I want to write about life, but if I spent all of my time trying to write about life, I’d miss life.

I want to write, and I’m not sure why.

What can I write about?  Suggestions?

When you think of slavery, you probably think of a lot of things.  Shackles, the Civil War, Abe Lincoln, abuse, discrimination, a bad time in American history.   You may even harvest a lot of emotions about it.  maybe your family tree leads back to slavery.  Maybe your family tree leads back to slave owners.  The days of slavery were hurtful.  The days where a human was owned by another human are over, thank God those days are over…. Right!!?

Wrong.

There are more slaves today than ever before in the history of humans.  MORE.  The industry makes an estimated $32 billion a year. That’s more than Starbucks, Nike and Google combined!

How does this happen?

A lot of different ways.  A woman desperate to escape poverty is promised a new life in America.  She accepts the offer, and next thing she knows she’s in a brothel.  A young man’s parents were killed in a war.  Next thing you know, he’s snorting cocaine and fighting a grown man’s war.  A young lady was proposed to.  She goes to get married, and ends up a slave to her ‘husband’.  A parent, husband or boyfriend, in efforts to make some money sell thier girls into it.  Not just mature grown women.  I’m talking 6-death.  The average age is 12 years old, but can start as young as 6.

A lot of times they will force these women into using drugs, (Which probably isn’t difficult, as it offers some sort of escape) so, when/if someone tries to rescue them, they have withdrawels, and go back to their pimp/drug supplier/the only thing they know.  Women are sold and forced to sleep with men 20 – 60 times a day!  When they’re younger, their hymens are sewed, to remain ‘virgins’ because that brings in more money.

Where in the world does this happen?  All over.  Atlanta is the number 1 city in America.  But sits at #8 for the entire world.  They are kidnapped, and flown to America.  They are kept under the radar in brothels, in your backyard.  This could be happening just five minutes away from your house.  Yet, we sit comfortably by and ignore it.  Knowledge is power, yet we choose ignorance, because it’s bliss.  Now you know.  You can sit on this.  Odds are good, if you live near a major city, or an airport of any kind, this is happening.  What does our country do about this?  Well, typically, instead of going after the big dogs, we arrest the 17/18 year old girl.  Get her bail and fine money, which is chump change to her pimp, and don’t offer her any help, we just send her back out to the street to be raped, beaten, abused, tortured emotionally and physically.

Do you watch porn?  Did you know that over half of the porn on the internet today is actually a guy with a video camera and a hundred bucks to buy this girl?  Did you know that he’s recording these slaves, and then charging you to watch them on the internet.   Did you know, that your hunger for porn is helping fund the demand for sex slavery?  My guess is you had never thought about that.

There are thousands of places you can go to help fight this.  There are places all over the internet.   Please think about this, and spread the word.  The world needs to know about the biggest slave trade in history happening right behind our backs.

Learn More:

http://www.callandresponse.com/
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.innocenceatlanta.org/
http://www.humantrafficking.org/

On Christmas Eve, I had some friends, and my girlfriend over.  My mom asked me for my December rent.  I told her I had already paid it, and a fight ensued.  She was screaming, I was screaming.  She didn’t know there were gifts from me under the tree.  She was telling me I was too tied up with my girlfriend at the time.  She said that all I did was spent money on weed and my girlfriend.   I told her she had a horrible memory, and I already paid.  I told her if she could stay sober, her memory would be better.  *POW*.  Fist across the face.  It’s how I was punished growing up, and I learned at a young age to never hit a woman.  I didn’t budge.  I stared her in the face and said, “Do. Not. Hit. Me. Again.”  *POW*.  Another one, and another one.  At this point it was flurries.  I did not budge.  When she stopped, she was staring at me.  I turned my head, and spit on the wall, and I saw it.  Blood.  Blood was running down the wall.  I felt the warmth on my face.  I grinned.

“You can’t hit me anymore, I’m bigger than that now.”

“GET OUT, and don’t come back!”

I reached into my back pocket at took out my money.  I don’t remember how much it was, but I remember it was everything I had.  I threw it at her, and left.

I went and got into my friends car, and we drove off.

I had nowhere to go.  I was destroyed.  Not because I had nowhere to go, but because my mom threw me out on Christmas eve.  My heart hurt.  My friend, Katie called her mom, they had a conversation, and she hung up.  She looked at me and said, “We have a spare bedroom.  You can crash at my house tonight.”

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t really have a choice.  I said, “Thank you.”

When we got to her house, I was able to assess the damage.  My eye was swollen, and my lips were all bloodied.  I had dried blood running down my face.  I was a mess.  Her mom showed me my room, and gave me some of her older sons clothes. (That were like, XLs, cause dude was like 6 feet tall.) We hung out for a little while, and I retired to bed, they told me that breakfast is at 10:00 every Christmas.

Christmas morning, I slept in.  I remember hearing the family get up and go downstairs, but I didn’t want to intrude.  I stayed in bed, replaying the events that had taken shape the night before, and cried.  I imagined my family opening up my gifts, without me.  I imagined my mom talking about me, and no one saying anything because they were scared.  I felt empty.

Around 9:55, I got up, got decent, and went downstairs.  Everyone looked at me, wished me a Merry Christmas, and offered me breakfast.  I sat down at the table and we all ate.  About halfway through the meal, Karen, (The mom) got up, walked over to the tree and picked up 4 gifts.  She carried them over to the table, and put them in front of me.  I didn’t know what to say.  ”Merry Christmas, Andy.”  Everyone was smiling huge.  I cried.

The night before, when I went to bed, they went out, found a store that was still open and bought me gifts.  The essentials.  Socks, beard trimmer, Shirts.

I remember that day so vividly.  I remember how happy everyone looked when I was getting a gift.  I remember being blown away by the ‘family-ness’ that was present that day.

The smallest gesture made my entire Christmas a little easier.  For that, I will always be thankful.

On a side note, Karen was able to be present for my baptism some 8 years later.  I often wonder if she knows that she very possibly planted the first seed.

My parents took us out to dinner.  This wasn’t unordinary.  Though it had slowed quite a bit in recent months.  I never really questioned why, I just assumed they were busy.  We were sitting in the restaurant, and had ordered, and my dad asked us, “Have you ever heard the story of the Gift of the Magi?”

Obviously, being pretty young, none of us had, so we all shook our heads.  He told us about the man and his watch, and the girl and her hair, and all the stuff that lead up to the ending.   He asked us what we thought the moral of the story was.  None of us had really good answers, so we just sat there, clueless.

He proceeded to tell us that there is a lot more to Christmas than getting gifts.  He told us that being with people you love, and knowing you’re loved is important.  He told us that sometimes, when life gets tough, the most important thing is knowing you’re surrounded by people who love you.  He told us that, this Christmas wouldn’t be like other Christmases, because he had lost his job.  He told us that we would have a meal, and be loved, and he, with tears in his eyes, told us that he hoped we still loved him.

We ate our meals and went home.  Our tree was up and stockings were hung, and honestly I don’t remember feeling differently at that moment.  I didn’t know what the weeks, months, or years were going to bring, which, I guess is why I carried on doing my own thing.  I don’t remember much about how that Christmas went, I do remember sleeping in.  I remember women from the school bringing us blankets and ‘necessities’ for our gifts, and I remember being really embarrassed about that.  I remember a woman bringing dinner over, and I remember none of us liking it, because it wasn’t mom’s cooking.

After living out what God had in store for me and my family the next 10-15 years, I can say it wasn’t easy.  I can say it’s hard to tell your friends you didn’t get anything.  I can say, it’s nice to have friends who understood.  I can say, even with all of our disfunction, it was nice to have a family.

What I wouldn’t give, to wake up this Christmas, with my wife and my daughter and head over to my mom’s house and listen to her scream frantically about how she’s been slaving all day to prepare a meal, to have Andrea taste my mom’s cooking.  What I wouldn’t give to see Adrienne, my sister, who passed 9 years ago. or Matthew, who, up until he died 8 years ago, we spent EVERY Christmas together since I was 6.

It wasn’t until all of the loss in my life, or even until this very moment, in writing this out that I truely understood what my dad was saying that night at the restaurant.

Gifts are cool to get, and a really good excuse to get together.  But love.  Love is what makes it all worth it.  The value of a gift is not the price tag.  The value of a gift is as deep as the love of the person who gave it.  The gift isn’t the object at all.  The gift is the love.  Christmas defies all logic.  From the birth of a baby born of a virgin, to a disfunctional family establishing a love so deep that it hurts the very core of my being.

Do me a favor this year.  Give love.  I don’t care how you do it, but make sure everyone in your life knows they’re loved.  There will be a Christmas where you will wish you could.

Merry Christmas ladies and gents.

Being angry does something to your heart.  You can’t deny it.  When you’re angry, it’s hard to say things like, “Sorry..” or, “I Love You..” or, “I was wrong..”.  When you’re angry, it makes it easier to say cruel things.  It makes it easier to destroy trust.  It makes it easier to destroy relationships.  It makes it easier to hurt people you love.  Sometimes that can be undone, but you still leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth.

You can read 100 things on how not to anger, but the truth is, it has to be something inside of you.  There has to be a motivation in your heart and a decision in your brain.  Something that says, “It’s not worth it.”  I’m still working on it, every day, I’m working on it.  But I’ve gotten better and I can say, the moments when I feel like I’ve avoided anger are some of the best moments of my life.  I feel like, not only have I avoided anger, I’ve avoided hurting someone I love, I’ve avoided losing trust, I’ve avoided pain.

An old Chinese proverb says, “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”  5 years ago, I wouldn’t even know what that means, but today, it resonates deep in my soul.

1. Life’s Too Short to be Angry.
2. Marry Your Best Friend.
3. With Age Comes Wisdom.
4. Never Make Assumptions.
5. Your Parents are Right A Lot of the Time.
6. Vision is Only Half the Battle.
7. Never Give Up.
8. If You’re the Smartest Person in the Room, You’re in the Wrong Room.
9. Kindness and Hard Work Will Take you Farther than Intelligence.
10. Laugh.
11. Never Detour From Your Beliefs.
12. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone.
13. Don’t Lie, Don’t Cheat, Don’t Steal.
14. In Every Battle, Arm Yourself With Love.
15. Nothing is More Important Than Family.
16. Everyone is Going Through Something.
17. Forgive. Holding a Grudge is Only Hurting You.

These are the things I try to remember every day.  These are the things that I believe have shaped who I am today.  I plan on going in to detail on each one.  What are somethings I’ve missed?

The Packaging:

The packaging was nice.   I opened the box, and my Nook was right there, in true presentation form.  I could tell that they had really thought about packaging, which is a good thing to me.  They still have a long way to go before getting what I call “The Apple Effect” down, but it was a nice touch.  I took it out of the package and it felt nice.  Very light, but not too cheap.  The concave on the back felt natural, and the new ‘coating’ they put on it adds a secure feeling.  the coating does smudge easily, but I’m ok with that.  I was surprised by how much smaller it was then the original nook, and also surprised because the screen, if anything, is a little bigger.  I also didn’t like how the page turn buttons were not labeled.  I guess the comfort of having arrows on them was nice for me.  (More on that later)

Initial Setup:

When I took the nook out of the package, there was a label that was clear, but not annoying that said, be sure to charge the nook all the way before using (It also said I could use it while it was charging).  So, I plugged it in, it turned on and setup begins.  It was very simple to setup, and the touchscreen worked great, but I noticed almost immediately I did not like the placement of their “Back” or “Cancel” button, on the keyboard.  When putting in my password, I pushed back twice on accident when trying to switch from letters to numbers.  Other than that, the setup was simple.  All I needed to know was my wireless password and my Barnes & Noble login information.  I did not have to plug it in to a computer, which, while that wouldn’t have been a huge deal, it was nice.

Settings:

Before I sat down and actually started reading, I wanted to play with some of the settings, and, well… just learn my Nook.  The home button is nothing new.  it’s right where you would expect, if you’ve ever used any Apple touch device. I went through my settings and there are a few things that jumped out at me.  1.  I get to choose which direction the buttons turn the page!  That’s why they’re not labeled.  Sweet.  I have smaller hands, so having the forward page turn on the bottom could certainly be a perk for me.  Great touch B&N. (no pun intended)  The next setting that caught my eye was “Social”.  I click it, and immediately see an option to link to Facebook, Twitter and Google.  Suh. Weet. There are also options to manage my contacts. (Which can be imported from Google, thank God, because I dreaded adding contacts)  Manage my Nook friends, and Manage visibility of my LendMe books.  I linked everything up, it imported my contacts, and I now have the ability to share with Facebook or Twitter.   The rest of the settings are pretty basic.

Actual Use:

First thing I notice is, whatever screen I am on, in the top left hand corner, there is a book icon.  That icon will take you directly to whatever book you’re reading now.  That’s awesome.  Not necessary, but awesome.  To me, that means that B&N are finally reeling it back in to being an eReader.  When I’m reading, if I touch any word on the page it highlights it and an option menu comes up.  Highlight, Add Note, Share or Look Up.  I can extend the highlighting to a sentence, paragraph or page.  It’s pretty simple to do, but just like any touch device I’ve used, it’s kind of hard to stop the highlighting where I want.  It’s made a little more tricky by the flashiness of the highlight function on the Nook.  Bookmarking is a breeze now, since all I have to do is tap the top right hand corner of the screen.

Highlight, add note and look up do what you would expect.  I love how easy it is to do all of those things.  The best part is, when using my wife’s iPad and the nook app, I see that all of those things sync (As does the bookmarking).  There is a little lag on it, and I’m trying to figure out exactly how, but it works.  I’ve proven that.

Share.  The share button is great.  You can find it when you highlight something, or even when you’re just looking at the details on a book.   Sharing is a great touch, and makes reading on my nook so much more convenient than reading a book.  Too many times I read a quote and immediately want to share it, but getting out my computer, typing it up, and blah blah blah is just too much work.  This takes that away.

Page turns are still flashy.  Not as bad as on the original, (and not that they bothered me then) but I think B&N oversold this one a bit.  It is better, but in hearing them talk about it, I seriously felt like they would be almost nonexistent.  I think it was a silly thing to advertise in the first place, especially with all this other stuff they didn’t even mention.

What’s Missing?

I’ve made it no secret that I think the eReader makers have made some pretty big mistakes.  The main, to me, was the fact that they seemed to be straying away from making eReaders, and instead, have been focusing on making the eReader everything but.  This time around, I don’t think that’s the case.

They have removed the web browser all together. That’s huge.  I love it.  I’m sure some people are gonna be annoyed.  I’m excited by this.  If I wanted a web browser, I wouldn’t buy an eReader, I’d buy a tablet.

They have also removed the mp3 feature.  I’m 50/50 on this.  By my previous logic, I should say, “If I want to listen to music, I’ll buy an mp3 player.”  There was something nice about having that on the back burner.  If my phone or mp3 player got stolen, it was nice knowing that I did have some music on my reader, just in case.  In the end, I think they did the right thing.  Focus on the eReader.

My overall thought on this device?  B+.  I think there are things that could be done better(Which I will write about later), but most importantly, I think all of those things can be done with software/firmware updates. (Which is awesome because I won’t have to buy a new device.)

By far the best eReader on the market today, but all together, the eReader has a long way to go before they’re at their prime.

First of all, I’ve noticed that there’s not one dominant force.  Remember when the iPod came out?  That was it.  That was what every other MP3 player was striving to be like. From the organization of the music, and loading up the iPod with songs, all the way to the user interface, that was simple, and easy to use.  Anyone could use it, and everyone wanted it.  I haven’t seen that in the e-reader market yet.  No one has jumped in as the leader. 

That brings me to another point.  File format.  One way the MP3 player market was so successful is, well, they all played mp3′s.  There was one (for the most part) format that was universal.  Every player played that file type, and you could buy your music from any source.  It triggered competition.  Right now, in the e-reader world, that’s not the case.  There is epub, but you have to make sure the e-reader you’re buying will read epub files.  That’s not  how the market should be.  It doesn’t encourage competition, and it locks the consumer into a singular market, so they don’t have much of a choice of where to buy.  Right now, if you buy an e-reader, you have to decide on the e-reader, and in turn, where you are going to buy your books for the remainder of the life of your e-reader. Not only that, when your device does, eventually get stolen, break, or outdated, if you want to keep your books, you have to keep the same brand e-reader.  No bueno.

What needs to happen? 

Someone needs to come out as the leader.  The leader in file management, the leader in user experience, the leader in all things e-reader.  Developers who actually use an e-reader, need to be hired.  Developers who won’t say, “That’s good enough.” or, “They’ll figure it out.”  Developers who instead think of some of the major demands from an e-reader and make it happen.  A few things I can think of.  Easy ‘dog earing’ of pages.  Ease of bookmarking, note taking, and highlighting.  Syncing of bookmarks, notes, and highlights  over multiple devices.  Dare I say the ability to send notes to my e-mail or evernote?   Page turns are slow, and to top it off, if I do have a device that can read epub files, I have to load them on to my device, through the file system. 

That brings me to another point.  There’s no app to load my device.  Why can’t someone develop an application that has my ebook library, while we’re at it, why can’t that same app connect to book stores?  Why can’t that same app, manage my library on my computer and keep it organized?  

The market has been flooded with new, cheaper, devices that do, essentially the same thing as the old models.  Nothing is a game changer and, from what I can tell, any decent developer is being used to develop apps for tablets, not to work on the interface of the device.  Some may see this as a good thing, I see this is a flaw. 

So, e-reader companies everywhere, hear my cry.  You could be so much better.  You could sell more devices, and the consumer could be way happier.  I’m very serious when I say this.  Step up your game, or just settle for making all of your money on book sales through an Android Tablet or iPad, and give up production of the device.  Right now, you’re failing.

Jesus said to take care of them, but most of His followers, I think, tend to think it’s someone else’s job. As a rule, we don’t even think they exist. Widows are largely out of sight, and we’ve empowered women to take  care of themselves so it’s not PC to try and help. And orphans are hidden away in orphanages or in foster care. But I wanna talk about widows. Who are they? What is our responsibility?

A careful look around my city reveals a couple of different kinds of widows. First, there are the traditional, elderly ladies, whose husbands have died. I’m from a small town, and there, they are everywhere. Usually they are looked after by their adult children or by a group of church ladies. I think this is what Jesus had in mind. I know a young father who spends time regularly just eating meals with the widows in his neighborhood, giving them access to his young daughter. What  a gift; they get a free granddaughter and she gets many grandmothers. Nothing better!

Then, there are the less visible or recognizable widows. With large numbers of immigrants in our midst, and with an aggressive deportation policy by our government, they are being left behind here without jobs and with children in larger and larger numbers. Inhumane immigration policies like those recently put in place in Arizona and Georgia give immigrants little recourse when they find themselves in situations where they have need. Even when crimes are being committed against them, they are powerless. No matter what government policy is, though, our allegiance is to our Creator, and His call is to care and to take care.

Two other groups of women who deserve our care are those made widows by one of the three wars we are in currently, and those made so by men who walk out of marriages to avoid responsibility.

What do we owe these women? Basic needs. Companionship. Caring. All the things we have come to look to the government to do for those who can’t do for themselves. Where I grew up, there is the concept of treating all women they they were your mama. This assumes that you treat your mama right. Let’s get to it.

http://jeverettphoto.wordpress.com/widows-in-america/

If the rest of the country is anything like Georgia, (heh) then you’ve seen signs all over telling you that Judgement Day is happening this Saturday.  It’s easy to point and laugh, because, well, doesn’t the Bible teach us that no man will know the day?  AsI’ve stated in previous posts, I can’t pretend to know everything the Bible is saying.  I know it says that, but I don’t know the context, the surrounding words, and what God meant when he said somehting about recieving power in the Holy Spirit and me being his witness.  I don’t know. 

Is it scary to think about, “What if he’s right?”  Well… Yeah!  Of course it’s scary. 

Here’s my thoughts. 

God and Jesus are peculiar.  Let’s be real for a minute.  When Jesus was here, in human form, things were weird.  The kings were scared he was going to overthrow them, and I’m fairly certain the disciples thought there was going to be a revolution.  I think most people were expecting a holy king to take the throne, and reign over all of us forever.  In a worldly sense. 

Here’s what people were not expecting. 

A humble servent to come to earth, literally on the run from day one.  A man to seek the marginalized, poor, sick, downtrodden.  A man to defy everything we saw as holy.  A man to ride to town on a donkey, pull a coin from a fish’s mouth, spit in mud to heal the blind, wash people’s feet, draw in the sand, stand up for sinners, and die on a cross. 

So.  Like I said, I don’t know what judgement day is ’supposed’ to look like, but I do know that we’ll all probably be really surprised.  Whether it’s Saturday, in January, or in 2134, I think we will probably be surprised when it happens. 

Until then, I’m going to continue to do what I *try* to do.  I’m going to try and love people, and love God.  I’m going to try to correct my foolish ways, and be a good steward and a great example to my family.  When I fall, I’m going to stand up and keep going.  And I think everyone should do the same.  Period.  Because no matter what you believe about when judgement day will happen, when you think about it, it makes all this other stuff seem silly.  The arguements, the political differences, all of that…. It is just silly.  It’s time for me to (Re:) Focus.  (I’m fairly certain “Re” is trademarked by the relevent church in America, but I’m borrowing it for this post.. hehe.)