ETC: Everyday Thoughts Collected
by Randy Thomas
From the category archives:
Along with the glass flowers my Aunt J. sent me, a button found it’s way into the shipment. A button she thought would be appropriate considering this post on the “War Against Whining.”
So with that sentiment. Here is a gratitude list:
I am grateful …
to live in Florida, to work for a cause I am passionate about, that I am not on some reality show … yet …
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I love Q & A. We had a Question & Answer session at the Freedom Conference on Saturday morning. We covered a lot but it would have taken days to answer all of the questions. I saved those questions and while I can’t promise to answer every single one here on my personal blog. I will try to pick questions that represent themes I see in many similar or exactly the same questions.
So let’s get to the question for today …
I want to be transparent, but I find myself having to battle some false and serious allegations. This causes me to have to end up in defensive mode but unable to prove innocence. How do you handle false damaging attacks?
There is a lot that could be said with regard to this but what I always come back to is the example Christ set during his trial which eventually led Him to be tortured and crucified. In that poignant moment you see Him sticking to His message, being silent in the face of people lying about Him and yet affirming who He was and the Father’s will.
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… I have totally used up all my grace quotient for cuss words for the year today.
Ok ok… I know. Where sin exists, grace abounds that much more. I am embarrassed over my very carnal reaction today even though my friends have told me not to worry about it. They say that what I did was totally understandable. It’s still embarrassing though.
See, what happened was this. At 8:11 am my alarm goes off. I hit the snooze twice and roll out of bed at 8:29 am. I am not in the best of moods in the am anyway but I saw The Happening last night and got to relive it all night long in my dreams. Not only that, my subconscious must hate me-self because it decided to make up even more horrible ways for people to die.
I hate this PTSD … stuff. <– see …. there I go again with the temptation to have a trash mouth.
Anyway, I had told Perry yesterday,”I have to get the U-Haul at 9 am. I’ll buy you lunch if you help me go and get three pieces of furniture (garage sale kind of situation from a friend) and bring it back. It should take maybe an hour and a half, maybe two.”
We didn’t have lunch until 2:30 pm. Things got bad … quick.
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There are a few people out there trying to draw me into some sort of blog/email battle. Ummm, I really appreciate the invite but … no thanks.
I have a good life … quite secure, content.
I don’t need to empower negative attention seeking with negative attention. Although, I am grateful for the little bit of traffic they are sending my way.
So, whether they ever chill out and watch their own lives for something to blog about … I don’t feel compelled to engage their false accusations or distortions.
Do what ya’ gotta’ do. I am.
::: snarky humor alert ::: Plus, I am simply too busy upgrading my brain chip’s operating system and drinking the Kool-aid at the Republican National Committee pre-convention party being held on Big Brother’s yacht … *my* yacht ::: end snarky humor alert :::
::: smile :::
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Amazing, and revealing, article by Emily Gould titled Exposed was featured in the New York Times Magazine.
Amy T. sent this to me saying that she thought I would enjoy the article and I did very much. Thank you Amy!
There is so much I want to quote from this article. There are many launching points from which to discuss. Of course the circumstances of Emily’s online blogging life are very different from my own but there are a lot of the blogging dynamics I have no doubt that many a blogger can relate to ( to some degree.)
Emily’s concluding paragraph reads:
I understand that by writing here about how I revealed my intimate life online, I’ve now revealed even more about what happened during the period when I was most exposed. Well, I’m an oversharer — it’s not like I’m entirely reformed. But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing. But I still have Emily Magazine as a place to spew when I need to. It will never again be the friendly place that it was in 2004 — there are plenty of negative comments now, and I don’t delete them. I still think about closing the door to my online life and locking them out, but then I think of everything else I’d be locking out, and I leave it open.
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Is it me or is this … like … cheesy? I already view the ACLU as an opponent but “blog of rights?” I hate to say this but … I will. Their slogan is a lame opportunistic derivative of our hallowed Bill of Rights. And if you keep rebranding something so amazing as the Bill of Rights, the re-branding threatens to water down the importance of the original. Nowadays the Bill of Rights seem to have been co-opted to the point of any strong desire with the loudest voice is now becoming a “right.”
They are kind of acting like the guy who decided to make a buck by putting the grandeur of a Monet painting on a mouse pad.
Just throw $9.99 at the ACLU and they will attack any Christian you want … well except for Fred Phelps.
All that aside, I know true Freedom. He’s a great blogger in that He has millions of bloggers taking up His Cause.
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Tonight I caught up on all the political news for the first time in about two weeks: Obama and Clinton are fighting like two cats in a burlap bag. There are cries of “YOUR and ELITIST! No…YOU’RE an ELITIST” being thrown around.
… and McCain is still old … and kinda’ funny.
::: sigh :::
Tonight I watched the dude filling in for Glenn Beck. I forget his name but he is pretty good. He mentioned that maybe this recent hullabaloo about Obama saying “elitist” things, about people with guns and having religion being “bitter,” is just something “the chattering class” finds interesting and that the average person may not care.
Which got me thinking … is this “chattering class” an expression of an elitist mindset? The “chattering class” label seems to be a new meme being bandied about and I find it intriguing for some reason. Maybe it’s an old label and I am just now noticing it but … its sticking out to me more than the no brainer story of politicians acting like elitists.
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Last week I woke up singing “Into The Ocean” by Blue October. I looked up the lyrics and the following verses stood out to me.
Where is the coastguard
I keep looking each direction
For a spotlight, give me something
I need something for protection
Maybe flotsam junk will do just fine
the jetsam sunk, I’m left behind
I’m treading for my life believe me
(How can I keep up this breathing)Not knowing how to think
I scream aloud, begin to sink
My legs and arms are broken down
With envy for the solid ground
I’m reaching for the life within me
How can one man stop his ending
I thought of just your face
Relaxed, and floated into space
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Three weeks ago I started getting sick and while on a trip I was knocked out with a horrible bug that wasn’t the flu but you sure couldn’t tell. So I went on some anti-biotics, Mucinex (*hate* their commercials), Sudafed and whatever. The antibiotics ran out last Thursday. I was a good good boy and took every last one of them.
Felt good on Friday. I even worked out all last week.
Saturday was back to not good. Sore throat and that uh oh… you have GOT to be kidding me feeling. Last night rolled around and it wasn’t going away and I found it hard to breath. Went back to the Minute Clinic and the lady there said that if I wasn’t good to go after what they had prescribed for me I needed to go to the real doctor (she is a nurse practitioner.)
Did I mention my ears were hurting? … especially the right one … and I have to get on a plane to fly across the country tomorrow. Thankfully my regular Doctor had a cancellation and I was able to get in today. Turns out the severe sinus infection of two weeks ago has turned into “acute sinusitis” and laryngitis. He also said that I was not contagious and assured me that my head would not explode in flight.
$120 later … forget the war on whining… I was ALL about the wah wah nyah nyah’s.
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The problem was I hit my snooze alarm to many times and didn’t get out of bed until 5:47 am and blasted through getting ready, jumped in the car in *pouring* rain, drove in some serious traffic in the pouring rain. Forgot my umbrella, had to park out in the middle of no where, ran to the Hall where the breakfast was being hosted and got there right at 7:00 am
I showed up half asleep, soaking wet, out of breath and … the subject of the morning?
Joy ::: perfect :::
Some of my critics might try to make some hay about Mrs. Campolo’s promotion of pro-gay ideology and Tony’s disagreements, not as opposed as his wife, with us about homosexuality. He believes the behavior is sinful but doesn’t think people can change. It is probably more nuanced than that but I don’t really want to get into that in this post. Just like life, the man has more to offer than a few disagreements about one issue.
His first book, The Kingdom of God is a Party, was the first book I read as a Christian. It really encouraged me and I love his heart in the book. I also enjoyed seeing him share his heart today. The dude is very funny. Some of the people at our table said that it was one of the best keynotes they had ever heard. I wouldn’t go that far because I had heard it several times before. That said, I thought it was very cool to get to see him and get a picture with him.
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