Archive for the 'Spirituality' Category

The Future

Published at November 27, 2009 in Personal Update, Church, Marriage, Being a Man, Family, Holidays and Spirituality. 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking & praying a great deal about it lately.  For the first time, it’s been so hard to see.  I’ve always known the next step, but that’s been easy. It’s only ever affected me.  Now I am part of a “we,” & “we” have to make a decision based on what’s the best thing for us.  Brooklynne is done with graduate school in May, & it is time to start figuring out where to go from there.  It’s easy to say that we should make this decision based on the most important things for us. Where can we find a community of believers to plug into that we can “jive” with?  Where can we begin putting down roots to build a family?  These & other things are our top priorities, but when we try to lay out possibilities to meet those questions, they are endless.  It’s hard to narrow down from endless possibilities.  I hate to make a life decision based on career opportunities, but what else is there to do when that is the only variable that can be known?  I hate being in places like this, where the questions are far more numerous than the answers.  Any advice from those further along the path of life is very welcome right now. 

 

On a side note, Thanksgiving has been wonderful.  I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am to have amazing in-laws that I truly feel like family around.  It has been a very welcomed break from all the pressures of Boston.  I am so thankful for a job that I love going to every single day.  I can’t wait to get back to see my little buddy.  I am unbelievably blessed to have such an amazing, beautiful, & gifted wife.  I love being here to spend time with her while she doesn’t have 20 thousand things on her schedule.  So anyway, please let me know if you have any wisdom to impart upon our decision making process for the future.

Full Circle

Published at November 22, 2009 in Personal Update, Being a Man and Spirituality. 2 Comments

Something really remarkable has transpired this weekend. I received a Facebook message from someone with a subject line that read “A long overdue apology.” The subject line is intriguing enough, but try to think of it from my perspective on top of that. Due to my uncanny ability to offend people, in any given situation, I am almost always the one who needs to apologize. I haven’t been on the receiving end of an apology for quite some time. That made this message even more intriguing for me specifically. 

         I must give a little bit of a back-story for this to make sense. If you’ve been following me since my days on Xanga, a blogging host, then you may remember this incident. For those who haven’t, I would like to say that the BigSam82 that you know from this site is a very different man than the one who used to post on Xanga. When I began posting on Xanga, I was in a very angry & disenchanted place spiritually. I would post things for the specific purpose of making people angry & to stir the pot. Not good things. I regret that & I want to apologize to anyone who was hurt by anything that I said on that site. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. My pot-stirring, judgmental, & arrogant attitude (& also my weight) was then used as ammunition for someone who created a fake Xanga where they posted hurtful things. At that time I had tracking software installed on my blog, which I used to identify the culprit as a guy named Brent. I then made a post on my blog calling him out publicly. You can view that post & the ensuing storm of comments here. I never admitted it at the time, but the things that were said on that site hurt me a little. To sum it all up, I was being a jerk & lashing out on my site, I didn’t like it when someone did the same thing to me, & I exposed it on my site hoping to embarrass the guilty party in retaliation. 

         Back to the present. The message on Facebook was from, none other than, Brent. The same Brent that I had called out in my post almost 4 years ago. I had honestly forgotten about the whole ordeal until I got this message. It was a small thing that happened 4 years ago, & it wasn’t like it was the first time that I had been called out for being overweight or a jerk. However, in his message Brent wrote me a heartfelt apology admitting his hand in the whole thing & asked for my forgiveness. I really couldn’t believe it. Of course, I forgave him with no qualms & asked for forgiveness in return for my part in the whole ordeal.

         I post all of this to say that it is now time for this all to come full circle. 4 years ago I made a post calling Brent out as a coward that was attempting to hide behind the anonymity of the web. Now I want to make a post calling Brent out for being a man of courage & integrity. It takes bravery to step up & apologize for anything right away, but it takes some serious stones to apologize for something that small 4 years in the past. If we would all be so courageous & humble, I think we’d be very surprised at the healing & growth that can take place as a result. I have been very inspired by Brent’s actions, & I want to make it a point to have that kind of courageous humility in the future. Thank you, Brent & God bless you.

Random Things

Published at November 16, 2009 in Personal Update, Church, Fun, Holidays, Spirituality, Music and Humor. 3 Comments

Just wanted to cover a few tidbits of randomness today.

1. It’s time to get back into the habit of posting more often. I’m afraid that the allure of twitter to sum up my thoughts in 140 characters or less just isn’t the same as really having a place to put more important subject matter.

2. At the same time, I don’t feel the burning need to write about hot theological topics as much as I used to. It’s not that I don’t feel passionately about them anymore so much as it is that I feel like it’s just white noise now. It probably was then, too, but I was too arrogant to see that; A. there is nothing new under the sun, & B. I didn’t have it all figured out at age 24 anymore than anyone else ever has it all figured out. So, I may write about theological & spiritual topics from time to time because they are very important to me, but I’ll try my best to make it relevant & not just white noise.

3. I love my job so much!

4. I miss being home during college football season more than any other time.

5. If you are playing Christmas music already, you need to stop it. It isn’t Thanksgiving yet. Public Law 179 category 7 clearly states that;

“Christmas, or holiday, music shall not be played, listened to, bought or sold, be it privately or in the public arena, until such time as Thanksgiving Day of the year in question has reached 12:00 noon CST. At such time, Christmas, or holiday, music may be played, listened to, bought and sold until, but no later than 12:00 noon CST on New Year’s Day of the ensuing year. Anyone accused, tried, & convicted of doing anything other than what is previously stated shall be swiftly & firmly kicked & punched repeatedly & without prejudice by Samuel L. Peters in one of the following areas of his/her own choosing; 1. The shins. 2. The groin (or “balls” as it were) 3. The face, esophagus, and/or clavicle 4. The pancreas or 5. The shoulder blade.”

6. Thank you. That is all.

The Hard Way

Published at October 3, 2009 in Personal Update, Marriage, Being a Man, Family and Spirituality. 0 Comments

I’ve always been the type of person that has been able to learn things vicariously. I’m not sure why this is. I guess I’m just made that way. If I see or hear about someone making a big mistake in some way or another, I’m usually pretty good about recognizing where the breakdown occurred & avoiding it myself. However, in a break from what has been the norm in my life, I’ve been having to learn things the hard way over the past year or so. I really don’t like it at all, & I certainly don’t recommend it to anyone. It’s called “the hard way” for a very good reason. So, I’m hoping that with this post I can help someone out there to avoid learning the hard way & learn these things vicariously. Here are a few lessons, in no particular order, that I have learned over the past year or so the hard way;

1. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch-

In other words, don’t move to an apartment that costs $1700 dollars a month until you have secured a job that pays high enough to support that rent. No matter how much you may believe that you are warm poop, & can find a job whenever you want it, you may not be as valuable as you think.

2. When Mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy-

Don’t just tell your wife how amazing she is, show her. Treat her well no matter what. Don’t let stress, or a bad day, or a difficult situation, or anything else stop you. The minute you start thinking about your own issues & problems, start feeling sorry for yourself, & neglect to nurture her, that is the minute when you have made a grave mistake. If you thought things were tough before, you just try to make it through the same things without that amazing woman’s love & admiration, & you’ll see how bad things can really get. So, first & foremost, love & serve your wife. I’ve learned that if Brooklynne is sad, I feel it with her. Not because she is mean or angry at me, she is way too amazing for that, but because my happiness & success are completely interwoven with hers. It is impossible for me to be happy if she is not.

3. He that has will be given more-

Be grateful for all the things that you have that are good. When you focus on negatives & problems, you get down, & when you get down, you don’t do as well at the things you try to do, & when you don’t do well at the things you try to do, you will run into only more negatives & problems. Both failure & success are cycles that either begin or end based on where your focus is. Yes, crap happens. Sometimes HUGE crap happens, & that HUGE crap may very well be your fault, & it may be a very big deal. I’m not saying that you should ignore problems in your life. You can either learn from it or lose from it, & that decision is entirely up to you. The people that are truly successful & happy in life are the people that focus on what they have instead of what they don’t have. No matter what your situation is, make sure you spend more time giving God thanks & praise than you do asking for stuff. If you do, I think you’ll find that there’s not that much more that you really need.

That’s all for today class. Your assignment is to comment with either a lesson that you have had to learn the hard way or something that you have taken for granted that you commit to being thankful for in the future. Ready, go!

Tipping Is Not a City In China

Published at July 27, 2009 in Worst experience of my life and Spirituality. 5 Comments

If you can afford a nice meal, but can’t quite afford for a good tip, then you shouldn’t go out. I’m sorry, but it’s just common courtesy. I understand. It hard economic times for everyone right now. That, however, is no excuse for tipping poorly. Your budget for the meal needs to include enough for a good tip. If that becomes more than you can afford, then you eat Top Ramen with the rest of us. You don’t get to go out to eat. Get it through your heads people!  

One group of people especially needs to recognize this. I served the First Pentecostal Church on the ship Saturday afternoon. They had a group of 31, & they ran me ragged for 3 hours getting them everything under the sun. I did an excellent job, & kept everybody happy & their glasses full. They even said that I had done an outstanding job. They left me $4.00. Four. It never ceases to amaze me how Christians can go out to restaurants, order the cheapest stuff on the menu, run the waiter around like a slave, & then not tip well. I’m not going to yell & rant about this because that has been done many times over. All I have to say is that if you go to church regularly, & you don’t steal, fornicate, commit adultery or murder, do drugs, or swear, but you are rude & unkind to those who serve you, then you truly are a resounding gong & clanging cymbal. I’m done being angry about this. I’ve moved now to being disappointed & ashamed.