Late Valentines Post

I U

Valentines is over and it's a good thing. I spent a grip for my homeboy and I am really just glad that it is over. All in all a good time was had by all tho.

I have not been to the gym in about a week. Not because I am being lazy mind you. I have just been really really busy. Times like these I wish my gym was 24hrs cause then I could just swing over there anytime. Next week I am gonna have to do better.

Looks like I am gonna have to get some braces back on. I broke my retainer about 6mths ago and failed to get another one and my teeth have shifted. Seems that they have shifted so much that a retainer is no longer gonna help. I will have to get a few more braces put on for a few more months but it will be ok. My boy D said that it is stupid for me to waste money on that but I say that I already invested 4000+ into my mouth and I don't want that to be wasted money. I will be more careful the next time.

Doing what I have to do now in order to do what I want to do later.....

This is what I am forcing myself to live by. I mean, I am not getting any younger so I must start to think about the future. I see my Grandma and even my mom just barely making it and I really don't want to turn out that way. And for this reason I am regrettably not going to be able to purchase an ipod at this time. I mean, I could but it just would not be a good look seeing that there are other things that I need to be doing with my income tax. I really want one tho! Now it is time to be grown.

Last night while watching TV I happened to catch the Dateline special "To Catch a predator" and I thought that it was very interesting. In case someone reading this does not know what it was about, it is when Dateline puts together a sting operation to catch sexual predators. They actually get these adults to pose as children on the internet and then lure people to a house thinking that they may engage in some kind of sexual...something with these minors. The whole thing was really pretty sad to me and probably not because of the reason that people might think. I was pretty sad for the guys who got caught. Yeah, I know that is not a popular stance to take but seems my whole life, I have always been on the team of the underdog. Let me explain myself.

I think that most people would watch something like that and immediately start to pass judgment on the guys that were caught. Most people start to think thoughts about how sick these people must be to try something like that. Even the reporter was type judgmental and it seems that everybody is alright with that. Most people in the world think it's ok to hate murderers and rapist and child molesters. On the surface all we see are these "sick bastards" that just want to molest and rape our kids but I know it goes much deeper than that. If someone were to study this, I think that they would find that most if not all of these guys had some kind of trouble in their own youth. No, this is by no means an excuse for their actions but just an attempt to show that these people are not the one dimensional monsters that we are more comfortable with them being.

If we were to examine one of these "predators" closely and find out that they were in fact molested and raped as a youth, it makes one look at them differently. It now means that this person is not just a monster but only continuing a cycle of abuse that was placed on them. It is not so easy to just write them off as a "sick bastard". We are now forced to humanize this animal and maybe even feel compassion for them and that is the way it should be. Most of the guys that were seen last night knew that they were wrong and even knew that they should not engage in what they were trying to do but they just couldn't help themselves. Again, I am not saying that these people aren't wrong for their actions but what I am saying is that they need to be understood and not just disregarded.

Just throwing people in jail and humiliating them on TV is not enough to stop these people from doing what they do. As was shown on the show last night, many of the guys were second time offenders and had already been caught once before. As everyone knows, I am a strong advocate of living in the truth. People need to come to terms with their issues and face them head on and even share them with people so that they don't have to face them alone. I think peoples inner turmoil thrive in secrecy and that is one reason that we need to live in the truth. If we tell someone what our struggle is then we have someone in the fight to help us. When we keep it inside we have to try to deal with it by ourselves and the flesh is sometimes so weak.

anyway, I need to stop here and pick topic up on a later date.

Truth often hurts the people who receive it but sets the truth teller free.

"if you live in the truth, no one can blackmail you" © Lauryn

simple words but they have resonated in my mind since the first time I heard ms hill say them on her mtv unplugged. So powerful is that statement. It means I can break out of all the bondage that people have placed me in by simply being who I am and not who they feel comfortable with me being. Break out of the box ! I can only be who God has allowed me to be and I am sorry if my being me does not fit into another's ideas of life and religion and all that stuff. Freedom is priceless and I struggle everyday to make sure I stay free despite the people and things that would rather I stay in their box.

Of course this is about my religion struggle. I hate it that people will read these blogg entries and think that I am just a one dimensional character that is always talking about gay stuff. That couldn't be further from the truth but at this time in my life, that is the only thing on my mind. I am just so sick of the way Satan(with the help of people) has contorted and distorted what I believe God really wants for his children. We live in a world right now where people who call themselves Christians can ostracize and ridicule people who have issues and they think they are doing the work of the lord.

I think it is my purpose(yes Ant, my purpose) in life to find the real God past all the images and false God's that people have built up. I think that we have not seen nor do we know the real God. I want to experience that and I want to share that with people.

on another note, in case you didn't know, the fight between good and evil is not taking place in the heavens or in the bowels of the earth. That fight takes place everyday in the mind. Your mind is the battle ground where Good and evil struggle to gain ground all the time. The battle is taking place when you see that co-worker that you know hates your guts stranded on the side of the road.Youu can either stop to help or continue on your way and the decision you make determines what side wins that round.