151 Band

Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Write Way

So, the shrink suggests I do what I enjoy, perhaps put pen to paper (figuratively speaking) and express my thoughts and fears.  Write them down, go back and read them, grammar check and analyze and peer into the real 400lb Gorilla - not just the outward persona, but rather the innermost workings of my poor little pea brain. 

So, that's what I did.  The result wasn't necessarily what I expected, but rather something altogether different. Rather than telling myself my story, I began writing a fiction series that ended up being amazingly and refreshingly dark.  I called the series, "Absolution for the Average Joe," a series of books that tell the tale of individuals who have experienced something traumatic in their lives and how those traumas manifest themselves outwardly.  The trauma is of their own doing and a price is to be exacted from each of them in a similar manner of the trauma they caused.  It's their act of contrition, their opportunity to right wrongs and do so in quite the dramatic fashion.  This particular series centers around a man by the name of Samuel and illustrates his descent into darkness and how he came to call his acts of retribution "Forced Absolution." 

I've completed the first two books of the series and they are available on Amazon.com for $.99 each, downloadable for Kindle. 

The first is called, Touch of Darkness

The second is entitled, Angels Have Fallen.

Do me a favor and pick up a copy of each, download them to your Kindle or load them into your Kindle Reader software on your Mac or PC.

Thank you.  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Gorilla


 

Friday, January 23, 2015

Government Has Become A Church

Sad Jesus frowns on their shenanigans.
Billy got involved in the ministry because, well, he wanted to minister too others as he had been ministered to as a child.  He came from a broken home where his father had died in an automobile accident when Billy was a small child and the church had stepped up to the plate and provided comfort and aid to his family.  The pastor would regularly visit with his wife and give Billy's family an opportunity to openly and candidly share their grief.  Over time, Bill realized that what his pastor and church family had done was what he needed to do as an adult.

Billy graduated from seminary and accepted his first post as an associate pastor at a large, established church in an urban setting.  Within a week at the new job, Billy began to see a whole lot more political happenings than ministry happening.  Before long, he was disenchanted with the concept of ministry and left completely to work as a telemarketer.  

One of the biggest problems the Church faces in America right now is that of identity.  The Church is supposed to be a place of respite, a sanctuary for the sick, peace for the lost, and a location where the homeless are fed and the poor have their needs met.  Today, that New Testament visage of what the Church is truly supposed to be has been sacrificed at the altar of political or financial expediency.  After all, meeting need and caring for the least among us isn't as sexy as a rally at the capitol building steps protesting the alleged "gay agenda." 

There's the financial motivation to be a political church rather than a New Testament Church:  Meeting need, caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick actually costs money and frankly, many churches would rather keep that money to pay for parsonages, campaigns, and the like.

Look, I'm not saying for a second that I have this "faith" thing down because I don't.  I've failed in every way imaginable.  I've been a lousy father, a terrible husband, a mediocre friend, and a mean spirited jackass.  But regardless of my myriad failures, the truth is still the truth and church leaders who become elected officials have proven time and again that ministry is the last thing on their minds, but rather creating a theocratic environment that will supposedly usher in the 2nd Coming has become their real agenda.  Forget feeding the hungry because that's someone else's "calling." To hell with healing and helping the sick because, after all, that's what doctors are for, right? 

Where in the New Testament is there an edict for the Church to become political activists?  Good luck finding it because it simply doesn't exist.  There's an incident where Paul appeals to Caesar during prosecution in the hopes of absolution, but it is a far cry from Jesus saying, "Go out and pass laws that show how much you hate supposed sin."  That's not what He said - He commanded us to "make disciples." 

What we DO know is what Christ had to say about the religious political leaders of his day...here are a few samples.

"Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger." ~ Mt. 23:1-4.
He said that they have "seated themselves in the chair of Moses," which means that they have set themselves up as the ones who are the arbiters of the Law.  He also points out their hypocrisy because they make laws and commandments that they see as right, but not seeing the sins they themselves commit.

"But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments." ~ Mt. 23:5
Press conferences, public hearings, press releases and news stories of their righteous indignation - all for the purpose of gaining notoriety.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." ~ Mt. 23:15
This pretty much speaks for itself, but in this passage Christ is calling the Pharisees out and underscoring the fact that they are scumbags and their disciples are scumbags as well.  

Matthew 23 continues with some of the harshest, most condemning language in all of the New Testament and all spoken by Christ himself.  And it makes one wonder what these Pharisees think when they read it and because of the fact that they act like sociopaths, they cannot believe for a second that it could be about them.  It's sad, it's tragic and the people of Oklahoma end up paying for their idiocy.

For this new breed of "Christian soldier" who are neither truly Christian nor soldiers, government is a means to an end.  Like the Pharisees, they use the law to create what they interpret as a religious world versus a secular world.  They will use government as a place to worship, to be worshiped and their sacrament has been the sacrifice of common sense.  Whether they believe it or protest the fact, for them, the government has become their church.  Many of these Pharisees condemn the government for caring and feeding the poor, but the government does it because the Church is too busy with their shenanigans to do what they have been commanded.

Of course, I could be wrong but I seriously doubt it.

Gorilla
 

 

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Live For Now, Not Then

“It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.”  ― Edgar Allan Poe

We are often told that we are to live in the "now," to put behind us our past and never look back.  Heck, that type of thinking even has Biblical precedent - Lot's wife took a look back and turned to a pillar of salt, the Apostle Paul write sin Philippians 3, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." In essence, we just keep on trucking, move ever forward and basically give no thought to our past.

Frankly, I don't think those passages, those axioms can be by taken autonomously.  We just forget that which we experienced yesterday?  There has to be more, right?

We are unquestionably the sum total of our experiences.  Every little moment of joy, every twinge of pain and discontent While those experiences may not define our personality or paint us into a corner wherein there is no hope for the future, it's intellectually dishonest to think that without looking back once in a while, we can learn necessary life lessons.  It's exhausting to hear people say how we can't "live in the past," but I'll be honest...I get it.  We live in the here and now, we exist in the here and now and unlike the Creator, we are confined by time and space.  It's who we are.  So, how about something different?

1.  We look back at our past to see the mistakes we have made, and those mistakes often remind us of our fallibility.

2.  Sometimes, looking back and moments of joy, remind us what joy looks, tastes, and feels like again.  We often need that reminder.

3.  We look back to remember what we have forgotten.  I've lost whole blocks of my memory from the past and it's frustrating as hell.  I look back at times to try and fill in the gaps, to cross that bridge from curiosity to knowledge.  Sometimes, I have to trudge through muddy waters to get there and it's worth it, I tell you.

4.  Shut out the condemning voices - including our own.  "Therefore there is now no condemnation," (Romans 8) is a reality, but only so if we apprehend it and apply it to ourselves first. The voices of condemnation are all around us - there will be those who are hell bent on your destruction, your voice just has to be louder than theirs.  Maybe we just learn a new language and speak that language to minds...

5.  Acceptance.  Just accept the fact that there are some seriously jacked up things in your past and own them.  I've made a mountain of them and yes, I own those bitches.  There are many other mountains of bullshit out there, but this one is all mine.  When you own it, you control it rather than it controlling you.

What we learn from our previous mistakes is really up to us.  We can allow it to change the very core of our being or we can look at it for what it is - a learning opportunity.  I confess that I have not apprehended this truth myself.  I still hold a great deal of anger as a result of my youth, but the progress has been made that I know without hesitation that the past cannot own me.  It has only the control over me which I choose to give it.

We live for now, yes, but it doesn't hurt one damned bit to remember the joys and pain of the past - embrace that which is good, discard that which is bad.

I don't know.  I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

Gorilla