From the eye’s of an addict, the media frenzy amazes me.  Charlie Sheen is saying crazy, crazy things.

He’s been quoted in saying that he’s a rock star, that he’s living the life.  Quote, “The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them just look like you know, droopy eyes armless children.”

It sound insane.  It sound absolutely nonsensical, and, to me… it sounds like things I’ve thought or said before.

I remember living at a bar.  Sleeping on the floor by dart boards, I remember telling people, “Man, it’s the dream. I wake up, I work, I drink, I party…”   I remember telling people, “I haven’t slept in days, I’ve never seen things so clear.”  ”No one understands what it’s like to be in my brain.  If you took my brain for 5 minutes, you’d lose it.”

Addiction is an absolutely insane disease.  It makes people say, do and think crazy things.   I watched Charlie Sheen last night for about 5 minutes and thought I was going to cry.  Seeing a man in such obvious suffering, and we are sitting around watching.  We’re not just watching!  We’re popping the popcorn, sitting back and watching the decline of a human being.  We’re sitting back, and, can I say, ‘getting off’ on the idea that he is crazy.  He’s not.  He’s broken.  He longs for love.  He longs for something every addict longs for.

Here is another quote Charlie Sheen said last night.  He was talking about the ‘other bad boys’ of Hollywood (Sean Penn, Mel Gibson and Collin Farrell) calling him and checking on him.

They didn’t give me any advice. …It was just love … Occasionally, you know, a giant marquee name comes through on your caller I.D. And it’s like, ‘winning.’

You see.  The one nice, normal thing he said last night was talking about the people reaching out and… just…. loving.  People who had been there.  People who know the feeling.  People who are showing compassion.

Now.  Choose your darkest moment.  Now.  Put it on national television, for everyone to see.  Are we all so different?  As far as I’m concerned, we’re all the same.  But the people showing compassion right now, are the other people we love to hate.  (Sean Penn, Mel Gibson and Collin Farrell)

What is wrong with this picture?  Where is the outpouring of love us ‘Christians’ are supposed to show?  Does that go away with the click of a remote?  Have we separated our God and our Entertainment?

This is a re-post. I re-post sometimes when I can’t think of anything to say, or just to make sure there is content here for people, when they swing on by my portion of the internets.

So, here is my post today.  Happy Valentines day.  I love you guys.

Do you know how much He loves you?

I mean, seriously do you know?  I hope not.  I mean, I hope you know that you can never know how much he loves you.  The minute we start to say we grasp that love, I think is the minute that we’ve lost touch.

I read something the other day, that knocked my socks off.  I’ve been in constant amazement ever since I’ve read it.  I’ve constantly been awed by the love that God has for me.  I don’t know if anyone else can tell it but me, (I bet my wife can) But I’ve been just a little bit brighter.  (and I’ve been cussing a little less)  I’ve come to the conc.. no.. the realization that I cannot even begin to fathom the love that Jesus has for me.  That’s OK.  I don’t think we will ever be able to, until we get to the party.

God desires us.  God wants us around, sometimes more than we want to be around.  The story of the Prodigal Son should captivate that.  (I contemplated adding a metaphore, where the earth was the younger son, working with the swine /swine flu, but then in better judgement decided against it) God forgives us.  He doesn’t make us wait, and wonder if we’re being forgiven.  He doesn’t hold it over our heads. He doesn’t say, “I hear you, I’ll E-mail you later and let you know my decision.”  All the things you’ve done in your life to screw up,  God’s over it.  He knows it, but it’s forgiven.  Crazy right? The question is, can you forgive yourself?

We’re not chastised.  We’re not forgotten.  We’re not hated.  We are just a bunch of failures on this earth, who are loved.  Loved more than we can ever imagine.  Our sin was taken up for us, that’s just one of the miracles.  He rose again, defeating death so we can have life!!  (’nuff said)

I pray now, that the moment I think I start to understand his love, that I get knocked off of my high horse.  I pray that I’m kept in awe and wonderment.  I pray that what Jesus has done for me already is enough to never question His love, and to never understand it either.

There is nothing a church or person has to do to make that relevent my friends.  If that gospel isn’t relevent, then something is seriously wrong.

Ok guys, you know the drill.  I need someone to step up and sponsor Figo today.  I mean… Look how cute he is!  If you have been paying attention, you know he’s been waiting over 6 months.  You could change his life today.  How does that make you feel?  Click the link or the image.  If you do sponsor him, please, post a comment below and let us know that you did.   

Facebook has been a twitter, er… I guess we need a new phrase.

Point is, Sarah Palin told people to kill people.

Obama said to bring a gun to a knife fight, which, I fully anticipate doing.

Pete Stark won’t pee on my leg, which, well, kinda is a weird thing to say at all.

And George W. Bush said….. something that didn’t make a lot of sense at all.

Anyway. I’m not really writing to write about the crazy right, or the bleeding heart left.  I’m not writing to get into a political debate about Sarah Palin.

Here’s the facts.

People say stupid things.  I know I do.  Do you?  Probably.

So where does that leave us?  Well.  It leaves us, really where it started.  Right?  Be careful what you say.  Someone is looking up to you, learning from you, mimicking you.  They won’t always take your exact advice, sometimes they misinterpret it to the extreme.  Sometimes they’ll ignore it completely.

I’ve been looking to scripture on this subject, especially in light of the recent shootings, and I think it’s been fairly clear on this subject.

Ephesians 4:29 says, “ Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

So, in my mind, it doesn’t really matter who said it, or what action came of it. (ie: whether a shooter was driven by a mix of the crazies/politicians.)  We should just be more careful what we say.  If we’re running around talking about glorifying God with our Country, then we probably shouldn’t put cross hairs over a ‘foe’ and tell my 367,000 (+) followers to ‘reload’, and I certainly shouldn’t say in front of a million people that we should bring a gun to a knife fight.

However…
..
.
And this is the big one.

Sarah Palin has said some mean things, and while I do not agree with her politics, and probably most of her religious views, I know I agree with her on one thing.  We serve an awesome God.  One that died for you, me, and her.  a God who forgave me, and all of the awful things I’ve ever done.  A God who I know has already forgiven Sarah Palin for any mean things she’s said, and a God who has not only forgiven but DIED for the shooter himself.  An Awesome God.

I’ve realized, it’s not my place to judge her.

I long for the day where we can remember God in moments like this and not look for a finger to point.  I pray for the day that politics don’t hi-jack every incident and blame the other side.  I long for a difference.  I long for a longing for God that is so powerful, worldly politics do not get me all bent out of shape.

There. I said it.

My parents took us out to dinner.  This wasn’t unordinary.  Though it had slowed quite a bit in recent months.  I never really questioned why, I just assumed they were busy.  We were sitting in the restaurant, and had ordered, and my dad asked us, “Have you ever heard the story of the Gift of the Magi?”

Obviously, being pretty young, none of us had, so we all shook our heads.  He told us about the man and his watch, and the girl and her hair, and all the stuff that lead up to the ending.   He asked us what we thought the moral of the story was.  None of us had really good answers, so we just sat there, clueless.

He proceeded to tell us that there is a lot more to Christmas than getting gifts.  He told us that being with people you love, and knowing you’re loved is important.  He told us that sometimes, when life gets tough, the most important thing is knowing you’re surrounded by people who love you.  He told us that, this Christmas wouldn’t be like other Christmases, because he had lost his job.  He told us that we would have a meal, and be loved, and he, with tears in his eyes, told us that he hoped we still loved him.

We ate our meals and went home.  Our tree was up and stockings were hung, and honestly I don’t remember feeling differently at that moment.  I didn’t know what the weeks, months, or years were going to bring, which, I guess is why I carried on doing my own thing.  I don’t remember much about how that Christmas went, I do remember sleeping in.  I remember women from the school bringing us blankets and ‘necessities’ for our gifts, and I remember being really embarrassed about that.  I remember a woman bringing dinner over, and I remember none of us liking it, because it wasn’t mom’s cooking.

After living out what God had in store for me and my family the next 10-15 years, I can say it wasn’t easy.  I can say it’s hard to tell your friends you didn’t get anything.  I can say, it’s nice to have friends who understood.  I can say, even with all of our disfunction, it was nice to have a family. 

What I wouldn’t give, to wake up this Christmas, with my wife and my daughter and head over to my mom’s house and listen to her scream frantically about how she’s been slaving all day to prepare a meal, to have Andrea taste my mom’s cooking.  What I wouldn’t give to see Adrienne, my sister, who passed 8 years ago. or Matthew, who, up until he died 6 years ago, we spent EVERY Christmas together since I was 6. 

It wasn’t until all of the loss in my life, or even until this very moment, in writing this out that I truely understood what my dad was saying that night at the restaurant.

Gifts are cool to get, and a really good excuse to get together.  But love.  Love is what makes it all worth it.  The value of a gift is not the price tag.  The value of a gift is as deep as the love of the person who gave it.  The gift isn’t the object at all.  The gift is the love.  Christmas defies all logic.  From the birth of a baby born of a virgin, to a disfunctional family establishing a love so deep that it hurts the very core of my being.

Do me a favor this year.  Give love.  I don’t care how you do it, but make sure everyone in your life knows they’re loved.  There will be a Christmas where you will wish you could.

Merry Christmas ladies and gents.