"He laid emeralds in her eyes"

Warning this is going to be an incredibly nerdy post. 

Evolution, like anything only consumes the mind when it revolves around the evolution of something you love or interests you. Few things grab at my attention long enough for me to give it space and time to evolve. Things die off, interests change, and people change. Life is our world litteraly spinning to the consistant tune of non stop change. Plenty of things in this life are precious and kept close to my heart. But one group of guys that has been around since the first time I noticed them in 2002 is the ever evolving, timeless, and tasteful mewithoutyou. 

These guys have in my mind come full circle with their music in the last 15 years. So I decided that I would list my favorite lines from each of my favorite songs in some kind of order starting in 2002. Ready? haha 

1. When you laugh you'll feel my breath there filling up your lungs. 

2. Put music to our troubles and we'll dance them away 

3. God became the glass, all things left were emptiness 

4. Oh the profanation of our love, to tell the world of our passing joys 

4. Come and whisper in my ear "your very pretty dear" and it'll be alright. Your lieing! Well I don't mind tonight 

5. She put on happiness like a loose dress over pain I'll never know. 

6. You watched me like a 10 car highway wreck with detached vulgar curiosity 

7. Can you remember dear my saying how my coming here was terrible fall 

As we crept like theives along your bedroom hall

8. Look! up in the window! She carries a candle in mid day! 

9. I still have a thousand half loves.. Oh, my god I just wanna shoot myself just thinking about it! You think I don't mean what I say!? Well I mean every word I said! 

10. So turn your ears, you musicians, to silence

Because they only come out when it's quiet 

11. I was a basket filled with holes and she was the sand I tried to hold.

12. Rehearsed indifference tossed aside, our narrow arms spread wide,

What unseen pen etched eternal things on the hearts of human kind 

But never let them in there minds 

13. We have all our beliefs, But we don't want our beliefs

God of peace we want you. 

14. You surround me, You're pretty but you're all I can see

Like a thick fog... If there was no way into God 

I would never have laid in this grave of a body for so long 

15. Pay no attention to me dancing with my girl 

With every intention to be failures in this world 

16. I'd set my course for land, But you well understand 

It takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters 

17. And there I go again to the next further removed level 

of that same exact feigned humility! 

18. What new mystery is this? In overflowing emptiness! 

The invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist, 

Before my doubting eyes, the infinite appears this time 

The unquestionable is questioned 

But makes no reply 

19. Then I saw a forest grow in the city 

and a driftwood wall of birdhouse gourds 

And I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my mom 

(who's closer to my age) 

20. Find a friend and stay close and with a melting heart 

tell them whatever you're most ashamed of- 

Our parents have made so many mistakes, 

but may we forgive them and forgive ourselves

21. Still there's a whisper in my ear,

The voice of loneliness and fear, so I say: 

Devil disapear!  

I'm still (eeehh... Technically..) a virgin 

after 27 years - 

Which never bothered me before, 

What's maybe 50 more? 

22. I had a rusty spade but I'm not the fighting sort 

If I was samson I'd have found that harlots blade 

and cut my own hair short

23. Not much for monks but we pretend to be 

We share a silent meal and a pot of chamomile 

Gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity

24. If I come without a thing, then I come with all I need

No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head, 

The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead

25.  You rotten wooden mixing spoon! 

Why, you midnight winged raccoon 

You'd better bring those pastires back, you no good, burnt black macaroon!! 

26. And as the smoke king curled higher and higher, the troops, flying loops 'round

the telephone wires, they said: Our beloved's not dead, but his highness instead 

has been utterly changed into fire!! 

27. But Tiger, why sit stil,

As the officers climb the hill?

What stars cast down their spears,

Cooled your fire with their tears?

28. Shepherd the Southwest wind,

Railspikes ripped like the seam of a wineskin

Shepherd the northwest rain, 

Brass hat slept at the helm of that woeful train 

Ain't it an awful shame! 

Don't it just break your heart to hear of so much pain?!

29. And hidden in the fox thorn blind 

We grew old as the foxtail pine 

Sheep in the cold shielding our gold 

sipping on milk and water like 

30. We're the boxtop admissions and their throaways,
strewn across tobacco roads
With their wormwood shots and their snake oil plots
Drunk sheepshank con men and their sycophants

31. They gather like wolves on the boardwalk below
And they're howling for anwsers, no wolf could no
I charged at the waves, with a glass in my hand
I was tossed like a ball, at the bottle stand
and I landed beside your remains on the stones
where your cold fingers wrapped round my ancle bone

32. I'm bound in ropes and on the firing line
Welll, I wake up disapointed ever time
I wake up disapointed ever time
I wake up disapointed ever time!!!

Why hipsters will be the first to die in the zombie apocalypse

We live in a society that is constantly trying to learn, build and educate themselves in hopes that the future will continue to be bright and growing in technological advancements like our fathers before us for so many years. It’s part of what makes this country great. Everyone for the most part is working together in their own way and field to help grow the American dream and all it’s endeavors. But within this great march of people working towards family and this dream of life that we’ve crafted over the years, we have this specific special group of people that I believe we need to encourage to grow and flourish. But I’ll get to that later and reveal why in just a few minutes. While I’m on the subject of millennial and the amount of things we need to learn. Let me say that out of all the culture related fads and facades that we young people try to emulate in a way that speaks volumes to our own sense of misguided originality, hipsters are the most misguided of all. And with that being said I shall make an irrefutable argument as to why, without any shadow of a doubt, Hipsters will be the first to die in the coming inevitable zombie apocalypse.

1. Woman’s Jeans
Obviously woman’s jeans would be my first pick for the list. But not for the reason that I’m sure you have me pegged. Woman’s jeans are tighter than men’s jeans from the waist all the way down to the ankle, depending on what style of jean we’re talking about. During the inevitable zombie apocalypse it should be a well known fact that running is going to be a popular trend among most uninfected humans who aren’t billowing foam from the mouth while sporting red eyes and a deep burning desire for blood. With that being said I would think that tight constricting pants that hug every orifice of your skin from the waist down including the “man package” would be detrimental to survival. Okay, so the obvious solution is to remove the woman’s jeans and put on something friendlier for running, right? No not for a hipster. Notice how you could be at a wedding and everyone is in nice suit or tuxedo and then the hipster couple comes in wearing an old vintage suit that makes them stick out like a sore thumb? Or you could be hiking a trail that is horrendously rocky and challenging in every way. But not to fear, you're wearing your hiking shoes and Under Armour for reliable flexibility and sweat absorption. Then you pass the hipster who’s wearing Docksider shoes, an old vintage tank top and a pair of 80’s styled gym shorts that just come short of revealing that “man package” that’s already bulging and leaves much to the imagination. So with that being said, what needs to be realized is that it’s not that the tight jeans plays a role in their inability to escape. But the fact that their inability to disconnect from their tight jeans and over all hipster ways will be the culprit of failure over all. Any smart woman will know to simply take off the jeans and maybe put on leggings. Not the hipster though. Removing the jeans would be to remove the very fabric of imagery they strive to accomplish every day.

2. Living in the Past
Hipsters are a special kind of breed when it comes to mankind’s evolution. The perfect image of a hipster is obviously the tight jeans, the old beat up shoes, the shirt from salvation army, a polaroid camera, some kind of never heard of before pack of cigarettes and whatever else the mind can conger within the realm of the word “old”. Which brings me to my next point as to why they’re going to die when faced with the inevitable. Hipsters don’t like embracing all coming of age technology, clothing fashions, weaponry (which is questionable in itself considering hipsters don’t like guns,) so obviously any attempt to survive in the ever challenging elements of a zombie apocalypse will be doomed before survival can commence. OK, just imagine this scenario with me and I’m sure you’ll see where I’m going with this. You have 2 hipsters stuck in a alley-way being cornered by a fleet of raging zombies, on the right of the said hipsters is a Army Navy store and on the left is a antique store. Both of them are unarmed and are faced with immediate death and conversion or enter each of the stores to rummage for weapons and escape. For the sake of being fair and unbiased I’ll say that they agreed to split and have one enter the antiques and the other the Army Navy store. After finding what they thought would be needed for defense and survival they met back into the alley way. The hipster from the Army Navy store came back with a very suitable and effective Ar15 assault rifle and a box full of 20 gauge shot gun shells. While the hipster that entered the antique store came back out with a old 1800s western revolver and a rusted sword from the civil war. The very sad and unfortunate events that unfold are obvious to me, but for the sake of any hipster reading this, I’ll explain. The hipster who came out with the assault rifle and shot gun shells quickly realized that A.) this plastic bullet doesn’t fit in the clip and B.) now he’s dead because of shuffling around too long. While the other hipster pulls the revolver up to fire at the mob only to find that his vintage choice of defense has been blocked and disabled because it’s not a weapon anymore.. it’s an antique. It’s out of date and meant only for sitting on shelf to be admired. Enough said.

3. Debates & Trader Joe's
My 3rd reason is a little bit deeper into the mind of a hipster's thinking when it comes to 3 things: reality, facts and just plain stubbornness. For instance during the zombie apocalypse, food is going to be a scarce thing which means it’s going to be harder to find a Wegmans or preferably Trader Joe’s that isn’t ran sacked and emptied already. So starvation will be something to consider even if there is a Walmart within walking distance that hasn’t been ransacked or noticed by the population. Another thing to consider is the hipster’s absolute disgust with violent activity. During the zombie apocalypse we will not only have to worry about zombies but also desperate people that will do anything to survive and unfortunately hipsters will be easy prey for people like this to hunt, considering they wont be any contest in a fight. The true hipster way and mentality when it comes to fighting is to fight with words. It’ll be an epidemically horrible scene as we watch hipsters trying to debate themselves out of harrowing situations that only end one way, when bringing words to a gun fight.

4. Encourage the Hipster
I could continue on I’m sure a bit longer with reasons as to why hipsters will be the first to go but for the sake of time and energy I’ll stop there and just simply say, we must encourage this cultural movement of people to continue. Why? Well because first of all it’s fun watching people like this that are so far disconnected from reality operate in life from day to day. And 2 obviously the more hipsters that are created and we surround ourselves with means the more opportunity we “normal” people will have for survival. Yea I know it’s cruel and messed up but really it’s all about survival right? If it comes down to it, defend yourself, educate yourself on coming of age technologies, and do what's needed to protect what’s yours. Your neighbor hipster is still trying to uphold an image in a world that is long past dead. So to all you hipsters out there, consider a change cause when shit hits the fan it’s gonna get all over that image you’ve created in the form of a raging bloodied zombie. Which means we’ll have to deal with “zombie hipsters” and no one wants that. 

Millennial's taking on the large torch of Fabrication responsibility

Let’s face some of the facts. Welders are in high demand and in cases throughout the country welding schools are filled with eager men and woman hoping to fill those needed positions in companies that are in dire need of a “good hand”. The generation of baby boomers that have laid so many good foundations of quality and workmanship are on their way out and the scepter of blue collar American pride is slowly being handed to the millennial generation. But is my generation up to the task?

A recent population projection released by the U.S. census bureau last month shows that Millennial's who are defined by the ages of 18 to 35 in 2015 are projected to number at 75 million, surpassing the projected 74.9 million Boomers aged from 51 to 69. (These projections can be found online) These numbers show us that my millennial generation has much to be learned from the Boomers who are now in the final years before retirement.

Obviously I’m talking strictly about any kind of work that has to do with Metal fabrication. So this would include work within power plants, bridges, refineries, Mills, Fabrication shops, erection operations, building structures and so many countless more. You could say in a sense that metal makes the world go round. Which brings me to this subject of choice, are millennial's up to the task? The answer without a doubt is yes. But can we acquire the critical skills needed before handed the critical jobs that Americans rely on in order to make this country run? For instance most people that imagine welding believe that it is simply taking two pieces of steel together and welding it together. 1+1=2 right? Yes in theory that is exactly what welding is, but in reality that isn't quite true when welding what’s called a “root pass” in a part that is attached to a nuclear containment wall that is protecting millions of people from a highly dangerous nuclear reactor. In this instance we've taken what seems to be simple and made it incredibly critical. This changes the whole dynamic of what needs to be learned and obtained in such a short amount of time from the Baby boomer generation.

When I was just a kid I remember certain things about my childhood that stuck with me today. You could say in a sense that it molded me and sculpted me in the man I find myself to be. One of those things was what I remember about my father. My father was very rarely around not because of a lack of his fatherly duties but because he worked so much. Most days he was out the door in the morning by 4:30am and not home until around 7:30pm. He had a strong work ethic that was birthed in the Newport News Ship yard in 1974. Back then it was a no BS kind of mentality, you were at work on time and you did the job right. If you couldn't do that then you were placed at a low spot where you could eventually learn to do it right and that’s only if you had the right attitude. If you were a punk you were just simply kicked off the job. There was no Human resource department that worked on your behalf if you weren't up to snuff.

Today is a much different world. Political correctness spans far and wide on every side of the spectrum. From politics, social equality, racial tensions, world views and even the work force. Obviously that’s only a small percent of what I’m mentioning for the sake of my word count, but you get the point. Us millennial's are in a stage of ridicule due to our differences in how we were raised. You hear the joke all the time “when I was your age I played with sticks and walked 10 miles up hill both ways in 2 feet of snow to school and back” mean while we have smart phones with games on them and anything else at our finger tips. But like every generation before us the goal is not far off and the way in which we get there is not unattainable. Different times call for different measures. What stays the same is the desire to see the American dream come to fruition.  

Something that concerns me as a welder/fabricator myself is these welding schools that make simple assembly line welders and for the most part nothing more. Now obviously not all schools are like that and for me to make that assumption would be unfair. But from what I've seen in a short amount of time is this very problem. You have multiple types of welding which leads to several differences in application that is all dependent upon what it is exactly that you are welding. For example the tolerances for defects on a simple racking system in a manufacturing plant are far different than the tolerances required in building a bridge that millions of people use in crossing per year. Employers are desperate for people that can get the job done correctly according to the code that is required for compliance, but the issue that slows their production is hiring new people out of welding schools that understand how to pull the trigger, but not what’s required to pass a routine X-ray test on the weld itself. We are seeing more and more companies offering pre-employment training to new hires after they have already went through the common year to 2 year welder training programs that assured them they were ready for their new career. This leads not only to dissatisfied employers but also unhappy students who just spent in a upwards of 36,000 for a couple of welding certifications that were achieved in a welding booth. Any seasoned Welder can attest to the fact that a welding booth is far different than an actual on site welding job.

In conclusion many questions are raised as to what the future holds as far as new technology in building, learning curves and the will to see a job well done to ever changing standards. But more than anything I challenge welding schools to further challenge their students. To not only see the boom of money they bring but the change they’ll bring in the history of what we build and are proud of. Change is inevitable and exciting. The baby boomers set a standard of work ethic and pride in quality that shows like trophies all throughout this country. Us millennial's  are in the very last years with the Boomers so dig your heels in deep, stretch your ears out wide and take all you can get. Cause once they’re gone enjoying they’re well deserved retirement. It’ll just be us working the hammers and steel building a better tomorrow for the next generation of America.  

Mad Max: Fury Road delivers the action of the past fuzed with the means of the present

I just left the theater after seeing Mad Max: Fury Road and thought it would be fun to write a little review on what I think is an absolute master piece. Well depending on how you look at the film considering the past installments all the way to this current one. 

WARNING 

(spoilers below)

Opening scene unravels wide open on a scaling shot across a desert landscape riddled with broken down cars, scathing lizards and a sun so bright and real against the sand your skin actually feels the heat. Everything surrounding the scene was silent and dead panning hard right until Max appears standing next to the legendary "interceptor" XB Falcon Coupe, the moment is silent except the desert wind pushing the sand as he looks across the desolate land. Then with the snap of his neck you see the blank face of tattered hinged insanity as the far off sound of rusted motorcycles and loud apocalyptic vehicles coming billowing his way. That my friend is when the 120 minute movie took me from a beautiful gritty opening to non stop fuel injected nostalgic happiness when it comes to everything I want in a good action movie. Everything about this screams back to the classic taste of the 80s and early to mid 90s action movies of old. That taste of pure unadulterated simple plot that focuses more on the need to keep you on the edge of your seat with raw stunts and gritty believable atmospheres. Than some deep elaborate plot that keeps you wondering about what the hell is happening which in turn means the quality of "fight scenes" "car chases" and raw stunts are left to the way side. Remember that scene in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade where Indie was on top of the Nazi tank in the middle of the desert fighting multiple adversaries? The sweat, the music, the hero's ability to take a beating while somehow managing to not only survive but kick the hell out of the bad guys while jumping from horse to tank to cliff side? That scene and so many others like it was the winning seal of approval when it came to the action movies of the past. Today it's hard to feel the heart and soul of what the director is envisioning when it comes to films. They all feel so forced and machine like, as if plots and scripts are merely placed in machines that easily manufacture the product only to shoot them out like candies on a conveyor.

Mad Max is special in that it delivers that old thought out feeling of good old fashion "Die Hard action. But what makes it exceptional is that the director who understands this kind of movie was able to take this taste and mix it with the present modern resources we have today. It's not enough to call this a good old action movie. It's quite simply an experience. From the way the director makes you taste that sand in your mouth to the sounds of crashing, smashing and scraping of metal on metal glorious fury. 

The funny thing about this movie that differs from the originals is that it doesn't actually fully revolve around Max (Tom Hardy). The movie centers much around Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and her noble endeavors to save captive slave wives from a tyrannical maniac who uses them to keep his blood line going. I'm usually not a big fan of reering off track from original ideas and premises but this worked surprisingly well. George Miller was able to uphold all needed and necessary standards concerning the Mad Max we all love and adore. While adding the not needed but much appreciated salt and pepper to the already delicious meal in the form of Charlize Theron. 

Overall the movie was excellent in every way shape and form. Thoroughly entertaining through and through. My advice to anyone that decides to see this movie is that you drop all preconceived notions on what you think you are going to see. Don't expect a deep plot or the Academies standard of "good acting" when it comes to films these days. This is an adult fun filled edge of your seat action movie that keeps you out of your world and in the unashamed world of 'Fury road"

I am not a follower of Christ

So many of us these days are defined by something. We find that defining line in our lives peaceful and encouraging. We like to feel that we are a part of something. Held in a special category safe and sound surrounded by theologies, ideologies, principles and for a lack of better words a moral code that was orchestrated and created by the creator of the heavens and the earth. I found myself in that very position of thinking for the majority of 25 years. It was a jail cell for me. A place of captivity that confined me to a very strict set of rules. Within those rules I governed everything I did and thought accordingly. I tried to say the right things, applied the armor of God daily, prayed for wisdom and strength to live a holy life and always wrestled with my flesh DAILY that I might somehow be closer to my God. But was that the exact intention God had for us when he designed the blueprints of relationship at the cross? Maybe it’s your version and it works, if so congratulations I’m truly happy for you but it doesn't work for me. I think the key focal point that I now look at is that “Jesus designed relationship with us at the cross”. The cross is where all the trying & crying died a sinner’s death. The cross is where our straining and obtaining ceased to exist. It’s at the cross where I have the mind melting revelation that it is truly “not I that lives, but Christ that lives within me”. Jesus wasn't being literal when he said “pick up your cross and follow me.” The whole point of that statement was said to confuse you. Well confuse those who he said it to at the time. So many people think that command was made so that we would understand “death to self” When in reality it was said in order to frustrate you to a place of surrender. Surrender to what? The truth that His death to self on the cross was mankind’s death to self for eternity. The only 2 things that we are tasked with doing when it comes to our relationship with Christ is believing in the full finished work of what he has done and simply enjoying the life we have in him. Everything else like “praying for breakthrough” and “entering his presence” and all that stuff I grew up with. In my mind belittles the enormity of what he actually did at the cross. You think he would disrobe his cosmic unfathomable divinity to only do half the job? No. The salvation he dished out for all humanity at the crooked cross of his execution was salvation to man from himself. The sin nature that we are confronted by at the pulpit of the American church has been eradicated. “The life I now live in this body I live by faith, through complete reliance of the son of God that died for me.”

People think it’s heresy to claim that the sin nature is no longer present in us. I say why? Are you afraid to admit that if you don’t have a sin nature you then can’t explain why you have sinful thoughts and actions? 1+1=2 right? Sin nature + pathetic unlucky human = sinful life. If that’s the case what the hell has changed since the claimed dismal of “law” that Jesus came to dismiss? Understanding the simple idea that “it is finished” truly changes the dynamic of any Jesus believing person. It changes how you think about EVERYTHING especially if you were raised in the church hearing the “good news” of the halfway saved gospel. By no means am I advocating that we should just go and act like heathens and sin all we want. No not at all. It’s like drug addiction; if you use once, you’re not addicted. But if you use twice and three, four and then five times, the addiction sets in and you’re now dependent upon it and it rules your life. But by no means do we call that person stuck forever in a “drug nature” infested life that he must now work on for the rest of his life. No he needs to simply come to a place where he remembers who he is and finally get the help that can save him. Once he overcomes that drug addiction in a real and sobering way, he is back to the original perfect design of his best self. We simply need to remember who we are and what’s been accomplished for us. Wallowing in fear that we may stumble and praying for strength in the battle against sin looks a lot like the process the Jews encountered post salvation. It was a song and dance to acquire righteousness which was never acquirable. Our lives should revolve around the constant humbling revelation of our perfect holiness acquired at the cross. But what did exactly happen at the cross? What exactly transpired in our broken hearts that created an atmosphere so different moments before he took his last breath? The answer? A heart blocked by the “curtain of sin” in the temple torn in half to reveal on the other side Jesus standing with nothing in the way, asking you one question; “are you ready for me to possess your heart?” Understanding that statement brings light to the fact that it’s not YOU who are holy and righteous but him who consumes you and possesses you.

For the sake of conclusion I’ll say part of the reason I even decided to touch on this subject is because of the state of our country's health. We were founded on traditional Christian morals July 4^th 1776 by men who believed that freedom was an important ingredient to what could be the greatest country in the world. So far in many ways they were and have been successful in that thinking. But over time man’s thinking has grown old. Logical thinking and Godly principles this country was founded on has slowly fallen to the wayside and progressive thinking, greed, hate and old ways are birthing themselves back into man’s minds in ways that will make it hard to ever turn back. But like so many times before us, Christian men and woman rose up in the name of unpopular change within the religious system. To see forth what could be a better time and era for the future of man. For example Abraham Lincoln rose up to see the destruction of slavery. America answered the shout of evil in World War 2 with courage and a stance for what’s right in the face of blatant evil. Martin Luther King Jr. rose up for equal civil rights for all men and woman.

So what does this have to do with my subject line to this post? The revelation of the finished work of the cross reverberates that in this dark time in the world we can see a reformation in our thinking and hearts when it comes to Jesus Christ and his salvation brought to us. That in this dark time we see that we cannot simply pick up our cross and follow him into the next chapter of what is going to happen. But that we must fully let go of our religion, let go of our need to see his kingdom come, and let go of that old idea to “usher him in.” Instead simply remember who you are in his death and rely upon his true good news that no matter what storm he walks in to calm, you are simply safe and caught within his love.

I am not a follower of Christ. I am resting in Christ.

“For in him we live and move and have our being”

The Bruce Jenner’s & Baltimore’s of the world

Ok seriously. What the hell? Just when you think you’ve seen the brink of stupidity in people’s thinking.. Bruce Jenner walks on the scene. His moment of truth was aired with a grand total of 17 million viewers. The positive movement behind him is unbelievable. Don’t get me wrong. What I’m writing here today is not a “smash piece” I’m not one of the republican/conservative homophobic religious spouting freedom eating “American made” guns or nothing idiots that you have me figured out to be. I try to be a realist and like anybody that has any kind of moral thought life, I strive for truth. My issue isn’t with Jenner. My issue is with the 17 million that tuned into Jenner’s announcement. You know when it comes to the conversation of legalized marriage in homosexuality. I think it should absolutely be legalized. Why? Because regardless of what you may think you know about Jesus teaching. He was absolutely clear about creating one thing! “free will” for every man, child and woman. Oh and he was also about love. So without going into scripture and getting all “preachy” on yo ass. I’ll leave you to read between the lines. If this country which is “God fearing” can’t understand that GOD made it so that we could live within our own free will. Meaning YOU CAN MARRY A GOAT if you really wanted too. Then I guess we really need to wake up. As long as that person who is marrying a goat does not infringe upon my freedoms and isn’t murdering, raping ya know all the obvious stuff. Then I don’t CARE. Live your life the best way you see fit! God it’s like rocket science to some people. Anyway that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Some of you that read this will say.. “Yea nick what’s your point” I don’t care. That’s fine. This is a 

rant and you’re free to move on.

What pisses me off is this percentage of people that are so ignorantly blind to the REAL problems of the world. The violent protestors of Ferguson and Baltimore coupled with this 17 million people that represent the KIM KARDASHIAN following simply blow my mind. People are so wrapped up in the Gossip and the offense of people like Bruce Jenner! Who is Bruce Jenner? He’s a simple human being. WHO CARES! Everything in this country is fueled by 3 things Religion, politics and entertainment. All 3 of those things are obsessed over and radicalized. Whatever happened to the forging of the human heart? The desire to see yourself be something more than your 9 -5 gossip train at work ending with a TV dinner and the news channel EXTRA EXTRA at 7 talking about 

Hollywood?!

Meanwhile Nepal is buried under thousand year old brick. Christians in the world are suffering a modern day genocide that isn’t being recognized. Tehran is lurking in the shadows of a sinister agenda our leaders refuse to see. ISIS continues to ravage and kill just like the days of old. Beheading men, woman and children, nailing entire families to trees, burning, raping killing.. And we are tuning into Bruce Jenner’s controversial announcement… 

Hmm anyway, Social equality is a valid conversation and issue that should be dealt with. But that’s just my point IT SHOULD BE DEALT WITH! My Faith in leadership is dashed at this point. How can we even attempt to solve the problems in the world if we don’t first deal with the ground floor problems like social equality? Martin Luther King is rolling over in his grave right now because of these racial issues in our country. C’mon people we’re American’s not African American or Irish or Dutch or whatever. Fine map back your genealogy and bloodline. Be PROUD of where you came from. But at the end of the day the past no longer matters. You are a citizen of the best country in the world. Now act accordingly. Are the cop killings ok? NO! But that doesn’t mean you burn a city that your father and grandfather built upon their backs! There is So much materialization in this age that people don’t even see the meaning of hard work, blood, sweat and tears shed through precious history. So much distortion of truth and reality most people that don’t really DIG in the news articles, fact checks and confirmation sites are really walking around basing their opinion off of a lie. We’ve created a society of People that are so sifted by “one line” antidotes that their moral compass is ass backwards. Who do we have to thank? The media? No my friend. That answer is to easy and not at the root. Every person in this world is a byproduct of a leader. That may look like a general in an army or a manager in dunkin donuts all the way down to a simple man or woman being a father or mother to their child. We need more leaders in this world that look up the word integrity and character 5 times a day and repeat it back to themselves. They don’t have to have degrees or great resumes detailing their accomplishments. Just simple people that knows what’s right and wrong in the face of blatant evil. Some would say it’s hilarious that I would even have to say something that should be already well understood. But unfortunately we live in a society of leaders that prove differently to us every day.  

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A fraction of the dysfunction

Do you ever just question it? Religion, your relationship with God, what you stand for, what you are and who you actually are? To some people even the notion of such a thought is an act of pure betrayal to themselves or in their mind betrayal to God himself. I know this because I use to feel that way. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone else. Maybe God isn’t looking at you through a magnifying glass trying to determine what you are and how you think. Maybe you are allowed to think outside the box of what you’ve been taught your whole life, which means maybe he’s got thicker skin than any of us know. Maybe just maybe he’s bigger than our minds eye all together. Maybe not. Think about your daily walk in life. The perfect synergy you share with people that are around you, that also share your ideologies, convictions and way of life. It all seems normal right? But what about when your alone? Do you ever feel like a different person? Someone that is screaming to be released in a different way. But it scares you because it’s contrary to how those other people know you. I believe the second we close our minds to the possibility that maybe our thinking is small, is the moment we’ve become brain washed to man’s ideas and traditions. It’s the moment that we’ve traded enlightened cosmic possibilities and ideas for thousand year old traditions that only seem different due to man’s constant revision after revision after revision. Is it betrayal to ask your God or your patterned thinking if there’s more than what you know? I know we all think and pray that already.. “show us more”… ”What else is there?”. I don’t know what your version of that prayer or thought process looks like. But I’m sure one way or another you’ve prayed, mumbled, hoped, thought or screamed it in some way. A simple cry for beautiful revelation, the hope of pure originality. But what does this powerful, divine God require of us to do? In order that he may “show his back side” to the face of Moses on mount sini? Or what’s even more exciting to think about is the idea that maybe he intended to show his face. But Moses lacked something in his own personal belief and thinking that only allowed God’s back. It’s just a simple example that came to mind.

Sometimes I think about Buddhism, astrology, new age, Islam etc.. And I wonder to myself are all the ideas and religions small pieces of a bigger picture. This God that we speak of.. He’s huge right? We’ve heard it all of our life. “God is bigger than your problems” some variation of this has been heard in your ears at some point I’m sure. I think that maybe we’ve heard it to much. I think we’ve heard it so much that the words used for him like huge and big have kind of lost there depth and taste. Or maybe it’s just the fact that we’ve been using the wrong words.. Words like big and huge are words I think of in correlation with my stomach after I had just finished eating a Thanksgiving dinner. When I think about the size and greatness of a creator that made the heavens and the earth I usually go to the dictionary and try to find a word that I never heard of that might touch on for a split second his enormity. Then it hits me. The word that should be used is simply unfathomable. Lets face it. His greatness, strength, height, all of it. It’s something that cannot be explained or understood. So with that being said.. I’ve stopped trying to serve him and understand him. BLASPHEMY! Haha Yes I know. Please don’t mess up the face. But honestly how can you please a God that is unfathomable in everyway that he can be thought of? I’m not saying that God is some rich girl in heaven that’s overly spoiled and haughty. I’m saying that God has everything he needs, lets face it he’s God. Maybe what he “needs” for a lack of better words is for us to simply delight in ourselves. Nothing better than creating something that is impressed with itself haha. For those of you that don’t believe in God, I’m sure you have something like that already figured out. Because you don’t believe in a higher power of any sort, man becomes that power. Which means you find your strengths, inspirations etc in yourself.  People that are engulfed in religious activity and or Relationship with God find their identity in a power that is greater than creation itself. They spend their life “crucifying the flesh” that they might be closer to him. I believe in some of the core values of atheism and believe in God. Some of you will probably write me off for some of what I’ve said. Which is fine, It’s just  an indication that your close minded, can’t have a conversation and live in fear due to the chains of religion and old traditions. But here is none the less where my mind has ended as of late. In truth it’s only a fraction of things I’ve been thinking. But at the end of the day it’s a fraction that I thought I’d share with you.

Happy Friday 

This is a war against humanity. A war against our way of life.

Qur'an (2:193) - "And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion be only for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrong-doers." 

Many of you know to some extent the problems that are faced in the world. Whatever news source you choose, doesn't really matter, they at least get you the correct information needed to realize some of the atrocities committed. Here is the bottom line atrocities are committed everyday. In our great country and all around the world. Things like thieving, rape and murder among COUNTLESS others that I'm not mentioning. All acts of lawlessness are disgusting and those that commit such things should be punished to the full extent of a moral law in place.

What is different about what I'll mention below is this. Most broken laws and sins are made in the shadow. In secret, behind closed doors. All made mostly with the intention that no one will find out.

Deep inside that person who just killed because of jealousy or raped because of lust. Those that stole for greed and fame and even those that are pedophiles because they just "simply can't help it" all realize one thing at the end of there day. It's wrong. They know that if Caught they will answer to a system that will convict them and punish them. Obviously they don't believe in this system, but somehow that hair brained decision to kill or rape or whatever was made and now has them in the clutches of a system that will investigate and convict. Obviously this system is not perfect. I understand that. Things happen and rules are bent. Nothing is perfect. But I've said all I said: to say that if you look at Religious Radical extremism in any religion you'll find a people that have there rules written from "divine influential power" this can be true of all religions even Christianity, look at the crusades for example. But specifically I am talking about Radical Islam. Radical Islam is nothing new to the world. September 11, 2001 was a day that shook us to the bone. We saw 2 towers fall in New York City thousands dead, thousands injured. What followed next was war. Where we learned more about our enemy. More about there convictions and more about there resolve to see manifest "the holy scriptures" of the Qur'an. 

I think from everything I've seen dating back to 9/11/01 is this. We are not fighting a political war. It is a Religious war. This War will not end for them until they've seen the fulfillment of there scriptures. They clearly disagree on all fronts with the worlds laws and systems in place. They clearly want to replace the worlds laws and systems in place with the laws and system of the Qu'ran. They have been relentless, ruthless and have shown that they are not easily clipped away like grass that has grown to long.

 The key phrase in that verse above from the Qu'ran is to fight until "religion be only for Allah."

Take a few minutes to read below some of the stories and things that have happend in 2015 already. Some of the images are GRAPHIC. But I think we need to see it. To understand it.

21 Christian men beheaded in Libya : 'A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross'

276 mostly Christian girls captured by Boko Haram, after almost a year 219 are still missing and believed deceased:. 

148 students at a college in northeastern Kenya were pulled out of there classes and executed for being of Christian belief: Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, told The Associated Press from her hospital gurney that she hid in a large cupboard and covered herself with clothes, refusing to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding at the demands of the gunmen from the al-Shabab group

Coptic Christian who confirmed this Christian girl in Syria who refused to convert to Islam and marry an Islamic man. Was stoned to death by radical Islamic extremists.

The mob of men beat 27-year-old Farkhunda before throwing her body off a roof, running over it with a car, setting it on fire and throwing it into a river near a well-known mosque. Allegations that Farkhunda, who like many Afghans has just one name, had set fire to a Qur’an. But Afghanistan’s most senior detective said no evidence had been found to support those claims.

What's the point of me saying all this? What's my feeble answer or solution to all this? The first step to a plan of action is first to be aware. I don't know what's to be done. But I know this. I love this country and it's God given rights. But can something last forever? What will life be like in 50 years?

I don't know. But in order to protect ourselves from an enemy, we must first understand our enemy. 

"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles"

The goat and the fish

Do these mountains control my fate?
Dig in my heels to feel that strength 
Oh the Burning sunny shards 
Of a light I cant quite disregard
Wise and stupid is my resolve 
to reach the top for a gift so small 
Reach, tug, climb that cliff 
test a power you cant admit 

Trekking slowly my heart at peace?
breaking walls inside of me 
I see the goal within my grasp 
a stunning glass of philanthropy 
The fight is done, I catch my breath
To look upon the prize, I've won! 

To my surprise and some dismay 
The place in which I came to be 
Is beautiful in every way,
just not the reason I climbed today

Tired, thirsty and quite depressed
Before I journey, my mind must rest 
I found a rock, to rest my head 
kicked my hoofs and made a nest 

Drifting eyes and slurring speech 
The silent murmur of silent sleep 
Drifting further from my mind 
the deepening power of my spine 
going softer, going gone..
To a place within my mind 
I don't belong..

Open wide your dreaming eyes 
Stop that thinking of your demise 
This place you've entered 
has no hold, has no boundaries 
has no mold. in here my friend 
we think out loud, break your silence
and do not pretend. 

Who is speaking against my grain?
Why can't I see you, please explain 
Your voice is gracious like the wind 
pure and soft with no angry whim 
This dream is blurry these aren't my eyes 
Oh voice of water, wind and sky

Follow closely my tired friend 
my voice of beauty will help you mend 
For what I have, you'll come to see 
is beautiful change in diversity 

Closer now my steps are marked 
The path I've chosen I have embarked 
winds of change envelope me 
fear to break the "best of me"
Yet strong as ever, I cant turn back 
The voice of wind, has got me lax 
closer now, I see this light 
The waters edge, the end of night 

Where do I stand? What is this place? 
A flowing stream, inside of me 
A shining sun I've never seen?

Looking down, the waters deep 
swimming fast and glimmering 
Against the current, elegantly

Beautiful, small and bright 
This fish dancing in the light 
reflecting beauty all around 
The sun, the moon and even sound
memorized my eyes transfixed 
That voice of beauty sings a mix 
of melodies and harmonies 
dancing to her song 
The most beautiful anthology 
My eyes are so enthralled. 

Finally, I come to terms 
that where I stand is not quite true
Remembering my lingering
on that mountain where i'm spewed 

Kneeling down to the waters edge 
Careful not to scare.
Dreams are not reality but this 
I cannot bare. I will sit and stare 
quietly, careful not to breath 
watching dance this symphony 
Of love I can't compare. 

May I dream. May I never wake.
Less I wake to this.