What I Learned in Church 2-10-13

Father Joe is always on time. Spiritually, that is! That man will have you forgetting you’re Catholic…five hour long church trying to play the saxophone and preaching two extra sermons… At least there’s only one collection.

Seriously, we’re still in and out in an hour and a half.  At least he makes people want to go. That’s huge in this day and age. People are ready to give up at the slightest bit of controversy or difficulty. Lord knows the Catholic Church has had some difficulties. (Understatement) We have greed running rampant in other churches, Sex, All kinds of Sex and Even More Sex. How do we respond? The same thing we always do. We run. "I don't want to go to church"

Don't let a few bad apples run all the good people out of church!

Don’t let a few bad apples run us out of anywhere. We abandon everything. We come, we consume, we ask, we take, we get full and when we get asked to do some real spiritual work, we pack up all we’ve taken over the years and run away, leaving only the trash behind. We do it in our schools, we do it in our neighborhoods, and we go all the way with church. We might change churches for a short while but eventually we just leave.

I read this book one time (or three/four). It may or may not be 100% true but it does illustrate the possibility of man. The one thing I believe is that we must never give up and (SPOILER ALERT) we (the good people) win! So why you running? Think you’re not good enough?

God will perfect whatever is defective

(Isaiah 6) “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

I’m not going to front; right after that God told Isaiah not to tell anyone they were saved so they would suffer a little more and repent before he let them off the hook. That happens. You can’t avoid it. Sometimes we try to avoid the temporary discomfort so we stay in the mess we’re in instead of moving forward through to the end. Go one through it! Again, a lot of ups and downs in that book but it ends well.

Isaiah 43:1,2 “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

You know there’s a lot of fire and brimstone in the bible. Don’t be afraid. If you choose the right side, you won’t get burned. Just make sure you choose right. No fence straddling.

(1 Corinthians 15)And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

It’s simple. We believe in Jesus, not some magic superhero who flies in and stops us from being assholes. We believe in a man being able to transcend the flesh and distractions of the world to attain true peace. We believe that we can practice and practice and attain a similar peace. (And that may be where we falter…) Too much unattainable magic and not enough practical advice.

So here it is:

•         Repeat after me “My miracle is on the way.”
•          Get ready. That means look at your faith.
•          Stop dwelling in the past.
•          If you don’t know how to pray, learn.
•          After you pray, meditate. (Meditation first step is clearing your mind)

Jesus removed his self from the world often to focus. And when he did, he was listening. He wasn’t doing a whole bunch of jaw-jacking and not waiting for an answer. Shut up sometimes! To be clear, shut up for at least five minutes every day (to start).

·       
             Keep casting your nets! Some of my friends are wonderful salesmen/women not because they know anything about what they are selling. They are great at it not even because they don’t take no for an answer. It’s because they keep going, believing that someone will say yes. Just like Colonel Sanders, it might take 1010 attempts and the majority of your life to get your miracle. Why are you giving up on yourself?

      A lot of yall give up at 23 after two ‘No’s. And still try to claim you believe in something.

Luke 6 - Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” … When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,…

How many of yall would listen to someone who wasn’t an expert in “your field”.  I can hear the majority of you now running back to your egos at the mention of similar advice. “I been doing … for … years! What you trying to tell me?” “If you know so much, why don’t you do it?” The least we can do with any advice is to meditate on it. Find a way to make the best of everything given us.

So, one more thing before I go. Fight!

Believe in what you say you believe in. I’m getting tired of all the woe is me, look at how strong the devil is, illuminati, conspiracy this, conspiracy that talk. Too many of us say we believe in eternity and still deathly afraid of every little fool hollering boo at our God. SMH.

Isaiah 41:10 I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. “All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them.

Don't worry I will ALWAYS be with you (not only when the bullies aren't around). AND ALL (A-L-L, every single one) enemies will be ashamed and disgraced; they will be as nothing and perish. Shoot, you won’t even be able to find them if you look for them! And Lord knows yall like to look for enemies!

Gina noticed that the message is always the same and said that’s OK because that’s what the Bible is. Something happens, you maintain your faith, God shows up. That’s it. And it only works that way. Not – something happens, you run like hell or something happens, you have faith for two days, then you give up and do it your way on the third day… That’s the way you do it. It’s called faith because it works especially when it doesn’t look like it will. That’s it.

1300 words later, the simple truth is, if you say you believe in something, prove it. If it’s worthwhile it WILL work! Watch!

Letter to Jay-Z, Willie Lynch , Daddy and Everyone Else Who Ruined My Life

Letter to Jay-Z, Willie Lynch (click for the original letter), Daddy and Everyone Else Who Ruined My Life

This is a shout out to the assholes, a toast to the douche bags, and cheers to all the scum buckets.

You are no longer powerful in my life. In fact you are no longer a part of my life at all. You are on your own kiddos. For your sake I hope you can live on your own, you parasitic leeches. I am assuming full responsibility for my life from now on. I have established my independence from your our relationship.

I must admit I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to live with you as a crutch. Just imagining being responsible for my own actions without anyone else to blame seemed inconceivable. Then one day I tried it.

It was wonderful.

It was everything everyone always tried to tell me and so much more. More! This is living! Real living. The truth. The gospel according to Rhonda Byrne.

I’m free. I’m above all the hating and haters. And because of that, I have absolutely no need for scapegoats. There is no one to blame for my life but me.

So this is the break up letter to Jay-Z, Willie Lynch, Daddy, The Police, Some Snitches and everyone else who ruined my life up until now:

It’s not your fault. It was no one’s fault. I take full responsibility for where I am in my life. That means the past does not matter anymore. The only thing that matters is what I do from now on.

That means I forgive you all. I forgive you Jay-Z for killing Tupac and Biggie and/or taking over their spots at the top of the rap game. You almost ruined my life by doing so. I do enjoy your flows but every once in a while I miss Tupac. And someone must be responsible for that void in my life.

Then you went and joined the illuminati. (What ever that is) I saw some pot-head on YouTube explaining how you were in a secret society and that meant it wasn’t the fact that I kept showing up to interviews two-hours late and drunk that was to blame for my lack of a job. It was you and the illuminati. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an illuminati box on my welfare application so I was denied. That was your fault too.

I forgive you Willie Lynch, whoever you are. Until I heard about you, I thought my cousins kept stealing from me and lying about it because they were just bad people. But no, it was you, Willie. You made them do it. And when I turned my back on all my family it wasn’t either of our faults, it was you, Willie. I was just about to thank you for clearing all that up but after we reconciled and I explained and showed them all your letter, my family got into a huge slapping melee. Slap, slap, slap…  My head still hurts at random times behind that.

I forgive Daddy for hooking up with my mom. She is kinda fine, so I understand why you had to hit that. And then, I know she’s hard to deal with. So hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I get it. You hardly ever have any money now (because of Jay-Z and Willie Lynch) so I know there was no way to expect you to buy rubbers back then. So here I am. And here you are, so broke you can’t even afford to spend time with me. No worries! I’ll just get my drink on and do some gang bangin’ cuz.

I also forgive you, The Police, for your constant harassment of me. You got all these rules like you’re concerned for my welfare or something. Always trying to look for my weed. I forgive you for taking me to jail instead of listening to my sob stories. Even though I knew I was telling you an original lie, you showed me I was only lying to myself. I forgive you for that too. I wasn’t ready for no dramatic self-realization.

Since I forgive you all, you are no longer as necessary in my life. I will go one listening to your music like you were any other musician. You no longer have the power to brainwash me and make me act real niggerish when I find myself in Paris. I will no longer be a slave to capitalism. I will no longer allow myself to use and be used by my own family. I am no longer lost and empty, trying to fill the voids in my life with liquor and fake relationships. I love you all. I may even start obeying the law now that I see those rules weren’t made just to pick on me.

So, in the spirit of appreciation and not that of regret, thank you. It was nice knowing you all. If we are in each other’s lives beyond this point, our relationships will be entirely different. No more blame games. You will merely be a talented rapper/businessman, a desperate example of the worst of the free market, a loving family member, my community protector and just some guys who talk too much and you will either be in my life or not and it won’t change me one bit.

I love you all but you are no longer in charge of my life. I don’t have that much time for you anymore. I will from now on be too busy living. Period.

Goodbye. Good luck with ALL your bullshit.

FYI – I do believe Jay-Z is a good rapper/businessman. I have a good relationship with my father; he is in fact one of my best friends.

On amore serious note, it is my duty to inform all that while your life may have some huge problems, there is no one to blame but yourself. And I wouldn’t even suggest giving your self a hard time about it. I write an adult blog and I expect to be talking to only adults. So I can say, as adults, we are all responsible for ourselves. One of the main parts of being responsible means living without excuses.

There is so much I can say about excuses. In short, living without excuses means we will not be conspiracy theorists anymore. I don’t believe in coincidence. But that doesn’t mean correlation or causation. There was no Willie Lynch and even if there was, his life has nothing to do with your current laziness. You’re just lazy. No one forced any of my family members to be assholes, they just are.

The police and snitches get paid to find, catch and tell on people when they are doing wrong. You are doing wrong. If you chose to stop doing wrong, the police would be no more than direction givers and traffic directors. But you choose to do wrong so your life reflects that choice and ALL that comes with it. Your absentee parent is not a ninja who sneak s into your bedroom and steals all your rubbers, forcing you to become a naked-dicker. You just are.

You chose this life so far and you are free to choose otherwise as soon as you let other people stop driving.

Take control of your life and stop blaming others. I believe in a mighty God. He is so much bigger than racism, sexism, capitalism, haterism, Hovism, tattle-tale-ism or any other –ism you can come up with.

For every excuse/conspiracy you can come up with, I have one answer. Choice. You can choose God or the bullshit. Take your pick.