gangster, drug dealer, dropout, deadbeat baby-daddy, you are not who I am. You never were, but you never will be.
Get off the stage! Put the mike down! Pick up a book!
My son will not emulate YOU. My daughter will not desire you!
'Cause we got a brand new, funky, President!!* Gimme Five, America!
*James Brown
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I Don't Get It...
There are things, entities, and people whose popularity I just don't understand. As there are too many things vying for the attention God deserves, I suggest that we be more discriminating with our adoration.
Here are a few. I will add more as they come to mind, you may do so as well. I hope I don't burn any more bridges! I already can't go back to where I was when I started this whole venture. This post is a little bit on the carnal side.
It's all in fun, y'all, just jokes...
"Boomerang" era Robin Givens. Don't get it. Never did. Her affected elocution sounds as though she has a mouth full of greazy marbles, and she looks as though she is pressed up against a force field. Totally two-dimensional face...
T. Pain.I get the PAIN part. In my eyes and ears. "Buy ME a DRANK" and put some strychnine in it!
The fineness of Paris Hilton. Where? WHERE?
Keith Sweat as a singer. Come ON!
While I'm there, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, the "genius"of Alicia Keys, and -- yes -- Jimi Hendrix.
M.A.S.H. Boringest show ever!!
Madonna.My goodness! Never was sexy, never could sing. Just nasty. I guess nasty is provocative. The emperor is nekkid, y'all.
Janet Jackson.I know I'm alone here. I was able to be mad at her for pulling her bress
out on tv 'cause she never appealed to me. Un-fine.
Lil Wayne. This is why we need to re-program our daughters as to what "cute" is!
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lilwayne3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/%3Fp%3D373&h=379&w=479&sz=47&hl=en&start=29&um=1&usg=__k4YSu1JuZVZlpXoNVIHhuqA5mBw=&tbnid=4GZSDnd8Y1anQM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlil%2Bwayne%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*:IE-Address%26rlz%3D1I7ADBF%26sa%3DN"><> style="border: 1px solid;" src="http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:4GZSDnd8Y1anQM:http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lilwayne3.jpg" alt="" width="129" height="102" /> One is a parasite. The other one sucks your blood.
Steve Harvey. Pryor you ain' t.
David Caruso. (CSI Miami)I guess the definition of "sexy" is being the first man to show your butt on tv, no matter how you look. Arrogance on HGH!
Beer. Who tasted this first and said, "YEAH!! THAT'S the taste I was looking for!"?
Watching poker on television. Read a BOOK. Or play poker!
Tyler Perry. I'm not mad at his effort, just the end result.
Woody Allen movies. Ambien without the fear of overdose.
Other movies; "Citizen Kane," "The English Patient," "My Left Foot," and ANYthing Meryl Streep did.
Allen Iverson. As much heart as missed shots.
Pecans. HATE 'em! Taste like bark.
Runway Fashion. No one ever wears the cardboard evening gown with the birdcage hat in public.
Horror movies. They never end. I like my monsters DEAD!
Fraternities.I know I'm stepping on toes here. "Hey, let me beat the blood out of you, and humiliate you for weeks, and I'll let you call me 'brother', and then I'll wreck your car, and borrow money from you that I'll never pay back!" Stupid.
High Fives.Stopped doing it when everybody else started doing it, along with, saying, "bling," "shout out," "chill," and "da bomb." Do YOU.
Sagging pants with the drawz showing. Don't y'all know that is prison chic? The ones who do it are the "woman" in prison.
Hip Hop award shows.Personally, I'm em-burrassed when I run across it. I'm sure God hides His face when they give Him props for Best Song for"Three Hoes an' a Bottle o' Criss."
Spoken word. Pretentious for the most part.
Monique. Wake up! She ain't deep! Even if she DOES frown seriously with every word! Can't y'all read Ghetto?
Dr. Pepper. Is this not what anti-freeze tastes like?
Diet anything. Just drink water. I can actually HEAR the aftertaste! That can't be good.
Bell Peppers. Who said this was FOOD?
ANGELINA JOLIE!!! The Piece of Resistance indeed! Where? Where the sexy at? Come on, folks, speak up. I know I ain't the only one! If a set of lips made you fine, goldfish would be in Playboy.
This is just the start. I got a lot of them. I'm sure you do, too.
Here are a few. I will add more as they come to mind, you may do so as well. I hope I don't burn any more bridges! I already can't go back to where I was when I started this whole venture. This post is a little bit on the carnal side.
It's all in fun, y'all, just jokes...
"Boomerang" era Robin Givens. Don't get it. Never did. Her affected elocution sounds as though she has a mouth full of greazy marbles, and she looks as though she is pressed up against a force field. Totally two-dimensional face...
T. Pain.I get the PAIN part. In my eyes and ears. "Buy ME a DRANK" and put some strychnine in it!
The fineness of Paris Hilton. Where? WHERE?
Keith Sweat as a singer. Come ON!
While I'm there, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, the "genius"of Alicia Keys, and -- yes -- Jimi Hendrix.
M.A.S.H. Boringest show ever!!
Madonna.My goodness! Never was sexy, never could sing. Just nasty. I guess nasty is provocative. The emperor is nekkid, y'all.
Janet Jackson.I know I'm alone here. I was able to be mad at her for pulling her bress
out on tv 'cause she never appealed to me. Un-fine.
Lil Wayne. This is why we need to re-program our daughters as to what "cute" is!
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lilwayne3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/%3Fp%3D373&h=379&w=479&sz=47&hl=en&start=29&um=1&usg=__k4YSu1JuZVZlpXoNVIHhuqA5mBw=&tbnid=4GZSDnd8Y1anQM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlil%2Bwayne%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*:IE-Address%26rlz%3D1I7ADBF%26sa%3DN"><> style="border: 1px solid;" src="http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:4GZSDnd8Y1anQM:http://blogs.bet.com/entertainment/staytuned/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lilwayne3.jpg" alt="" width="129" height="102" /> One is a parasite. The other one sucks your blood.Steve Harvey. Pryor you ain' t.
David Caruso. (CSI Miami)I guess the definition of "sexy" is being the first man to show your butt on tv, no matter how you look. Arrogance on HGH!
Beer. Who tasted this first and said, "YEAH!! THAT'S the taste I was looking for!"?
Watching poker on television. Read a BOOK. Or play poker!
Tyler Perry. I'm not mad at his effort, just the end result.
Woody Allen movies. Ambien without the fear of overdose.
Other movies; "Citizen Kane," "The English Patient," "My Left Foot," and ANYthing Meryl Streep did.
Allen Iverson. As much heart as missed shots.
Pecans. HATE 'em! Taste like bark.
Runway Fashion. No one ever wears the cardboard evening gown with the birdcage hat in public.
Horror movies. They never end. I like my monsters DEAD!
Fraternities.I know I'm stepping on toes here. "Hey, let me beat the blood out of you, and humiliate you for weeks, and I'll let you call me 'brother', and then I'll wreck your car, and borrow money from you that I'll never pay back!" Stupid.
High Fives.Stopped doing it when everybody else started doing it, along with, saying, "bling," "shout out," "chill," and "da bomb." Do YOU.
Sagging pants with the drawz showing. Don't y'all know that is prison chic? The ones who do it are the "woman" in prison.
Hip Hop award shows.Personally, I'm em-burrassed when I run across it. I'm sure God hides His face when they give Him props for Best Song for"Three Hoes an' a Bottle o' Criss."
Spoken word. Pretentious for the most part.
Monique. Wake up! She ain't deep! Even if she DOES frown seriously with every word! Can't y'all read Ghetto?
Dr. Pepper. Is this not what anti-freeze tastes like?
Diet anything. Just drink water. I can actually HEAR the aftertaste! That can't be good.
Bell Peppers. Who said this was FOOD?
ANGELINA JOLIE!!! The Piece of Resistance indeed! Where? Where the sexy at? Come on, folks, speak up. I know I ain't the only one! If a set of lips made you fine, goldfish would be in Playboy.
This is just the start. I got a lot of them. I'm sure you do, too.
Monday, November 3, 2008
What's Been on My Mind
I haven't written anything here in a couple of weeks for a few reasons. (I thank you kind people for continuing to stop by in the meantime)
Some of the things I have posted in the past have had a slightly negative financial impact on me. No sweat. Christians are made of rubber, and rubber bounces rather than breaks.
The last few posts were getting kind of serious in light of the pending election, and I kind of had to breathe a little bit. There is a lot at stake here, and history is on the verge of happening, one way or the other. Some people hold tightly to their old ways of being.
At the risk of being mis-labeled, I wanted to talk about other tings than race for a minute, but all I saw in the news and around me -- this crazy (or drunk, or both) dude outside of Kroger said to me, "Ni@@er! F**K you, man!!" I got kids to raise, so rather than kill this defenseless bigot, I called my wife, who told me to just go on into the store. -- so I had nothing to write. Someone I know has already called this "An Angry Black Man Blog." Yes, I am sometimes angry, and ALWAYS black, but I don't fit the criteria for that tag. So I backed off for a moment.
Also, we went through a series at my church in which the pastors (we have three) took a poll of our most pressing issues and boiled them down to the "Big Ten." Some of the topics were, God and politics, marriage, the end-times (I diverge on this one in a non-essential sense), and the top two, homosexuality and predestination.
I have my views on the whole Gay Rights issue which I have rarely expressed not wanting to be written off as a hater. I do think they (as an organization) play on this feeling and thereby further empower themselves and shut down debate. I am dead set against gay marriage, and I do not think one is born gay.
But I do not hate them. After the sermon on the subject, I began to think about how my "No Wiggle-Room" stance on gayness looked from the outside, and how I could be effective standing for capital "T" Truth while displaying appropriate compassion without seeming to give the "thumbs up" to the lifestyle. Complicated.
Christians -- Evangelicals in particular -- have lately been more apt to point the finger than to lend a hand. We are quick to point out errors in doctrine and separate ourselves from "The World" believing it to be a place not to be reached but to be repelled.
We, in our self-righteousness devoid of compassion, have given the non-Christian every reason to keep doing what he is doing while claiming to desire to make more Christians.
We picket and protest and put out warning notices for certain movies with unwholesome content. We keep our children from the slightest chance of interacting with "those" kids. We show not the least measure of the Godly love we claim emanates from Him. Why would a gay person want to come to us for advice on changing?
This blog has been a way for me to shout through what I see as maddening, increasing Godlessness in our society. I have been able to state my position unwaveringly and back it up with Scripture and common sense, the two being not mutually exclusive.
I have railed against crooked preachers, racists, lenient parents, atheists, black miscreants (more to come. Pacman Jones, grab your playbook and come to the office.), rappers, and stupid drivers. But I don't want to come across as just another fundamentalist Christian close-minded fool. Unjustifiably. Truth without love is a bunch of baking pans falling out of a helicopter onto your driveway at 5 AM.
I have love, and don't want that to be lost in all my diatribes. I think righteous anger and love can co-exist. Ask my boy, Max. The main reason I do this is that I hate to see people deceived. From withIN or withOUT.
But pastor Loritts' sermon on how Christians deal with the gay issue -- along with conversations with my friend and fellow church member, Kirk Whalum -- made me think about how to be truthful yet winsome. It is easy to do face-to-face, harder to do on a computer.
I went to vote Thursday. At a white Church with nothing but pictures of stiff looking white folks on the walls. Not diverse in the least. I stood in line for exactly two-and-a-half hours! And I later found out that that was peanuts compared to other places.
What struck me was that the hundreds of people in that serpentine collective were engaged in dozens of conversations. The area was largely white and overwhelmingly conservative, but there were all races of Americans there. I'm sure assumptions were made as to who was voting for whom, but there was an air of joviality there. People who, moments before, had never seen each other were all of a sudden laughing and sharing life together in the midst of the most potentially explosive event in any of our lives. Events which could potentially put us all at poles even further apart than before. And there was civility, kindness, and even affinity.
Old white ladies who first voted in the fifties were engaged with black men who probably only ever voted once. There were, in those hours, no conservatives or liberals, but Americans. While the principals and their surrogates fought on like stray dogs over a bag of garbage.
I'm not a "flag pinon the lapel" guy. You won't see a flag waving on my house. I don't tear up during the National Anthem. Unless the singer is really great, or really bad (Carl Lewis). But as I wound my way through that maze, I was proud of that group of people. I was proud to be American. NotthatI'veneverbeenproudbefore!!!
American people can get along in spite of deeply held differences. I saw that. And, as a Christian, I try to show on this weblog that while I disagree with a whole lot of what I see and hear, I can do so without being hateful. I can state my case or cast my vote and still love my neighbor.
So, yeah, I'll still rant, and still shout, "WOLF!" when I see one. I'll still state my position on issues like race and abortion and Affirmative Action and crime and the rest.
But if I don't love you, I'm wasting my time, and time is like buffalo nickels: There ain't no more!
Some of the things I have posted in the past have had a slightly negative financial impact on me. No sweat. Christians are made of rubber, and rubber bounces rather than breaks.
The last few posts were getting kind of serious in light of the pending election, and I kind of had to breathe a little bit. There is a lot at stake here, and history is on the verge of happening, one way or the other. Some people hold tightly to their old ways of being.
At the risk of being mis-labeled, I wanted to talk about other tings than race for a minute, but all I saw in the news and around me -- this crazy (or drunk, or both) dude outside of Kroger said to me, "Ni@@er! F**K you, man!!" I got kids to raise, so rather than kill this defenseless bigot, I called my wife, who told me to just go on into the store. -- so I had nothing to write. Someone I know has already called this "An Angry Black Man Blog." Yes, I am sometimes angry, and ALWAYS black, but I don't fit the criteria for that tag. So I backed off for a moment.
Also, we went through a series at my church in which the pastors (we have three) took a poll of our most pressing issues and boiled them down to the "Big Ten." Some of the topics were, God and politics, marriage, the end-times (I diverge on this one in a non-essential sense), and the top two, homosexuality and predestination.
I have my views on the whole Gay Rights issue which I have rarely expressed not wanting to be written off as a hater. I do think they (as an organization) play on this feeling and thereby further empower themselves and shut down debate. I am dead set against gay marriage, and I do not think one is born gay.
But I do not hate them. After the sermon on the subject, I began to think about how my "No Wiggle-Room" stance on gayness looked from the outside, and how I could be effective standing for capital "T" Truth while displaying appropriate compassion without seeming to give the "thumbs up" to the lifestyle. Complicated.
Christians -- Evangelicals in particular -- have lately been more apt to point the finger than to lend a hand. We are quick to point out errors in doctrine and separate ourselves from "The World" believing it to be a place not to be reached but to be repelled.
We, in our self-righteousness devoid of compassion, have given the non-Christian every reason to keep doing what he is doing while claiming to desire to make more Christians.
We picket and protest and put out warning notices for certain movies with unwholesome content. We keep our children from the slightest chance of interacting with "those" kids. We show not the least measure of the Godly love we claim emanates from Him. Why would a gay person want to come to us for advice on changing?
This blog has been a way for me to shout through what I see as maddening, increasing Godlessness in our society. I have been able to state my position unwaveringly and back it up with Scripture and common sense, the two being not mutually exclusive.
I have railed against crooked preachers, racists, lenient parents, atheists, black miscreants (more to come. Pacman Jones, grab your playbook and come to the office.), rappers, and stupid drivers. But I don't want to come across as just another fundamentalist Christian close-minded fool. Unjustifiably. Truth without love is a bunch of baking pans falling out of a helicopter onto your driveway at 5 AM.
I have love, and don't want that to be lost in all my diatribes. I think righteous anger and love can co-exist. Ask my boy, Max. The main reason I do this is that I hate to see people deceived. From withIN or withOUT.
But pastor Loritts' sermon on how Christians deal with the gay issue -- along with conversations with my friend and fellow church member, Kirk Whalum -- made me think about how to be truthful yet winsome. It is easy to do face-to-face, harder to do on a computer.
I went to vote Thursday. At a white Church with nothing but pictures of stiff looking white folks on the walls. Not diverse in the least. I stood in line for exactly two-and-a-half hours! And I later found out that that was peanuts compared to other places.
What struck me was that the hundreds of people in that serpentine collective were engaged in dozens of conversations. The area was largely white and overwhelmingly conservative, but there were all races of Americans there. I'm sure assumptions were made as to who was voting for whom, but there was an air of joviality there. People who, moments before, had never seen each other were all of a sudden laughing and sharing life together in the midst of the most potentially explosive event in any of our lives. Events which could potentially put us all at poles even further apart than before. And there was civility, kindness, and even affinity.
Old white ladies who first voted in the fifties were engaged with black men who probably only ever voted once. There were, in those hours, no conservatives or liberals, but Americans. While the principals and their surrogates fought on like stray dogs over a bag of garbage.
I'm not a "flag pinon the lapel" guy. You won't see a flag waving on my house. I don't tear up during the National Anthem. Unless the singer is really great, or really bad (Carl Lewis). But as I wound my way through that maze, I was proud of that group of people. I was proud to be American. NotthatI'veneverbeenproudbefore!!!
American people can get along in spite of deeply held differences. I saw that. And, as a Christian, I try to show on this weblog that while I disagree with a whole lot of what I see and hear, I can do so without being hateful. I can state my case or cast my vote and still love my neighbor.
So, yeah, I'll still rant, and still shout, "WOLF!" when I see one. I'll still state my position on issues like race and abortion and Affirmative Action and crime and the rest.
But if I don't love you, I'm wasting my time, and time is like buffalo nickels: There ain't no more!
Friday, October 17, 2008
"The Persecution Rests."
You know, when I hear John McCain demonstrate the nerve to get all indignant and hurt about being called out by Congressman John Lewis for the not-so-subtle racist rabble-rousing done by him and his people, I get a burning anger in my belly. We know code language when we hear it. Keep the game fair. Win on the ISSUES. That's what I want.
When I hear caucasians downplay discrimination by saying blacks "play the 'Race Card'," I feel as though we have not really come as far as we think we have.
How dare a beneficiary of bias show outrage at those who are hurt by it?!? All that is happening is that those with bigoted hearts are too cowardly to outwardly say what they really feel, but cloak it in semantics. I know how to do that.
"How dare that uppity so-and-so try to represent this great and Godly nation?!? KILL that TERRORIST! Off with his HEAD!!"
I submit into evidence Exhibit A-Z my entire case that Obama's Democratic nomination and possible election does not cure that insidious infestation:
When I hear caucasians downplay discrimination by saying blacks "play the 'Race Card'," I feel as though we have not really come as far as we think we have.
How dare a beneficiary of bias show outrage at those who are hurt by it?!? All that is happening is that those with bigoted hearts are too cowardly to outwardly say what they really feel, but cloak it in semantics. I know how to do that.
"How dare that uppity so-and-so try to represent this great and Godly nation?!? KILL that TERRORIST! Off with his HEAD!!"
I submit into evidence Exhibit A-Z my entire case that Obama's Democratic nomination and possible election does not cure that insidious infestation:
All the usual suspects are seen; Friiiied Chicken! Bobbecue Ribs! Redddd Kool-Aid! And that ol' faithful standard -- Walla-mellon! Lawsy me! I's jess a bubblin' allll ova. I shole is! All on a Food Stamp! Cuz you knows that sweet ole Gub'mint print 'em all up jess fuh us Color folks! White folks is too good an' too hard wekkin' to need 'em. All them folks in them trailer parks is jess FREE SPIRITS!
Oh, yeah, A Republican in California is responsible for this.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Truth Fairy
You can tell how old you are by how much you used to get from the tooth fairy.
"Shoot! We're gonna have to give Max and Diana a dollar a tooth for it to mean anything!" I told Kathy.
I used to get a dime...
"Shoot! We're gonna have to give Max and Diana a dollar a tooth for it to mean anything!" I told Kathy.
I used to get a dime...
Between Iraq and a Hard Place
Just as I began to berate the Republicans for "enabling" racism, the word came that noted militant, arrogant atheist, Christopher Hitchens has endorsed Obama, ridiculing Palin for her Christianity!
I've always said that I can't fully embrace the GOP because they give "aid and comfort" to racists. And Hitchens' endorsement reminds me that the Democrats also provide God-haters a soft spot to land.
I have many, many problems with Palin, but her professed faith is not one.
I've always said that I can't fully embrace the GOP because they give "aid and comfort" to racists. And Hitchens' endorsement reminds me that the Democrats also provide God-haters a soft spot to land.
I have many, many problems with Palin, but her professed faith is not one.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
PROnunciation: Nunciating for money.
I was on the road this past weekend working with a different band, and my friend, Curtis, and I got into a conversation about how unsatisfied and unhappy I was in the group in which I normally play.
"I'm a disgruntled employee," I said. I paused, "Hey, man, what's up with that word? You ever thought about it? Every time somebody shoots up a post office, or a place of business, they are always called, 'disgruntled'." He laughed.
"I mean, have you ever heard somebody use the word, 'gruntled'? 'I was disgruntled yesterday, but I got my check in the mail, an' I'm pretty gruntled today!' " We both fell out laughing.
"Yeah," Curtis said, "DIS- is a prefix, and you would think that the root word would stand alone. But I've never heard that word, 'gruntled' before. Man, you're crazy! You think about some weird stuff!" Laughing.
"Naw, man, I'm serious! I been thinking about that for years! I think about that kind of stuff a lot. Like look at the word 'unscathed'. When was the last time you heard about somebody being in a car wreck on the news, and the reporter said, 'Yeah, the victim got scathed up pretty good. He was so scathed that he is in critical condition.' And what is 'critical condition' anyway? Is that when you are hurt up so bad that you get two thumbs down? Or does it mean that the doctors all crowd around you and say stuff like, 'Wow! That's terrible! Awful! Look at how his leg is bent!"?
We laughed non-stop for about five minutes.
I love words!
DISgruntled, UNscathed, DISpensed (Has anybody ever "pensed" you?)
What are some others?
"I'm a disgruntled employee," I said. I paused, "Hey, man, what's up with that word? You ever thought about it? Every time somebody shoots up a post office, or a place of business, they are always called, 'disgruntled'." He laughed.
"I mean, have you ever heard somebody use the word, 'gruntled'? 'I was disgruntled yesterday, but I got my check in the mail, an' I'm pretty gruntled today!' " We both fell out laughing.
"Yeah," Curtis said, "DIS- is a prefix, and you would think that the root word would stand alone. But I've never heard that word, 'gruntled' before. Man, you're crazy! You think about some weird stuff!" Laughing.
"Naw, man, I'm serious! I been thinking about that for years! I think about that kind of stuff a lot. Like look at the word 'unscathed'. When was the last time you heard about somebody being in a car wreck on the news, and the reporter said, 'Yeah, the victim got scathed up pretty good. He was so scathed that he is in critical condition.' And what is 'critical condition' anyway? Is that when you are hurt up so bad that you get two thumbs down? Or does it mean that the doctors all crowd around you and say stuff like, 'Wow! That's terrible! Awful! Look at how his leg is bent!"?
We laughed non-stop for about five minutes.
I love words!
DISgruntled, UNscathed, DISpensed (Has anybody ever "pensed" you?)
What are some others?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
If I ever get caught in a hurricane, my name is Freddie A.I.G. Mac!
"Are you poor, helpless or destitute? Are you of dubious descent? Are you in trouble as a result of bad choices or fate? Bail yourself out. The government is not for that kind of thing."
"We are for small government. Help yourself. Get a job, quit being so lazy! It is not our job to help you and throw hard earned taxpayers' money at you.
"But, as sure as Freddie is a Mack, Fanny may! If you have lobbied to have less government oversight and subsequently taken advantage of the ignorance of the weak... If you have thereby caused the biggest financial crisis in eighty years... If you have bet the farm and lost billions for investors while enriching yourselves... Well, have we got a DEEEEAL for YOU!!!
"Are you in the wonderfully crooked Insurance Industry, taking the monthly payments of millions, STILL charging them unattainable deductibles and raising the rates, and trying every dirty trick imaginable to get out of paying up? Here's what we'll do for YOU and ONLY you: We will get seven hundred, yes, seven HUNDRED billion with a "B" dollars and BAIL YOU OUT!!
"Hold on... China is on the other line..."
OHHHH. Now, I get it. I was wondering which "government programs" were cool. Yeah, it is vital that we save the valuable companies. Were they to fail, we would face untold calamity.
But we can let poor, lazy, inherently violent, drug addicted, ghetto minorities go under. We can just build more jails and cemeteries (separate ones!) and house them rather than improve public education, even though that is far cheaper and more Christian. We can let them all kill each other in their own communities. That won't affect us.
We just should not have to have our taxes go to helping people we don't even like. NO. Let's take a TRILLION DOLLARS(!) and help our own kind. God Bless America. Pay now, or pay later, but we ALL pay.
What follows is what is increasingly becoming one of the VALUES by which I vote:
Matthew 25:31 “When32 the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 25:32 All33 the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 25:33 He34 will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 25:34 Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 25:37 Then the righteous will answer him,35 ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 25:38 When36 did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? 25:39 When37 did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 25:40 And the king will answer them,38 ‘I tell you the truth,39 just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters40 of mine, you did it for me.’
25:41 “Then he will say41 to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! 25:42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 25:44 Then they too will answer,42 ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ 25:45 Then he will answer them,43 ‘I tell you the truth,44 just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ 25:46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Strong stuff!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Just a Snippet
I have said that I play the saxophone for, what has been lately, somewhat of a living. Here is a clip from a gig I did with a band in which I really enjoy playing. It is the closest thing to the kind of music I want to play that I have been able to do in a long time -- I hope you followed that. This is the band playing, "Sister Moon," as done by Herbie Hancock and Sting.
Bear with me! The clip takes a few seconds to load, and the picture is small. I didn't want to buy the Pro version of Quicktime just for this one thing. I hope you like it.
http://www.cmdstudio.com/kwestweb.mov
Bear with me! The clip takes a few seconds to load, and the picture is small. I didn't want to buy the Pro version of Quicktime just for this one thing. I hope you like it.
http://www.cmdstudio.com/kwestweb.mov
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Supersized Jesus
Can somebody please explain to me what is up with the whole "One church in three locations" thing?? Is it just a black mega-church phenomenon? There are a number of these in my city.
It is just about the most irritating thing to see preachers like Michael Freeman , Bishop Paul Morton, and Brandon Porter (here in my town) advertise all their locations like they are opening Wal-Marts or McDonalds'. What, the Lord can't call another preacher? Is the force of your personality so strong, are you just so popular that people won't come unless YOU are there preaching? Can God not Get His Word preached unless YOU are the one doing it? We let these dudes get away with anything!
I have friends who play at these franchises, and they tell me how the pastor has to preach the nine o'clock service at one church, leave before the benediction to make the ten thirty at site two just in time to preach the sermon, and rush back to the first for a noon service, and finally preach a six o'clock at the third! Morton said that he takes a helicopter or a plane from one place in Georgia to New Orleans every Sunday.
How can you be any good to any flock at that rate? Let somebody else preach! Christianity looks like just another business when it is done like this. It looks like you are just collecting three paychecks.
One church here has one location that is in the middle of a community that is falling apart and rife with crime. Isn't there enough work to do there without having to make a giant triangle across the county to "help" those in the outlying areas?
One might think that it is because you have to maintain your nearly million-dollar estate, with your five figure home theater and sound system, and I wouldn't want anyone to think you were pimping the Gospel. I wouldn't want anyone to think that because you are going so far as to suggest that people pawn their jewelry and such, you are struggling to maintain a lifestyle and that this is why you keep opening up new franchises. (You know who you are.)
Memphis, where I live, is a town with nearly one church per person! It makes me sick to see churches, often of the same denomination, within a rock's throw of each other. Some of these preachers could shut down an work at one of the franchises.
Why do we put up with stuff in God's name that we wouldn't let a cop or a congressman do if he were in our own family?!?
It is just about the most irritating thing to see preachers like Michael Freeman , Bishop Paul Morton, and Brandon Porter (here in my town) advertise all their locations like they are opening Wal-Marts or McDonalds'. What, the Lord can't call another preacher? Is the force of your personality so strong, are you just so popular that people won't come unless YOU are there preaching? Can God not Get His Word preached unless YOU are the one doing it? We let these dudes get away with anything!
I have friends who play at these franchises, and they tell me how the pastor has to preach the nine o'clock service at one church, leave before the benediction to make the ten thirty at site two just in time to preach the sermon, and rush back to the first for a noon service, and finally preach a six o'clock at the third! Morton said that he takes a helicopter or a plane from one place in Georgia to New Orleans every Sunday.
How can you be any good to any flock at that rate? Let somebody else preach! Christianity looks like just another business when it is done like this. It looks like you are just collecting three paychecks.
One church here has one location that is in the middle of a community that is falling apart and rife with crime. Isn't there enough work to do there without having to make a giant triangle across the county to "help" those in the outlying areas?
One might think that it is because you have to maintain your nearly million-dollar estate, with your five figure home theater and sound system, and I wouldn't want anyone to think you were pimping the Gospel. I wouldn't want anyone to think that because you are going so far as to suggest that people pawn their jewelry and such, you are struggling to maintain a lifestyle and that this is why you keep opening up new franchises. (You know who you are.)
Memphis, where I live, is a town with nearly one church per person! It makes me sick to see churches, often of the same denomination, within a rock's throw of each other. Some of these preachers could shut down an work at one of the franchises.
Why do we put up with stuff in God's name that we wouldn't let a cop or a congressman do if he were in our own family?!?
Friday, September 12, 2008
What They Taught Me
Boys love their fathers. I am no exception. No one loves his father more than I love mine.
But my mother is equally as excellent in my eyes. They taught me so much -- they still do -- and now that I am a parent, I want to be the same thing and show the same things to mine.
I know that in this age, it is not as vogue or common to have parents or be parents. If that is you, feel free to change the trend and use my example. There are many more, but these are the ones I can recall.
1 Tough it out. My folks never quit anything. They got up and went to work well or sick every day. I didn't miss more than a dozen days of school in twelve years.
2 "Don't let nobody hit you and you not hit 'em back!" My MOTHER told me that before my father got the chance to! Life doesn't put up with cowards.
3 "Burn the midnight oil." Ma drilled this into my head. And I saw her raise four kids five and a half years apart from top to bottom while teaching school in the daytime, night school at night, and getting her Master's degree!
4 Share. Daddy was tight with his Tang (remember Tang?), but to this day, I can't say, "Ma! That waffle iron is great!" without her trying to give it to me! And when I needed eye surgery in my late twenties and didn't have the money (I was just starting out as a road musician), my pop paid for it out of his pocket.
5 Know how to fix stuff. My daddy showed me how to work with tools, fix faucets and change alternators. Even though he didn't have a father to show HIM.
6 Don't procrastinate. My mother would scold me to death on those perpetual Sunday nights as I wrote my term papers and handed the pages to her to type at three and four in the morning.
7 Be helpful. Be willing to give until it hurts. See number six.
8 Don't ever hit a girl. I had three big-mouthed sisters. I failed at times, but I got it before it became crucial.
9 Know the answers. My folks stressed education. Bad grades were met with pain, and later with disappointment.
10 Sit up front and shut up unless you have a question. "I'm sendin' you to school to learn, not to be no clown!" The night before my first day of school.
11 Read. Read everything.
12 Do YOUR job. No matter if no one is looking. Don't let the next man have to carry your load. Got that from Ma.
13 The worst thing in the world is a thief, and a liar is the second. Ma.
14 Don't kiss behinds. (I cleaned that one up) Yep. Ma.
15 Family sticks together. If your family member is in a fight, I don't care if he's winnin', you pick up the biggest stick you can find a knock the... Nosy neighbor, Mrs. Burrell to my mother: "Allie, high come I jus' saw yo' kids walkin' up tha street carr'n sticks an' thangs'?" I was in a fight up the street.
16 Stay married. No matter what. December 23, 1963 and counting...
17 Don't argue in front of the kids. Don't yell. They never did.
18 Don't be weak. Don't show fear.
19 Speak up! I still hear my father saying this in my ear!
20 If something's on your mind, get it off. And be through with it. I get this from my mother. It kills Kathy, but she knows it is a good thing.
21 Nobody's better than you. But treat them like they are.
22 Don't half-do a job. (Cleaned that one up, too.)
23 God knows your max. "The Lord doesn't put more on us than we can bear." Ma says this to me every time something bad happens. I can't stand to hear it, but I know she is right.
24 Choose wisely. There was a family that lived on the corner when I was a kid. The husband was always beating his wife up. He would beat her, she would leave him, and every time, she would return. He shot her. She left him, and returned. I remember overhearing the grown folk saying that he was going to kill her one day.
One summer day -- I was watching my sisters since my folks were at work on their summer jobs -- I was outside on the driveway when I saw the oldest daughter, Cynthia, run out of the house in her night clothes shouting, "He killin' her! He killin' her!" She ran across the street to her best friend, Bridget's house.
Sure enough, there he was, in the living room (the front door was open) stabbing her to death. I was about eleven. I saw it happen. When the police came and got him -- he didn't try to run -- he had on white painter's overalls that were now more red than white.
When my folks got home, my father sat us all down and told us to choose our mates wisely or else the same thing could happen to us, especially the girls.
25 Be loyal, even if they are not. My folks seem to go to a funeral a month now. And when my mother's rather, I'll say... "elitist" co-worker got sick, my mother went and served her like a slave, only to have her continue to treat Mom like she was less-than. Ma was confident that SHE did the right thing.
26 Don't raise brats. My father saw a young child acting bratty and resolved to not let that be the way his kids would act! I can't stand a brat!!
27 Dance. Be social. If you're shy, fake it.
28 Don't let an unlearned lesson come around and hit you in the back of the head. Learn from the past. My mother was abused as a child. She vowed not to treat her children that way, even though that is how the pattern regenerates itself.
29 Fat meat is greazy! Ask your black friends.
30 If you're gonna fight, don't talk about it. Do it. In my ninth grade summer, my sisters and I were made to walk, every day, to the park that my father oversaw as his summer job. It was in the serious hood! Kids from all around went there in order to stay out of trouble. My sisters and I were Fauntleroys compared to these kids! It was ROUGH!
In me, they smelled raw meat! I was bullied every day in front of my own father. Being who he was, he must have been thoroughly ashamed of me. It wasn't that I was scared, I just hated to fight. One kid in particular, Tyrone (his name WOULD be Tyrone, hunh?), made it his mission to build a reputation off of me.
Nothing he did got me to fight. (He never hit me) One day, though, my baby sister was riding a skateboard down a steep hill, and purely to provoke me, he pushed Kim off the board.
Every kid in the park ran up the hill to tell me what happened and to see the fight they knew was coming.
My pops, whose JOB was to keep order, leaned calmly on the monkey bars and watched...
"Yeah, I did it!" Tyrone proudly proclaimed. This was it. Everybody was looking, and I was nearly blind with rage. I put up my guard as daddy had shown me years ago.
Tyrone started swaying confidently, back and forth. "You ain' gone do nuthin', punk," smiling.
Left hook -- POW! The world seemed to stop. Tyrone was in the dirt, getting up.
Left hook -- POW! He went down again, rubbing his right jaw and blinking back tears. He got up slower this time. He wouldn't swing. He just stood there with his hands up.
From behind me, I heard a familiar adult voice, "HIT him again! H*ll, HIT him. If you gone fight da**it FIGHT!" His exact words. I turned and looked at my father, the keeper of the peace, urging me on to beat this kid up. "Aw, h*ll! He waved his hand and walked away in disgust.
My heart wasn't in it, and Tyrone's heart was in my pocket. It was over. I had won, and hadn't even taken a lick! I heard the kids who had taunted me all summer consoling Tyrone, " Man, he didn't even wanna fight you."
I thought they would hate me, but they didn't.
Talking to my father years later revealed that he, in all his ruthlessness, wanted me to beat the brakes off that kid to make up for all that stuff I took all summer. He was proud of me, though.
I had learned: Keep your mouth shut, and don't put your dukes up until you know you gotta fight. And those who do the most talking often have to eat the most words.
31 Protect your home. I was never more secure than when at home because I knew Daddy was the baddest beast in the forest.
32 Work hard. Don't make yourself look bad.
33 "Keep your name clean like it was when you got it!" Ma PREACHED that!
34 Don't bring home no dumb girls. First thing they ever told me about girls.
34 Show love. That's all they did, and all I try to do.
But my mother is equally as excellent in my eyes. They taught me so much -- they still do -- and now that I am a parent, I want to be the same thing and show the same things to mine.
I know that in this age, it is not as vogue or common to have parents or be parents. If that is you, feel free to change the trend and use my example. There are many more, but these are the ones I can recall.
1 Tough it out. My folks never quit anything. They got up and went to work well or sick every day. I didn't miss more than a dozen days of school in twelve years.
2 "Don't let nobody hit you and you not hit 'em back!" My MOTHER told me that before my father got the chance to! Life doesn't put up with cowards.
3 "Burn the midnight oil." Ma drilled this into my head. And I saw her raise four kids five and a half years apart from top to bottom while teaching school in the daytime, night school at night, and getting her Master's degree!
4 Share. Daddy was tight with his Tang (remember Tang?), but to this day, I can't say, "Ma! That waffle iron is great!" without her trying to give it to me! And when I needed eye surgery in my late twenties and didn't have the money (I was just starting out as a road musician), my pop paid for it out of his pocket.
5 Know how to fix stuff. My daddy showed me how to work with tools, fix faucets and change alternators. Even though he didn't have a father to show HIM.
6 Don't procrastinate. My mother would scold me to death on those perpetual Sunday nights as I wrote my term papers and handed the pages to her to type at three and four in the morning.
7 Be helpful. Be willing to give until it hurts. See number six.
8 Don't ever hit a girl. I had three big-mouthed sisters. I failed at times, but I got it before it became crucial.
9 Know the answers. My folks stressed education. Bad grades were met with pain, and later with disappointment.
10 Sit up front and shut up unless you have a question. "I'm sendin' you to school to learn, not to be no clown!" The night before my first day of school.
11 Read. Read everything.
12 Do YOUR job. No matter if no one is looking. Don't let the next man have to carry your load. Got that from Ma.
13 The worst thing in the world is a thief, and a liar is the second. Ma.
14 Don't kiss behinds. (I cleaned that one up) Yep. Ma.
15 Family sticks together. If your family member is in a fight, I don't care if he's winnin', you pick up the biggest stick you can find a knock the... Nosy neighbor, Mrs. Burrell to my mother: "Allie, high come I jus' saw yo' kids walkin' up tha street carr'n sticks an' thangs'?" I was in a fight up the street.
16 Stay married. No matter what. December 23, 1963 and counting...
17 Don't argue in front of the kids. Don't yell. They never did.
18 Don't be weak. Don't show fear.
19 Speak up! I still hear my father saying this in my ear!
20 If something's on your mind, get it off. And be through with it. I get this from my mother. It kills Kathy, but she knows it is a good thing.
21 Nobody's better than you. But treat them like they are.
22 Don't half-do a job. (Cleaned that one up, too.)
23 God knows your max. "The Lord doesn't put more on us than we can bear." Ma says this to me every time something bad happens. I can't stand to hear it, but I know she is right.
24 Choose wisely. There was a family that lived on the corner when I was a kid. The husband was always beating his wife up. He would beat her, she would leave him, and every time, she would return. He shot her. She left him, and returned. I remember overhearing the grown folk saying that he was going to kill her one day.
One summer day -- I was watching my sisters since my folks were at work on their summer jobs -- I was outside on the driveway when I saw the oldest daughter, Cynthia, run out of the house in her night clothes shouting, "He killin' her! He killin' her!" She ran across the street to her best friend, Bridget's house.
Sure enough, there he was, in the living room (the front door was open) stabbing her to death. I was about eleven. I saw it happen. When the police came and got him -- he didn't try to run -- he had on white painter's overalls that were now more red than white.
When my folks got home, my father sat us all down and told us to choose our mates wisely or else the same thing could happen to us, especially the girls.
25 Be loyal, even if they are not. My folks seem to go to a funeral a month now. And when my mother's rather, I'll say... "elitist" co-worker got sick, my mother went and served her like a slave, only to have her continue to treat Mom like she was less-than. Ma was confident that SHE did the right thing.
26 Don't raise brats. My father saw a young child acting bratty and resolved to not let that be the way his kids would act! I can't stand a brat!!
27 Dance. Be social. If you're shy, fake it.
28 Don't let an unlearned lesson come around and hit you in the back of the head. Learn from the past. My mother was abused as a child. She vowed not to treat her children that way, even though that is how the pattern regenerates itself.
29 Fat meat is greazy! Ask your black friends.
30 If you're gonna fight, don't talk about it. Do it. In my ninth grade summer, my sisters and I were made to walk, every day, to the park that my father oversaw as his summer job. It was in the serious hood! Kids from all around went there in order to stay out of trouble. My sisters and I were Fauntleroys compared to these kids! It was ROUGH!
In me, they smelled raw meat! I was bullied every day in front of my own father. Being who he was, he must have been thoroughly ashamed of me. It wasn't that I was scared, I just hated to fight. One kid in particular, Tyrone (his name WOULD be Tyrone, hunh?), made it his mission to build a reputation off of me.
Nothing he did got me to fight. (He never hit me) One day, though, my baby sister was riding a skateboard down a steep hill, and purely to provoke me, he pushed Kim off the board.
Every kid in the park ran up the hill to tell me what happened and to see the fight they knew was coming.
My pops, whose JOB was to keep order, leaned calmly on the monkey bars and watched...
"Yeah, I did it!" Tyrone proudly proclaimed. This was it. Everybody was looking, and I was nearly blind with rage. I put up my guard as daddy had shown me years ago.
Tyrone started swaying confidently, back and forth. "You ain' gone do nuthin', punk," smiling.
Left hook -- POW! The world seemed to stop. Tyrone was in the dirt, getting up.
Left hook -- POW! He went down again, rubbing his right jaw and blinking back tears. He got up slower this time. He wouldn't swing. He just stood there with his hands up.
From behind me, I heard a familiar adult voice, "HIT him again! H*ll, HIT him. If you gone fight da**it FIGHT!" His exact words. I turned and looked at my father, the keeper of the peace, urging me on to beat this kid up. "Aw, h*ll! He waved his hand and walked away in disgust.
My heart wasn't in it, and Tyrone's heart was in my pocket. It was over. I had won, and hadn't even taken a lick! I heard the kids who had taunted me all summer consoling Tyrone, " Man, he didn't even wanna fight you."
I thought they would hate me, but they didn't.
Talking to my father years later revealed that he, in all his ruthlessness, wanted me to beat the brakes off that kid to make up for all that stuff I took all summer. He was proud of me, though.
I had learned: Keep your mouth shut, and don't put your dukes up until you know you gotta fight. And those who do the most talking often have to eat the most words.
31 Protect your home. I was never more secure than when at home because I knew Daddy was the baddest beast in the forest.
32 Work hard. Don't make yourself look bad.
33 "Keep your name clean like it was when you got it!" Ma PREACHED that!
34 Don't bring home no dumb girls. First thing they ever told me about girls.
34 Show love. That's all they did, and all I try to do.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
"Lock the door behind me!"
Why is it that the people who claim to advocate "Small Government" want a job in it?
I keed!
I keed!
...On the Other Hand...
"Sarah Palin doesn't reflect the views of most women! She is not in favor of abortions even in the case of rape or incest!" (Most Democrats on many cable news shows)
I ask, "How is this a bad thing?" These women act as though it is traitorous to womanhood to not believe in killing a baby! Let me ax you this: "If YOU were in the womb as a result of a rape or incestuous act, would YOU want someone to stab you in the back of your skull and suck your brains out? Or would you want to live?" (Hospitals are so full, doctors are so rich, because people -- fetuses, too -- want to LIVE! That is the default position.)
Wouldn't YOU, as the viable fetus, want the CHOICE(!) to decide for yourself?"Pregnancy may be about the woman, but abortion is about the baby. It is about the BABY.
I know it may look as though I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not. I'm with Palin on this one. If we were picking a President based on the issue of abortion solely, I would surely side with her.
Democrats don't endear me with this kind of argument. Neither do they when they say, as they so often do, that, "She has some awfully extreme views, like Creationism..."
Whoaaa! Hold it! It is far more plausible -- and provable -- that somebody created something, than to say that something created itSELF!
They kill me acting as though their extreme, radical views on life and God are shared by everyone -- at least everyone rational.
Once again, if we were choosing Presidents based on how the world was made, I would be a Republican. But to choose that party would be like trying to eat ice cream after it had been dropped in a sandbox!
I ask, "How is this a bad thing?" These women act as though it is traitorous to womanhood to not believe in killing a baby! Let me ax you this: "If YOU were in the womb as a result of a rape or incestuous act, would YOU want someone to stab you in the back of your skull and suck your brains out? Or would you want to live?" (Hospitals are so full, doctors are so rich, because people -- fetuses, too -- want to LIVE! That is the default position.)
Wouldn't YOU, as the viable fetus, want the CHOICE(!) to decide for yourself?"Pregnancy may be about the woman, but abortion is about the baby. It is about the BABY.
I know it may look as though I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not. I'm with Palin on this one. If we were picking a President based on the issue of abortion solely, I would surely side with her.
Democrats don't endear me with this kind of argument. Neither do they when they say, as they so often do, that, "She has some awfully extreme views, like Creationism..."
Whoaaa! Hold it! It is far more plausible -- and provable -- that somebody created something, than to say that something created itSELF!
They kill me acting as though their extreme, radical views on life and God are shared by everyone -- at least everyone rational.
Once again, if we were choosing Presidents based on how the world was made, I would be a Republican. But to choose that party would be like trying to eat ice cream after it had been dropped in a sandbox!
Man of Steal
Kenneth Copeland,
Creflo Dollar,
Mike Murdock,
Benny Hinn:
Used to be that thieves wore masks and did their dirt in the dark. Nowadays, they do it in shiny suits, and on satellite teevee before God and millions!
I had tears of laughter in my left eye, and tears of sadness in my right watching this clip...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15u6fHkICxc]
"Seeds" are not dollars, folks. "Seeds" are DEEDS. Don't try to buy God.
Don't let these guys with their "Aw, shucks," cracker barrel twang, or their Philly cream cheese voices lie to you AND steal from you! You may not be able to stop one, but you can certainly stop them from doing both!
Steve Munsey:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QKYmxYcrGg]
Creflo Dollar,
Mike Murdock,
Benny Hinn:
Used to be that thieves wore masks and did their dirt in the dark. Nowadays, they do it in shiny suits, and on satellite teevee before God and millions!
I had tears of laughter in my left eye, and tears of sadness in my right watching this clip...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15u6fHkICxc]
"Seeds" are not dollars, folks. "Seeds" are DEEDS. Don't try to buy God.
Don't let these guys with their "Aw, shucks," cracker barrel twang, or their Philly cream cheese voices lie to you AND steal from you! You may not be able to stop one, but you can certainly stop them from doing both!
Steve Munsey:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QKYmxYcrGg]
I'll Stay on the Couch.
My pop called me yesterday and told me that NBC (msnbc) had demoted Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann for, I guess, inordinately biased commentary during coverage of the Republican National Convention. They did this at the urging of the GOP. Wow.
So, Republican officials are so bothered by partisan coverage that they go to the trouble to (and have the power to) have the two top msnbc anchors publically embarrassed in this fashion?
I don't deny that they are, in many cases over there, in the tank for the Democrats -- and Obama in particular. The aforementioned, as well as Rachel Maddow, David Gregory, and many of the guest pundits, don't hide their leanings.
But my point is this:
FOX News does the same thing! Hannity, O'Reilly, Brit Hume, FOX and Friends, and practically all their guests don't just lean TO the right, they lean ON it. Heavily. In fact, Hannity has basically said that it was his job to make sure McCain gets elected. In order to get a real picture of how the race is really going, you have to do your own homework and look at all of it.
I have a point of view. YOU have one, too. Being on teevee doesn't excuse one from being human, it seems.
For me to join a party -- either one -- means that I have to swallow a lot of stuff I wouldn't eat at gunpoint. To call myself a Democrat, I would have to be cool with folk like Maddow and Maher ridiculing me for my hard and fast stances on Creationism, God, gay marriage, and abortion. I would have to deny the very existence of "sin" and play ball on a team populated by atheists, anarchists, feminists, and folk who have no moral compass whatsoever.
To call myself a Republican, I would have to be at ease riding on a bandwagon alongside people like this. And with people who live on my very own street who drive by me while I work in my own yard and stare at me as though I am made of the stuff I am spreading on the grass! To call myself a Republican, I would have to align myself with many people who would claim to serve God while harboring hatred in their hearts for anyone of a culture or ethnicity different than theirs. I would, generally speaking, have to be like the Jesse Lee Petersons, Ken Hamblins, and Larry Elders of the world and act as though racism is either non-existent, or entirely black folks' fault. I would have to look the other way when they do things to people that I find heartless and
un-Jesuslike.
Yesterday's move crystallizes the problem I have with those in power on the Right. They spent months decrying Obama's lack of experience, and in a purely -- transparently -- political move, selected a very nice lady with five children and conservative views who had presidential qualifications slightly better than my high school guidance counselor! And just as they tried to make me think that stuff running down my back was rain (Iraq being part of the search for 9/11 justice), they tried -- with astonishing, dismaying success -- to tell us that Mrs. Palin was the absolute best choice to very possibly be President. I like her. I really do. But I like my mama, too, and she ain't qualified to run this country!
The thing is, when black folk down the line have been up for high-profile positions, the first and last thing brought into question was their qualification. We have had to jump through a million hoops (even to the point of having to take tests in order to vote!), to become coaches, general managers, business owners, college students, and doctors.
You can say whatever you want about whether Obama has the right political positions as far as taxes, abortion, homeland security, or health care, but you can't argue (convincingly) that the man isn't qualified through his education and public service history to be President.
No one was talking about "Executive Experience" until Palin got selected. Republicans say it so much that they forget that McCain himself has none. By that reasoning, Palin should be running for the head job!
Another thing: I am 6' 3" tall, and over 240 lbs. All my adult life, I have had to play the role of "Mr. Nice Guy" in order to put white folks at ease. Black folk are generally not intimidated by size. When I go into a store, or into a business situation, unless I am in a hostile environment, I make an effort, mostly unconsciously, to not be mean-looking. I don't want to perpetuate any stereotypes.
Obama has had to run as well as he has without resorting to the same tactics Hillary and McCain used against him. He has the added burden of being tagged with the "Angry Man" label.
Michelle, his wife, has likewise been hit with the "Sassy Black Woman" tag. While both sides use ads that exaggerate the position of the other, there has been that extra little bit of spice in the GOP spots.
And the convention was filled with the kind of divisive rhetoric that makes a lot of people like me not really feel welcome at the party. I know this was just fine with some on the convention floor...
I'm sorry. When I close my eyes and think, "Republican," (not "conservative") I see "Sean Hannity" with his "Great Americans" and his leading questions designed only to corner and squash his opponent. I see Karl Rove -- who should be in jail -- Ollie North -- who should be in jail -- and that racist Mark Fuhrman -- who shou -- you know what I mean. How do they always end up as guests on FOX?
The Democrats had their share of ad hominem stuff, too, but as objectively as I tried to be, it seemed that the Republicans shoved the knife in deeper. I want people to deal with the issues, not see who can make the snidest, cleverest remark. Especially when one side cries "foul" and has people on the other side fired for trying to play by the same crooked rules! And they call the Democrat thin-skinned.
The extreme jingoism, masked as patriotism, was unsettling to me. "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!!" "USA! USA! USA" "GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!" (and NOplace else) They claimed Obama had a Messiah complex, but it suuure looked like there was some flag-worship/monument-idolatry going on in Minnesota. And what was up with the 9/11 video in the background? Would a Democrat have been able to use that footage as a badge of honor in that fashion? Rhetorical. Don't answer.
It was all "win at any cost."Why else would the party of traditionalists and evangelicals who think that a woman's place is best in the home raising her kids choose a woman with a whole slew of young-uns and the busiest job in her state? For the first time in history? When the other side had millions of angry, disenfranchised women with nowhere to go? That was a brilliant, slick move. And it is working. I don't fault you for supporting her. But if Obama had a degree in journalism and mayored a town of five thousand, he wouldn't have made it past Iowa! Can'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZU9GGBI2jM">Can you say "flip-flop?" Maybe if he pronounced his name, "O-Bamma" like Alabama...
It is as though there are two separate countries at war with one another to decide who will get to exercise power. It really saddens me.
Yes, Olbermann makes me cringe. But Hannity makes me want to fight!
The point is that to get into bed with either party means compromising certain of my "Essential Issues."
So, rather than do that, I'll just stay on the couch.
So, Republican officials are so bothered by partisan coverage that they go to the trouble to (and have the power to) have the two top msnbc anchors publically embarrassed in this fashion?
I don't deny that they are, in many cases over there, in the tank for the Democrats -- and Obama in particular. The aforementioned, as well as Rachel Maddow, David Gregory, and many of the guest pundits, don't hide their leanings.
But my point is this:
FOX News does the same thing! Hannity, O'Reilly, Brit Hume, FOX and Friends, and practically all their guests don't just lean TO the right, they lean ON it. Heavily. In fact, Hannity has basically said that it was his job to make sure McCain gets elected. In order to get a real picture of how the race is really going, you have to do your own homework and look at all of it.
I have a point of view. YOU have one, too. Being on teevee doesn't excuse one from being human, it seems.
For me to join a party -- either one -- means that I have to swallow a lot of stuff I wouldn't eat at gunpoint. To call myself a Democrat, I would have to be cool with folk like Maddow and Maher ridiculing me for my hard and fast stances on Creationism, God, gay marriage, and abortion. I would have to deny the very existence of "sin" and play ball on a team populated by atheists, anarchists, feminists, and folk who have no moral compass whatsoever.
To call myself a Republican, I would have to be at ease riding on a bandwagon alongside people like this. And with people who live on my very own street who drive by me while I work in my own yard and stare at me as though I am made of the stuff I am spreading on the grass! To call myself a Republican, I would have to align myself with many people who would claim to serve God while harboring hatred in their hearts for anyone of a culture or ethnicity different than theirs. I would, generally speaking, have to be like the Jesse Lee Petersons, Ken Hamblins, and Larry Elders of the world and act as though racism is either non-existent, or entirely black folks' fault. I would have to look the other way when they do things to people that I find heartless and
un-Jesuslike.
Yesterday's move crystallizes the problem I have with those in power on the Right. They spent months decrying Obama's lack of experience, and in a purely -- transparently -- political move, selected a very nice lady with five children and conservative views who had presidential qualifications slightly better than my high school guidance counselor! And just as they tried to make me think that stuff running down my back was rain (Iraq being part of the search for 9/11 justice), they tried -- with astonishing, dismaying success -- to tell us that Mrs. Palin was the absolute best choice to very possibly be President. I like her. I really do. But I like my mama, too, and she ain't qualified to run this country!
The thing is, when black folk down the line have been up for high-profile positions, the first and last thing brought into question was their qualification. We have had to jump through a million hoops (even to the point of having to take tests in order to vote!), to become coaches, general managers, business owners, college students, and doctors.
You can say whatever you want about whether Obama has the right political positions as far as taxes, abortion, homeland security, or health care, but you can't argue (convincingly) that the man isn't qualified through his education and public service history to be President.
No one was talking about "Executive Experience" until Palin got selected. Republicans say it so much that they forget that McCain himself has none. By that reasoning, Palin should be running for the head job!
Another thing: I am 6' 3" tall, and over 240 lbs. All my adult life, I have had to play the role of "Mr. Nice Guy" in order to put white folks at ease. Black folk are generally not intimidated by size. When I go into a store, or into a business situation, unless I am in a hostile environment, I make an effort, mostly unconsciously, to not be mean-looking. I don't want to perpetuate any stereotypes.
Obama has had to run as well as he has without resorting to the same tactics Hillary and McCain used against him. He has the added burden of being tagged with the "Angry Man" label.
Michelle, his wife, has likewise been hit with the "Sassy Black Woman" tag. While both sides use ads that exaggerate the position of the other, there has been that extra little bit of spice in the GOP spots.
And the convention was filled with the kind of divisive rhetoric that makes a lot of people like me not really feel welcome at the party. I know this was just fine with some on the convention floor...
I'm sorry. When I close my eyes and think, "Republican," (not "conservative") I see "Sean Hannity" with his "Great Americans" and his leading questions designed only to corner and squash his opponent. I see Karl Rove -- who should be in jail -- Ollie North -- who should be in jail -- and that racist Mark Fuhrman -- who shou -- you know what I mean. How do they always end up as guests on FOX?
The Democrats had their share of ad hominem stuff, too, but as objectively as I tried to be, it seemed that the Republicans shoved the knife in deeper. I want people to deal with the issues, not see who can make the snidest, cleverest remark. Especially when one side cries "foul" and has people on the other side fired for trying to play by the same crooked rules! And they call the Democrat thin-skinned.
The extreme jingoism, masked as patriotism, was unsettling to me. "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!!" "USA! USA! USA" "GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!" (and NOplace else) They claimed Obama had a Messiah complex, but it suuure looked like there was some flag-worship/monument-idolatry going on in Minnesota. And what was up with the 9/11 video in the background? Would a Democrat have been able to use that footage as a badge of honor in that fashion? Rhetorical. Don't answer.
It was all "win at any cost."Why else would the party of traditionalists and evangelicals who think that a woman's place is best in the home raising her kids choose a woman with a whole slew of young-uns and the busiest job in her state? For the first time in history? When the other side had millions of angry, disenfranchised women with nowhere to go? That was a brilliant, slick move. And it is working. I don't fault you for supporting her. But if Obama had a degree in journalism and mayored a town of five thousand, he wouldn't have made it past Iowa! Can'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZU9GGBI2jM">Can you say "flip-flop?" Maybe if he pronounced his name, "O-Bamma" like Alabama...
It is as though there are two separate countries at war with one another to decide who will get to exercise power. It really saddens me.
Yes, Olbermann makes me cringe. But Hannity makes me want to fight!
The point is that to get into bed with either party means compromising certain of my "Essential Issues."
So, rather than do that, I'll just stay on the couch.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
