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  • Beware of Christian nationalist: They are working for the wrong God!

    The New Year is upon us, and this is an election year. There are so many scenarios that must play out for the New Year.

    Will Donald Trump go to prison? Will President Biden win the election? Will Congress change power? Will we be at war? Will Covid die out? So many unanswered questions.

    But this group called Christian Nationalist threw me for a curve because I wasn’t sure what the group stood for. This is basically a political, not religious group, that wants to change laws based on their own personal interpretation of scripture.

    Their version of Christianity involves hate. They believe they are superior and, therefore, should benefit from the pleasures of America where other races should not. Imagine if the people creating laws hate Jews or Mexicans or Black people. Imagine laws made to oppress or deport.

    The saddest thing is that these folks actually attempt to know scripture. They think that they can bring their own context to scripture outside of the cultural, historical, and context it’s already written in.

    It’s bad enough that these people claim Christianity, but oppression the kinsmen of the one who is responsible for Christianity. Out of all the things to watch in 2024, you know to be aware of this group trying to represent you in Congress.

    We can not afford to allow feelings to Trump truth. There is an absolute truth, and it is worth pursuing. Politicians have always relied on the stupidity of America to pull off these foreign agendas and harm those not in power.

    The most important thing for us to embrace in 2024 is the election and the defeat of those who have lost sight of what a true democracy is.

  • Grieving doesn’t have to ruin Christmas

    Every year, without fail, some family is dealing with the loss of a loved one, and it is their first holiday season without the deceased.

    It hurts. There is a serious sense of loss, confusion, anxiety, and sadness. The world has moved on where these families are stuck in time… grieving.

    The following are some real solutions to how to handle this difficult time. Tradition is very powerful, and in our subconscious, we want to make this time of the year as normal as possible. But we don’t have to. The acknowledgment that your family is experiencing one of life’s difficulties is therapeutic. In times like these, we should listen to our bodies. The body will let you know what it can handle.

    1) Cancel Christmas! Treat Santa like you do when you don’t want to participate in trick or treat festivities. You just simply turn your porch light off! Don’t even put up a tree. Christmas will be over before you know it. This gives you the time to reflect and put some things in perspective.

    2) Embrace the alone time and quietness. You have full permission to cry and be alone — there is nothing wrong with that. Especially if you use the time wisely. You always need time to plan and think about your path forward. There may need to be changes made. This is the time to do it! It’s like you’re hibernating until the new year!

    3) Huddle up! This is where you gather together in one place the remaining people who serve a major purpose in your life and you spend the holiday in memory and in celebration of who you lost. This is the private time where each person let’s the other know how important they are, and you can Christmas as a time to express it!

    4) Get out! It’s time to take that special trip you have been wanting to take. Traveling can be very therapeutic, especially if you go to a place that does not celebrate the holidays as we do. This will allow you to retool, relax, and grieve peacefully.

    5) Create and memorial or ritual. This is something you create to honor your loved one. You might plant a tree, create a new ritual, and spend time with specific people. The point is two things: to establish a memorial and bond with close friends.

    Whatever you choose to do, listen to your body. Make sure you eat, get rest, and don’t be afraid to be sad.

  • Good intentions are all about helping others

    So I’m relaxing at home in the Midwest and it’s cold, but like normal the anticipation of the holiday sets our mood. I was just thinking about all the wonderful food traditions that my family has. We eat the typical food shared in Western civilization.

    We had a very traditional Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinner will shape up the same way. I enjoy these times, but I can’t help but think what things would be like if the food manufacturers weren’t trying to make a profit, but we’re trying to make us healthy and live longer, how much better off we’d be?

    I grew up believing that I knew what a healthy breakfast was. In the 70s, we were told that it was your favorite cereal with toast juice and milk. In the Midwest, Coney Island restaurants introduced us to a good, hearty breakfast and I. The same decade that breakfast consisted of two scrambled eggs, hashbrowns or grits, choice of bacon, sausage, or ham and toast, all for $1.99. And don’t forget the cup of coffee!

    The intentions of breakfast during that time got its origin during the industrial age. You see, back then, people would eat leftovers from the previous nights dinner. This was fine for farmers, but not for factory workers who had to stand for long periods of time in the same place with all that heavy food in their stomachs – it gave them indigestion.

    So, the solution from the “powers that be” was to create a breakfast that was more dense and lighter than our leftover dinners. So they filled us with sugary cereals, gave us the incredible, edible egg, and gave us swine.

    Then, that breakfast gave us diabetes, hypertension, gout, heart diseases, and some cancers. Did they know? Did they care?

    We didn’t need high fructose corn syrup, and it has turned out to be worse than swine. It was part of the great food engineering age where manufacturers created food that would trick our bodies into eating more. Intentions?

    All I’m saying is if good intentions led our decisions, then as a country, we wouldn’t be so sick. We are sick because companies found a way to make money off of it.

  • Tragedy strikes before the holidays exposing our mental health issues

    About a month ago, a mayor of a small town in Alabama who also happened to be a cross dresser was exposed by a local news station, and as a result, he committed suicide.

    The mayor, who was affectionately known as Bubba Copeland, was also the pastor of First Baptist Church in the town. He was quoted as saying that his wife was aware of his transgender status and that he did it to relax. He felt this was normal behavior and that he had a right to privacy. He was correct!

    What weighed far more heavily in this case had to be public opinion. For whatever reason, it must have mattered to him how people would judge him. This behavior doesn’t even make the news if he’s not the mayor and if he’s not a pastor. If he was the mailman, this would not even be a story.

    I’m bothered by the pain this has called His family, church, and others who cared about him. The fact that the judgment doesn’t end at his death and that he seemed to have taken the easy way out and left his loved ones to mourn and deal with his choices.

    It is very difficult when you feel you have to live your life in the expectations of others. Shame on us for putting people through that. Shame on us to have expectations on any other than ourselves. How do you hold someone to a standard you don’t hold yourself to?

    Does as pastor or mayor position come with the cost of expectations and why? What right do we have to expect? Before he was a pastor or mayor, he was a person. The exposure of his personal private activities robbed him of his personhood and was completely irresponsible. As a result, he is gone because he could bear the judgment. If this is OK in America, then there lies the real problem.

  • Are we even seeking higher ground?

    Let’s talk about purpose. Not purpose from our country as a whole, I’m talking about individuals. We the people who live and dwell in this Christian society, are we seek higher ground?

    By higher ground, I mean a different space than the one we occupied that had a need for a civil rights movement. Higher ground meaning a created space where everyone is treated equally, and you can tell by the way they all prosper.

    A space where opportunities are abundant and there is no need to punish people for crimes of poverty. A place where various races see each other as a benefit and we work together in a way that benefits all.

    The need to hate is done away with in this space. Struggling to make ends meet is a thing of the past and freedom rings.

    This higher ground is especially for the disabled, the mentally challenged, those who are sick, and those who are weak. There is no bullying there.

    Innovation and education lead, and everyone there can read. In this space, the oldest politicians are in their 60s, and getting elected has nothing to do with your finances.

    Laws are made to help society advance, and we take care of home before helping other countries.

    It is said that this is the season to make dreams come true. I guess I’m looking for these things to take place someday at Christmas!

  • New book release may be my best work yet

    Yesterday was very significant in my life. I had a special project on my to-do list for 2023, and it came to pass on Nov. 24.

    I, with 15 of my fellow clergymen, published a new book entitled “Essence of the Creator: Understanding the Godhead,” and we are quite excited about it.

    This latest offering expresses our passion when discussing God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Spirit to gain a simple yet functional understanding that will draw you closer to the creator.

    These authors are great men. I can speak to their love of God and desire to lead people closer to Him. We have more than 150 years of biblical studies on this project and writers between the ages of 27 to 77.

    This book is available for purchase on my website as well as on Amazon and Kindle. There will be an audio book coming soon.

    There are more projects coming in 2024, but I just had to share the excitement about this new project! Thank you for your support!

  • We need to stop the hand out, for a hand up

    Tis the season to be jolly! And in our jolliness we have been know during this time of the year to give hand outs.

    This does happen throughout the year, but definitely, during this time, there are hands out for whatever you can give. There is a segment of our population that really needs the handout. There are some in that population that expect a handout. Some are even living for the handout!

    This needs to change. We do so much during g this time of the year because somewhere, someone came up with the idea that in America, everyone should have Thanksgiving dinner. You need a good meal on that day – never mind the rest of the year – that day is special and it would be a shame for anyone who doesn’t sit down with a formidable feast on that day.

    Well, I believe no one should starve at any time in America. We have too much, we give too much, we help too much, and we have an unemployment rate under 4 percent.

    I guess even if you offered opportunity instead of a handout, there would be some who would not take advantage. The truth is that we have created a culture of people who are lazy, depressed, hurting, grieving, and full of expectations.

    Whether folks realize it or not, opportunity is what they need. The true ability to pull yourself out of a whole is always better than waiting on someone to build you an elevator.

    This country should be the land of opportunity. The American Dream should be for everyone. And it should be known and available to everyone. That is how to make this country great and how we put real “thanks” into Thanksgiving!

  • The sadness of Veterans Day still looms

    Every year at this time, I get sad. I’m sad because I know that there are millions of veterans without benefits. We spend so much of our national budget on weapons of mass destruction and maintaining a strong military, but we’re not making good on our promises to the men and women who risked their lives.

    Neither political party has addressed this. You can see homeless vets, vets on drugs, and more struggling with debt from medical complications.

    Meanwhile, our government, still trying to fight the good fight, is helping other countries  like Isreal and Ukraine while our folks struggle.

    It seems that in the 21 century, we would err on the side of people and rather have a scenario where our veterans are overpaid than under.

    This problem seems so easy to handle, but because our veterans are not useful to our cause anymore, we have thrown them away.

    What’s worse is that there is a divide among the veterans between the ones receiving benefits and the ones who don’t. How can they be a band of brothers on the battlefield, but once we get back home, it’s every man for himself?

    I don’t celebrate Veterans Day because of this. I wish the nation wouldn’t be celebrated either until we have corrected this atrocity!

  • It’s all about trust — we don’t have anymore

    America lacks trust.

    We don’t trust our government, strangers, our neighbors, some of our friends, and definitely a few family members that don’t make the trust cut! We are skeptical of everything. We have been betrayed by the media, our jobs, our healthcare system, and some of our loved ones.

    As a result, we question everything. True and false ride together now, and we can’t tell them apart. There used to be a thing called “benefit of doubt,” which has become obsolete.

    Politicians, preachers, police officers, and partners can not be trusted. So where do we go from here? The enemy of my enemy is not even my friend anymore.

    When a system gets violated, like in this case where we have been bombarded with constant lying, we can’t act like it didn’t happen. We can’t just get over it. Someone or something has to be held accountable.

    If we started to hold each other accountable then we would have to overhaul the government, the Healthcare system, the FDA, the military, criminal justice system, food manufacturers, automakers, churches, all charities, big pharma, all chain restaurants, the stock market, universities and schools (public and private), Entertainment and sports, and the media to start.

    Imagine living in a place that was set up for you to succeed. The baseline lifestyle for everyone was attainable with a little hard work. We eliminated the need for prisons, crime, and killing with education, support, and advancement. Could there really be a place where everyone wins? Is it only in my dreams?

  • Religious beliefs are the biggest trick on Halloween

    Halloween is more than 2000 years old. It is something that immigrants helped to develop in this country. Halloween has everything to do with the Celtic celebration of old, where they welcomed the harvest at the end of summer by dressing up in costumes to wart off ghosts and celebrate the occasion. It was always festive and always fun.

    Like everything else, religion tends to put a damper on many things as some attempt to make others feel extra guilt about their sins. There are some who believe almost everything is bad, and for them, religion has everything to do with stopping people from going too far.

    For the sake of religion, there was a time in this country where women who were believed to be witches or practice witchcraft were burned alive. Somehow, these religious nuts only see the downside to everything, and if we follow their teaching, we would not be allowed to do anything.

    Biblically speaking, the bible does prohibit any practice of witchcraft or worship of anything other than the Almighty God. I am sure there is a small percentage of Halloweeners who have gone too far into the festivities and use it as a time to practice evil. But that is definitely not the majority.

    My 3 year old granddaughter loves to play dress up. In fact, when her mom was that age and older, we bought her many beautiful dolls to play with. Kids today like to dress like the dolls. My grandbaby doesn’t have one Disney princess doll, but she has all the Disney princesses gowns — all of them!

    She loves Spiderman, and she has several spidey costumes. She knows exactly what Halloween is, and she loves to dress up and get candy. It’s her third favorite holiday behind Christmas and her birthday!

    My point is that if you are one of those super duper Christians that complains every year about Halloween and you are the only house on your block with the porch light off during tricks or treats, I need you to know that you are sending a message but it is not the one you want to send. You will never be able to convince anyone of your beliefs by going so far against the grain.

    This year, 175 million people will celebrate Halloween. For a change, why don’t you join them?