Blowing Off A Lot Of Steam

Some days it just gets to you.Today I saw a story about an upcoming Ring Of Glory card.Though I question the sincerity of the organization I applaud the effort to bring a message to young people of the wonder of accepting and embracing a spiritual path.And then I see HIS name.Lex Luger..why?Why?
Lex Luger is a hedonistic bit of excrement who has done NOTHING IN HIS MISERABLE LIFE TO BENEFIT ANYONE BUT HIM!!!!
Think I am being judgemental here?Let me qualify.I am far from a complete person.But I put the REAL me out there for all of you.I am a recovering addict.I have a wonderful relationship with an incredible young woman who has seen in me a person who she feels is worthy to be the man in her life.I am not really in the best of health and besides being partially deaf I have both balance and heart issues.I live every day that I have left with this credo.My family knows I treasure them.My love knows that I am true and my friends,which you all are,know that I preach only to help and never to profit.
Having said that I proclaim the aforementioned person(Mr.Luger)as the sort of bandwagon jumping troll one sees in the heart of the meandering crestfallen.No personal responsibility.No self blame.Got a clue for ya pal.God knows everyone on the bus.You cannot hide from your maker behind the coats of your friends.You are shallow and vain and I am sure that the big guy doesn't like it.You made your pound of flesh and you squandered it all.The path to new material gain should not come from the Father.You make me want to VOMIT!!
Thank you for reading my diatribe and do come back tommorow when I should be back as usual.Please send you thoughts Grange

Help For Two Friends

How rare the opportunity to aid more than one of my brethren,each with their own succinct problem with words that wil aid both directly.The first is a very dear friend who finds himself at a crossroads at his chosen vocation.Another at the divide of the river of his career.I begin with the following comment
"Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but it screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. "--Richard Foster

We feel as if all of our good works go for naught without recognition.This is true for the steady performer with a history of exemplary service as well as those who are on the road to excelance from the view of a new beginning.When,oh when,will others take note?I go to a frequent source of comfort for our next quote

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but my chief duty is to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble "- Helen Keller

And finally.what can give me succor to the hunger I have for notice to be taken?An interesting quote from the Reverend Billy Graham on the subject of diligance:

"I was taught that laziness was one of the worst evils, and there was dignity and honor in labor. I could abandon myself enthusiastically to milking the cows, cleaning out the latrines, and shoveling manure, not because they were pleasant jobs, certainly, but because sweaty labor held its own satisfaction."

Plain talk here.We always love praise.We often get none.I have recieved very little feedback on this ministry.It does not deter me.For it is the work which must comfort me.The belief in myself and this cause, the logs that support the fire.I bid you peace


Till tommorow

At Thanksgiving

There are many views prevelent about the celebration of Thanksgiving.One goes to the fact that the celebration is of little comfort to the American Indian whose kindness and indeed charity to the clueless new settlers were repaid by massacres and the taking of their land.I am going to go against that concept by pointing out that most of our ancesters have no connection to the first harvest.And none to the bad outcome.And that this holiday today has nothing to do with a feast between teachers and students unless you count that situation between parent and child.No.We celebrate all that we are thankful for.

Psalm 119:18 RSV
"Open my eyes that I may behold wonderous things'

Every day we look at the beauty in our children,nephews,neices,little ones who amaze us with the joyful innocence of a life we secretly envy.we cheer on those among our family who rise up and seize their moment.We comfort and love those who need us because they and we ARE us.So today I ask of you my family to take a moment and give to whatever power moves you,thanks for the wonderous things.For today celebrate the triumphs first.To seek the good in our lives.And to remember that we are all connected.And always will be.

bless you all

Points to ponder

I begin this sermon with a great quote:
"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.The fearful are caught as often as the bold."

Great statement,greater still when one knows the author.Hellen Keller.A woman who had no sight.No hearing.yet she knew.If you fail to try to make your voice heard you deny both your message and your potential audience.If you do not give of your wisdom you fail in serving your contemporaries.So todays sermon goes out to a friend of mine who wishes to let his voice be heard yet fears his skills of comunication.You must do as you told me.Be true to yourself.Be real.

Second quote of the day:
"What is praise or pride.But to imagine excellence or try to make it." from Richard Wilbur

here is something I never want to hear again.SMALL HOUSE TONIGHT."As if this matters.Unless you have just performed in front of 10000 people you should have nothing in mind but a high caliber performance.The greatest performers in the business have given their all in front of 100 people or less.And they did not take the night off.If you don't have a true heart may I suggest you find sometning else to do.Eddie is gone and we have a duty to carry on his work ethic.Your time(kudos to Ebony Blade)is now!

Till tommorow

Staring As A Group At An Open Wound.A Service For Eddie Guerrero

I will tell you now how ill equipped I am to do this.But I will try nonetheless.

Eddie Guerrero was in many ways the embodiment of our dreams.That final proof that you can rise from the abyss and find not only light but lifting.That faith and the love of your family and friends can bolster you and help drive you past the bad choices you have made in your life.That you can excel at what you do and understand the difference at last between what is fleeting and what is forever.Eddie made a covenent with his lord and healed the rift in his family while competing at the highest level of his profession.He was an inspiration to those of us who have been crestfallen.
And an inspiration he should remain.The casting of his flesh does not..no WILL not in any way diminish what he accomplished as both a performer and a man.Is this a cautionary tale.Only in this.The decision you make today on what you put in your body should from now on be interjected by the lesson of a fallen comrade.The damage you do in your youth carries consequences.And no amount of money can equal those costs.
This is a tragedy and yet we should be celebrating a life that endures in memory.A smile we will never put out of our mind.I conclude this sermon with a quote from 1 corinthians 13: 9-10

"For our knowledge is fragmentary and our prophecy is fragmentary.But when the complete and perfect comes,the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away'

Goodbye Eddie.You left a lot of people who loved you behind.

thanks for coming

The Weekend Sermon # 1

I am not stupid.I know that most folks have been busting it all week and do not need to be lectured.Thats why Sunday services have always been silly to me.So,instead I give you this positive message and spare you till sunday night. From John 13:34 "I give you a new commandment:that you should love one another.Just as I have loved you ,so you too should love one another" Have fun.Play safe

Stress!!!!Stress!!!!!!STRESS!!!!!!!!

Are you having one of those days?You know,when your downstairs neighbor who hasn't paid her bills in MONTHS falls in love via the internet and invites an inbred redneck to come live with her sans money or job?And she skips the annoying detail of telling you?And she doesn't go to work all week?Instead she stays home and gets drunk with him?So she might not have a job and if she does she won't have any money anyways?And you just want to choke the hell out of EVERYONE!!!??!!!

I digress.How was YOUR week so far.I bet it is just as stressful....did I mention he is from Alabama.And he has not been in a state of sober since he left the flight to here?..anyway.here is a lovely quote from Matthew 11:28

"Come to me,all you who labor and are heavy laden and overburdened,and I will cause you to rest"

See.God can make it all better.(Or kill you,this is some really ambiguous stuff here.cause you to rest?)

Will tomorrow be better?

As Our Week Draaaags On

At this point in our 7 day cycle I have decided the time is right for light reflectionThis weeks Tapa is the problem of ego.Our quote is from Hebrews 12:1

" Let us strip off and throw aside every encumberance and that sin which so readily clings to and entangles us,and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistance the appointed course of the race that is set before us."

Let us ruminate on this briefly and let my family be blessed with simple wisdom.

Till next we meet

Promotion,Promoting and Philosophy

If you ask any promoter what sets his promotion apart you will almost always hear about the vision he has for what he is doing.This is human nature.As is the us or them mentality brought on by competition.And make no mistake this is team competition.With a few major differences from the norm.Many of the players on "team"A also play for "team"B.And C-Z as well.Which brings us back to the vision.
I have heard said that we must all work together.As well as we are the only game in town that matters.I have watched as promotions are badmouthed and sabotaged.I have seen sworn enemies shaking hands and counting their fingers afterwards.I am never working with him again.Until the next time.I have done this myself.
So what missive fits.An easy one would be Biblical.An aggressive message perhaps by Sun Tsu.No.I quote the message of G.W.F Hegal.Hegalians have formed a religion around the teachings of this 17th century man of letters.I take this from Phenomenology Of The Mind via Wikipedia

An influential section is the discussion of the dialectic of the lord and the bondsman. To become free every man must engage in a life-death struggle. Those that shirk from this struggle, those that live in fear of losing their life, become the bondsman under the domination of the lord. However, by working and laboring on the world the bondsman begins to understand its temporal nature and sees his own role in changing it, while the lord essentially loses the world by failing to engage it except through his servantile bondmen. This, for example, is at the root of the lord's faculty of desire -- the only way in which he relates to the world is not by working on it and altering it, but by desiring something that he may have enough power to acquire. The bondsman, according to Hegel, will one day rise up and realize that this life is nothing to him, thus risking his life and usurping power from the lord. Only by risking one's life is one able to achieve freedom in the full Hegelian sense.

Two truths emerge.those who serve you must for survivals sake be counsel and counterpart as much as any family member.Implosion is WITHIN.Sucess is long term so long as your "bondsman"is as involved and commited as you.Raise up soldiers to stand beside you.Leave your ego at home.Sucess will follow.

Back soon...

Advice from A Different Place

First,thank you for taking notice of the new church.Todays sermon goes to an aquaintence who is quite prevelent in my mind these days.A man full of anger,bitterness and regret.I am in my fashion trying to assuage his guilt and have made myself a sacraficial lamb in a way.I offer this quote attributed to God in a great book by Neale Donald Walsch called Friendship With God.

" Don't say it.Don't indict yourself that way.You were not the worst person who ever walked the face of the Earth.You were not the Devil incarnate.You were and are a human being,making mistakes trying to find your way back homeYou were confused.You did what you did because you were confused.You were lost.You were lost and now you are found.
Do not lose yourself again,this time in the labrynth of your own self pity ,in the maze of your own guilt.Rather call yourself forth,in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You ARE
Tell your story yes,but do not BE your story.Your story is everyone elses life story.It is just who you thought you were it is not who you really are.......
So tell us your story,and let us see what you have remembered as a result of it,and what there is for all people to remember."

Arguments can be made for validity to the claim of the speaker to be the almighty but this is truly wonderful advice.I know someone who needs it.I hope he reads it as well

more soon.....

IT'S BACK!!!!

Well,I said it would be back and so it is.This,once again is The Wrestling Church.I see at this time a lot of doubt and negativity amongst my wrestling bretheran and so,beggining today the church will serve as a source of comfort and reassurance for those who feel that life is bearing down hard.
I have a good friend who every day faces not only a trying life but existance in a community that prejudges and labels.It matters not that she has more class in her little finger than her distractors have in their whole bodies,the attacks sting and so I offer this from acts 28:3-5

"Now Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks,and he was laying them on the fire when a viper crawled out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand,they said to one another doubtless this man is a murderer'for though he has been saved from the sea,Justice(the godess of avenging)has not permitted that he should live.then Paul,simply,shook off the small creature into the fire and suffered no ill effect"

What a wonderful message.The evil in ones life is like the poisonous snake and the first step to our peace of mind is to cast it off.I may add that the salve of good feelings and support are the antidote to this poison.

till we speak again...