Category: Uncategorized

Senselessness and Ignorance

The past 3 days have been extremely painful to look at the news and to look at social media.  As if the senseless deaths of 3 people, wasn’t enough to turn you stomach, the fighting amongst people posting and trolling, has made me need to just go bang my head against a wall.  Anytime things like this happen, you are going to have people become irrational, people are going to be scared, people are going to need to vent.  But seeing posts that start calling others names and belittling the original poster or others commenting, how is the world is that even going to be productive or constructive.  

ignorant

adjective

1.lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned:

2.lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact:
3. uninformed; unaware.

4.due to or showing lack of knowledge or training:

What I want to vent about here is the senselessness of what has happened over the last couple of days in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.  No I don’t have all the facts, but I have seen multiple articles and the videos, and have been sick to my stomach all day over this.  What I don’t understand, is the abuse of using lethal force is these situations.  Self defense/Fear for your life has a fine line.  Writing this as a Black Belt, I was always trained to know that there was a line for self-defense.  If I were to get into a fight and knock the other person down and control them until someone comes, that would be fine.  If I were to knock this person out and then continue to hit them while they were on the ground, I have crossed a line because, I am no longer in danger.  This is based on the assumption that there are no weapons also.  And I won’t lie, weapons make things go to another level, but what we have seen in the past couple days, while these men were carrying guns, neither appear to have been reaching for them.  I wasn’t there,  I can’t talk to that point, but what I can say is that 2 men were killed in front of people, one in front of his fiancé and a 4 year old.  This is the one that tears me up the most.  There was a 4 year old girl in the back seat.  This man told the office that he had CCDW, and had it on him.  He was reaching for his license when he was shot 4 times.  The officer’s voice in the video that the fiancé started is panicked, while she remains calm.  This is senseless.  

Baton Rouge, a father is shot multiple times after being already put on the ground.  6 shots into someone that is already down.  Senseless.

I have friends and family in law enforcement, I do not envy their job.  In this line of duty, you know that you are putting your life on the line, you are sworn to serve and protect.  Where are the stun guns, tazers, or wounding shots. And I know that for every story like these there are 9 more stories of police officers doing good things, but at the end of the day, even one senseless killing is too many.

Now, as I’m writing this, we have vigilantes in Dallas, shooting police officers.  Violence breeds violence.  Eye for an eye tooth for a tooth no longer works.  We have to realize this at some point people.  What is this solving?  Nothing at all.  We just have more dead people, more fatherless children and husbandless wifes.  

Matthew 22:36-40New International Version (NIV)

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Racism, ignorance, and lack of good ol common sense, is tearing our country apart.  America once, the land of opportunity (for some), has shown itself in the recent years as it’s true self.  A country of power hungry priveledged people.  A country where the bullies get their way.  A country where if you don’t like something or someone, or you like someone’s something you just take it from them.  This ignorance has been a staple of our country for years, we all think about WW2, and Hitler rounding up all of the Jews, but what about our own country, rounding up all Japanese Americans or those that looked Asian, and putting them in internment camps.  No the government didn’t mass murder them, but still they were forced to give up their homes, businesses, everything with no choice.  

To all of you who have gotten you panties in a wad over the last year with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and been offended because you feel that All lives matter, it’s not that anyone is saying that there is a difference in the value of one life to another.  It comes down to those are the lives that are being ripped away in such public ways by senselessness, that it can’t go unnoticed.  The best comparison that I have seen on this was in a comment today comparing BLM to Breast Cancer Awareness.  Is breast cancer more important than another cancer, no all cancer sucks, all lives are precious.  

When are we as a country going to get it.  We have to push for change.  Change in Government, change in laws, change in priorities, changes in standards.  I get freaked out more and more all the time to think about what we will become as a country.  It’s not about stricter gun laws, and who can get guns.  Violence is going to happen when people don’t give a ______.  It could be a rock, a gun, a knife, a fist, it doesn’t matter.  As long as there are people who care, there is hope for this world.

by corymcglone

Married Mondays – Save it for Your Marriage

Welcome to another Married Monday.

Over the past few weeks, things have been very busy with life and work.  That’s the reason for no posts recently.  But it has given my time to really refresh and think about this post.  Reading through posts different places I decided on this weeks title – Save it for your Marriage.

  
We hear this many times leading up to getting married, or while you are just dating.  But outside of keeping certain things until your married, I want to talk about keeping some things inside your marriage.  I’m not talking about being faithful, that is a given.  I’m talking about what we share, what we publish out on social media.

We live in a time that everything we do, we feel the need to let everyone know where we are and what we are doing.  Now don’t get me wrong, social media is great, sharing your love and the things you do together, it’s great, but does it matter.  Are you breaking away from special times to post things, are you breaking away to post just to make people jealous?  Are you posting as a facade?   Why do we feel the need to post about every aspect of our lives?  Now don’t get me wrong, the “I have the greatest wife/husband, because …” post are nice.  But if the only time you are letting your spouse know that you love them or how you feel has come because of your friend’s, sister’s, cousin’s, nephew’s, grandson’s, uncle’s recent post that was re-shared from last month, that’s a problem.  I know I have said this multiple times over the past few months of doing this, but You must continually make an effort to let your spouse know how you feel when no one else is going to know that you told them they are wonderful.  It shouldn’t matter that others know how you feel about each other, as long as you both know.  If you both know and act like it, people are going to know just by seeing you.

  
The other thing that I want to encourage is keeping things private.  Not just if you have a problem, putting the other person on blast online, but have special things that are just for the two of you.  When you can go out on a date.  Find a new restaurant, and never take the kids there, find a new hobby or something that is for just the two of you.  Find something that will bring both of you joy, and keep it for yourselves.   Face it, the moment you take your child to a “fancy” restaurant, it is going to loose its draw for you as a couple, or you will start to feel guilty going there without them with you, maybe.

Take the time to focus on things that just the two of you do.  Maybe it’s 30 minutes that you get together at the gym, maybe it’s 30 minutes that you spend doing devotions together, maybe it’s that specific night per month that you go to a different coffee shop/restaurant, or that one day during the week/month that you meet for lunch.  Make plans for these things, and see them through.  But here comes the hard part, don’t tell anyone about it.  Don’t post it, don’t spend time getting the perfect selfie, save the moment in your minds.  Spend the time tech free, focus on each other, and keep it private.  Have special things that are just for the two of you.

So that is my challenge to you, what can you do that is just the two of you?  Can you go without telling everyone else your business?  See if you can, and see what happens.

by corymcglone

Married Mondays – Family

 Welcome back to another Married Monday.  This week I decided to go a little different.  Up to this point, I have kept it about just being a couple.  But for most of us, at some point after marriage comes, kids.  Let’s face it, we all have families, and they are always there.  We grow up and build our own families.

We build our families as we grow as a couple.  We are an example to our children, we show them what a family is.  We hopefully show them a strong happy marriage.  Your relationship is what will show through as you raise your family.

As much as I have talked about making time to be there for each other, we must make true time for Family.  In America, we see so much of a decay in the value of the family, the family gets bogged down with the stuff of life.  We have to go to this practice, and this appointment.  We have to go here and there.  At the end of the day we have only a few hours or maybe even minutes together as a family.

Find ways to do more together as a family.  Don’t rely on the annual summer vacation, or spring break, to be your only time devoted to each other.  I’m writing this after spending just a normal weekend at home, but some stuff that I wanted to do didn’t happen, and it was a blessing.  Having the time to spend with the wife and the munchkin, that I didn’t expect to get, was the highlight of the weekend.

So I want to challenge all of you, beyond spending time just with each other, and building your relationship as a couple, keep up with your family.  It’s easy to focus on one or the other.  It’s easy to concentrate on just family, it’s easy to focus on just your relationship.  It takes work to balance both.  It takes work to balance, a relationship, a family, a job, a career, a social life.  When you step back at the end of the day, and look at what is most important, I hope that you make the right choices.

by corymcglone