My problem with Christians...as a Christian.

I was standing some where in the vicinity of a corner if I remember vaguely enough, drinking a cup of coffee as I watched from about fifteen feet away as a guy and a bleach blond chic snorted cocaine off the stomach of another completely naked chic's body. Contrary to what Hugh Hefner claims about there being no drugs allowed at the Playboy Mansion I can tell you the same is not true at parties off sight. This particular occurrence happened right after the turn of this century in Miami. I was there as the bodyguard for a then client of mine, which basically afforded me as a then twenty something year old guy the opportunity to see more naked women than most National Geographic photographers ever will. Ironically enough I was not the least bit turned on, two hours earlier into the night I was...no sense in lying, but after a while viewing human depravity just took its toll.

The ironic thought that went through my head as I watched the coke being sniffed off the girl's body was "How in the heck does a person (and I was not thinking of myself) talk about Christ in a situation like this". I say ironic because Jesus was not a priority in my life at that time. You see somewhere between a very honest coming-to-Jesus moment at twelve and being a very active twenty-six year old Executive Protection Specialist I walked away from God. Now I didn't reject any notion of God or Christ existing, and I can tell you that I did pray at times, but my heart just wasn't right with Him. Yet there I was amongst a feast of female human flesh thinking about how some poor sap could come in and talk with these people about salvation. Because what I knew then and I know now is some of those people were screaming out for God to rescue them.

Flash forward a couple of years from that moment and I found myself at a confrontation with God. I had walked away from a very promising corporate career that made me absolutely miserable to do something on my own that would at the very least ease my stress level, let alone might make me happy. I had been attending a church the last several months and intermittently going to BSF (bible study fellowship international) for the last few years. My life was miserable, I was morally, emotionally and financially bankrupt, but the one thing I did have was some very very good friends in both non-Christians and Christians.

And then a moment happened that has forever changed my heart and my relationship with my Creator. I got down on my knees feeling completely worthless in so many aspects of my life and told God that this life was His and whatever He wanted me to do I would do it. It was the most selfless moment I've ever had in my life. And the only ones who were there to witness were God and Bud the cat. I was a man in desperate need of help in so many ways, and I had tried to fix it every way I knew how and had failed, yet there in me knew who could. Christ.

I wish I could tell you that the time following that moment was easy. It wasn't. I was involved with a couple of girls in some fashion that I was going to have to end, I was still at the point of being financially broke, but my heart was changed and whatever the world had on me it no longer mattered because whatever He had done no one else could undo.

Soon after I became more solidly involved in the Christian community, and what I also did was begin isolating myself from my non-Christian friends who were as close to me as brothers. Why? Well at the time I received advice from a lot of Christian brothers and sisters saying that there would be an over whelming temptation to fall back into my old life style.

Their advice may have been sincere, but it was also horribly horribly wrong.

Isolationists always are.

The problem is that this attitude is alive and well through out the Christian community. A ministry attitude of this reeks of Get-'em-up, Get-'em-saved, Get-'em-away. Christians are encouraged to stay away from the world unless you are doing something as a church body to further the Kingdom of God like go on over seas missions trips, or raise money for something or another. I'm not chastising this, I've done both and there is a need no doubt.

But a lot of white bread Christians don't want other Christians getting involved in the community in ways that might get them hurt or my personal favorite "fall back into sin". Like I need help sinning. These are the same people who will encourage you to go on missions to Africa. Shit you want to talk about getting hurt, go to Africa.

About a year ago The Wife and I were asked if we would be willing to lead a Small Group in our Church. Now I know that some people love to jump into stuff like this feet first, but frankly I had severe reservations. One, I thought "have you %$&#&*! met me?" and two sometimes these invites seem like winning popularity contests in High School. When you know the right people you're in. But I looked at who was asking, and I talked with God and The Wife about the whole concept of such an issue and we decided to go forward (though I still contend that they may have been scraping the bottom of the barrel).

Why?

Rule 21 of my own personal list of rules, which states "If you aren't going to lead, don't bitch about being led."

I was bitching a lot about things that bothered me in "small groups".

So after some time of apprenticeship training last fall, and some weird time thing in the late winter early spring we (The Wife and I) were given a kick to the pants to start leading a "group".
As we got close to starting God put something on my heart about going on mission into the surrounding community, and to be frankly honest it is nothing original what-so-ever.

Simply put I wanted our group to meet once a month in a local pub, bar, what have you for a couple of different reasons. One its a good opportunity for us all to kick back and relax with each other and get to know each other in less formal surroundings (though there is little formal about our Church, let alone the group) and the other is that is where you would have found Jesus Himself. Christ didn't preach from inside the synagogue and force people to come to Him, though in time people would flock to and follow him wherever he went.

When Jesus encounters Levi (aka Matthew) he is working as a tax collector for the Romans, though he was a Jew. Matthew or Levi was literally a social outcast and utterly despised by the Jews. Remember that 1st century Palestine was governed by an occupying army of Romans, Jewish tax collectors sold out there own people to graft them. So when they encounter each other Christ tells this enforcer/extortionist that He is going to dine in his home with all of his friends. Christ hanging out with societies outcasts is a theme we see Him repeat over and over.

Now I don't think people who go to bars are necessarily outcasts, nor do I think that everyone there is without Christ. But know this. There are people all over who won't darken a church but, have questions and desire to know more about Christ. Maybe....just maybe they don't want to be preached at. So thus I felt like we'd go to them. So I rang up the Pastor and asked him what he thought about it, and got a resounding "yes" and that was all I needed.

To be frank, I don't really care for alcohol. For the first time in my life I am learning to acquire a taste for beer and wine for several reasons. One is there are good heart health reasons for it, two if I can relate Christ to a person through a beer (and I mean one) then that is something. I guarantee you that I would not have said the same thing five years ago.

Alcohol is not something I struggle with. I struggle with being around people who are consistently drunk and I've spent a lot of time in my adult life being the only sober guy in a club or floating down a river with a couple of well lit friends who were chanting about "Cheetoes", which almost led to murder-by-wooden canoe paddle around mile ten.

Fast forward a few weeks.

Word kind of spreads through of what we are going to do, and one Sunday morning walking into church (late) and I stop to grab a cup of coffee before sitting down when a guy that I am friendly with stops me and pulls me aside. "Hey, I hear your small group is going to be going to a bar." "Yeah, just something God put on me to do." "Well you know we have people who are recovering alcoholics in this church, and I gotta say that I think it is kinda risky to be putting people into temptation like that."

First of all, we as a group talked about this. Second if you're a recovering alcoholic don't go to our base camp, or at-least don't join us on that particular night....duh.

I soon found it wasn't an isolated feeling amongst some folks and well I don't care.

Everyone gets hinky about the alcohol ordeal or "struggle" but no one asks a guy who is struggling with porn to throw out his laptop, or a chic who repeatedly sins through gossip to not own a telephone or half a dozen other situations.

The irony is that a few of these people who had reservations about this small group going into a bar and just hang out were the same ones at a church building campaign meeting who made statements like "we want it to be welcoming" or "don't make it look like a typical church so people won't feel intimidated".

I get bothered by crap like this. Everyone there expressed the desire to have the "tattooed, nose ring, whoevers" join us, but the moment you try an go to the places where you might encounter such individuals well THAT becomes and issue. And by the way I have two tats myself.

I think Jesus desires Christians to build relationships with non Christians that are authentic and that we lead lives that are a reflection of Him in us and share that with the world. In fact I'm pretty sure He made the statement to let your light shine and not conceal it. When you hide in your church or church body that is exactly what you are doing. You are hiding in a fort, and while you may feel safe and secure I can guarantee this. That you still are full of sin. Forgiven yes, but every Christian is still as lustful, greedy, what have you in his own flesh as the atheist next door. That is the struggle of all fallen men and we are all fallen. Christ changes our hearts, we don't.


But God changes our hearts by opening them up, and putting all of our pasts to use to further His works. He also reminds us to go...go where there are people who don't know Christ, who reject Him openly or quietly, where people are hurting or in need. God who is the Father of Christ is a God of the person and He wants very personal relationships with all of His children, and not all of them go to Church on Sunday morning.

Last of the wild people

With arrows poised ready to thwart an aerial attack an undiscovered tribe of Amazon Indians were photographed near the border of Peru and Brazil. My heart jumped at the mere thought of the truly last of the wild people. But it also sinks, and you know why.

Think for a moment what they as a people have never seen, forget your laptop, internet, car, highways and pop culture mentality for a moment. Brazil is one of the ten largest economies in the world and yet they had undiscovered people living in their woods. It would be akin to finding an unknown tribe of Cheyenne or flathead Indians living in Montana or Idaho. Not only does this tribe know nothing of the moon landing 39 years ago they have no concept that Vasco De Gama and the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in early 1500. So the concept of a muzzle-loading rifle and a steel helmet and oil lamp and paper and pen are just as foreign to them as a car.

Anthropologist believe that there maybe some sixty-seven tribes left in the Amazon that we don't know about which is forty higher than they thought in 2005. And possibly one hundred tribes world wide.

It will eventually go south of course and their will be no one left to live in the wild, and I'm sure that international laws will someday be passed in regards to it. But for today there are still a few surviving bands of nomadic people who live and die and war with bows and arrows, loin clothes, and are bare footed and don't care what "celebrity" wore underwear or who danced with the stars...or maybe most importantly are completely unaffected by a looming $4.00 a gallon gas price.

Rattling the windows and the nerves

Woke up this morning at 4:4? to the rattling of the bed, and not in a good way. Now I get that the earth shakes and quivers all the time (as the wife reminded me) but it ain't something that I dig. At all.

The earth doing its thing is a great reminder that we as the inhabitants of this blue marble sitting amidst otherwise nothingness are in charge of exactly dick, despite what your boss, mortgage company, and the I.R.S. seemingly like to make you think.

Yet there is this reminder from Christ Himself when He did his tour in the mid-east 2 thousand years ago.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Pretty good reminder after a 5.4 on the Rhicter .

SB1200

You might not know this but in the Missouri State Senate they are debating a bill on encoding ammunition by 2009. Encoded ammo would be registered to the purchaser and would include the date it was sold, the purchaser's name, date of birth, drivers license number and serial number of ammunition.
I was all set to do my usual ramble about tyranny of government of this when I got a copy of my good friend Dave's e-mail he sent out to our state senators. His words do far more justice than anything I could write. I encourage you to read it.

"I am writing to express my opposition to Senate Bill No. 1200 introduced by Senator Bray. I believe this to be yet another thinly veiled attempt at criminalizing law abiding citizens rather than actually reducing crime. Many law abiding citizens will purchase firearms and ammunition for protection of their homes, persons and property. Sadly, many of these citizens will rarely, if ever, practice with their firearm. Ammunition that has been purchased for self defense purposes may remain in a closet or drawer for years. By passing this law, you have effectively made these law abiding citizens criminals by possessing ammunition which does not meet the requirements set forth in this bill. I find this legislation interesting in that ammunition encoding systems are currently based on a proprietary system, and is patent pending. A licensing fee would be charged for each bullet manufactured with the encoding. I find it reprehensible that a company would enlist the help of legislators to enact legislation that would pump money into their pockets by forcing the licensing of an unproven technology. In addition to the "licensing fee", costs would also be passed on to the consumer to account for the record keeping required for every box of ammo purchased. This will in effect price the Second Amendment out of reach for many law abiding citizens. After all, what good is the right to keep and bear arms if you can't afford the ammunition. The economic impact could be great. If ammunition costs rise significantly, you could potentially see a drop in hunting and shooting sports which pump billions of dollars into our economy. This will result in the closure of manufacturing plants and supporting businesses which require a healthy industry to survive. This would result in the loss of thousands of American jobs. I would think it to be politically damning if legislation were passed which caused the loss of more American jobs. The shutdown of these ammunition manufacturers would impact law enforcement. It could increase their training costs as it would likely impact the availability and quality of the ammunition that they train with and rely upon in their duty weapons. In addition to the impact on law enforcement, our military would be impacted as much of their ammunition also comes from the same factories and manufacturers which produce ammo for civilian and law enforcement use. People who intend to perpetrate a crime with a firearm will have little regard for whether their ammunition is registered or not. If this law were in effect today, it would not have stopped many of the recent mass shootings. Is this legislation about preventing crime, or about filling the coffers of a company peddling an unproven technology and reducing the rights of American citizens through a de facto ban of our Second Amendment rights? I urge you to vote against this measure and any other measure, de facto or de jure, that would infringe or remove the rights granted in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I would point out that in Australia and The United Kingdom (both with stringent weapons laws) that it has done little to reduce the amount of gun related crime. Rather, in Australia where all forms of firearms are prohibited, crime has actually increased since there is no apparent deterrent in that someone may well be armed. Please vote against this bill."

Well said David...well said indeed!

2012

So its the morning after the New Hampshire Primaries and I choose not to debase myself with name calling, but New Hampshire come on!

All great nations, empires, and the like fall at some point, and while I hate to say it I think our reign is almost over. It wouldn't have to be mind you, but frankly when a nation sticks diodes in its ears to listen the personal choice of music and misses the hum of a nation we lose ground every day. When the top stories of the week on yahoo are whether Britney wore panties, or which celebs top the worst dressed list it proves our heads are willfully stuck up our asses. And it heavies and hardens my heart.

In the fall of 2010 I will turn 35 and by 2012 I will be 37 making me old enough to make a run for President.

No name calling...none. I won't even talk about the other candidates. Rather I will talk about what I will and won't do. If I get asked a question and I don't have a plan for it I'll say exactly that.What I do want is to get things right at home.

Freedom-Safe guarding the rights of the individual. I consider myself a man of the person not of the people.

The Border-Put the United States Armed Forces on the Mexico border. We are all the sons and daughters of immigrants in this land and I welcome legal immigration, dare I say I admire anyone who fights to make a better life for themselves. But we are a nation of laws and those laws must be respected. There is no free pass for sneaking across the border.

Iraq- All U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn over time if we are not already out. American military advisers? Absolutely but our combat days in Iraq are done. I would deal with the our new found allies to set up multiple military bases inside Iraq. However if they want American boots on the ground to defend their liberty then they will have to pay for through private military and security forces. Freedom costs. It did us. We had to pay for it with money and blood. I would sell/trade American military equipment for exclusive and discounted oil rights. Oil is a national security issue and it has to be addressed, and there is no reason not to openly address it.

Foreign Policy-The world likes to bitch about America try living with out us for the next four years. Have a famine in your country talk to the U.N., natural disaster try the Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge. We buy nothing from Venezuela n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Hugo likes Castro so much he can share the pain of an American trade embargo.

America has to focus inward, we can and must bring jobs back to the U.S. and instill national pride and rugged individualism.

We need to offer $1 billion dollars cash to the first company who can build a gas free vehicle that can drive six hundred miles in one run with out a recharge of whatever, can haul six people, three deer stands and a duck boat. Has a full bore, out run, and gun engine that you can be proud to drive.

We have to develop new technologies and force the large American businesses to recycle their trash in earnest and stop filling up landfills.

Developers need to be given sufficient tax breaks on derelict housing to go in a rebuild neighborhoods complete with schools, supermarkets and honest to God infrastructure.

Get the middle class to move back into metropolitan areas and stop, S-T-O-P bulldozing our wetlands, our farms, and our forests.

If the American people really want to change health care (not socialize it) then take it to the streets in protest, literally. Let the voice of a nation be heard that the Insurance Industry has to make sufficient changes that make cost lower and return health care to the doctor. Encourage healthy living through knowledge and education.

If you are on of the many Americans who thought that the American Government didn't do anything to save the victims of Hurricane Katrina then why in the bloody hell would you want them to take care of your heart condition, cancer or broken leg!?


It is important that we have pharmaceutical companies but we don't need a pill for everything. Homeopathic medicine needs to be addressed in a serious way in America and legitimize by teaching it in American Universities.

Address the stupid obsession with our way of thinking about our children. They are not our most precious resource the American middle class working person is. Children shouldn't be put up on pedestals and treated as equals, they aren't. If you put your child first all you get is an adult who only thinks of himself and never finds satisfaction in life.

Get our kids outside again and put away those mother fucking video games. You want to know why your eight year old has diabetes and he's over weight ...Halo 3. That's why. There are these amazing things that are called hiking, fishing, hunting...sandlot baseball where uniforms are whatever you have on and one team wins and the other (gasp) loses...just like real life.

Encourage encourage encourage a free market where people are free to make as much or as little as THEY choose.

Pass a national carrying conceal bill for the private citizen, that does not require any form of National I.D.

Tax the hell out of the American pornography and adult entertainment business.

Fight the overwhelming trend of Socialism in this country, remind people of the goodness of freedom and that we all don't have to agree, and in fact we shouldn't, but that we all have to live together.

Last but not least personal responsibility. Its nobodies business to take care of you or your family but you. When a child sees the parent taking charge of their futures and instilling good pride through hard work and ethical business practices you will see the child turn into an adult of strong principals and self sufficiency.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Something wicked this way comes

You've probably seen the video and heard the late night talk show hosts laugh and quote "Don't tase me bro..." but there is something verry disturbing about this.

Andrew Meyes who is a journo student at University of Florida was forcibly removed from the question stand after asking John Kerry too many questions. Force escalated when he pulled away from the Campus police who were attempting to remove him and it ultimately led to him being dragged to the rear of the auditorium and was taken to the ground by several cops who began to zip-cuff him. It was here that he was tasered.

Now over the years I've done some man-handling of men and on some occasions women. Here was difference between those situations and this. There was a viable threat against my principal or myself, or someone else. I NEVER removed or put my hands on anyone who was running off at the mouth. I did try and talk reasonable to them, and as corny as this sounds got one of the best pieces of advice I would ever employ from Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse. "Be nice". It may sound completely soft, and limp but here is the thing, it is also completely disarming in 80% of the situations. I never said that I wasn't ready for something to go down or go bad, nor that I was not firm in my request or apologetic about what I was doing I simply asked a question in a gentler tone.

It works in most cases because when you make an approach your adversary expects you to try and bully them, so they don't want to lose face and nobody likes to be pushed around. Being nice will get you far.

In the Andrew Meyer situation everything was wrong. Instead of saying to him that everyone is allowed a certain amount of time, they cut the mike off and the cops moved in. They put their hands on him to move him from the rear and blindside. Meyer had just finished when hands are put on him.

This is a very serious situation on a constitutional level that occurred on an American University of all places, where free speech is taught as a corner stone of America.

This is the hall marks of moving towards a Police State.

And where was John Kerry in all of this. The man who wanted to be the leader of the Free World should have looked to the police and requested (he had no actual authority to do anything granted) that they immediately remove their hands from this man, and it would have been a great place to go on the necessity of protecting free speech. What Kerry says instead after mumbling in a weakish manner about answering his questions is "Well I guess he won't be swearing me in up here as President" ???

While everyone is very much obsessing over unimportant issues like O.J. So called "small" issues like this are showing the turning of the tide. The Universities are always a good meter to measure against how society is going. And as a man was being assaulted and his constitutional rights clearly being violated America has laughed at it.

In a post 9/11 world our borders are still wide open to illegal persons who can in some parts obtain a drivers license and hundreds of thousands of them can protest that they have rights to be here and work illegally. And no one moves in to arrest them. Mean while private citizens bent on doing the right thing of protecting our borders both armed and unarmed are criticized and called "extremist". Homeland Security has issued warnings of school buses being used in an Islamic funded terrorist attack, presumable in the Northwest, and very few even know about it. The leader of Iran himself, a known terrorist and state sponsor of terrorism, has been asked to speak to students at an American University, all the while an over zealous journalist student is being tasered and escorted out in handcuffs.

We the People have a very reasonable, inalienable and lawfully expected right to ask questions both publicly and privately, aggressively or passively no matter who agrees or disagrees with the position one has taken. That my fellow Americans is free speech, plain and simple!

Global Warming

So its July 20th, 2007 here in the Mid-West and normally the weather is something to the effect of 175 degrees with 225% humidity and everyone is generally willing to offer virginal sacrifices to the air conditioner gods to keep the appeased, yet every summer we are seeing milder and milder summers here in this part of the country. Sure we still get those stupid hot days, but something is changing.

As of this writing (around noon non the less) the Temp is 75 degrees and we have been experiencing something of Monsoons in the late afternoons a couple times a week and nice enjoyable days....in July.....in St. Louis.

Global warming is being blamed or at least man is for causing global warming. Well I think we bear some burdens but not all of it. Here is just a thought for all you atheistic evolutionaries to ponder.

The ice caps are a result of meteor impacts that caused something to the effect of a nuclear winter over the earth (read: ice age). Areas that were once comparable to African Savannas year round (Montana) were blanketed by ice and snow and glaciers. So the ice age wasn't exactly something that was supposed to occur naturally in an earth context. Eventually the ice melted over some period of time and the land got itself back in sync. Then we show up and eventually screw the pooch. Or are we completely, I mean we definitely pollute that undebateable.

If the polar caps weren't natural and occurred from galactic pollution and they are still melting then isn't the earth actually returning to what is once was? Maybe we need to realize that in the 21st century that as a society we are completely removed from a daily life amongst the natural land and maybe just maybe we don't have all the answers like we think we do. I seriously doubt that people who drive Priuses and live in urban areas can tell me jack shit about what really goes on in the wilds as a whole...not that they won't try...as they drink water out of the plastic one use bottle that came from petroleum that was drilled out of the earth from several thousand miles away and shipped over an already environmentally troubled ocean, along with those non bio degradable shoes (leather is bio degradable by the way...see circle of life concept).

Everyone talks about the massive droughts in the Southwest and Los Angles areas (umm its the desert) and massive floods every where else and how man has caused all this. Droughts have been going on since before we all were born, by something like since the beginning. It can not rain extensively in one area to the effect of flooding and not cause a drought in another (See Newton's 3rd law of physics it pretty much applies). Our water is the same water that was drunk by earliest man, dinosaurs, Genghis Khan, Caesar, George Washington, to yours truly.

Maybe the reason the earth is shaped in a near perfect circle is because cycles work better that way (hmmm circle-cycle seems to be some connection there), and maybe we all need to stop, look and listen to the natural world instead of trying to talk it to death.

Or here is a really crazy thought. Perhaps there is actually a higher power, an honest Supreme Being who created all this and might have a better handle on things than we all realize.

So if a mid afternoon in July is clear skies and 75 degrees is the result of Global Warming I'm gonna go rejoice and roll around in the nearest land fill then pick up my AK and go Whale Hunting.