Category: Uncategorized

I understand that doing the right thing is difficult, especially when you make a mistake. But actions have consequences and things in life do have a way of working themselves out eventually.
So to the anonymous person who struck my rental car in Little Rock, AR I forgive you and I pray that one day you will own up to your mistakes and start taking responsibility for your actions. I may panic along the way a few times as I try to come up with the deductible amount in addition to the money I still need to spend to fix my car, but I know that God will provide and his blessings will overflow. I thank God that for all that has gone wrong this week Phoebe and I are safe, maybe a little worse for wear, but we made it through this just as we have made it through so many other things before today. As I told someone this morning this has been a bit rougher than normal weeks, but not that unusual or different for us.
So I will pray for you anonymous parking lot person just as I will pray for the 911 operator who did not dispatch police or take our police report over the phone, leaving us in limbo for 2 1/2 hours. And I will pray that I grow from this experience.

That I am laying on a bed in a Holiday Inn express in Fulton MS, two blocks from the autozone that will have the replacement thermostat housing for my broken down Mini Cooper by 11 AM tomorrow. We were going to drive straight through to Oklahoma to see my Uncle Gordon who has stage 4 lung cancer. I am still trying to come to terms with that fact, was a shock to talk to him on the phone a few days ago and hear my dads voice, that was very hard. I am somewhat angry that I did not know earlier, but that is what it is. As with so much of my family there is distance and disfunction, my lack of communication seems to be a family trait.
That my car is broken down though is just another bump in the road and I am not upset, not angry. That we had to ride 20 miles with some weird old wrecker driver who’s casual racism, pride in not getting drafted in 1967 “because now everything is made in Vietnam and we ought to bomb their weapons plants so they can’t make ak-47s”, and fear that trump will get us all killed.
Can not watch tv because the hotel has direct tv and the thunderstorm that I walked two miles in earlier today has caught up and now flicker, boom and darkness and silence has filled the room as the power has left the building.

Sometimes these things just do not seem real, but one thing is certain my new medicine definitely works.

And I found it, courtesy of the North Carolina GOP.

In a tweet attacks Tim Kaine for wearing a "Honduras Flag" lapel pin during his speech, using the word shameful. Too stupid to recognize a Blue Star Family pin. A pin Tom Kaine wears in honor of his son 1st Lt. Nathaniel Kaine USMC, currently deployed in Europe, Lt Kaine is an Infantry officer with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines garrisoned at Camp Lejune, North Carolina.

Too funny that in a state with major military installations, large population of military families, they did not recognize the pin or bother to confirm what the pin was before jumping to attack.

Thanks for the laugh @NCGOP

Unfortunately my laughter has been short lived because it is just another glaring example of the false patriotism that permeates so much of our society.

Wearing flags on our lapels and cheering for our troops does not mean a damn thing if we do not fully fund the VA and ensure that our Veterans and their families are taken care of when they come home. Yes the VA has problems, but choking the system by under funding or turning it into a privatized money maker for some lucky corporations will only make things worse.

While being overwhelmed.
I am the kind of person who walks around with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I worry about my family, my job, my debts, my friends, my community. I worry that there are people who need food, shelter and safety. I worry that my family and friends do not know how much I love them.
These worries though help define who I am, I worry because I care and my heart is full of love. I see suffering and injustice in the world and I want to stop it, speak out against it and make the world better. Unfortunately I am passionate, inarticulate, full of anger and frustration; which I find is a very volatile combination.
I know that all of these worries, anger and frustration have a negative impact on my health and I fear how it may effect me in the long term. Unfortunately I have been this way for so long the habit is ingrained in me and I just cannot seem to let it go. Somedays I just want to put some of it down.

The words I just can not find to say myself

New post on john pavlovitz In Gun We Trust (America’s Deadly Equality) by John Pavlovitz A black man slumped over the front seat of his car after a routine Wednesday traffic stop in Minneapolis. A white police officer laying in the street following a peaceful Thursday protest in Dallas. And red. Lots and lots of red. This is America. This is who we’ve become. This is the collateral damage of our religion. This […] Read more of this post John Pavlovitz | July 8, 2016 at 9:50 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p7ka6l-45A Comment See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from john pavlovitz. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://johnpavlovitz.com/2016/07/08/in-gun-we-trust-americas-deadly-equality/

When people adopt the attitude that "you are with us or you are against us".

When people mix-up their worldly beliefs with their religious beliefs.

When reason is held hostage to emotional beliefs

When all of these things are occurring we arrive at the same horrid place over and over again.

Maybe it is just the cynic in me or maybe I am just completely jaded by this world and the events that unfold daily. I angrily want to write out a scathing piece comparing certain specific groups to others because they have much more in common than they would ever acknowledge. Some of my anger stems from the fact that there seem to be so many people in this world who actively hate other people and if anyone speaks out against their hateful words and actions well watch out because the tables quickly turn. Speak out against the cops killing another person and you will find yourself labelled as anti police. Speak out against racism and you are the racist. Speak out against religious extremism, your just screwed because if you don’t just stick with the Muslims you rile up the Christians, if you only mention Muslims you rile up the Muslims and those who do not blame all Muslims anymore than they blame all Christians.
The real truth is that we all harbor hate within ourselves against other people in this world. We can deny it and get angry about it when people point it out to us, but it is there. Now philosophically we could debate from here to eternity whether this hate stems from Judaeo based "Original Sin", Yin and Yang, or the nature of man; To me this is where we get hung up on the stupid bullshit of semantics, I quite frankly do not care how your mind has to grasp the problem, but dammit there is a problem and we need to start looking at solutions. Unfortunately to start looking at solutions we would actually have to admit we have problems, but it is always so much easier to shine light on others than to look into our own lives and I speak from experience. I keep trying to take on my own problems and change myself but I keep repeating the same mistakes, getting angry about the same things, hating the same attitudes and people. It is hard, in fact some days it is impossible not to feel the anger that I feel, but I keep trying because I believe if I can get it right then there is hope.
I am discouraged though because in what should be the greatest country, where despite a premature birth chained to the horrid reality of slavery, racism, genocide and institutionalized inequality, this ideal of a country based on liberty, equality and unity still falls so short.

Thirty five days into a new medicine for my depression and I am trying to adjust to frustrating side effects and also trying to gauge how well it is working. It is very difficult to self assess how well it is working when I just do not trust my own judgement about my state of mind/ emotional state. 

I have told myself that I will refrain from expressing my opinion about things that are going on in the world and will try to focus more on expressing ideas that are positive not angry. Based on the long period of silence this is obviously not what I am good at.

After reading the NRA response to the shooting in Orlando it has finally sunk completely in what the term Political Correctness really means. It means any rights, due process or legal standing given to anyone who is not a white Christian male.

As a white male, who because of my religious beliefs fall into the label of Christian. I can only say Fuck all of ya’ll and your political correctness blaming, punk ass cowardly, bigoted asses. God forgive me for my anger and lead me away from my thoughts of hate and malice towards people who are too blind to see that the hate in their own hearts is no different than the gun mans! Help me Lord to understand how to deal respectfully and calmly with these problems so that I can make a difference in such a world controlled by hate. Lead me in the path of loving those who make me so angry.

Unless you have been in combat or an active shooter situation you do not know how you will react. Carrying a concealed or unconcealed weapon does not change the reality that without significant training all you may end up doing is firing blindly adding to the death toll. So please stop bragging about what you might do in a situation.

When only 3 of the mass shootings in the US within the last year were related to radical Islam, doesn’t mean you can just blame Muslims for all of the violence. This is especially true when one was committed by a radical Christian and another by a white supremacist. We have within this country a culture of violence; from the gun culture that lives in fear of the government and being unarmed to the glorification of violence in movies and on tv. Even this week we have heard from radical Christians who have come out in support of the shooting in Orlando, so this is not just a Muslim or immigrant problem despite how some people want to paint things.

Not only do we have a culture of violence but we also have a culture of hate, bigotry and complicity. From a presidential candidate who demonizes Mexicans and incites violence against protesters. To those who get their panties all twisted because African Americans want their lives to matter equally. Then there are those who think that because they and others like them hate President Obama, then he must be the most decisive president ever. Whiners who constantly complain about political correctness because they cannot use racial, bigoted or demeaning language without being called out for the bigots that they are. Then there are those who stand silently by pretending not to see or hear what goes on around them and their complicity fuels the bigotry and gives it more power. History teaches us that this combination can pretty quickly create a Situation where we fill slave ships, have Trails of Tears and fill gas chambers.

This is an idea I have struggled with in terms of God and where God is in relation to the world as a whole and my within my life. So often we hear about God’s control and God’s will framed in absolutism, ironically enough in relation to bad situations such as chronic illness, terminal illness or mass shootings and terror attacks. There are those who want to use these events to lay blame on something or another and to lay these horrors at God’s feet, people like Pat Robertson. 

I just do not think God is sitting around all the time deciding so and so is going to get cancer and die, bob over there is going to get rear ended at that intersection and suffer dibilitating back problems the rest of his life. That group of people will die in a terror attack. I really do not think God sits back and listens as people pray for healing, picking and choosing who he is going to help.
What I do believe is that if we follow the example of Jesus the Christ by living a selfless life, trusting and leaning on God, doing his work; that when we are doing these things God will pour his blessings into our lives. Our lives will not be free from problems and pain, we will make choices that cause us to suffer, others will make choices that cause us to suffer, the choices we make can cause others to suffer, bad things in life will happen. God’s peace and healing are first and foremost for our spirit, we are to learn to quiet our minds and let God guide us through the Holy Spirit that abides in us. As we build our relationship with God and move from our position of selfish self serving living then we can find freedom when we lay our burdens down. When we happily accept that our treasures are stored up in heaven not here on earth we are not burdening ourselves with fruitless pursuits.

So God if I am wrong show me the truth.