Kama Sutra...for children!

I remember when I was a young kid and I saw my first Playboy magazine. I was at the airport with my family. I had heard of the magazine and, of course, the pictures on the monthly covers were always provocative. I stole guilty glances whenever they came into view. This was before stores thought to put the black covers in front of the magazines and before they put all the magazines in sealed plastic sleeves. I waited for my parents and twin sister to leave the store and said I would be right with them. When they were just out of sight, I grabbed the Playboy and flipped through the pages as fast as possible. My only thought was, "How are her nipples so pink?!?" I am not happy to have that memory etched in my brain, though it is not nearly so bad as much of the sludge I desensitized it with later in life when I became addicted to pornography.

All of this flashed through my mind today while I was at Barnes & Noble. I've spent the better part of 17 years battling the images I have sealed in my mind. I was looking at board games when I took a casual glance to my side and saw the "adult" section. There were incredibly lustful pictures of outwardly gorgeous women on the covers that staggered me in my steps. One of the books in particular was about 4 feet off the ground and stuck out into the aisle. On its cover were a completely nude woman and man engaged in a sexual acts (Kama Sutra) and my only thought was of myself when I was a kid and how such images hijacked my brain for the better part of half my life.

I approached one of the store clerks and asked if he could find a more "proper" place to position the book. All he said to me was, "Yeah, we tried to move those books as far away from the kid's section as possible but YOU can put it on its side since it's bothering you." Goodness, in my flesh I would have rather bought the book instead of bringing it up to him! Still, I found it annoying that he turned the situation around on me as if I was the problem. His eyes seemed to scream out accusingly, "Of course it's completely natural to put sexual books at eyesight near the board games where kids, before their time, will seek to know just what the hell they're looking at!"

Many people like this man have decided that it is perfectly acceptable for kids to get an "education" in sexuality. I am here to emphatically say that it wrecked my sexuality and view of women and I have only just begun to recover. I wish I had never been given the opportunity as a child to sexualize women and see them as objects of my pleasure. I'm still not even sure I know what it means to be attracted to a woman apart from her looks. I've never been in love and I'm afraid of intimacy. I've cheapened sex as if it's only something that I can get as opposed to what I can give and I'm so sad and weary in my heart because of it. It's sickening.

But God, who is rich in mercy, has renewed me by the washing of His Holy Spirit. He has given me new eyes to look on women as creatures who are deeply loved in spite of their flaws. He has greatly healed my heart after I went hiding from love through deeply perverted actions and thoughts related to voyeurism, exhibitionism, homosexuality and pornography. I can't wait to get married someday and experience sex as God planned for me to: In a safe, caring and committed relationship with the love of my life. I deeply desire the opportunity to raise our kids and provide for them a spiritual shelter where they can take refuge in Jesus from the evils of this world. One of my most joyful thoughts is of my children loving Christ as their Savior.

So I am pleased to say that God has brought my experience full circle, from a lonely and wounded child furtively looking at a Playboy, to a sex addict, to a recovered addict and excited potential father. By God's grace, my struggle will not be that of my children. In spite of my sin, God has redeemed me and can do the same for you.

The latest school shooting.

I was talking about the elementary school massacre with my parents tonight, heard my voice rise, felt my anger mounting and sensed my frustration spilling over. So I did what any man will do. I talked about what's wrong with "the system". I broke down, point by point, why the system is inadequate to protect our children.

"Our schools are 'gun free'" the system says! "But that only applies to those who choose to obey it," I reply.

"We have 100% ID check in the front office of the campus," boasts the system! "But what of those who have no intention of revealing their identity?"

"We've developed new 'lock down' procedures to keep the bad people out," we hear. "But doesn't that only go into effect once the bad people are in?"

I remembered my time as a security guard at Escondido Charter High School. Some students and parents would never trust me with a weapon. It was hard enough to carry pepper spray without having to justify myself. The word "security" on my back felt more like a target, at times. Then I would see the Brinks armored car drive up. Two serious looking men with guns strapped to their hips were always present. So I started to question more. Why do we trust security to protect our money that is only worth as much as people believe it to be worth? Why don't we trust guards to be armed around our children who are priceless and have inherent worth? The logical questions from there were, what do we value? Are our priorities mixed up?

These thoughts didn't help me. Well, they certainly "helped" my sense of helplessness. The children in Connecticut are dead. I can't bring them back. Their families are far away. I can't provide them comfort. The murderer is finished. I could not kill him. I could offer no protection against him.

So I found that the real source of my anger was not "the system" but my impotence. My inability to affect change. My incapacity to provide comfort. Where do I go from here? Then I remembered. I recalled why I stayed at the high school for so many years. I was not there to protect. I was not there to comfort. I was not there to exact vengeance. I was not there to save. No, I was there to point those kids to who their protection was. Who the provider of their comfort and hope could be. Who the avenger of those who had visited iniquity upon them was. The man who is the wellspring of salvation and forgiver of sins. The lover of our souls. The living God. Jesus.

I can't destroy the evil that took so many young lives today but I know the God who can. Vengeance is His and He will have it. Most importantly, comfort is in Him and He will give it. We are His children and He loves our souls far more than we could ever love the souls of those children who perished today. We have the proof of His love too. We have so much sin. Someone had to die for it. God came down to earth as a fragile human and died for our sins in our place so that we might turn to Him and love Him and know that, though this life will end, we will live forever with Jesus and all who put their trust in Him. If we believe that then we can know that the evil this man committed himself to today will be used by God, somehow, for good. In the end, love wins.

Don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out.

A tolerant, open-minded, non-judgmental attitude is publicly presented as the creme de la creme of progressive secular humanism and group think. It is often represented by those bumper stickers that leave a tickle of annoyance to squirm through the back of your mind: "COEXIST" and "TOLERANCE" being the main examples wherein the letters are scrawled out as major religious symbols (i.e. the "t" is a cross, the "c" is the star and crescent). While thinking about this, I ran across a quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton: "When a Man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything."

...And believing in "anything" can get you killed because having true wisdom tends to shut one's mind to foolish, man-made ideologies that have no capability to save or enrich (Consider this passage from Proverbs 1). Wisdom brings life but a belief in "anything" breeds foolishness. The image below conveys the fallacy of open-mindedness and tolerance between competing and wholly different ideologies and philosophies.


I have seen quotes from Muslims and atheists that fall along the lines of "We love death more than you love life." Such people will lord their authority over those who are not willing to sacrifice their life to protect what is good and holy. Where can we find such a person? I thank God that through Jesus Christ we have such an advocate and defender. Only Jesus has the strength to save us from our enemies in this life and our final enemy which is death. All those who put their trust in Him will by no means be put to shame.

Look to the chickens for wisdom!

Do you have chickens? I do. They are incredibly wise creatures in their own way. They live according to their design and they never deviate from the simple existence they were created for. They wake up with the sun and go to to bed with its setting. For them this process is simple: They walk into their coop when it gets dark and walk out when the sun rises. That's it. Compare that to our sleeping habits (or lack thereof). And we think that we are wiser than such humble birds!

I work at a school and every morning a large number of the students respond to my question of how they're doing that morning with a lame "I'm tired. I didn't sleep much last night." It's almost always the same students! Look to the chickens for wisdom! But I digress.

I mention the simplicity of a chicken's life to bring up some important lessons they have taught me. Lesson one: They are absolutely, totally and completely helpless in almost every conceivable way. They can't fly but have wings to supplement a low jumping capability. They can barely run at all. They panic when endangered. Their only defense is to hide because even though they have beaks and claws, they are dull and useless and made for seeds, people! Lesson two: They fully depend on my protection. This simply means locking the door to their coop at night. If their door is not locked, the raccoons, opossums, coyotes and other night predators will come to eat them. And they will be successful in the hunt because they have nothing to fear.

Sadly, spiritually, we are exactly the same. We believe we can keep our souls safe simply by withdrawing into the shelter of whatever gives us comfort, whether it be our guns, families, religion, education, position, drugs, lusts, etc. Yet, if we place our hope in such places, we will be snatched from the comfort they provide in an instant or bound forever with their siren calls. This is simply because no good protector would ever lock his wards into such a house of cards. Only an enemy would ever seek to spring such an ambush to trap our hearts with those things that will pass away no matter how hard we hold on. Who is that enemy? We are told in scripture that "[Our] adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

My favorite chicken, eaten last week while I was gone on vacation

Where can we run to hide from such deceit? From what I wrote, if we place our hope in what we see then we are damned if we do (find peace in it) and damned if we don't. We are either trapped to rot in our comforts or chased out to be consumed by the predator. There is only one house in which to find safety and that is in the house of God! Psalm 91:1-2 states:

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.” (Chapter linked above)

There is only one Man in whom to trust when we are aimlessly wandering and chained. Matthew 9:36 states, "But when Jesus saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd." (Again, incredible chapter linked above)

But Jesus wasn't just moved with compassion for we know He acted upon it. For our final hope, we are given Isaiah 61:1 in which the Lord says of God,

"He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound..." (Linked)

So I end by saying trust in the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and He shall keep you safe and give your soul liberty.

Government by coercion or conscience?

Government should have a very specific and limited jurisdiction which can be expressed using the idea of natural law which is a characteristic of the Creator. We will get back to natural law, but for now, this begs the question: What is government? There are two types: An impartial, coercive external government and a personal, internal, conscience-driven or spirit-led self-government. Relating to external governance, the institutionalized type we have all encountered I will simply call "the government." This encapsulates the regulatory, bureaucratic, legislative, judicial and executive authorities of national, state and local governments. In defining these two types, it is now possible to determine the authorities of each.

According to natural law, the authority of the external governance must extrapolate an order of individualistic natural rights according to human nature that it is authorized to defend. Because natural rights are vested in the person and not the government, the authority of the external governance comes from a society of moral individuals. Using reason, this can only be done by a community through the application of rational thought and techniques to observe the universe. Because all created things bear a partial image of their creator, we can discern that there are things we humans have in common with our own. One of these commonalities is reason and it is shared with no other creature.

Because we can discern aspects of creation, we see around us a reasoned universe that obeys certain laws. Our Creator vested interest and skill into us as His creation and provides specific natural laws for us to abide by. Just as the laws of physics apply equally over time and space, natural law, by definition of being a law, applies to all people equally. Thus, an edict is handed down by our Creator that obligates those under natural law to protect the unalienable rights of all by "[organizing the government's] powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)


No governing structure has the authority to bind and loose one law-abiding individual over another. It is necessary then for the government's power to be universally enforced over the law-breaker. When relativistic social laws are allowed to discriminate between people, class and race warfare erupt and justice is lost. Natural laws and the rights given therein must transcend class and race. The Declaration of Independence states that among these rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

We are not given the gift of life so that it can be arbitrarily taken away by another recipient of the same gift. Having been given life, we have a cosmic expectation and the liberty to enjoy it as we see fit insofar as it does not infringe upon the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of others. We exercise the liberty of enjoying our life through the pursuit of happiness (or property as the Founders would also have said). Thus, without the protection of our pursuit of happiness, or fruits of our labor such as land and wages, we are stripped of the liberty to pursue happiness in our lives. Without the right to pursue happiness in our lives, the right to the gift of life has little meaning.

Reasonably, any use of a sovereign's self-government that infringes upon the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of another is cause for the coercive authority, or government, to engage itself in order to protect the victim, bind the law-breaker, reestablish order and force restitution. In a two realm system of governance in which natural rights are extended to individuals and the protection of those rights given by the people to the government, this is consistent. Quite simply, the protection offered by the government provides for equality of all people as a gift from God, equality before the law, and equal protection of rights.

Government operates by the consent of a moral, law-abiding citizenry in order for it to punish behaviors that infringe upon the natural rights of others. Government being instituted by the people, it is a fundamental responsibility of said people to dispel any government that fails them in such a duty. As our Declaration states, "...Whenever any form of government becomes destructive [of securing our rights], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Is our government operating under the consent of the governed and protecting us?

Red-blooded men!

The other day I was quietly sifting through a jumble of emails that have been calling out my name to be read for many weeks now. It seems that ever since the Presidential election I have been unwilling to read much that comes my way through such means. Either that or my love affair with Facebook has taken me from my first (and much simpler) love of email. That aside, I am not here to talk about relationships. I'm here to talk about the night I realized that I was a man.

The previous sentence, without any context, may seem rather risque. Thus, allow me to elaborate upon the circumstance in which I found myself. You see, I had the window in the computer room open so that I could experience the benefits of fresh air while I tried to wade through the stifling number of unread emails. The result of this was that I was able to hear any number of night time sounds that wafted into my ear canals. Imagine my reaction when I heard frantic squabbling coming from the chicken coop my landlady keeps on her property.

Being a responsible man and realizing that the chickens had not been locked up for the night, I figured that the source of their squabbling must have been either a raccoon or possum. I ran out of the house as quickly as my feet could take me and called upon Josh, the son of my friend and landlady, to come out with me as fast as possible with a flashlight.

The chickens were splayed around their cage and outside of their coop in various stages of shock and fright. My favorite, whom I call "Crazy Eyes McCluck" because of her crazy eyes and strange cluck, was almost comatose as her legs were locked in the upright position and her breast and head were sagging to the ground. Her wings were drooping to the ground and she was shaking slightly. She was a pitiful sight to say the least.

My manly instinct to protect chicks kicked in at that moment and with the help of Josh we managed to herd the ladies back into their coop and lock them up. Pushing them into their coop almost felt like the game "Whack a Mole" with them trying to leave as quickly as you herded them in. Now, chicken herding is fun and should become a national sport much as sheep herding is in the British Isles (see YouTube video) but I was half-naked without a shirt when the neighboring dog sent up a sharp growl at an avocado tree that grows inside of the cage.



A lonely leaf fell to the ground as I slowly looked up to the sound of soft rustling. I had figured that whatever creature had attacked the girls was long gone. I couldn't have been more wrong... I whispered to Josh for his flashlight and investigated the tree in my vulnerable and half-naked state. The beam alighted upon two specks of reflective, shiny blackness. To my horror and amazement, I saw looking back at me the two eyes of a raccoon the size of a medium-sized dog.

It's hands had the dimensions of a small child's.


Josh "oohed" and "aahed" and wished for a stick so that he would have the ability to beat the coon out of the tree. This reminded me of the two spears I had brought back from Uganda and I ordered Josh back into the house to grab them so that we could stab the raccoon and get it to leave the chicks alone. Soon, with spears and flashlights in hand, we began a systematic stabbing of the tree as we had lost sight of the animal. After spearing various branches, leaves and avocados I finally found the guy again and gave it a medium thrust to the belly (not a killing blow). Now terrified itself, and put in its proper place, the coon scampered away.

At the top of my lungs I bellowed a war cry that shivered the timbers of every tree and shriveled the lips of every marauding creature in the vicinity. I thrust my spear in the air and wiped the coons blood in swirling patterns upon my face. I erected a truly massive bonfire outside of my animal hide tent and watched my shadow dance with me late into the night. I poured smooth libations down my gullet in ever greater quantities as the gods looked down upon me in amazement. How can this not be the night when I became a man?