Truth hurts. Feel the pain.

I want to use very few of my own thoughts and even words. Let truth overcome. Word of caution; what you are about to read is from a true Christian-sinner. I will be as humble as I can.

What will it take to stop the divide? When will we ALL stop for a moment, take a deep breath and solve this divisive merry-go-round? Isn't it time to form a group, a sign, a common symbol of those who want to be known as peace-makers? Not only that, but also be joined together by what is known to be right in the eyes of God? Here are some hard biblical facts you may or may not like, so here goes.

1. Being any color but white, this is not a sin. Gal. 3:28-There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
2. Any race of man can marry any race of woman, this is not a sin. Eph. 5:31-“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
3. Giving a symbol power, this IS a sin. 1 Corinthians 10:1-22

Of course this is not an all-inclusive list, but it highlights a few things happening in our country today. Let's take the race issue. I like what Morgan Freeman said about how to stop racism; "stop talking about it". Does anyone see a common thread? There are big name news sources (NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, Etc.) and these guys run the news. They run what THEY want you to hear and what THEY think is big news. This is what keeps us talking about issues. However, if they stop running pieces on a certain topic, it fades away...until they bring it up again. The media controls the pulse of America. If they want us talking about it, worrying about it, fighting about it...they will bring it up. I saw a piece on NBC Nightly News about Wells Fargo opening accounts without customers knowing, and then charging fees on those accounts. One man made a statement among all the rants and trash talking about the bank; he said "no one gets as big as Wells Fargo by making customers upset". Of course no one read that or even if they did, they didn't want to acknowledge it. 

Here is another fact. There is more good in the world than the media wants us to know about.

The confederate flag. I started with mixed feelings over this issue. I am from Alabama and I have always seen the confederate flag as a symbol of southern history and heritage. But I always knew that the flag was something that not only flew in all corners of Alabama, but it flew for reason of hate. There were always black/white fights at school. Usually between poverty stricken southern whites and poverty stricken African Americans. They felt the flag was a symbol to keep them separate. Here is the fact...the flag has brought hurt, not healing. No matter if it was stolen by hate-mongers or not, it is a symbol of oppression. Lets face it, confederates lost. The only flag that means anything is the American flag. Everyone should rally around our country's flag. "Old Glory", "Stars and Stripes".

Lets get back to the common symbol. I want to start a movement. A movement of truth and integrity. It is time to add another state to the union. The state of truth and the followers of integrity. 

I don't know the logistics yet, but the symbol will be "51". It is time to bring people together and stop splitting them up.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

It is a phrase that has been used for centuries. When a person or persons claim they have the power to overturn any opposition they so want, corruption is eminent. At no time has our country ever been so divided.
My heart aches. It aches for the fact that we who have no voice. The America that I was raised to love is gone. It is run by groups. And when politicians (power hungry evil men/women) know they can win elections by gathering groups and stirring their hate cauldron, they attach themselves like a parasite. That parasite then drains the logic and the common sense from that group. There is no group for me. I am a Christian white male. Today, I have no voice and no rights.
People in the Supreme Court do not know the Supreme God and they will never acknowledge Him because they believe THEY have the power to do whatever here on earth. And it is clear that "television/politician" so-called Christians are in no way or form CHRISTIAN. Society will look at the actions of a few and pin them on anyone claiming to be part of that group. I am a Christian. I have never hurt anyone. Why is that? Because in my belief in the Supreme God, I cannot hurt anyone. Matter of fact, because I follow Jesus Christ, I have to love my enemy. So DO NOT COMPARE A PSYCHO THAT HURTS AND KILLS PEOPLE TO A CHRISTIAN! And do not believe for one second that Obama is a Christian. Only those who follow the teachings of the Bible are true Christians. Only those who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and His disciples are Christian. And you can bet anything, no one that follows can ever hurt anyone.
This will continue and this will only get worse. And again, what is worse...you politicians and SCJ's will never listen or want to listen to someone like me. You will just continue to make your decisions, go to your luxury homes and live this life to the fullest. My warning is this. Enjoy your creature comforts now...for you the judge becomes judges...you could face judgement.
The prayer I now have is for my savior to return. Please bring your people home.

Don't watch out for me.

I am watching a story this morning on WSB Channel 2 about a distraught woman who was victimized by fraud. Fraud appals me. In my job, I see dozens of cases (and I am being thrifty) of fraud each week. The lady on the television suffers from Parkisans and had entrusted a friend to do her finances. The "friend" drained her account of thousands of dollars. Like I said, I see this EVERY WEEK! It is a full time job to be a crook and they are getting better at it daily.
First let me say that my job is to take care of our clients. When I say take care, I mean protect their accounts and money they have entrusted to my bank. I often do this with a smile on my face and I often try to remember names and faces. Customer service! I have been doing this for years. However, in my experience I have never really been in charge of other peoples money. Look at my last statement; "in CHARGE of other people's money". I have been entrusted by my company to ensure if you have an account with my bank it will be safe. This means if someone comes in trying to commit fraud on your account, I have been trained to catch it and stop it.
Lets go back to the poor woman who was wronged. The premise of the news cast was not in so many ways reporting how the friend took advantage of her, it was more to point a finger at my company for not refunding the money she lost. I want to make it clear that if a real fraud takes place with one of our clients, the client will be given all the help and in most cases all of their money is refunded. In this case I am most certain the person that was handling her case dropped the ball and the correct information was not given to our fraud department. Luckily, the case will be re-opened and better scrutiny given.
The woman who was victimized was questioning how her account was accessed without her authorization. In all circumstances the account should have never been accessed. However, here is reality. With banks being scrutinized daily on how they do business, how they charge fees and how they are out to hurt everybody, customer service has to be at an all time high. Upper management have and will terminate employment of a team member who does not give the best customer service. With this in mind think about the last time you went to your bank. Did you withdraw money? If so, did you offer your license and debit card as ID? Did you swipe your debit card and enter a PIN to verify your identification? Did the teller/banker even ask you for such information? If you answered yes to all the questions, you completed a successful banking transaction. If you said no to any of the questions you have been marked as either a "known" customer or an "irate" customer. You see the reality is we deal with mean people. I am not saying we deal with rude, obnoxious, or even attitude customers...I am talking MEAN people! We either have the mean person who is attempting to defraud the bank or we have the mean person who is getting mad because we ASKED for their ID! If we ask for an ID in most cases, here is what happens:

1. Welcome, how can I help you?
2. I need to make a withdrawal.
3. My pleasure, could you please swipe your debit card in order for me to pull up the correct account?
4. I don't have a debit card! Clark Howard told me to NEVER get a debit card from you people!
5. OK, that is not a problem. Could I see your drivers license and a second form of ID?
6. What do you need that for? I just want to pull some money out of my account!
7. I apologize for the inconvenience, however in order to verify your identity as an authorized signer on the account, I will need to see your identification or have you enter a valid PIN from a debit card attached to your account.
8. Are you new? Don't you know who I am? I have been banking here for 20 years! I have thousands of dollars in this bank!
9. Again, my apologies. We do sometimes have new faces here at the bank however it is standard that we identify each individual in order to protect our customers accounts.
10. This is ridiculous! I want to see your manager! I hate coming here! I am going to move my accounts! I don't understand why I have to show you my ID to withdraw my money!?

Did you read the last part?? Yes, people actually say they don't understand why we would want to identify them!
OK, back to the lady who was victimized. I am not saying this is what happened, but what could have happened is the crook had been doing the victims financial business at the same branch over and over. She had a history of helping the victim and the tellers did not want anything to happen to the victim and believed the crook was taking care of her. This should not have happened but more than likely the tellers did not want to have a break in service so they complied.
Let me make it clear. At my branch, my MOTHER has to show her ID. I will not allow my tellers to put their job on the line for a loudmouth "self-entitled" customer. I don't care how much money they have. I want to keep what little I make so I FOLLOW THE RULES! Hate the banks all you want to folks. Believe me, my bank is not doing me ANY favors in the wallet department. However, I detest criminals. I will do my best to stop any and all fraud. People should be happy that I am on watch.
For those of you that think you have so much money that every banker/teller should know you; try thanking that teller that asks you for your ID. You never know, someone may have just been in the bank an hour before posing as you trying to steal your money.

Saved Life

Good morning friends and family.
I had to leave the comfort of my bed this morning very early due to a headache. My wife was in a similar situation, each of us could not sleep and got out of bed. My wife went back to bed but I decided to make a pot of java and see where my early morning thoughts took me. So here I am.
Each day I get my daily bread of Bible Gateways "Verse of the Day". This morning I read;

James 3:17-18

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

This verse (as many other verses often do) went hand in hand with an interview I watched of Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She was being asked about what Dr. Kings stance would be on gay marriage. She delivered her view and what she felt Dr. King would have said; Everyone is deserving of love and kindness. She did make it known that the gospel does not support gay marriage. Again, she also said all humans deserve the love of God.

The verse above tells it clear; the WISDOM of Heaven is first of all PURE. I love how the bible puts the words in the correct order so that the facts are weighed evenly. For thousands of years, even before Christ there has been a definition of purity and what it means. Purity or pure has many definitions. One is "being free from moral fault or guilt". So when the wisdom from Heaven is given, it will first of all be pure and it will be free of fault. After James makes it clear that Heaven's wisdom is pure, he tells us all of these adjectives that relate to the treatment of everyone. Heaven will tell us the truth, but it will tell us the truth in a peace-loving way. I really love how James uses words that actually place him in humility to all that hear him. He states that the wisdom is considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. We see no terms of hate or bitterment.

Living the Saved Life teaches me that the truth will never change. There will always be a right and a wrong. If we choose to live right, we will not have to cover impurity. If we live wrong, we will always have to justify our wrong-doing. Regardless of the way we live, we should all be treated first in love.

God be with you today. May the love of Christ fill your day with happiness and grace.

"E.B."ing a dad...

I will go ahead and admit that I "borrowed" the name of this post from a blog I was reading today. The name of the blog was "EB"ing a mommy. It is about a single mother in Louisianna who has a son that has a degenerative form of Epidermolysis Bullosa. To be blunt, her son has defied the odds of many kids with his form of EB. It is deadly. It is the "deadliest disease no one has ever heard of" as described on ABC news.
I bring this up because I am a father of children with EB. Not only do two, possibly three of my kids have EB; but I do as well. I want to start by telling exactly what EB is.
Epidermolysis Bullosa is a skin condition where the skin is missing an adhesive layer (a carotine) and blistering becomes easy on the skin. There are many different forms and thank the Lord we have the milder form. But dont get me wrong, we would totally rather not have it. When you cant walk for a long time and running is really out of the question, it gets rather annoying. However annoying is better than pain.
On to the subject at hand. Being a parent of children with EB can be emotionally exhausting. When the summer months come around and we have to all meet on the couch with needles, poroxide and bandages it makes anyone want to cry. As we try to lance the blisters on our childs feet and treat them so they will not get infected. Infection is always an issue. The worst part of course is seeing our child cry because the pain is so bad. However, we are raising our kids to understand that this disease is NOT going away. With this in mind they will need to educate themselves so that they will not have to work in labor intensive jobs. So yes, we teach them that they will need to "deal with it" in order to survive the real world.
Here is where it gets rough. While we are raising our kids to value a good education, the hard fact is our child has a dissability. And a disability is protected by the law. Sometimes EB can affect them at school. We knew this so we decide to team up with our childs school to get her protected under the American Disabilities Act. By providing what the school calls a "504 Plan" our child will be protected from losing valuable education time due to her disability. It was supposed to be a simple meeting. We were to get a doctors "expert diagnosis" and bring that diagnosis and information on the disease to a meeting with the principle, the head school district nurse, the teacher and the counselor. To make a long story short, the nurse and the other staff did not feel that the DOCTORS diagnosis was serious enough to allow the 504 plan. Wow, since when does a school nurse have more intellect than a doctor? To go even further, a specialist that has been studying these types of disorders all of his carreer.
I write all of this to say that I am very dissapointed in the staff at Lewis Elementary and the way this was handled. We were told to take our child to the doctor, get a diagnosis, and meet together so we could do what was appropriate for our childs future. Instead, the principal, the counselor, the P.E. teacher and the school nurse made the determination that our child did not need the protection of the 504 plan that is stated in the Americans Disability Act. She has a disability, it is a known disability, it was diagnosed as a disability...where is the problem here?
I will continue to protect my child and see that she and her sister get the education they need. I will also let the school system know that this is treatment that mirrors discrimination. I would welcome any and all feedback.

Today I am going to write from a part of me that I dont venture to that often. I am writing from my past. I try not to dwell in the past because it cant be changed. The best part of my past of course are things like meeting my dream girl, having my kids, becoming a Christian...good things like that make me smile. However, a part of my past reared its ugly head today and made me a bit upset.
I had always been hurt that my fathers mother, my paternal grandmother Beatrice, doted on my older brother from the day he was born until the day she died. She gave him things, even left him in her will to recieve a good portion of her estate. Now before I go on, she was not some old rich woman but she did leave land that had worth. Back to the point...it bothered me. It made me upset that my grandmother, my fathers mother, would place me below my sibling. So of course, with the lack of attention I recieved I felt that grandparents should either treat each grandchild equally or dis-regard them all together. Which brings me to today.
I have five children (in case you didnt know) and I love them all equally. Their treatments may be different only becuase I try to meet each at their own individual personallity. But my love remains un-altered. My two oldest are from a previous legal arrangement (duh, I was married once before). I split with thier mother and retained full custody of them. For some weird reason, it was known that my oldest child was given special treatment for some reason by my ex's grandparents. However, the "things" each child got seemed to be even. My oldest moved out a few years ago and so began the slow seperation of me and my 2nd oldest from the grandparents. Pretty soon neither one even called him. Never again was he invited to Christmas get togethers, Thanksgiving feasts and pretty soon even his birthday was not acknowledged. Not once did either of us get an explanation of this treatment.
My oldest is living in a house owned by his grandparents. He drives a vehicle given to him by his grandparents...you see where I am going with this? Now I find out that he has been given yet another (No. 3) vehicle from his grandparents! My 2nd oldest is about to celebrate his 16th birthday and this is the treatment he gets?? Not to mention that my oldest child with my wife also fell in love with my ex's grandparents. They treated her like a princess at first, but then it just ended!
I am not looking for anything from them. I will take care of my children as I always have. But when it is shoved in my kids face that they mean little to nothing to those who are supposed to love them dearly, that makes me angry. My 2nd oldest is an A-B student. He loves God. He loves to help people. He is a great big brother and son. I am just floored that he is the one being treated like an outcast. I really dont care that much that his bio-carrier has totally cut him from her life; my wife is the only mom he wants or needs. But he did nothing to deserve this treatment. I hope they see what they have missed.

your not entitled to entitlement...

Today I get to go to work late. Its one of those little "ahhh" moments I don't get to take advantage of often. So I get to catch up on things. I get to make some cheesy taters for my loving wife so she can take them to her school team. I will run by the Italian Restaurant that my son wants to work at and pick him up an application. Those things I cant do because of my job, you know?
I also get to catch up on current events and to tell you the truth, I wish I had not. I get to see Alec Baldwin getting kicked off of a plane for being mouthy with a flight attendant. Of course there are many ways to look at this. Through the eyes of the attendant, there are rules and regulations that all must follow. Turn off mobile devices, bring your seat to an upright position...you know the drill. So she has instructed Mr. Baldwin to deactivate his Ipad and he refuses. She in turn (because acting weird on a plane has now become taboo) openly lets Mr. Baldwin know that he MUST turn off his Ipad. Mr. Baldwin is said to have exchanged rude words and is "thrown" off of the plane. Through the eyes of the media, Mr. Baldwin has succumb to losing his status as a big star and rich guy. He is taught a lesson that he can not use his fame to get his way. Great job middle class attendant, you taught that bow-hard a lesson he will never forget!
Through the eyes of Mr. Baldwin. Here is a guy who is used to cameras and media being in his face all the time. Sometimes its annoying and sometimes its nice. Because he is a "known" person he feels that he is being singled out by this attendant. Was he? Maybe, but he did say that others were tweeting about the incident on their phones the entire time he was being instructed to turn off the Ipad. He feels the airline was giving terrible service.
Lets look at the overall stance of our beloved country. Because of the media and the current administration, the rich and famous have become flamboyant toys that no one wants to play with any longer. It used to be cool to say "I waited on Bill Cosby today" or " I got an autograph from George Strait". Not any more. Look on Ebay. An autographed guitar by Gene Simmons is worth less than the same guitar with nothing written on it. The middle and lower class just does not care.
I think its because so many people feel that because we live in America, we ALL deserve to be rich and famous. Many do not want to work for their riches, they want it handed to them.
However, this blog is about entitlement and rules. The main thing to understand is that no matter who you are, the rules apply to you. No one is exempt from the rule. Yes, maybe in certain instances, certain circles and at certain places you have been led to believe "that rule does not apply to me" however, to the person in front of you that has NEVER met you before...you are nothing more than a new face that will adhere to rules and policies just like everyone else. Try to remember this. If you have ever been given a pass on following a rule others must follow, don't you feel that they have been discriminated against?
Just your morning coffee, enjoy!