February 2005
Monthly Archive
General08 Feb 2005 11:26 pm
let’s talk about cussing for a minute. my wife read the last post and got a little…pissed off. 
she says i shouldn’t cuss because i’m a christian. she says it makes me look bad. says it makes me look like i’m not a christian.
i understand her point of view. i disagree with it, but i understand it.
here’s how i look at it. first of all, let’s put it into perspective. i believe there’s a big difference between using profanity from time to time to make a point and being a profane person and/or a person who uses profanity excessively.
for instance, if i’m the type of person (like some of my friends and co-workers) who uses the f word several times in a sentence and delights in vulgarity then i’m a profane person who uses profanity excessively. a friend of mine talks constantly about all the rough sex he’d like to have with just about every woman he sees. for him, the f word is like punctuation, necessary at the beginning and end of every sentence.
on the other hand, if i use a cuss word here and there to make a point or to blend in with people then i’m not a profane person. alot of people i hang out with aren’t very comfortable with you if you’re too different from them. i don’t smoke, cheat on my wife, drink, go to titty bars, steal from my employer, cheat on my taxes, and if i get too much change at the grocery store i give it back. i live by a different code and values than they do. that’s enough difference that at times i’m the odd man out. so, i don’t act shocked when they talk about rough sex, when they cuss like sailors, when they go to titty bars, etc… and i throw a cuss word in here and there. for some odd reason it helps them accept me and i blend in more. if i talked too much differently than them they’d not accept me as they do.
also, i find it helps me communicate more accurately. like the last post; i could have said “i went through a really tough time” or “i had many trials and tribulations for awhile” or “my faith was tested” or some other churchy, innocuous way of stating my situation. but somehow saying ‘my life was hell!” or ‘damn, i went through some serious shit” the depth of my trouble is conveyed more accurately. at least it does for me.
now, to many christians this would be compromise or even sin. some would say i’m selling out. some would say that i’d lose respect for my witness from the very people i’m hoping to influence for christ. i understand that, and i disagree with it. i disagree because i’ve found the only people that are offended by it are christians. so i don’t cuss (much) around christian sinners anymore. as for the unchurched sinners, well there’s a different response. recently i had a guy tell me, “dude, you’re cool. you’re like real serious about your religion and all, but you don’t get crazy about it. most christians i’ve known were too weird and different for me. you’re cool.” i took that as a compliment, realizing that many of my christian friends would be uncomfortable with implication of his statement.
don’t freak out. i won’t cuss much around here. it’s not necessary. just figured it was a really cool controversial thing to start out with. most likely it got your attention.
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General03 Feb 2005 09:57 pm
ok, i guess i should introduce myself. my real name is brian but i go by the tag A_PoMo on the various sites i hang out at.
i’m 36, married for 16 years to the same woman (god bless her), two boys 7 and 18 months. love ‘em to death. wish we’d had kids sooner. but i was so screwed up back then it’s probably best we didn’t have ‘em, for their sakes.
i like a hodge podge of stuff. i’m into motor sport racing of any form. i raced stock cars for several years awhile back. but it about killed my marriage so i picked her and the kids over racing. that was hard for awhile but i got the racing oil out of my blood and now i hardly miss it. well, i still do a little…alot when i really think about it. like right now because i’m thinking about it. mostly i try not to think about it much. haven’t gone out to the speedway in two years. i like the michael schumacher series, a.ka. f1, too. champ cars are ok.
anyway, i love to read. as a kid i’d get grounded from time to time. mom made me go outside and play instead of read my hardy boy books. i usually had four or five going at once. read ‘em all at least 10 times. now i mainly read religious stuff. alot of spiritual abuse stuff over the last three years and more emerging church stuff the last couple of years. i’ve found that god speaks to me through the books i read. that sounds weird when i write it. sounded perfectly sane when i thought it.
two books that have totally turned my life upside down were ‘the subtle power of spiritual abuse’ by two guys whose names i can’t remember right now because i’m at work. the other one was ‘the divine consipiracy’ by dallas willard. i’ve read them both 5-6 times apiece. the first one blew my world up. the second one is helping me put it back together.
i also like to read hi-tech military thriller stuff like tom clancy. i subscribe to bicycling magazine, rolling stone, time, and the lodi-news sentinel.
my dad got into cycling about a year ago and i’ve kind of caught the bug too. i bought a nice k2 animal mountain bike for $200 and try to ride it most days. usually i do about 10-15 miles at a time. it’s pretty cool. my dad does 50 miles at a time which makes me feel a little impotent.
my dad’s a preacher. my gpa was a preacher. my brother is a preacher. my brother in law is a preacher. my great gpa was a preacher. kind of see the trend? i was a minister for awhile too. got fired from my last full-time gig. maybe more about that later. we’ll see. right now, i don’t go to church much. pretty much fed up with it. like alot of people i think church as we know it is irrelevant and boring and almost completely misses the point. definitely more about that later.
when i still thought church was relevant, and before i got fired, my former pastor/boss took me to a conference in atlanta called catayst conference. i went there expecting the same ‘ol blah, blah, blah. i was more looking foward to just getting out of town than anything else. when i left the conference i haven’t been the same since. catalyst was the cataylst (that’s an obvious one) for me to leave the organized church and start my inquiry into what’s known as ‘the emerging church’. i got fired about 6 months later but paid my own way the next year and got blown away again by the whole pomo, emerging church thing. i couldn’t go last year because we were saving to buy our own house. but i plan to go again in 05.
i work full-time in the insurance business. i just got a promotion so i’m pretty stoked about that. especially since i can now ride my bike to work instead of commuting 30 minutes each way. i just bought a new mitsubishi bigscreen tv last weekend, just in time for the superbowl. ‘how convenient!’ the church lady would say.
ok, that’s enough for now. oh yeah, i never use caps when i type. sorry if that bothers you. i’m too lazy to hit the shift key. i kind of edit but not alot. so you’ll see some grammatical and punctuation errors from time to time. if it bothers you too much, sorry.
my purpose for this blog is to document my journey. more for my sake than yours. i hope you enjoy it and find some benefit in it. but i went through alot of shit a couple years ago and wish i had blogged myself through it then so that i could write about it. but, i didn’t but now i am.
i’m writing a book(?) about a guy on a spiritual journey. maybe i’ll post some of it here. it’s kind of an autobiographical book, but not totally. some of it i just a make up. but i can do that because i’m the writer. cool how that works ‘eh? i’m trying to make it real to life so it’s pretty raw and edgy at times. like when i said shit earlier. christians aren’t supposed to cuss are they? i do when it helps get the point across. i’m not vulgar. i avoid the f word, unless i hurt myself or something. haha.
i hope you enjoy the journey as much as i do.
later,
A_PoMo
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