Human Nature

Yesterday brought about the death of a musical icon who regardless of his personal life influenced generations of artists and redefined music as we know it. When I heard the news and saw the endless MJ videos on BET, it hit me. There a number of life lessons that can be learned but the one that came to me in an epiphany after repeating the same phrase over and over: I never expected it to happen so soon, but then I realized something: I took him for granted. I always thought there would be another comeback album that would return him to the King of Pop throne. Then I thought about how much we take for granted in every aspect of our lives. Our families who love us after all the ups and downs, mistakes, heated words, short tempers, times of loss, struggle, joys, accomplishments, and moments that gave us wisdom. Those loved ones in our lives who brighten our day just by hearing their voice, cards and letters they wrote from long ago that still warm your heart and humble you to know you can be loved in that way, who make a difference in your day by just smiling. We have a tendency to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. Whether it is because we feel we deserve it or so busy worried about other aspects of life that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. There's a classic line from a Lyfe Jennings' song that says: down on your knees praying for that new Porsche while she's walking out that door. Sometimes we need to remember that who, not what is in our lives is the most important and remember that God likes to hear thank you as well as your loved ones. Don't take them for granted because life is short, but a handbreadth, so let them know you love 'em.

I'm out, Blessings, peace and hair grease!

random thoughts of June

1) I'm loving Conan on the Tonight Show, my favorite Irishman has finally made it. Poor Jimmy Fallon, he's like a deer in headlights.

2) AMERIE is back!! Not only beautiful but she can sing and actually has good beats. Beyonce, take a memo (you think being married to greatest rapper alive might give you reason to actually be original....)

3) I'm sorry for David Carradine's family but that man was overrated....

4) On that note, where did that phrase come from, "don't speak ill of the dead"? I think the last thing dead folks are worried about is what people alive are saying since there are more pressing issues like, say....standing in front of your Maker.

5) When's Honda going to start selling those walking robots? I want one...

6) I'm going to need for pastors to stop talking about politics and start talking about Jesus.

7) New Jersey is about to legalize weed. Finally! Maybe we can end this ridiculous war on drugs and start releasing folks in jail on non-violent drug crimes and start using drug taxes to pay off these state budget deficits. 

8) Ever notice how mankind is obsessed with bad news?

9) What did Shakespeare say? First, we kill all the lawyers? Well, I add an amendment to that: second, we kill all the politicians. 

10) Hate to break the news to people at the Discovery channel but the show "The World after People" is as useful as "The world filled with Unicorns" because we're not going anywhere. 

11) Classic quote from the Devil's Advocate: "Free will....it is a b***h." It can be, if you choose independence like Adam did. 

12) If people saw a man smacking a woman in public, how many would actually intervene? 

13) I'm a celebrity, get me outta here. Here's a title: I'm a TV viewer, I deserve more!

14) Transformers, GI Joe, now I just need a Thundercats movie and I'm living the glorious 80's the way I was meant to. 

15) Why is Tyra still on? Why is she relevant? Why weren't her parents just too tired that night 35 years ago?

16) Women should really trust their intuition and not listen to society's standards. A man is  supposed to take care of you just like you are supposed to provide your part of the relationship. Men and women are equal but that doesn't mean we are the same. 

17) First Florida wins the national football championship, then Carolina wins basketball, then the Steelers win ANOTHER Super bowl (like they needed one), now it looks like the Lakers and Red wings will win their championships. Now all I need is the Yankees to win the World Series and it will officially be the worst year of sports in my life.  

18) I love how Zoe Saldana stood up for the thin girls; they don't get enough love. 

19) MOS DROPPED AN ALBUM TODAY!! YEAH!!

20) Brett Favre, GO HOME! Tired of this on again, off again crap.....

and bonus,

21) 2 months, 2 weeks and 4 days until college football....so close yet so far.....

PEACE!

Angels and Demons, Catholics and Protestants, Christ and rubbish

Whassup subscribers? I have officially ended the school year on a wonderful note. I found out I get to keep my money, I passed the first part of my PhD candidacy exams, and I swept the board with all A's in my classes, all praise to God for everything. I was able to get home and spend a great Mother's day with the fam and relax after a harrowing semester. Now that things are settled, my summer begins and you know what that means? That's right, higher temperatures....no, no, no I mean more blogs. So a burning topic has been hounding me to be written over the past week or so on this second movie from Ron Howard, Angels and Demons, based on the book by Dan Brown. I've seen a great deal of people referring to the anti-Catholic sentiment that has accompanied it.  Many Catholics are calling a ban on the movie, similar to the ban on the Da Vinci Code, the first movie in the series. I began to think that Dan Brown had serious beef with the Catholic Church but then I thought about it: the infrastructure of the Catholic church is fashioned in a way that demands control over its followers and their salvation....at least, papal officials would like to think so. 

If you look at the history of the church, it began from the promotion of Christianity to the official religion of the Roman empire in AD 380 which, in my opinion, was the worst thing that could have ever happened to the gospel. It made it a ward of the state, so to speak, in that no a government would control the faith and how it was to be practiced and interpreted. Then slowly the Catholic church began to take shape under the guise of religion when it was really government control. The same governmental control that guilted or incited European countries to take the Holy Land, the same control that exploited indigenous American peoples to slavery and exploitation, the same control that allowed for the Holocaust to take place, and, most importantly, have allowed a backlash of atheists and agnostics to declare war on God.

It's really a shame and many Protestant denominations are guilty to a lesser degree as well. They have tried to control people's salvation by heaping good works, elitism, and guilt on people to control their relationship with Christ and it can't work. Right living doesn't come by papal authority, good works, fasting, condemning other religions, long monologues on the pseudo-intellectual "mystery of the gospel"; it come from grace. Grace and the recognition of what was done on that Christ 2000 years ago for us to have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe. The physical establishment of the church (both Catholic and Protestant) is not the church contrary to what they believe. The church is the body of believers who have a relationship through Christ with God and recognize that gift of grace covers all our iniquities, not only those done, but any we would ever commit and that brings about right living. 

Oppression in the name of God is the greatest sin because I believe it blasphemes the Holy Spirit who is a witness to the love and goodness of God when we least deserve it. Will physical churches ever realize the truth or reveal it? Probably not, but the Spirit is an amazing thing and can reveal truth when there is nothing by lies around you so I'm believing that people will recognize the goodness of God and desire to know Him who above all else, desires a personal, daily relationship with us. 

Read "The Shack" by William P. Young and "Radical Gospel of Grace" by Joseph Prince to reveal an amazing God that is taught so little of anymore. I'm out.....peace and hair grease...

Word of the day from Pastor Prince

There Is No Spot In You  Song Of Solomon 4:7
7You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot in you.Jesus tells us His bride, “You are all fair, My love, and there is no spot in you.” But our reply to Him tends to be, “Me? All fair and no spot? You don’t know me, Lord!”Do you really think that God doesn’t know you?God sees reality like no one else sees it. He sees the perfection of His Son’s finished work in your life. By one offering of Himself at the cross, Jesus has perfected you forever! (Hebrews 10:14) You have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:21) And you will never find any spot in this righteousness that Jesus died to give you.So God wants you to see yourself righteous — all fair and spotless in Christ. Every day, be conscious of your righteousness in Christ. Say, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ. There is no spot in me whom He has perfected with His blood.” When you do that, you are honoring Jesus and His finished work.If you are conscious of your sins, then you are not honoring the work of Christ. You may think that you are being humble or holy by being sin-conscious. But do you know that the Bible calls sin-consciousness an “evil conscience”?Hebrews 10:21–22 tells us that since we have Jesus as our High Priest, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience”. What does the writer of Hebrews mean by “an evil conscience”? If you read the beginning of the same chapter, you will find that he is talking about a “consciousness of sins”. (Hebrews 10:2) Paul calls it a “conscience seared with a hot iron”. (1 Timothy 4:2) The Greek word for “seared” here is kauteriazo, and it means to carry about with you a perpetual consciousness of sin.So don’t carry with you an evil or seared conscience. Your lifetime of sins has already been punished fully in the body of Jesus at the cross. Be conscious, instead, of your perfection and righteousness in Christ. Because of what Jesus has done for you, you can boldly declare, “I am all fair. There is no spot in me!”

random thoughts as finals begin

Once again, I'm in the thick of the end of the semester with final papers, final homework and finals! So right now, my mind goes through a series of topics throughout the day that if I really sat down and wrote down my thoughts, I could write a meaningful blog, but as it is, there are only 24 hours in the day so I can only do so much.  So here goes just a sample of what has run through my mind in the past month. 

1) How is Kim Kardashian a size 2? If she's a size 2 then my baby's a size -10. 

2) Family guy has lost its zeal, now Seth McFarlane has just decided to push his liberal agenda and how much he dislikes God. Man, first Dave Chappelle, now family guy, all good things must come to an end or come to a point where it sucks. 

3) Kanye has officially decided to not endorse the idea of giving it all to Jesus, now he just chooses to "walk it out." How's that working out for you, Kanye? 

4) Twitter has worn out its welcome, I liked it the first time when it was called texting.

5) First you give an embarrassing gift to the PM of England and then you bow to the Saudis? Obama, what are you doing? Bet you didn't think you'd be in over your head so soon.  Be careful what you wish for....

6) Girls who talk about how much men suck at the age of 19 and 20 need to first meet some men. The older these girls try to act, the more they show their true age. Getcha' mind right: men chase you, not vice versa. 

7) The Shack is now one of my top 3 books of all time.

8) Are they ever going to call real calls in the NBA? When does college football start again?

9) Um, if white women are going to continue to have black children, I'm going to need them to learn how do their hair because we don't need pickaninnies running these streets. 

10) Pirates are roaming the seas hijacking boats. What century is this?

11) I just don't buy this global warming......

12) So now the world conference on racism is now saying the Jews are racist toward the Palestinians, hmmm, maybe it's just good old fashioned hate that goes back to oh.....biblical times? Who are we kidding, this has nothing to do with race, it has to do with the fact that Ishmael and Isaac have butted heads from day one, and now the UN is going to have a conference on it? Useless organization....

13) Texas wants to secede....where do I sign up for that??

14) Next year I will be in the South Pacific with my future wife, I am counting down the days....literally. 

15) Mos Def is doing a movie with Mike Epps? Mos, you died a little in my eyes....

16) Infowars.org....open your eyes to the truth.

17) I'm really feenin' for good music to be released right now because if I hear another Autotune machine, I may blow up a Virgin megastore....no joke....I'm looking up bomb recipes now....just kidding FBI....or am I?

18) What's up with this gay agenda? So now anyone who doesn't agree with the MINORITY of gays in Hollywood suddenly they are close minded and wrong? Whatever happened to free speech? Good for Miss California for standing by her convictions. 

19) God only made one religion: Judaism and it was to prove a point; we can't do this on our own . Shame on religion for making people dependent on institutions and robbing them of a relationship with Christ. 

20) Times are tough but He takes care of his own.

I'm out....Peace and blessings as always....

finally I weigh in...

Wassup subscribers? I have been a minute away from the blog game with all going on with school and other plans (including trying to settle down and make an honest woman out of LeLe) so there has not been a whole lot of opportunity to write although the thoughts have been flowing. I really tried to avoid the whole domestic abuse thing after the couple beat the hell out of each other and everyone jumped in with their two cents, including Oprah, Tyra, and Robin Givens (three women that are not the best reasons AGAINST beating women)...j/k....kind of. Anywho, it's more disturbing in our community, the girls are saying she did something to deserve what he did. Really? The only time you have to get physical with a woman is if you're life is threatened and that means she's holding a gun or a knife to a vital part of your body. Was that taking place in that car? Highly doubt it. I'm starting to realize that it is another classic example of people settling for less than they're worth. How does the phrase go: I can do bad by myself. Whatever happened to that mantra that represented the belief that I deserve the best and if I don't get it, the best for me is me. Somehow, along the way, we've lost sight of that and now we give reasons for a man hitting on a woman. Scary, but I believe this is a trend that is not a passing thing. Hip hop, comedy, books give a culture of violence and being physical as showing power and dominance. Then we wonder why the cops fill us with 50 bullets when they arrest unarmed men. We portray in our culture that that's all we understand. 

Sad fact is as long as people sit and believe that they will never have a good thing or they deserve punishment based on what they do, they will continue to suffer and miss out on the blessings in life through self-condemnation. Life is too short and meaningful to think I deserve anything less than God's best. 

On that note, read Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince. Never a better book on realizing how much God truly blesses you, not based on your actions but on his Son's actions. Don't settle for less....expect great things, great relationships, a great life. I'm out.....

25 more things....

I couldn't leave it at 25 but I promise I'll stop at 50. There's about 50 million in the course of a lifetime, but you gotta know the limit of what to reveal to others. Which leads me to the first....

1) I spent most of my formative years "trying out different personalities" because I was burned by others revealing who I was and I didn't realize I could be myself until I was in about my mid twenties around the time I moved down to Carolina.

2) I'm obsessed with finding the next big thing, whether musical artist, designer, artist, etc. I hate following the crowd so I search the web for underground artists and clothing websites that are unique. 

3) I avoid talking to people because I'm not an open person but they always seem to want to strike up a conversation and tell me their life story. Man, I just want to buy my groceries and get out of here, why are you telling me about how you're about to fail out of school?? Do I know you???

4) I hate when people refer to women as females, even more than referring to them as bitches. I don't know why since they are both bad, but female gets under my skin. Maybe the same reason I hate conversate: people try to sound intelligent but come off sounding even more ignorant. 

5) I bite my nails and crack my knuckles when I'm really nervous. 

6) I cheated twice on the multiplications tests in third grade and I honestly thought I'd never get them. Now I do partial differential equations and do integrations of trigonometric functions. God definitely has a sense of humor. 

7) I've forged my parent's signatures at least 3 times in my school career. 

8) One of my closest friends sold weed on the regular and started selling crack right before I went to college so I had to end the friendship. 

9) I once told my roommate in college that a scratch that I got from running into a nail on a volleyball pole while playing ball was a knife wound that I got at a party in high school just to see if he'd believe me. He did.

10) I once cracked a windshield of an ex girlfriend in college because I was so mad and she freaked out and ran out of the car. 

11) The summer after my senior year of high school I wondered if I really believed in God or just did because it was what my parents told me to believe and I seriously considered the second option. 

12) I've never stolen anything from a store but I accepted a stolen shirt from my best friend in high school and it was my all-time favorite and wore until it literally fell to shreds. My mom hated that shirt. 

13) I wanted to be a math or history teacher in college until I found math by itself to be too dry and my advisor said there were too many history teachers so I chose physics on a whim after only one class in high school.

14) I moved to CT simply because I had a dream about it at the end of college. It was so vivid that I still remember it. The amazing thing is when I went to interview for a job there, the drive to the school was exactly like in my dream even though I'd never been there before. 

15) I saw the '87 Ramstein air crash that resulted in about 69 people dying and 350 people being seriously injured and I was only 8. That was my most traumatic experience in my life and I hope the only one.  I will never go to another air show as long as I live.

16) I love the smell of bleach. To me it means clean and I love clean especially in the bathroom. I HATE a dirty bathroom.

17) I love to cook. It started out being something I learned to impress women but now I'm always looking for something new to make for myself or my fam. 

18) I hate pictures of Jesus. We have no idea how he looked and they always portray him as white with blonde hair. He was a Jew who lived in a place that has sunshine year round and he walked everywhere. You do the math. 

19) I love black people who are out of the mold and break stereotypes. On the opposite, I hate stereotypical ni**as who want to imitate everything that "the man" puts on TV to show what he thinks of us. Black folk who skate, make rock music or country, play hockey, or sample off the wall tracks from Lawrence Welk or Bob Dylan in their music. That shows courage. 

20) Aaron McGruder is quickly rising to my status of a hero. I can relate so well since I mock  many aspects of so called "black" culture but I still have a militant streak inside of me. We also like to play "minority" advocate (I ain't advocating the devil). 

21) I've realized the girls that I had the strongest feelings for in my life had beautiful brown skin even though I have dated different races and shades of black women; but ever since my first crush Rosetta Adams, I have had a thing for brown skinned beauties. 

22) I used to be terrified of the dark when I was a kid since I lived in a haunted house when I was first living overseas. Now I love it, I love just sitting in the dark and thinking listening to music. 

23) The doctor told me that I would be twins and according to the doctors I was in for 11 months. When I went for my first checkup, the doctor looked at my chart and saw my weight and age and thought I as going to be fat but when he saw me he was surprised and said I just was a solid kid. That's right. :o)

24) I believe in Sasquatch and I believe my parents have seen one at separate times. 

25) I hate the word karma. It's the eastern version of explaining reaping and sowing and it implies that eastern religions figured out some great mystery when God and his people knew it long before some dalai lama somewhere figured it out.