Why I Hate/Love Political Season

This time of season brings out what people really care about. They tell you what is important in an election and that is who they will vote for...blah blah blah.

The reason that I hate listening to conservative radio talk show hosts like Rush and Sean Hannity is because they are GREAT manipulators, but rarely ever allow for the truth to come out. If you watch any interview or listen to any on the radio from the Hannity guy he does not allow opposing views the chance to speak their point of view. 5 years ago I liked him. Now he has turned into a total ass like Bill Oreily.

One thing that you always hear from these guys is how we need a "Reagan" President. One of the highlights of this that I always hear mentioned is a president who loves and believes in God.

So when Obama first began to run way back in the day you had all of these stupid emails being forwarded around about how he was an extreme muslim and terrorist basically. That he hated God/Jesus and would lead our country "astray" because Muslims hate America. By the way if you ever forward me anything I will block you from emailing me forever. If someone spent 5 minutes of research on their own instead of listening to these idiot radio hosts you would know that this is not even close to true.

So now we are looking like there is a strong possibility that Romney could win the nomination for the Repubs. But what do you hear nothing about??? That he is a mormon. So the mormon religion does not exactly believe God/Jesus thing the way Protestant or Catholics do. Kind of like the Muslims don't exactly believe the God/Jesus thing. If you find any emails about how Romney is going to ruin this nation because of his religion you can forward those to me. Probably not that many out there. Because the belief in God/Jesus to the conservative voters really never was as important as they made it out to be. If it was than HuckleChuckle would have dominated. The conservative voter just wants a conservative...mormon or whatever. It's close enough to Christianity right???

The final point that I would make is that I would never vote for anybody based on what religion they claim and neither should you. I am not going to take my car to a "christian mechanic" or have my home built by a "christian construction company" simply because they are christians. I want the best job on my car or my house or leading the country done by someone who can do the job the best...muslim, mormon, christian, athiest. Yes I am sure that there are some policies that could be influenced by a person's religious beliefs, but they are not going to dominate politics.

Therefore, Christians it's ok to side with Romney if you want to and not be afraid or worried about the mormon thing. Just don't start spouting off about how all Muslims want to kill all of us if its Obama and Romney in the finale. Because then I will have to make the strong case that mormons hate Jesus. Of course neither of those are true.

Obama is my guy. Religion or even political party does not matter. On the issues and as far as his character I say he is the one person that makes me the most comfortable. Its ok if you don't agree. I'm voting for a terroritst.

10 Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

10. I really like "Il Divo"...to the point I bought a DVD of theirs. I prefer when they sing in Spanish. Il Divo seriously is amazing.

9. I really enjoy sitting around and planning out my budget in my off time. Just writing numbers over and over on a scratch piece of paper and scribbling and starting again.

8. Although I hate country music, Diamond Rio is the greatest band of all time. Not just a good band or one good thing from country music. But literally the greatest band of all time. I believe that it will be Diamond Rio playing just about any song they want as I am entering heaven.

7. I've never really liked Easter. I know that sounds bad because of my position and all. It has nothing to do with the meaning behind easter. I just hate eggs, and dying them w/ vinegar, and having to hunt for them, and bunnies, and having to dress nicer than any other time of the year for no apparent reason.

6. I have incredible hearing but for some reason running water in the sink always takes my ears' full attention and I cannot hear what anyone or any tv station is saying until the sink is turned off.

5. I have never been in a fight before. I am afraid that if one day I do engage in hand to hand combat that I will uncontrolably kill the other person who will be the receiver of all of my rage from birth until that moment in time. I hope for my sake I don't ever get in a fight.

4. On occasion I like to smoke.

3. My sense of humor is sometimes very odd. I find things funny that just shouldn't be funny. Not naughty or vulgur things, but things that just aren't funny to a majority of people I think are hilarious.

2. I think that I could be a great piano player and feel as though I am a great piano player. The only problem is that I have never really done anything to practice the piano so that I can grow into my natural born talent.

1. I'm not too concerned with my "career". I don't really want to be defined by what I do, but rather by who I am and who I am becoming. You might know that about me already though. You might mistake it for being lazy or not having a plan. But you might be wrong.

:(

I am really sad that football season is coming to a close. It really is my favorite time of the year.

Still Taken Back

I stood in line on my lunch break at the Chick-Fil-A at the mall wearing my t-shirt that says, "Cancer Sucks". I kind of wish that I could wear it every day because I always get responses from people. Even the meanest looking people in the world will break the ice around their chin and smile towards me when passing.

The young lady behind the counter smiled when it was my turn to order and her eyes centered on my shirt and she looked up with a matter of fact smile and said, "It really does suck!"

"Yes it does." I smiled back... slightly more focused on how long had my combo #1 been sitting under the heat lamp than starting a conversation about cancer with a stranger.

"Where did you get that shirt?"

Typical response to try and let the person know without making it sound like I want them to feel sorry for me..."From the hospital where my mom had surgery." This time I made sure go give a gentle smile and look her in the eye. This was not so much me being nice, but rather to make her aware that I was doing fine. And before she could respond I added that I would like a number 1 with a diet coke. And I said please at the end of it. Very nice tone too I might add.

"How is your mom doing now," asked another person in line next to me. This lady was probably in her late 50's and seemed nice and genuine. At this point I realized I would have to engage myself in actually communicating with another human being and I told her that my mom was doing pretty good and that the surgery went very well (The girl behind the counter was holding my bag of food and listening to me...I was sooooooooo hungry).

The lady next to me then began to break my heart as she told me her story. She had lost her mother and her husband to cancer. Her 29 year old daughter had been fighting cancer for 3 years and cancer was winning the battle. Tears filled her eyes as she told me they just found out that it had spread to her daughter's brain, liver, kidneys, and spine. Her daughter had about 2 months to live.

When you kind of understand a person you know what kind of responses they DO NOT want to hear. They don't want to hear that it will all be ok. I simply asked what her daughter's name was and I asked what her name was. I said, "I'll tell you what Sandy. This week I will make sure to pray for you and Maria (her daughter)."

Sandy looked up at me and began to cry and was trying to apologize. Of all the things I would have wanted to happen the last one on the list did...

I began to cry.

And then we hugged as though we were family and we cried together.

WTF?

Something had happened in such a short time and the weight of everything knocked us into each other's embrace and we spoke to each other with only tears.

It wasn't loud and we didn't drag it out. And NO we did not kiss at the end. But it was so insane and exactly what I needed at that moment in the middle of the line at Chick-Fil-A in the freaking mall.

I turned back to get my bag of food and the girl behind the counter had tears in her eyes and she said, "thank you" in a very heartfelt way as if I had done something really meaningful. She handed me the bag and in a simple statement said that her brother had cancer and good luck to me and my family.

I walked away not feeling embarrassed in any way. That happened a week ago and I still think its rather odd that I stood in the public and hugged and cried with a late 50 year old woman whom I had met 45 seconds prior. I find it even more odd that I don't really care and I sat down to eat my chicken sandwich and somehow felt relieved.

I have no real comment on why it happened or what exactly it meant to me or why it matters at all.

I just needed to share a true story that I can hardly still believe.

Life Lessons From Sean

Every time that I begin a blog the first word that I type is "so..." and then I go back and erase it. But that has nothing to do with anything.

Thursday night I was watching the USF football game with my friend at Chilis. We were seated at the bar in front of their beautiful HD television when I heard and could not help but notice the guy that was seated next to me.

Sean looked, talked, and acted like Eminem. Come to find out he was 33 years old (He looked about 25). He had brought his 13 year old daughter to Chilis that night with him to sit at the bar. The funny thing (I should say that one of the many funny things) I realized immediately was that Sean talked to his daughter like I figured that he would talk to one of his buddies. Imagine the most hyper ghetto fabulous white guy hanging out with all his black friends and cracking jokes about everything. This was going on between Sean and his daughter.

I first wrote Sean off as one of the biggest losers probably of all time. I mean, what 33 year old talks like that and dresses like that and especially to his daughter? Although Sean was a loser in my mind...he could make anybody laugh. Pretty much anything he said was hysterical and it was even more funny because of the situation. One of my favorite parts was when he was watching the game and the USF player trucked a Rutgers player and Sean stood up and said:

"Daaaaaaaaaaaamn, that boy coulda killed anybody....dis nigga(as he pointed to me)...dis nigga(as he pointed to the black lady near him)...and even dis huge nigga(pointing to the manager on duty)."

Now thats just funny.

Anyways as we watched the game you couldn't really help but talk to Sean.

Long story short Sean was one of the most honest people I have ever met. He has one of the best relationships with his daughter (even though nothing I could ever say would make you believe that) and even more so had some incredible advice.

My friend and I are both engaged and we started talking to Sean about it. He basically questioned us to see if we really loved our fiances and then told us that he could see it in our eyes and our smile and proceeded to offer some of the best encouragement about marriage I have gotten.

It was all so insane, seriously.

But Sean turned out to be a lot cooler than the loser that I had originally pegged him to be. He was a lot funnier than you could imagine. He was a lot smarter than his attire supposed. He was a lot kinder than his tattoos suggested. And he cared a lot more about people than I did.

Its so odd sometimes the people that God uses to reveal His character through. If I truly believe what I say than I do believe that every person reveals the character of God in some way even if they don't know it or even if they don't want to. If we are made in the image of God than little things like being nice, or making people laugh, or odd people who can look past your stereotypical eyes and still want to talk with you...reveal the heart of God.

Sean is a crazy guy and I'm glad we met.

And I kinda like Eminem for reasons I do not know.

"Your church's target is non-believers therefore it is NOT a church.

This whole notion about churches targeting the un-churched is absurd and unbiblical.

Also, who cares if you guys feed the poor etc. The mormons and the muslims both do that. We will see none of them in heaven because they don't believe the one true faith."

The statement above I read just a moment ago on a website. The website is devoted to tearing down churches and pastors. Of course, the ones who have started the site and who do all the bashing claim to be Christians themselves.

The original post was a church member who was so angry that the pastor of a church didn't preach a typical resurrection message on easter Sunday. The church did have a Good Friday service, but stayed in their series on Sunday morning on how Jesus is involved in the dysfunction in the home. The original post was from an anonymous church member who asked everyone to pray for the church because it was being led astray by the pastor who did not care about the gospel.

Another member of the church responded to this page long rant and explained that he really loved the church and that Jesus had changed a lot of lives through the messages of the pastor and the ministry (feeding the poor) of the church. He was not angry or mean or hateful. He simply stated how God has used the church in a great way in a lot of people's lives.

This obviously sent anonymous over the edge and he HAD to respond and continue to degrade the church by telling them it wasn't a church and all this stupid crap. I posted just a small segment of his response because this is the kind of statement that makes me angry and sad and frustrated at the same time.

His statement about, "who cares if you feed the poor..." totally ridiculous. I would say that the starving kids who got to eat that day care. And I would say that Jesus cares too. I believe that Jesus has been in the process of restoring humanity and redeeming all things from the beginning of time. I think when the Muslims, Mormons, Jews, Christians, and Atheists feed the homeless that Jesus cares because I believe He is involved with all of it.

Nobody will ever agree on how church is supposed to be done. But nobody should ever believe that Jesus is too small to change lives in any setting with any pastor and any sermon or act of service. Every church has something to offer no matter how bad you don't want to believe it. Every person has been gifted by God and can be used by God no matter how much you hate the way they do things.

What would it look like if we spent more time focusing on what churches do well and building on that instead of sitting around wasting our energy talking, blogging, complaining about how bad and how wrong churches do things?

The statement at the beginning of this comes from a person who wants to be right more than they want to see Jesus.

And that makes me sick.

And want to cuss the guy out for being so ignorant.

But I won't.

Connecting in a small(big) way

Today I went into Subway to get a turkey sub w/ honey mustard (fat free) on wheat bread. I am on this journey called getting in shape and it hasn't been too bad actually. I already feel better physically from working out and eating better. But the 3-4 O'clock hunger is pretty intense.

Anyways, I walk into Subway to get my meal, or what I used to call a snack. No chips or even apples...or EVEN soda. Just a sub and water. I am wearing a shirt that I got from my mom that says, "CANCER SUCKS" in huge letters across the front. She got one for me from the hospital in Arizona where she had the surgery. The girl behind the counter (a.k.a. my sandwich artist) asked me if my shirt said anything on the back and I told her no, just that cancer sucks and that was really all it said. She smiled a little and began to make my turkey sandwich and said "I really like that shirt."

She then told me that cancer really did suck and I agreed. I told her I got it from my mom and she told me that her mom also had cancer. She asked some details about my mom and I kind of let her talk. I didn't really want to ask her any questions because she seemed comfortable just talking and I wasn't sure if her mother was still alive. After asking me if I wanted the meal or just the sandwich she kind of sighed and said that she understands how hard that it can be and the last couple years have been rough for their family. She didn't say it trying to make me feel sorry for her, but rather it seemed that she was showing me sympathy. It was a lot more honest and heartfelt than the gentleman at my church that told me, "It's OK Jason, God's got it all under control...there's nothing to worry about."

I disagreed with his assessment.

As I paid for my meal I told her thanks for my meal and the conversation. I ate my sub and as I opened the exit door I looked back because she had smiled and said "Good luck" across the restaurant.

Her and I understand each other. We don't know each other at all really. We might never speak again. But I think she might remember my shirt and remember our short conversation. Maybe she will be reminded that there are others that are experiencing similar situations to her and that she is not as alone as she may think.

It was a great 75 second conversation that I believe Jesus smiled at.