I like this new Xanga experience. And I'm so glad to see so many of my favorite Xangans in this new Xanga adventure! Hello most beloved Xangans!! I have to give a huge Xanga shout out to John "GreekPhysique". I've followed John from my Blogger account for a long time. When I noticed John was still coming through on my feed, I visted his new Xanga 2.0, and from there simply signed into my own new site. John you are truly a beacon!!

I have been busy. Nearly 3 weeks without a day off. I did have one day, but I was so tired one day in 3 weeks did nothing for me. On my next birthday I will be 50 years old, and I can't sling furniture the way I did in my 3o's and early 40's. If I keep up this pace it will no doubt become a killer pace. Fortunately I have a new employee. He is my only employee, and I don't know how I made it for a year and a quarter without him. And just so you know: My new employee is gay. Not only is my new employee gay, but I found out just the other day, one of my great nephews has come out of the closet, at school, and too his family. He's 14, and I'm not even a little surprised he's gay. In fact I'd be shocked if this kid weren't gay. My niece has been married 4 times, the last guy she married for a few months and had it annulled! she marries emotionally abusive douche bags. I know some of you will think calling someone a douche bag isn't Christian, but the truth is the truth, no matter how ugly. I'm certainly not saying the douche bags she marries are condemned to remain douche bags. Salvation by Jesus Christ takes away the douche baggieness of the world...Okay that isn't exactly how the Bible says it, but it's true none the less.

So, do you think I'm freaked out that my new employee is gay? Do you suppose I am blown over by the fact my great nephew is homosexual?! Perish the thought. Jesus overcomes the world! What is gay in the face of God's unending, all powerful love, grace, and mercy?? Nothing!! I tell you, nothing stands up in the face of God's all powerful love, mercy and grace!! The only thing which scares me are religious people. I don't believe gay people or Jesus Christ for that matter have any chance or hope against religious people. Give me all the gay people, hooker people, drug addicted people, but spare me from the religious people!! When I talk about religious people I don't mean people who are truly born again, Spirit filled, Christ chasing, dying to self, religious people. I'm humbled by the Christ chasing, dying to self religious people. I am blessed, challenged, and well...BLESSED by those everyday saints.

So do you know what I'm going to do about all this homosexuality I'm facing?? I haven't the foggiest idea what I will do. I thank God that I haven't got a clue what to do! I am watching and waiting for God to show up powerfully with his grace. I'm waiting for God to blow me completely away with how he wants to work through me to show love, understanding, and acceptance of these very hurt and broken people. And when I speak of acceptance I certainly don't mean accepting sin. When I speak of acceptance I am speaking of accepting people where they are right now. God will fix all that needs to be fixed through a life long walk in relationship with him. I couldn't fix myself, so I have nothing to give any other broken person. I completely rely on the wisdom of God to know how he wants me to walk with these young gay men. I get to see how God works and that is the greatest thing of all. I can count on God 100%. I on the other hand am a woeful failure. I am so grateful to know I am a woeful failure. There is a great deal less danger of me screwing up God's plans and works. So I am praying and expecting God to do amazing things in and through me, to show his love, grace, mercy, understanding and world overcoming power!

Blessings!!!

Lonnie

Holy Crap snacks! I never thought I'd find my xanga site again. You know how I found this place??? I went to John "GreekPhysique"'s site, and logged in. When I logged in there, or rather here it all was...waiting for me! John, you sir are a life saver!

WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Come on and hit me with some big ol' Xanga love!!!

 

 

August has been a tough month.  Too much work to do, and not enough time.  I'm also at the end of a pretty bad run of sinus infection.  It's rained a lot in the South this year, and grass is the thing I'm most allergic too, so it has been a tough time.  I finally hired someone to help me, and I may just survive.  This will be the first day I have to work on the book, awhile so I'm hoping to put a couple thousand words down today.  First I need to clean out my fridge...Can you say, Hazardous Waste Dump?  Hope I survive the ordeal.  If you see a headline that goes something like, "MAN FOUND DEAD IN HOME. KILLED BY LETHAL GROWTH IN FRIDGE!  You'll know it was me!   

 

My mom's younger sister died Friday.  Aunt Barb was a pistol, actually she was a pill.  Angry and bitter at God, but she was the main cause of all her troubles in life.  When her oldest daughter, a devoted Christian, passed unexpectedly about 7 years ago, we had hopes it would be a wake up call, and it seemed like Barb got going in the right direction.  The turn around in Barb didn't last very long.   The only wisdom I have to offer from Aunt Barb's death is: Death bed conversions are rare.   When we set a course away from God in our lives, how is it people expect to suddenly run into God near the end?   If you've spent all of life running from God why would anyone expect to run into him?   God isn't some crazy stalker.  If we make it clear, after being offered God, and seeing the good he's done in the lives of others, that we still want to escape him, then he'll let us.   God isn't a slavemaster, he is life and freedom.  If ya wants life on your terms, then God will let you have it.  

The fridge is calling my name...It's an evil rasping voice mocking me...Gotta suit up!! LATER!!

 

 

What Does A Writer's Space Look Like?

 

I've said I've been hard at work writing a book, and I'm not kidding.  I'm doing a chapter every few days.  I had to rework chapter 3 and then I started getting ideas for chapter 4, so a couple days ago I left 3 and went to 4.  

 

If you want to know what a writer's work space looks like, you'll have to ask a writer.

This is my desk, where I write.

 

 

The laptop is a Dell XPS M1330.  It's an old one.  The wireless has been disabled, and all the games and any other fun stuff has been removed.  I bought the puter used, and wiped clean.  It's small and light,  has never and will never be connected to the internet.   You'll notice also an iPad with a wireless keyboard and the wires sitting in front of the iPad are my ear buds.  I listen to music while I write.   But the iPad serves a more important job.  I need the iPad because it is connected to my wireless network.  When I need to do research I use my iPad.  I don't have room for another computer so the iPad is great.  If I'm too tempted to procrastinate then I put the iPad away and focus on writing.  

The only thing I'm allowed to do on the Writing 'Puter is writing, and I've never done anything else with it.  I love that it is recycled, and that I'll never have it connected.  

 

 

This picture is the left side of my writing space.  You'll notice there are two printers on my desk.  The one farthest to the left, with a John Wesley bobble head riding atop it (Thanks Jimmy Mallory for getting me the cool John Wesley bobble head!!), is my wireless printer.  I print from my other computers and my iPad on that one.  The printer closest to my Writing 'Puter is a cheapy printer which is wired to my Writing 'Puter.  When I travel or want a cup of coffee at Starbucks I can easily carry everything (except the printer) with me.  

If you look at the first picture you'll be looking at the first page of Chapter 4.  Since the Writing 'Puter isn't connected I have to print it out, and then load it on the scanner of the wireless printer, so I can scan it too email for the select few who I'll send drafts of the book to for their input.   I could use USB storage, but I don't want anything getting from my other computers into my Writer.   So I'm decidedly low tech, and I'll stay that way.  

At this rate I could have a finished first draft by the end of October.   Anyway if you find a writer somewhere please aks them what a writer's work space is supposed to look like.  I'd like to know how real writers work.  

 

Blessings!!

 

 

 

Work, today, was better than it has been in a long time.   But now I don't care.  I don't care about what I am doing.  I do care about doing my job to the best of my ability, but I don't care a thing about the work I'm doing.  I know this is God working in me, and it's very freeing, but I can see that I'm spinning my wheels.   I can't continue in the job I have for much longer.  I don't have the stamina and strength I did in my 30's and even into my 40's.  Even though I did this kind of job for more than a decade, for the 6 years before the job I have now I had a very different kind of work.  I can't simply pick up and go on the way I used to, and it is really showing like crazy.  I'm simply not capable of doing this job for much longer.   I feel good about what I accomplish, but what I accomplish simply isn't enough.  I don't feel bad about my limitations.  God has always had something else he wanted me to be doing, but I've run from it.  It is no accident God put me in the job I'm in.  I either pursue God's call, or I find myself kicked onto the unemployment line, and maybe even the disabled list, if I don't get the book done and get it done soon.   

I have never been in this kind of situation, and I could just stand back and watch it all happen to me.  I can't stand around, but it is fascinating to watch what God is doing on a daily basis.  I am truly under the gun, and I am running out of time.  I may find myself out of a job by the first of the year.  If the book isn't done by the time the God has set for the job to end, my butt is gonna be flapping in the wind!!!

 

PLEASE PRAY FOR ME; PRAY FOR GOD'S GRACE TO RUN THE RACE FAAAAASSSSSTTTTTEEEEERRRR!!!!

HELP!!

 

 

 

It was a good day at work today, but those days are getting few and far between.  I can see so clearly that my time in this job is coming fast to a close.  I am running out of time.  I am not ready for what comes next, and I know that...God has made it clear to me that I'm not ready, and I'd better get there fast!   

I am writing the book, averaging 600 to 1600 words when I write.  The next step in God's plan for me is built upon the book being a finished work.  The book is flowing, beautifully, but I work so many hours, and I am worn out!   For those of you who pray I could really use the prayer.  I don't want to escape my situation.  I want God's grace to enable, empower, and lead me where he wants to go.  I want to go where God wants me to go, and that is it.  I just have to stay on the ball, and not wimp out.  So pray for me that I will follow God and follow closely behind God.   

 

Thank You, and now I will go back to ignoring Xanga, so I can finish the book.  Doesn't mean I don't love you, but I have to love God more.

 

 

 

*** EDIT ***

 

 

 

 

First the Xanga problem made me...    That didn't work so I tried a different approach...

 

 

  People started looking at me like this

 

I felt like this   When I cry I make lots of this...  And I get even

 

more of>>>>

 

THIS...  

 

 

 

 

Needed a laugh BADLY...So I looked at this...  Which lead to this>>>

    

     >>>>  

 

 

 

And Finally     I FELT BETTER!         OOOPS!!!  FELT TOO GOOD!

 

 

 

 

 

All I really wanted to say...to all of you, my Xanga friends is...      AND!!  

 

 

 

 

 OH DEAR!! GOT SO EXCITED...

 

 

 

 

 

I AM SOOOOO SORRY ABOUT THIS....

 

 

          

 

 

 

 

 

     UMMMM...HA HA HA...ANYWAY...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://thereluctantshepherd.wordpress.com/

 

http://badpenniesturnup.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

WAIT!!  XANGA IS SAVED??!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***EDIT ***

Bottom of the page

 

---

 

 

 

 

"It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure."

~Ernie Harwell

 

 

I've given $48, toward the Xanga Campaign.   Still I know we could be enjoying our last few days together.  Many have already jumped ship, so even if Xanga survives past 7/31/13, we may only be giving her a short remission.  If Xanga makes it: GREAT.   If Xanga doesn't make it: GOODBYE.

 

http://thereluctantshepherd.wordpress.com/

 

http://badpenniesturnup.blogspot.com/

 

TO MY FELLOW CHRISTIANS/CHRIST FOLLOWERS:

In case you've been wondering why I've been writing posts about "...Choking 'Em"  and  "THERE ARE PEOPLE I WANT TO KILL".   I'm really talking about what I, need.  I am going through an incredibly tough time in my life, but it is God holding me in the refining fire.  I certainly don't like it, but I will love the results.  God gives "beauty for ashes."  The Church is a sick and broken thing today, because we have too many self-willed, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, self-esteem seeking, and plain old selfish people.  God intends that we live the kind of life Christ lived, and the only way to have that is to shove us into some very harsh situations.  I had a very good friend call me, and offer me alternatives to my situation.  I don't need any alternatives to my situation.  I need to endure to the end, and God will, indeed, give "beauty for ashes."  I've seen God do this time after time, he never fails.  I don't understand everything God does while deep frying my butt, but he gets the results he desires. 

I've said, on many occasions, my first sites on Xanga had a definite agenda.  First I wanted to show Christians that fellow Christians struggling with SSA (Same-Sex Attraction), working by themselves or with other strugglers rarely succeed.   I also wanted to show that no matter the approach people suffering with SSA can't break the cycle of thinking, being, and doing gay.  I started out being nice and supportive of those with SSA.  Being supportive, actually brings comfort to people, and they don't need comfort.  I increasingly became more confrontational, harsh and strident in my counsel of those who struggle.  Harshness only brings defensiveness.   All sexually broken people are both victim and perpetrator.   Few choose to feel attracted to thinking and practices which are incredibly unhealthy and damaging for them and others.  People who are sexually broken are first and foremost relationally broken.  The most important people in their lives during their formative years have locked them in a cage and stuffed them down a deep dark emotional hole.  Leaving any kind of deep sexual brokenness is incredibly difficult, and nearly impossible for most.  I had years of study, observation, and interactions with LGBT people, and I saw how terrible the life of a sexually broken person truly is.  I also had friends who were dropping like flies to AIDS.  The motivating factors to escape my gay liestyle were varied and titanic in power to push me along.  What broke the sexually broken: the breakdown of relationship, is what breaks the power of sexual immorality, and leads to freedom from it.  

The Church has the greatest relationship, (or so they claim) with the only true living God, through God in flesh, Jesus Christ.  If the Church (notice capital "C", so I'm talking about the universal Church) really had the eternal life giving and world overcoming relationship with God, then why can't the Church give that relationship to the most needy:  The sexually broken???   The Church condemns, accepts sin, or, increasingly, simply ignores life destroying sin.  A Church which cannot offer the eternal life giving and life changing relationship with God is, in truth, suffering the same plight the sexually broken suffer:  The Church is becoming more and more estranged in her relationship with the Eternal God.  

What can I tell you??  Church, Christians, Christ followers, whatever, you need the relationally and sexually broken more than they need you.  When you obey the teachings of Christ and "Go!"  you'll find that Jesus Christ was standing there, among the relationally/sexually broken the whole time.  God has just been waiting for us to begin living out of the new Christlike nature he has put into us, when he made us born again.  Reaching to, walking with, supporting, challenging, loving and relating in a godly way with the most broken isn't something we should run from, it our birthright as God's children to obey the teachings of Jesus and reach to a lost, hurting, and dying world.  The more we condemn, accept, or ignore sin the more estranged we will become from God.  Jesus told his disciples 7 times in the Gospel of John, "...If you love me do what I teach..."  Love and obedience are the same thing to God.   So either love God, and "Go!", or love self and condemn, accept sin, or ignore sins, and lose our own souls.   

TO EVERYONE ELSE:

It's been a fascinating experience getting to know some of you.  I hope I have the chance to meet you again, and continue our interactions. 

 

Blessings!

Lonnie

 EDIT!

 

I've decided not to archive anything from this site.  What is here will be here if Xanga survives, or will go away with Xanga.  If you want something, then you'd better get it.  If you use what you take, I hope you'll give proper credit to the author.  "Freely give, for freely you have been given!"

 

 

 

And Nary a Word to Write!!

 

As promised I have a new WordPress account.  I'm having problems figuring it out, so it might be a short lived address.  As I said I've had a blogger account for several years so that will be the most likely default place for me to land.  The great news about blogger is I can follow most anyone's blog by simply adding it to my subscription list on blogger.  I have very few actual blogger site I follow.  The rest are from many far flung places, one is the blog of a Brit.   So once again here are the blogging sites for me, just in case Xanga takes the big dirt nap. 

 

http://thereluctantshepherd.wordpress.com/

http://badpenniesturnup.blogspot.com/

 

I do sincerely hope that Xanga stays up and running, but you know where to come looking if Xanga crashes and burns

 

 

 

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

 

I know there are those who probably have a difficult time with me saying, "There are some people I want to kill."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it much better than I ever could have: 

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

 

It's still the same thing I said, and it is no less offensive.  God in the flesh says, "Come to me and die."  It is that simple, but the problem is we don't like to die.  There is only one reason people who come to Christ, sit in the church for decades and never change.  If you come to Christ and don't change then the problem is you, the "old sin nature" hasn't died. 

When I came to Christ nearly a quarter century ago God soon brought me to the place of decision.  During an especially brutal time of sexual temptation, instead of simply giving in I cried out to God.  The response was immediate:  "Are you going to go on trusting your feelings, or are you going to trust God's word?"  God called me, in no uncertain terms, to die to my way of thinking being and doing.   I had always followed my feelings, but for the first time in my life I was called to completely refuse what my feelings dictated.  Rejecting my own feelings was among the most painful, disorienting, and lonely experiences of my life.  It was truly a death.  I'd never go back to the way I was before Christ, but it was a terrifying experience.  It didn't take very long before I enjoyed the great benefits of putting an end to the hold my feelings had over me.  Was it worth it?  The worth was beside the point.  God demanded the death of my flesh nature.  God gives us no choice, but you'd never know it from the state of the Church. 

People hear the invitation to receive Christ, they raise a hand, walk an aisle, and a date is set for their baptism.  For the next couple of decades they sit Sunday after Sunday in the church, but nothing ever changes inside them.  I'm not talking about something I don't personally understand, God confronted me with the truth, and when he did I chose the right answer.  If I had chosen to continue following my feelings, nothing in me would have changed.  Basically I'd have been a religious gay person. 

The call of Jesus is the call to die.  Not just a call to death, but a call to new life given by the Holy Spirit.  The call of Jesus is to die to what we have been and a call to the resurrection life of Jesus.  God never calls us to die in exchange for something worthless.  The problem is first we have to experience death, trusting God that there is something beyond and better than what we lose in death.  The death never gets any easier to endure, but the results of trusting God is a fantastic payoff.   But again the payoff is a moot point.  God's call is to die, regardless of the payoff which comes.  Obedience is the expected response to God's call. 

Somehow we've lost our way, and death has been replaced with good intentions.  "I'd like to be a good person."  But nothing we can do makes us good.  We become not good, but religious.  The most dangerous person in the world is not a gay activist, a serial killer, or a bad president.  The most dangerous person in the world is an unregenerate person who has become religious. 

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power."

The only good human is a dead human, made born again by God.  It is where we must always start.  A healthy "flesh" nature with religion is a form of godliness, but denies God's power.  Death, far from being a terrible state, is the only safe haven.  

 

"God grant that I may always die, that I may always know the resurrection power in Christ."