Week in review

So, I've recently gone vegetarian!
It hasn't been too hard so far. The most difficult part is going to someone Else's house. Saturday, I went to watch the super anti-climatic Notre Dame and Michigan house. This dude laid the food out. I mean he had everything you could think of as far as food is concerned. ALL of it had meat in it. SMH

At home of course I can control what I take in but when I go someplace else it's a lot more difficult. So what are the changes I've noticed? Nothing too large actually. I feel better, I sweat cleaner (if that makes sense), I'm a lot more aware. Other than that i'm not sure If I've been doing this long enough to see real results.

So I got the chance to watch "The new normal" with my wife last week. It was a scene in the show that made me super uncomfortable. Two of the characters are gay and they are having a baby by way of a surrogate. So they are in a baby store looking at clothes and they decide to kiss. A guy comes up to them and asks them to stop saying " I don't want to have to explain to my daughter why two guys are kissing" The man from the couple retorts " You don't want to explain to your daughter love? We're excited we are having a baby" the man responds "that's disgusting and your going to make that baby super confused".

The reason I brought this up is because I have no idea who's side I would be on. On the one hand I hate bullies. The other had I don't want to explain that to my daughter either at age 6. What to do?

Using your platform

One day about a year ago, I was on my way to work and listening to a woman from the Westboro Baptist Church talk about how God disliked or hated Steve Jobs. She went on her soap box explaining that this amazing man did not use his "Stage" to get people to come to God.

Margie Phelps, daughter of the small church’s founder and the lawyer who represented the church during their First Amendment case at the Supreme Court, (which Westboro won,) was among the Phelps family members to use Apple products to Tweet about the death of the Apple co-founder.

“Westboro will picket his funeral.He had a huge platform; gave God no glory & taught sin,” Margie tweeted Wednesday night on her iPhone

 

 

 

 

 

As wrong as protesting a funeral can be, it caused me to ask myself some hard questions almost a year later. The platform that I currently have, How am I using it? All of us want to achieve more than what we have already achieved but the question is what are we doing with our current location. People hate on Tim Tebow all the time but the guy is an example of what we could all be doing whether we are spiritual or not. Portraying to the world that we have deep morals and values is important for current and future generations to see. Sam Bradford, Tebow, Tony Dungy, and Kevin Durant exemplify their respective beliefs on the national and international stage. We currently live in a society that waits for people to fail at their beliefs instead of promoting people who don't. Everyone can't and won't have this type of platform but it is easier to do when you use the platform your already given. What are you doing with your platform? Should you do anything with it?

 

 



 

Our Future Provided by hypocrites

People ask me all the time whether I'm a conservative or a democrat. My response? It doesn't matter, not right now at least. I don't pick candidates based on the party I'm affiliated with. Our economy is horrible, our education system is terrible, and we are listening to the stance of our futures leaders when it comes to Abortion? Abortion stances deserve 24/7 news coverage?
One thing I realized when I was watching the convention was that we hear so much about being leaders in the world for education but, Do our leaders put their children in the system in which they want us to believe?
We put our children in public schools and they put theirs in private. We hope for change but they have already found the solution. They go around the problem by putting their children in the schools that are so expensive it can pay teachers the same salary a college professor makes. This issue is neither democrat nor republican.

In the news last week, I heard about a law currently up for vote in Congress. Our politicians plan to take Physical Education out of the schools. They do not believe it has as much value as an extra hour in Math or Science. So, our politicians take P.E. out of public schools but it is heavily promoted within the private schools. While the bulk of our children live in neighborhoods that are not safe enough to play outside the others see no benifit in physical activity because video games are more fun. This seems to me like another way to widen the gap between the poor and the rich. Our children learn to be workers and their children learn to be innovators. Our children learn that physical activity and a healthy lifestyle is not as important as learning to WORK in fields such as physics or statistics. This in turn helps our children learn to be physical and financially dependent on the government. I know that this is a stretch but please find me one politician that has sent their children to public schools.

Hands

I hear my family asking for the prayers of others and praying themselves. They ask God for an answer to life’s most uncertain moments. The part that I  don’t get is when someone is randomly asking questions and they don’t believe it is God who is responding. Does God have to open the sky and speak for us to believe it’s him? I wouldn’t think so.

I want to personally believe that God has his hand in every aspect of my life no matter how big or small. I don’t know for sure and I can’t answer all life’s most complicated theological questions, But, for me some moments are enough for me to believe. Like everyone else I still fall into doubt and my question today is why is that?

When me and my wife first arrived in California we were poor. No food, no money, no phone, she was distraught and truthfully I was too. At the time the only thing I knew to do was to pray.

We prayed in the kitchen that day. We prayed hard and long. Most importantly we did it together. Before we finished saying Amen someone was knocking on our door with two boxes of food. It was a welcome party saying they was coming to someone else’s house that happened to not be home, saw our rent a car, and the baby seat inside of it. We ate that day and for the next couple of days, weeks, and months we didn’t question God. We didn’t question what could be done through prayer. But, every so often we run into an issue that we think is too big. We question his capabilities just like everyone else, Why ? If he has shown up before why do we wonder if it’s possible again? Faith is difficult and anyone that says otherwise is not being honest with themselves. Faith asks us to believe in the invisible hand of God and dispel or discard our own logic. Logic is what makes us human right? Faith is what makes us Chosen.

You Ready?

RG111 was impressive today. Peyton looked good and Julio Jones looks like he's the new thing. You know what's missing a comment about DA BEARS. So we went out and got Brandon Marshal but we did not put as much into our Offensive line. A highly touted offensive re haul resulted in 3 points in the Bears pre-season debut. We have yet to see Andrew Luck or the Tebow/Sanchez experiment. As of right now the most interesting thing on television is hands down the Olympics. We have seen some moving performances in almost every sport. I almost lost my voice the other day screaming for Alison Felix.
One thing I am surprised about is how interesting some sports can be during the Olympics but throughout the year it's not the same. Beach Volleyball, Women's soccer, and Rowing? I'll watch it all. I'm happy that the men's basketball team is handling it's business this year. I am actually surprised at how well Carmelo does in the international game. I guess without the physical defense he gets in the NBA, it pretty much lets him run free.
It looks as if Plaxico might be going to the Cowboys which will give them another physical wide out.
I'll be on my way to MS tomorrow so I won't be writing for a while. Do what you love, learn something new, and improve your niche. Life is too short to live it reactively. It's cool to watch some of the greatest athletes in the world do what they do. Afterwards, live in what ever way you chose to do so.

Peace

The latest

I had the opportunity to work out today. I used some C4 and by the time I got to the gym I was pumped. I ran my best three mile time since returning from my deployment. I also did the www.crossfit.com work out of the day. The best thing about what I did today is that it goes with my new mantra “Your body is your resume”. I’m doing my best to cut out sweets but late nights and early mornings with no readily prepared food doesn’t help in the least.

Lots of buzz about training camp for the past week. While I was running on the treadmill at the Gym I saw that the Jets and Broncos make the hourly cycle everyday it seems. Tim Tebow can be captivating and so can Peyton Manning when we finally see him on the field. I can't wait until the season starts to see how the bears are going to do. The roster is much improved but the schedule is one of the more difficult ones. As a fan any football is good football.  Luckily they are not giving the holdouts as much attention as the training camps. Another less mentioned story is the referee situation which I’m sure will play a large part in early season wins and loses.

 

I’m getting closer to being married for 6 years and I’ve been asking myself how do I take my husbanding to the next level? I come up with holding hands more, listening, and giving more compliments as a start. I wish I could get some ladies to chime in with more ideas. Please nothing about things to buy. Being a spouse should be deeper than purchases. That's my two sense at least.

Instant Regret

My parents were divorced when I was 5 years old. I never got a chance to ask the questions I wanted to ask. Most of the time I was brushed off because I was either too young to understand or too old to be thinking about things that happened so long ago. A while back I wrote my father a letter, I let him know that if he wanted to have a relationship with me then the best thing to do would be to be candid about his mistakes and pitfalls throughout life.

Sooooo today, I was returning a phone call from my father and I decided to ask him some of those questions. What was the woman you left my mom for like? Have you seen her lately? When did you regret your decision to leave us? He responded to the last question "instantly". His response caught me instantly off guard. A simple answer but there was so much truth in his voice I couldn't even question it. He told me that he felt helpless because he let so many things blind him. He was blinded until he lost what was most important.

My father is 57 years old. I've seen him and my mother date and try to have relationships with other men. It's sad that they are absolutely perfect for one another. My mother has convinced herself that she is better without him but never finding happiness in another man. She only smiles and really laughs when she reminisces about the 15 years that her and my father were married. My father on the other hand has had relationships and children but never getting over the fact that he lost time and his family chasing something that he never found.

"Instantly" rang over and over in my head. "Instantly" created a barrier that won't allow me to give up on my family so easily. If I would instantly regret a decision that would change the lives of my wife and my children it deserves tons of thought. The amount of thought that couldn't be found in the time it takes to drive a woman home from a club. The time is takes to put on a condom? The 10-20 minutes it takes to climax? Is it worth instant regret. I would guess not! But, as a man my only hope is to busy myself with bettering myself. My only hope is to love my family more than I love myself. "Instant Regret" is too large of a price.

A busy January

Tomorrow, I'm starting Arabic class and my first class towards my masters. I'm also on the Daniel fast. Me and the wife decided to add "No Sex" for 3 weeks to the fast.I'm ending day 2 and I keep getting head aches. I'm really thinking that I'm having sugar/caffeine withdrawal. Who would have ever thought that the eating part would be the hardest between no sex and no meat or bread. I'm not going to lie about how scared I am for what 2012 will bring in my life. I'm in completely uncharted territory. I'm at the point that I'm relying on ole negro spirituals to continue to be positive and have motivation. "I know he didn't bring me this far to leave me" plays over and over again in my head. When it comes to this fast I've noticed that my nutrition has never really been to good. But, I'm on the cusp of having high blood pressure and I don't want to start having medical problems at 25. Anyways, I've been trying to help out around the house more and really focus on spending time with my wife. She dropped a ton a bricks on me the other day. Expressing that she thought the only time I was nice or sweet to her was when I wanted sex. Going on to say that it has made it become more of a chore than love making. I of course hate losing in any aspect of the word so I decided to start washing the dishes and just being nicer or listening more than I have been. After this Daniel fast of no sex for 3 weeks hopefully things will be looking up. If you can learn anything from what my wife told me, spend time with your significant other. Kiss them, hug them, be next to them for no reason at all. Or you'll find yourself doing 3 weeks of celibacy or worst alone.
Peace

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