Stupid Things I Do

I am a man of many weaknesses. Many have been dreadfully exposed on this blog. However, a couple of the more embarrassing ones haven't been revealed. I had hoped that my wife would cover them in her short lived "Storied Adam Told Me: True or False" blog, but she gave up due to the overwhelming number of witnesses to my adventures and various feats. So here are a couple.

• I get got by almost every door to door cable salesperson ever to darken my doorstep. The deals are too good to turn down. They are ALWAYS too good to turn down. However, they always end up biting me in the rear and costing us hundreds of dollars. You would think I would have learned that people simply cannot give you a legitimate deal giving you double your services for half the price, but I continue in this foolish quest for totally free cable and internet. I also am a sucker for up and coming rappers that peddle their terribly bad goods on the streets. It isn't that I want their album, because I don't, it's just hard to look them in their sad eyes and say no. Then I listen to their songs about "F" this and that and and kill everyone especially the kids and I instantly regret it. Then there are girls scout cookies. I never buy them from the kids. They don't get to my heart. The gangster rapper does, but not the sweet little missing tooth kid trying to win a new bike. 

• I say really off the wall and dumb things when I'm put in a roaster. When in a tense situation, I say the first thing that pops in my head and it is ALWAYS a really dumb thing to say and embarrasses the crap out of my wife. Here are a couple examples: 1. I volunteered, voluntarily I might add, to help assistant coach C-diddy's baseball team. I coached a game. Good job me. The next game I wasn't feeling it because I got a new phone and wanted to see all that it could be and go pick up Laura's as well from Verizon. So I pull up to the field hoping Caeden's coach would not be there yet, because he is never on time. But alas, he pulls up into the spot next to me as I am about to pull away and hops out of his vehicle with a "Where you going? I thought you were gonna help?" face, and the screws came loose and things came out of my mouth. I told this man, who lives in 2012, not 1996, that I was going to the store to pay a bill. I pulled out and felt my wife's blazing gaze ripping through my cheek. She was mortified. She could, and still can't believe that came out of my mouth and to this day (really only 3 weeks later) she cringes at the thought that I said this. He must have thought I still had a pager bill to pay at the pager store. Truth is, I was going to pay a bill, but it was the kind of bill you pay when you go to any store and make a transaction which tenders money and an article of merchandise. Not exactly a late monthly bill that I needed a money order for as I had portrayed it. 2. Just today, we were looking into some options for financing to purchase a new home and the mortgage agent asks me how much money we have saved in the bank for a down payment. I panicked. I don't handle the money and she was giving me a look as though we had better have plenty of it, so I got spooked and said "censored amount of dollars" but then added dumbly "But we have ways of getting more." What?!? Which ways? Laura again looks like she is going to throw up. What did that even mean to this women. Did she think we were mafia bosses? Did she think we sometimes prostituted for extra down payment cash? Did she think we stole people's copper plumbing? I have no idea why I said that or where I was thinking the ways of getting money were going to come from, but I said it. I put that out into open space and watched it saturate. 

These things are common practice to me. God bless my wife. Pray for me.









Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

The Secret To Making Friends

What is the formula for friends? My mom used to tell me and my brother when we were little that you have to go right up and stick out your hand firmly and introduce yourself and just ask, "Would you like to be my friend?" I have to admit, this did work the two times I tried it, so I cannot dispute it's effectiveness.

We live in a very sensitive culture. People can no longer take a joke it seems. Say the wrong thing (which I am famous for) and you have an enemy forever.

Here is what they say, or at least what I have heard:
1. Don't talk religion.
2. Don't talk politics.
3. Don't just talk about yourself.

#1 Not true. You can talk about religion as long as you are not arrogant and dismiss the other person's beliefs. It is very off-putting to make another person feel stupid for not agreeing with you about a very personal and sensitive topic. As I have said before... most beliefs are based on emotion. There is usually an emotional reason that you believe what you believe about religion or God. Be kind and humble and there won't be a problem.

#2 Pretty true. Sometimes just because you like or don't like someone for public office, someone may dismiss you. I don't know why people get so riled up about 95% liars, but they do. People will sometimes be more willing to dismiss the 95% agreement for the 5% disagreement. It sucks, but people will still like you if you love them. Talk about your similarities and you will win them over.

#3 True. People want to talk usually. Open yourself up to really listen and you generally have your friend in your hands. You don't have to leave yourself out of the equation, as people love to step into another's life, but leave a lot of room for their lives and you are golden. You will have a friend because you cared enough to listen.

It really boils down to the golden rule. Live that and most people will love you

Sing.
Migrate.

Positive

I am on month 5, day 15 of my quest to conquer my own negativity. I saw that I was only posting sad things. I was only posting my blood and anger on here. This is not me. I do not bleed all the time. I bleed sometimes. People get to see me bandaged and feeling well and I have no problem shouting it out. But here I post what lies beneath dormant, but fighting it's way to the surface. I had faced so many demons and so much heartbreak. I had to let it out. I don't regret that. I don't regret letting you see me crumble. I needed to not be alone and I wasn't. But after a while the dark side gets too dark and you just cannot take another moment without the sun. So I decided last December 31, that I will let the sun shine in and through me, to show the Christ that still reigns within me. For a minute there, I didn't know if I was gonna make it through. The crisis in faith was the first and worst time I was tested. I had lost so much, but never lost this part of me. I lost my brother and found myself looking at God through blurred eyes with nothing but anger. I saw the worst of me rising to the surface again and I wanted out. I had had enough of the jolly Jesus lifestyle. I wanted nothing to do with people telling me that God was in control and was gonna take care of me. I wanted nothing to do with them either. I wanted to turn back time, but and as long as I was restrained by science, I would turn my back to my God. I would let him in no more. I knew deep inside that He was not to blame. I knew that the world was full of sin and lies and they got a hold of my brother. I knew that somewhere beyond what I can see, there was a God weeping violently. But I turned that off. Sometimes you don't want to here the truth. You want to allow your anger to take you away into the same deception that brought you here. Sometimes you just want someone to blame when you hate yourself so much and blame yourself for the rape of the innocent. The forceful takeover of someone beautiful into the dark with no warning. I chose God. The One that saved me. The One that wouldn't let me die. The One that gave me all beautiful things I never deserved. The One I had given my life back to.

I'd had enough. I was so angry, but I had enough of it. It was hurting me more than the loss of my brother. I could not be apart anymore from the One who made me and gave me every jewel on my crown. He simply is and always was perfect. So I made a pact with myself, with my wife, and with God. I would say only positive things, because thinking positive glorifies God and destroys the devil. Over 5 months in and I have made a couple mistakes, but I have also corrected them. I don't want to argue with people anymore. I just want to love them. I don't want to tell you about the rain, because the sunshine makes us want to step outside. I don't want to bleed anymore in front of you, because gives us fear of death, and I am certainly not dead. I am alive! I am alive with my God who continues to make me a different and better person! I am trying to be what He has intended. I am broken in pieces, but I think this is His design for me. I maybe wasn't meant to live a life without pain. If I continue with this pain, I will continue to post it to glorify Him, but I will not allow myself to post my anger here again. I will tell you that through all that I have had to endure, He has given me ten times more to find joy in. I had no father. I sit with my children on my lap and they want to be just like me. I want to be just like them. I could never leave them. This is because of the beauty and grace of God. He replaces what you have lost with things much better.

Last week I saw a woman walking down the hallway at work. I kept looking at her because she looked so familiar. It took a moment, but I remembered her from 2 weeks prior. She was dying. She was in restraints. She could only speak nonsense and scream that she was sorry every time she tore out her tubes and we had to replace them. I remember going in her room to brush her teeth and thinking hopeless things about her. She was gonna die at a young age. She had been through hell and was standing in the flames. Due to laws, I cannot explain any more on here, but she was one of the worst looking cases I have seen in a sea of terrible disease. Now she stood in front of me walking and talking and flaunting her healing to the whole hospital. She was alive! She was more than alive...she was glowing like the sun! I was reminded that there is nothing to big for God and that He does still perform miracles. He does reach His hands into hell and pull the anguished out.

Sometimes you have to write down that He is faithful to remember when you are not feeling it. A few years ago, I was struck by an SUV while riding my bike. I should have been killed, yet I had no significant injuries. I wrote about how this had changed everything about me and given me faith stronger than I had ever experienced. Then literally months later I am punching a statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus in the night. I could not pray. I could not sing. I would not sing to Him. The same God that just saved my life. How quickly we forget that He is God and we are not. That He loves us, even and especially when terrible things happen to us. He weeps with us. We forget that we get through these things because of Him.

Because of Him!










Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Silence

The theater I used to work in had a slogan that was shown before every movie. It said "Silence is Golden." It was just a reminder that people did not swish to be disturbed during their 2 hours of escape from life. People have such a hard time escaping reality when it keeps biting at them through the mouths of two teenagers skipping school to see Twilight. Point is, sometimes we need to escape from something. We don't need to run, that's a different thing altogether. I mean to escape the rigors of Tuesday at 2:00 PM when someone you count on calls off and leaves you their business to deal with. Life when you have been driving all day for work and have to fight the commuter traffic on the way home for another hour. Like when everything keeps spinning and you easily forget which direction you are pointed in. This is the time that we rest our eyes against the darkness of our eyelids and take a deep breath, breathing in from the belly, not the chest. Take some time and be silent. Let your mind speak to God in the safety of that very special quiet place. Stand out in the snow alone and let if drop onto your coat and watch it sink in. Let the rain drool your product onto your forehead, forgetting about what your appearance will be when you step back through those doors. Stop and remember that life is much, much more than today. God is huge and these days are nothing. Remember that life is to be lived with a mission and not just mundane existing.


Sing.
Migrate.

To Forget Something Terribly Important...An Incomplete Guide To Tolerance

I have been observing the current political, cultural, and social trend lately. I usually try to skip politics as I do not like mainstream politics and like politicians even less. Due to my overwhelming interest and agreement with Ron Paul (shameless plug, I know) I have been keeping a tab on what people are saying and doing. This has left me even more disliking politics and political people. Here's what I have learned:
Posting your views on social networks, even if it is just saying you like a political candidate, will infuriate other political people into posting hate on your wall. If I said I liked ice cream, those that don't wouldn't care at all. So it clearly means something emotionally to many people and your very statement of a like may actually stir up pain in another.

If you believe in something or don't believe in something the media has deemed politically incorrect, you become the horrible names they have made up for you. Even if you're no where near those terrible connotations.

Many who claim to be open minded are only open minded if you agree with them. If you don't, you become those horrible names the media has made up for you.

Some people will not listen to you anyways and it is futile to argue certain things with them. Many people simply do not know why they believe what they believe, but know that the challenge of that belief brings many painful and angry feelings.

I have learned so much more, but the point is that people continue to forget that other people are still people...different people, with different circumstances. You cannot simply slap labels and names on a human being just because you disagree or the media defines their beliefs as being worthy of a horrible name or connotation. People feel things and some things hurt so bad that the person believes off of emotion alone. We need to be sensitive to that. Remember that to understand someone, we have to listen to them. If you do not listen or desire to understand a person, ignorance will reign. Even if others anger you, try to understand your own feelings and beliefs. Maybe you end up seeing their point...maybe not. But at least you know where you stand. Then try to listen and understand the other person, remembering that a belief does not make someone and idiot or a terrible person.

Grace is key with all people. Tolerance is being humble enough to examine your own perspective and seek to understand theirs as well, then choosing to love (Not condone their actions necessarily) them anyway. We don't all have to agree to coexist in a loving environment, but we do all have to love each other and tolerate each other.



Sing.
Migrate.