On Brown Coffee

It’s been an unfortunate day having a local San Antonio business put in a very bad light on a national level. Several hours after NY decided it would be ok for homosexuals to marry each other, the owner of Brown Coffee Company, Aaron Blanco posted on his business Twitter account that “No human law can ever legitimize what natural law precludes.”

The result was a predictable hailstorm of liberals spewing hatred at the company, even so far as Anthony Bourdain from the Travel Channel chiming in with his two cents in a Tweet that said “Dear Brown Coffee: God called. He said you suck.”  How arrogant do you have to be to think you can speak for God?  Your quip is both offensive and intolerant, Mr. Bourdain.

Yes, I said intolerant.  The liberal’s buzzword for anyone who doesn’t agree with their views.  I submit that it’s the liberal community who are actually intolerant to other people’s Constitutional right to free speech.  Mr. Blanco’s comment didn’t say “Kill homosexuals,” he simply posted that he doesn’t agree with homosexual marriage.  It wasn’t a hateful statement; it was just his opinion for which I spent 21 years in the military defending our Constitution so he could voice his opinion as a free American, just as I defend the homosexual’s right to free speech too!  We’re supposed to be a free society in which we can agree to disagree about anything, and voice our opinions without fear of being harmed.

Our society has degenerated to the point that only a few are allowed to have an opinion and if you disagree with them you’re vilified in the media and your livelihood is threatened.  Just because someone disagrees with homosexuals they are instantly labeled as intolerant and homophobic, when it is them who are being intolerant by trying to take away people’s right to disagree with them.

What Mr. Blanco did wasn’t smart.  Using his business account to give a personal opinion about a hot-button topic like homosexual marriage was a bad idea.  Business owners should know their business has to be neutral unless they want to lose a segment of consumers.  But he didn’t express it in a way that would cause physical harm to anyone, so the hatefulness being delivered to him and his business by the liberal community is just another attempt to chip away at our Constitution and force people to bend to their way of thinking.

Christ commanded us to love one another.  He didn’t specify a race, color or politics. He meant everyone.  So that’s what I do.  I don’t care if you’re homosexual; my only concern is whether or not you have a personal relationship with Christ.  After that, you and Him can work out the particulars of your lifestyle choices.

“God, please help us to love each other the way you love us, and to be bold enough to stand up for the truth that you have given us in your infallible Word.”

Death, food, giving and an oasis.

Saturday was an interesting day.  My wife read an article in the daily paper about 18 month old Jesaydin Guerrero losing his life in a traffic accident.  The family needed money to have a funeral for the child so they set up a BBQ stand at the funeral home over the weekend to raise much needed funds.  The accident was especially tragic because it was a family member who accidentally ran over the child, and then to add insult to injury the family doesn’t have the money to bury him.

It took about .3 seconds for us to be in the car headed for the funeral home.  Although I’ve been going to school for over a year and have had no job, my wife and I still feel blessed and when God moves us to share of our finances we know we have to do it.  God loves us, and would never leave us short on money, so even when we don’t think we have enough to share, we have found that if we follow God’s urging we always come out ok.

Anyway, we went to the funeral home and there was a pretty good crowd.  Family and friends were busy grilling up chicken quarters and Kielbasa sausage.  There were beans and potato salad and bread, packaged in the neat Styrofoam container with a picnic style plastic fork, knife and napkin in a sealed bag.  Nice meal.

The gentlemen gave us our meals and asked for $12. Now, this is where God moves in my life.  He continually shows me that I am blessed, and I have to say one of my greatest pleasures is giving to those who are in need.  I’m the guy who stops traffic to hand a beggar a few bucks that everyone hates because they feel I’m enabling this guy not to work, or that he’ll just spend it on booze.  Well, I don’t care what they think, if the guy spends it on something I wouldn’t approve of then that is on him, not me.  What I handed him was a gift, and once I gave it to him it became his to do with whatever he wants.  It doesn’t lessen my responsibility to try and help him.

Sorry to get off the path.  My point is that I know people need help sometimes, and I’ve been blessed beyond compare.  So I took my two meals, handed the guy a hundred bucks, politely said “keep the change,” and left.  I heard him say “God bless you!” as we walked away, and I thought to myself “He just did.”

We left the funeral home and it was such a nice day that I drove to the other side of I-10 to Camp St and stopped at Chris Park.  This little one acre green-space is truly an oasis in the ugly downtown urbanity of San Antonio.  It was built by Linda Pace as a memorial to her son who died at the age of 25.  The park is across the street from the Camp Street Lofts and is pretty easy to find off S. Flores.  You may recognize the name “Pace.” They created Pace Picante and used to own the Pearl Brewery (Pabst Blue Ribbon).

We took our BBQ bounty and sat under a beautiful shade tree and enjoyed the beauty of the park, shutting out the sights and sounds of the city for a while, and contemplated the abruptness of life, and losing an 18 month old child.

The contrast of death and the beauty of the life in the park was a reminder to me that our world is filled with both, and we will all be touched by both at some time in our life.  I don’t have the answer to the question of “why did God let this happen to Jesaydin.”  I only know that He doesn’t wish us harm.  Only Satan wishes us harm.  God teaches us through adversity, and strengthens us through our failures.

40 Days

It was Easter Sunday yesterday, and the season of Lent has ended.  I’m happy to say that my social experiment in news deprivation for the past 40 days was a success.  For 40 days I didn’t purposely watch the news on TV, or log on to any media outlets online, or use my iPhone to check any news stories.  I also didn’t listen to any radio stations but KLOVE, or read any books except the Bible.

I wanted to see what life would be like without the negative inputs that can come from media.  So I cut out everything: no liberally biased NPR radio, no conservative leaning Fox News, no news at all except for collateral information gleaned from posts on Facebook or Twitter.

What did I learn from this experience?  Well, mostly that the old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” is absolutely true, especially in San Antonio.  Although I never purposely turned on the news, there were a few times I couldn’t help but hear it because it was on a television at a restaurant.  After not seeing the news for several weeks it really stood out that what our local news agencies report the most is bad news.  It made me wonder why I needed to know that someone crashed on 1604 and died, or that someone robbed a cell phone store in Leon Valley, or that two morons were charged with drunken boating.  How did these stories enhance my life?  Why was this news that everyone in San Antonio needed to know? 

Some people will simply say “don’t watch it, just change the channel.”  That’s a problem for me because I’d like to know the news, the real news, the news that makes a difference in people’s lives; like how people are helping the homeless in San Antonio and how others can, and should get involved.  I want to know what our government is doing in this city and state, and how our representatives are actually representing us.  I want to know about events like festivals, and stories about the hundreds of good and kind acts that happen in this city every day.  What I don’t want is 30 minutes of news that has two good stories and 25 bad.

So what now?  Has my social experiment changed me in any way?  I’d have to say yes.  It’s helped me see what is important.  Without the constant intake of injustice and inhumane acts from around the globe, I’ve spent the past 40 days not worrying about all the things going on in the world and concentrated on the vicinity around me.  The place that I can really be effective. 

Don’t get me wrong, I pray for the entire planet on a regular basis.  But getting my stomach in a knot about how Gaddafi or some other despot is treating their citizens doesn’t do anything to enhance my life.  I know there will be injustice, that’s a given in this world.  But knowing about every instance of it only brings us down.

Overall, I’ve felt better the past 40 days not having the “news” in my head.  I’ll probably watch some news now, but I don’t think it’ll be the same.  Maybe I’ll start a “pleasant news” network where for every bad story that has to be reported, 20 good stories must follow.  Ha!

My advice to all of you is to unplug like I did and see how your life changes.  If you’re a media junky and think that you have to know every news story that gets broadcasted, then that’s your god.  Take a break from it and see how you feel in 40 days.

“God, thanks for this experience.  It’s helped me become more focused on meaningful use of my thoughts and time.  And oh yeah, to celebrate Easter can you tell Jesus 'Happy Resurrection' from me.  I know that was a pretty busy day and we all appreciate His sacrifice and love for us.  We love Him back.  Amen.”

Lent(ish) – Day 5

I posted a few days ago that I’ve been thinking about conducting a social experiment about how the news media affects us.  I was on Twitter one day and everyone was talking about Lent, so I decided to put my experiment in motion and use the Lenten season to do it, so I’ve unplugged from all news broadcasts on TV, radio, and online outlets for the next 40 days.  My only source of information is whatever I glean from conversations around me and social media posts on Twitter and Facebook (just the text posts, not the videos).

Let me just say that Lent just happened to fall at the same time I’d been thinking about doing this experiment and it helped push me into actually doing it.  As I said in my first post I’m not a Lent observer.  Giving up coffee or beer or chocolate for 40 days won’t bring you closer to Christ.  If you want to give up a vice then give it up for good, but if you want to be closer to Christ then read His Word daily and practice what He preached.

Anyway, the basis for my experiment was brought about one day when after driving somewhere I realized I was very agitated.  I wasn’t agitated when I got in the car, and there was no traffic, so I started to wonder if listening to the talk radio show I heard during the drive had affected me.  I started to pay attention to my moods more closely and realized that I could definitely see how taking in the news made me feel agitated, or sad, or just plain dissolutioned with the world.  We all know that news outlets thrive on bad news.  They prey on our seemingly subconscious desire to slow down and look at the accident, and they skew their reporting to the Left or the Right.

So I decided to stop taking in all of this stuff and see what happened.  Would I become completely out of touch with the world, but be happier?

The first few days were a little hard because I’m a news junkie. I like knowing what’s going on in the world.  But I stayed on course.  Then suddenly the whole experiment was put into jeopardy when the catastrophe hit Japan.  I saw a Twitter post saying there was an 8.9 earthquake followed by a tsunami.

Now I was in trouble.  I started to grab the TV remote, justifying to myself that this was a game changing event and I really needed to know about it.  But then I stopped and realized that this would actually help my experiment.  Would I be able to gather enough info from sources around me to know what happened, or would this event go unrealized?

It’s been a few days now, and the only video I’ve seen about the disaster has been a fleeting glimpse on a TV in a restaurant that showed houses being swept away.  Just that small intake made me feel terrible.

I mean, really, does seeing the utter devastation make the experience of knowing there was a catastrophe in Japan any better?  Having your brain constantly bombarded with those images only makes you feel worse every time you replay them in your mind. 

So I have to ask myself what would be different if I watched the news or videos that people are posting on Twitter.  The answer is that my actions would be the same: I would still pray every day for Japan, and I would give to a relief fund to try and help out.  The only other thing I could do is go over there, which like 99% of us is unrealistic. The difference is that I don’t feel that heavy weight that would be caused by seeing the destruction and devastation or having every minute of a news broadcast dedicated to it rolling around in my head.  You may not realize it, but it effects you, and you don’t need it to know that there is suffering going on over there. 

So far, my experiment has been interesting.  I’ve gathered all of the information I need about world and local events just through the sources around me without the 5 thousand other stories about murders and rapes and fires and every other nasty thing the news fills their broadcasts with.  I have all of the truly relevant information I need without the rest of the crap.  I’m experiencing a better mood, and finding that I’m actually more productive not looking at the hours and hours of horrifying news coverage of the disaster.

I’ll continue to check in as my Lent(ish) experiment progresses.

Goodnight, and Good News.

I’m a pretty avid news reader.  I like to be informed about what’s going on in the world and in my community.  With my iPhone I’m able to receive a ton of information.  Here’s a “short” list of what’s on my phone: CNN, Time, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Fox, Huffington Post, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Mashable, Endgadget, WOAI (local San Antonio news), NPR, Al Jazeera, and Dilbert.  That last one is just to cheer me up after reading all that news.

The reason I look at so many different outlets is because I want to get an array of interpretations of worldly events.  I know too many people that stick to just the news service that suits their political stance, and that’s a shame because both sides skew their stories, and unfortunately it seems that most of the stories aren’t news that makes people smile either.  Actually, I find that most of the time I’m agitated after reading the news because it’s frustrating to read about the political rancor in our country that permeates just about everything we do, and the deplorable way humans treat each other all over the world.

I’ve thought about not reading the news, but I’m afraid of becoming an uninformed oaf with no idea what’s going on in the world.  But now that we’ve reached the season of Lent, I’ve decided to unplug.  I don’t normally participate in Lent because I feel it’s an empty ritual that doesn’t really prove anything.  If you want to impress me then give up that vice for life, not just 40 days.

Anyway, the only reason I’m doing this now is because a short term experiment is really what I need, and all of the stories I’ve read about Lent today gave me the idea to do it now.  So, for the next 40 days I’m going to avoid the news.  I’ve deleted all of the news apps from my phone, removed the news feeds from Twitter, and installed the Charlie Sheen filter on my home computer that is available for FireFox now.  I’m going to avoid all talk radio, and only listen to Christ-centered music, and the only book I’m going to read is my Bible.

It’ll be interesting to see the results.  Will I be able to glean all of the news I need from friendly conversations with people around me, or will I become a social black hole?  We’ll see.