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.

Beautiful Things

"What a day to be alive, what a day to realize your not dead." Greg Laswell

I am gonna try and do my due diligence and write more often. Life is different. I have said this before because it's seems that things are constantly changing and my mind is changing with them. When things get different, I often find myself reeling and don't make the time to write things down. I do realize that these are the most important times for personal records, but I just don't and never did want to write just for an audience. I love those that read what I write and so happy you enjoy sharing in my life...but I want to write for me, and my kids.

Over the past few weeks I have been back and forth with dreams and memories of Will. As I said before, things are changing. Before when I would remember him, I would think of death and goodbye. Lately, I have been thinking about the joys of being alive and the beautiful things that exist in this world. These are the signature of God at the bottom of the painting for me. In the work of art, there are various forms of viscous chaos mixed with beauty that the eye cannot even understand. I think of Will and I miss him, but I think of life. I think of the things I could do to be brighter and shine more brilliantly. I have found ministry in nursing. I read the the passage in the Bible that says:

^{Matt 25:34} “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 

I do believe this is the description of nursing. There is no more a destitute floor than the one I work on. Everyone could go at any moment and many of them do. They are people raised in a ghetto in a hospital in the ghetto. Some have become one with the bed that eats away their flesh from underneath them. Most are completely dependent on me and the support staff on the floor to keep them alive. As humans, we keep people alive when we raise kids and when we take care of our grandparents, but it is a different thing to think that if I do not give this medication, this patient may die. I am finding a spiritual home in my work, and I aspire to be the very best I can under God. I believe when we work hard and pray hard, He works all good things out for us.

The issue that I have been having is that, right now, I am trained to save a life. If your heart were to stop in front of me, I have the knowledge and skill to significantly increase your chances of survival. But just 2 1/2 years ago on the other side of my telephone was a dying person that I could not save. He was calling for my help, but I was absent. It does upset me, but as I said before, I am not thinking negatively anymore. This makes me want to not miss it again. I want to know what to do and be diligent in prayer to make a difference between life and death. Because life is beautiful. In some very strange ways, life is perfect. It is balanced. There is always beauty to be seen in every disaster. I have been trying to take photos in the ghetto where I work of both beautiful and sad things I have found there...because if beauty can be found there, it can be found anywhere. Here are a couple.

 The first taken outside of a very sick person's window she stares out of 24 hours a day for the last 45 days.

The second is a crime scene just outside the gates of the hospital as the news people interrogate the family of the victim.

The third is a house fire just off of the freeway I take to my job. The family stood on the sidewalk and watched all of their memories float away in that smoke,

The fourth is the courtyard in the middle of my hospital. It sits quietly among, quite possible the ugliest and trashiest building that is still being used in the country.
 






Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Science of Sleep

Sleep can be wonderful or terrible given the night. In the evenings I hate it, because it reminds me I will be blinking my eyes and beginning again the next day. Either I will be working, or I will be one more night closer to working. But the mornings...they are different. 5 AM reaches me faster than the sunlight and I can think of nothing I would rather do than to lay down in the back of my car and skip the day altogether.

During sleep you are vulnerable. You are a victim to whatever crazy or irrational thought decides to invade your mind. You can have a dream that Oprah is giving you a shot with a 2 foot long needle or one where you are running too slow and punching your enemy like you were punching through chocolate pudding. Things can make you happy and brighten the day ahead, or they can haunt you and make the sun wretched to you.

Sleep is precious. Sleep doesn't take long enough when you are tired and is way too long when you are excited. There really is no point to this post except to talk without point about sleep. I personally have a battle with it. I have slept in many different places. I used to be an insomniac. I would sleep in the bathtub, under the kitchen table, beside the heater under the bed, to the sound of a metronome. Now I sleep like a child...until 3 or 4 AM, then I wake up and can't sleep anymore. I think of my sleeping scenarios that calm me to sleep, but at this time, they seldom work. Something isn't right still. I have not adjusted yet to 33 years of bad sleeping habits.

On a side note, my wife defines my new go-to-bed-at-nine habit as the one true sign of my maturity. Agree or disagree?







Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

To Those That Do Not Believe.

Trust would not be trust if there were no risk. We trust because we have been burned. Otherwise trust would be something we never did. If being burned kept us from trusting others, our hope would die. Our spirits live on, because of the human spirit. I am not talking about the human spirit that we possess, but the Spirit of something different, that God puts in  our hearts. Only those who have it will understand. The rest will say I am an idiot in their minds and never think of me again. Before you go, consider the possibility that you are wrong. I have done the same.. right now as I am writing. I have doubts often...I will never claim otherwise. I often wonder about the possibility of a God in such a place and have come to the conclusion of a God that reigns still. Without thought I look to Him.


I am not an apologist. I am not going to argue your science or what you believe to be true. I am only going to ask you this question............"How?" How are we here? Where did the cells come from? Why do we feel different from all other creation? My humble opinion is that we came from God, in His likeness. We were made to model Him. Believing in evolution is even more a stretch than believing that a 2012 Mustang formed itself from a single piece of molten steel without the touch or thought of human influence. It takes faith not to believe. In my opinion...even more faith is needed to not believe than believe.

I am not a scholar. I have studied the Bible for many years, but am intellectually unqualified to form an argument, but I will give you what I know from experience. God is good. God is indescribable. I am not God and don't always represent Him well. I don't always have an explanation for what He does, but I do know what it means to live in His presence. 









Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z

Always Talking

Ever thought to yourself when a person is talking, "What does that even mean?" People talk a lot. Some people more than others. Some people, when talking, makes us want to vomit on their faces...for no good reason. They mean well enough, it's just that they will never shut up. They drank a gallon of warm milk that morning and like to talk 5 inches from your face and you got like 4 hours of sleep because of a false alarm 911 call from your great grandmother Myrtle, who lives in Florida, but sends you Michigan postcards from Florida. Things don't always feel right. Patience is something to be achieved through long suffering.

At my current place of business, people want what they want and nothing else. The Dr. wants the little people to tell him he has cured the sick person, even if he hasn't. The nurse wants to believe they were the difference between life and death because they really do run the joint. The aid wants to believe they are doing everything the nurse does with less pay. In the end, the attitude of the person poisons the entire batch.

As humans we do a lot of talking. We complain and let our pride decipher who we are gonna be. Maybe we should stop deciding who we are gonna be and let God. Consider??? I am.







Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading. - Z

Stepping off Part 2

"So what happens now?"

"What do you want to happen?"

"I want my life to mean something to someone. My whole life has been about trying to make myself happy and I found myself on this ledge knowing that I haven't done a single thing to inspire anyone to do anything good. I complain about everything. Politics, religion, taxes, war, the dishwasher constantly breaking...but never once did anything about any one of them. I am always just talking and half the time I cannot even decipher what I am saying."

"So jumping off this ledge was the answer instead of just simply doing things different? I asked myself that question too when I stepped off and found the invisible ground. I fell about 10 feet down and slammed onto what I thought was the pavement and my final feeling. Then I got up and looked down and was a little relieved. I knew all along that I was taking a really illogical route to freeing myself from myself. The problem was that I had always trusted in myself. This step off the ledge left me with no answers. I stepped off and gravity failed. There was more to life than what I could see, even the ground beneath my feet."

"So what now though. Nothing has changed. I still got nothing. I still wrecked everything that loved me. But here I am standing on this invisible ground in the night with some guy I don't know, wondering if you are an angel or a demon."

"If I were and angel, I would have caught you. If I were a demon, I would have pushed you. I am a person who walked up those steps at a certain time and found a guy that has never trusted in anything but himself trying to find the guts to step off that ledge. I saw you and I saw myself."

"You mentioned that Peter started sinking when he saw the waves engulfing him. I kinda see the waves man. I am figuring out now that I am standing on top of the world with only a clear view below me. It's starting to freak me out."

"Peter began to sink because of doubt. But did Jesus let him drown? He put out His hand and pulled him up. Faith is trusting that God is in control even when we doubt and let the world bring fear into our hearts. Acts of faith have never been strong ones, but extremely vulnerable ones, mixed with intense emotion. You think Abraham raised that knife to his only child without intense crisis of the mind? He was a mess unlike any other. He doubted for sure, but took the leap anyway. This was faith. He was rewarded. You have been rewarded. So I say what you do now is stop and think. Forget quickly what you have always done in the past and let God answer your questions. Walk in the light of day and connect yourself to something different. We have choices. No matter what your history has given you, you have the choice to be who you want to be and see things the way you want to. You are free. You are starting over. You are forgiven."

"Who are you?"

"Does it matter right now? Right now I am only a witness to what God has done in you. I am a humbled witness."

















Sing.
Migrate.







Thanks for reading...Z