Pine Ridge, South Dakota Travel day 2

In case you were wondering, ten hours in a minivan with your wife, inlaws, and a little Puerto Rican girl is not nearly as tough as it may sound.  I’m tired, kind of bruised and battered, and have all kinds of stiff muscles from the long car ride that I’ll admit puts me in a position where I am disinclined to meditate on any Godly mystery or question of holiness or righteousness.

But God is good all the time.  And all the time God is good.

Running, Rolling, Riding Hard

Running, rolling, riding hard
Westward, west, always west.
What wanderlust draws us westward?
What mystic glory lies
Or rides
Or sighs
Where the sun dies?

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

So my buddies at High Calling Blogs (which I’m still trying to ease myself into) recently put a post up about dreams that was inspired by the movie Inception.  Great movie, by the way, I was completely blown away.

The thing that the writer and founder Gordon Atkinson says about dreams is that He isn’t sure if God still uses them to speak to us.  I totally respect that, it’s hard to wrap your head around it, but I’m writing about a specific aspect of dreams with certain assumptions because of a comment that one of the readers made.

“I have nightmares.”

Chapter 2

This is part of series that began with Kamikaze: Preface.  For a complete listing of the entire series click here.  All material is the property of the writer and cannot be reproduced without the authors written consent (and all the rest of that “please don’t steal my stuff” stuff).

A Kamikaze never leaves home without three things: a team, a weapon, and a bottle of grog.  I suppose it would be more accurate to describe it as a “jug” of grog and not a bottle but who cares?  This is a story not a nuclear operations manual.  Now my ma was noted for not drinking.  She’s often quoted as calling K-grog “the unholy bastard child of tequila and sake,” but I had no such objections to my preferred poison while Artie and Wilson were known for their outright drunkenness.  So much so that I made sure to load a couple of extra barrels on our tiny dragonfly as we flew through dead space to Mars.

#ICSEX : Sexual Abuse

This post is part of a series of conversations among bloggers leading up to The Idea Camp in Las Vegas September 27-28.  To read about the last topic, Pornography, click here.

This woman is by far braver and stronger than I.  I strongly encourage everyone to take a second right now, even if you never get back to this post, and read what she has to say because she stands in a place….I can’t even describe it.

But it does remind, for me at least, that abuse is a virulent and subversive thing and is not limited.

Sexual abuse is especially deceptive and we need to remember that it is not limited to set players with set role and scenarios.  Sexual abuse is abuse that is sexual but it is also an abuse of sex.  An ab-use, an abnormal or abhorrent use of sex.  Because we all know the story of the poor sap who was manipulated by a pretty girl to buy her pretty things, and get into fights and act all macho in exchange for a “relationship.”  The difference is that it isn’t the poor sap who needs help (well his bank account might), but the pretty girl.