www.QuoVadam.com

http://www.godhatesfags.com

http://www.godhatesamerica.com

This is what were up against. People who call themselves Christians, and who very well may be for all technical “professing with the mouth” purposes, but who spread this kind of disgusting poison. Poison that is polluting the hearts and minds of the very ones were trying to save.

This is what happens when you strip the love out of the message.

To hear Mike Foster and Craig Gross interview an attourney from Westboro Baptist Church click below:

Interview

-UPDATE-

The more I read of these websites, the more my heart breaks for these people. What or who has done them so wrongly that they must resort to such vile speech and hate-mongering. It just saddens me that their children and grandchildren will be raised up in such an environment.

At first I was mortified that these people are masquerading as ambassadors for Christ. Now I’ve moved from mortification to utter heartbreak. Sure, they may profess a faith in Christ, but they have no hope. My heart breaks for them.

Things like this are what occasionally make me feel like our work is in vain. For all of our progress as the Body of Christ, false prophets such as these pull us back to where we started. They live in the Old Testament, under the Old Law. They have no concept of redemption or salvation. In much of their message there is little speak of Christ and almost no referencing of any New Testament scripture. It’s truly heartbreaking.

It’s so hard for me to bring myself to pray for people filled with such hate, even more so when they profess to be representatives of Christ. I guess a prayer in all of this is that some how, some way, someone in that group would take the time to study the New Testament and understand Christ’s message and that their understanding would spread among the group.

When damage like this is done, it takes years to repair. My prayers go out to the people of Topeka. Their hearts are most likely hardened from nearly half a century of badgering from these speakers of false doctrine.

I would almost rather see people picketing against God than to see groups like this spread poison in His name.

*Sigh*

Hmm, let’s see.

March to December. That’s nine months. That’s enough time to have gotten married and had a child. Well, it would have had to have been a quick wedding. Not only that, but if I were having a child, well, let’s just say I would be filthy rich. Nevertheless, you can all rest assured that I am neither married nor am I having a child.

Just a bit of emphasis on the fact that it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted an update. Of course, many of you have probably just finished up my first few novels. Some of you may even be afraid to read this one. “It’s been almost a whole year, I’ve seen what he can write when talking about one month, this one could get ridiculous.”Well, I can’t say that won’t happen. It has been nearly year and a lot can happen in a year. We shall see. Read on.

April:
Well, April was a

Okay, just kidding.

To tell you the truth, a lot has happened, but most of it can be summed up in a few sentences. Maybe a paragraph or two.

Since returning from China in February, I’ve worked three jobs, been to a handful of Young Life functions, spent a few holidays at home, enjoyed peace a quiet, missed China, missed being challenged, missed new friends, fell, got back up again, cleaned some crap out of my life, took on some new crap that needs cleaning, admitted some struggles, struggled with said struggles, met some new friends, developed some new relationships, took a few steps, hit a wall or two, took a few more steps, and on I go.

Sounds cliche, right?

Well, it’s all true. To sum everything up, God’s time for me here has been humbling. I think that it was mostly in answer to a prayer I prayed a while back asking for humility. Oh, don’t get me wrong, a lot of pride still exists in this shell. I’m just learning how to shed more and more each day. I’m also learning that for every way I learn to shed my pride, I seem to subconciously learn how to take on more.

For those of you who read my old updates, you may remember me stating that I was returning home to work for a year, pay a few bills, and then return to school. Well, the job period ended in mid November with me unexpectedly losing my job. It was a bit of a shock, mainly because of the way it happened. It was a great job and I had figured on starting my year of working on the date that I recieved the job in August. So when that job disappeared, something seemed out of place and I was hesitant to immediately move on to finding another job. Instead I took a few days to seek some spiritual counsel and pray.

After a few days of seeking, I came to the conclusion that it was time to pursue school. So I began my search. After gathering all of the necessary information, I applied to a school. I’m sure you realize, of course, that it was a much more calculated decision than I am making it sound here. Considering how I wanted to go about my Major, as well as my Minor, was a rather daunting task. I had to arrange things in a way that was best for me academically as well as spiritually. I also wanted something that would help me build discipline as well. Another problem was that I needed an opportunity to prove myself after my failed attempt at college in 2002.

Well, I recieved an e-mail on December 21 that I was accepted to Liberty University under Academic Probation. However, their probation entails carrying no more than 13 credits and maintaining a 1.5GPA for my first semester. They will then re-evaluate my case at the beginning of my second semester. A 1.5?!? Can you believe that? I was expecting a 2.5 minimum. Well, needless to say, I’m absolutely thrilled. I haven’t been more ready for school before in my life. It’s so much more motivating when you know why you are going and for Whom you are going.

So, Jan 12 I head off to Lynchburg, VA to begin my university studies. It is exciting to know that I am going to be back in an environment where I will be constantly challenged both mentally, and spiritually. I was beginning to lack challenge in my current environment and, to be quite frank, there is nothing here that is enabling me to move forward. I can try to create all kinds of obligations around me, but they would all be filler.

So that has been my year in a much shorter summary than most of you were probably expecting.

On a parting note, what you are all looking at right now is my new website. In the downtime since losing my job I have been able to finally finish my website. Sure there are a few minor inconsistencies, but those will get ironed out as the weeks pass. Things are 99% complete and the site is fully functional. So please feel free to click around and check things out. The site has much of what it had before. The navigation bar at the top will get you where you want to go anywhere in the site. There’s a picture page with all of my pictures from Cambodia, China, and home. A new addition is the Forum page. It is quite empty right now but that is only because there are no members. I want to encourage all of you to join the message board for discussion and reviews and such. I want to create a thriving community where people can discuss everything from theology to entertainment. Your ideas and input are what will make the message boards thrive. The main page for the website will default to my blog journal. My occasional updates will direct you to the Update blog, however I would encourage you all to check out the Journal blog from time to time. Since I often had a habit of preaching or ranting in my Updates, I decided that the Journal would be a better place for such things. Occasionally I’m unconventional, sometimes controversial, and often times a rambler. My Journal blog is where I will keep those things confined. So please, frequent the site, check things out, and start a discussion on the boards if you have time.

So there you have it. All that said, I hope everyone has (or had) a very Merry Christmas and that you all have a wonderful New Year.

Love & Peace

So lately I’ve been doing a lot of cleansing. Cleansing old habits. Some of which I’m still working on. The latest biggies to get the axe, besides the two biggest which I prefer to not discuss here, involve my computer.

I can most honestly, and quite sheepishly, say that I am a computer addict. I spend way too much time in front of this crazy machine. In all fairness, I do have a lot of things in my life that deal with computers. Email, website, and other contact based stuff as well. Soon I’ll even have papers, reports, and “gasp” even homework to do as well. So my time spent on this wonderfully compact lap warmer is not all waste. However, somewhere during the past fifteen years of computer use, I found that I was able to download all different kinds of software on the internet, and it was all free. I just had to know where to go to find it. Photo editing, movie production, music production, website editing, you name it, I had it on this box. However, I began to find myself spending ridiculous amounts of time searching for all the latest and greatest upgrades and updates to the newest software. Software that I never even used. There may have been one or two programs that I used on a daily basis but, for the most part, I had ten to fifteen gigabytes of software on my computer that I never even used. It was also sucking up all of my free time incessantly searching for the latest and greatest. Something else also began to become stingingly apparent. I had paid for none of this software. Every time that thought came up, I would try to justify it by reminding myself of all the times a friend or family member would bring over a new game or program and install it on my computer for me or my family to use. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it just boils down to outright stealing. I don’t care how overpriced the software is, or how backwards their licensing policy is, or even how unfriendly to the average joe user it is, its still stealing. So I sat down one evening and, in one fell two hour swoop, I cleansed my computer of all software I had not paid for. I would be lying if I didn’t say it was quite a relieving process. However, this brings me to my next little freshly severed addiction.

I love music. Love it. If I could have a profitable side project one day, it would probably be music producing. I have a natural ear for music. I can’t play a lick. However that is only because I’ve never been much interested in playing but the arrangements highly intrigue me. I follow music very closely. Not as closely as some of our indie snobs out there but close enough that I’m usually on top of the newest before those around me are. It’s impossible for me to count how many CDs I’ve owned in my life time. However my collection now is no where near what it used to be. Largely due in part to a mass pruning of my collection. Part of that pruning was because of the trash I was pumping through my speakers. The other part was due to the fact, that even though I understood the message and the relevancy behind the lyrics, the input was not producing a desirable output.

When I managed to get my own personal computer, my CD collection immediately received a vigorous ripping and cataloging. Downloading just wasn’t my thing. Maybe a song or two here and there, but that soon fizzled out as I did not like having incomplete collections taking up space on my hard drive. However, I soon found out that I could download whole CDs, at great quality. Now to look at the situation from what is still, largely, my personal point of view. I was not doing anything I felt was wrong. I personally am against downloading for profit, or downloading for personal enjoyment with no intention to buy the real thing. As far as I was, and still am partly, concerned, if you plan to buy the real thing, there’s nothing wrong with downloading an album to give it a digital spin to see if it’s worth your cash. Record companies charge astronomical fees for CDs these days. They are then adding and packaging extra “content” to them that a very small percentage of the population asked for in order to justify said cost. So I see nothing wrong with sampling a CD for a few days. I do however get irate at people who download libraries of CDs and never go out and buy one. The artists have to make a living, regardless of how well off they may be. It is their music, their creation, and they deserve their money. The thing is though, now with the internet as detailed as it is, you can find plenty of websites that will let you sample CDs legally. Many artists websites even allow you to sample some of their content on their websites. There are many ways around it that are legal as well as free. So to get back to my story. With intentions of buying all that I had downloaded, my library was reaching a point to where my buying would never catch up with my downloading. I had become obsessed with not just being on top of the newest but at the absolute pinnacle of the oldest. I had become a librarian. A man obsessed with building the most extensive library I could. All with the intention of someday purchasing every album on my hard drive. Ironically enough, it dawned on me that this was one of many excuses that I had tried to use to justify all of the software on my computer. Let’s just say that was a bit of a turning point. The proverbial light bulb, if you will.

So, much like the issue with the software, I started pruning. I then decided to set some personal guidelines.

1: NO Downloading.
Mainly because I can’t keep up with the pace of my downloading. Partly because I’m a bit anal retentive when it comes to quality and I don’t want files that aren’t up to my standard taking up my hard drive space.

2: If I don’t own it, I don’t rip it.
I developed a habit of looking through my friends CD cases every time I was with them to see what I could rip next. I had an insatiable “Library”  appetite.

3: If I can’t find a good streaming website, radio station, or music channel to sample artists on, then I’ll just have to wait until I hear it on a friends CD player. I still refuse to pay for music of which I haven’t heard a sufficient sampling.

4: Until I get a update from one of the many artists whose newsletters I’ve subscribed to, or read an interview with an artist in a reputable music magazine saying “Download our music, we don’t care,” no amount of rumors suggesting as such will make me download their stuff.

Should be easy enough. My CD collection has been neatly pruned down to all that I own. All 250 of them. I once had a friend say to me when I was borrowing a CD: “Don’t copy that, be sure to buy it if you like it. I don’t care if you burn secular stuff, but we need to support our Christian artists.”

My response: ???

That’s another rant, for another time. Right now I need to get back to the physical world and see if I can get some help pruning this new CD buying habit I’ve developed.