Lance Corporal Travis Williams, We’re Glad You’re Here, Brother.

You are not alone. This video is a touching tribute to brothers lost, but also to life not taken. If you or someone you know is battling with thoughts of suicide or having a hard time coping with something in their past, reach out to them. Brothers and Sisters, though they are feeling tremendous loss and may have feelings of guilt, we need to take our responsibility seriously and daily tell them how happy the world is they are still in it. Semper Fi, Lance Cpl. Travis Williams and peaceful rest to our brothers lost that day.

They Aren’t Stats, They’re my Brothers and Sisters. Rest in Peace.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for the last 12 years. Before that, Iraq.

Iraq is over. The sacrifices are no less important or worthy of remembrance.

Never lose sensitivity to our lost brothers and sisters. Never forget the families they leave behind. Never forget the brothers and sisters in arms they served with. Never forget the sacrifice.

I’m consistently faced with our battlefield losses in my current job. They come over as numbers or stats.  Tick marks getting lost, mired in a spreadsheet, a bullet on a briefing slide, a mention during a morning huddle.

I realized, I was tabulating these losses. I was adding tick marks. I was saddened by their passing, but work was getting in the way.

Now I read the reports. I read about mothers, fathers, wives, girlfriends and children. I read about their schools, job designations and where they’re from. I read the wrap-up for the incident. I’m committed to remembering.

These Green on Blue incidents are breaking my heart. My soul grows heavier and heavier every time I read another report. I’m not going to rant, because it isn’t going to help, it isn’t going to comfort the families or bring back our brothers or sisters.

The fad of caring about our deployed military is on the downturn and has been for the last 8 years-ish. It popped back up a bit after the SEAL Team 6 adventure. But, ultimately it’s tanked.  Society is tired of hearing about it.

We can’t get sucked into that mindset. We are already different than society, because we swore an oath and suited up in defense of this Nation. Band together friends and family, keep the faith and keep the memory alive.

Rest in Peace beautiful souls. Your deaths were honorable. Your memory lives on, even while your mortal bodies do not. May you be reunited with your loved ones in a future, afterlife. You are missed, you are loved, you are honored.

Is Your Religion Worth Alienating People?

Don’t Stop. We need you now more than ever. 

 I have seen more of the world than most of you reading this. I am 29 years old. At the end of this current jaunt abroad, I will have lived outside of the United States for 14 of those years. I have planed, trained and automobiled around Asia, Europe and the Middle East. I have met some people who would’ve liked to kill me. I’ve met some people who could have easily been angels in disguise. I’ve eaten weird and delicious things. I’ve gotten sick with odd stomach bugs the States haven’t seen in decades. 

I’m a Christian, since age 7. 22 years of ups and downs. Struggles and gains. Tears and pains. Grins and hugs. Periods of darkness and periods of blinding clarity. I’ve made mistakes and I have more ahead.  I am not going to blow myself up for God. I’m not going to lynch gay people, girls who have gotten abortions, drug addicts, drunks, lazy people or any other demographic. I’m past that.

I’m tired of religion. It sickens me. Christians have a saying: “Religion sends more people to hell than anything else.”

They herald that sentiment from the pulpit as a way to give congregations the impression they are special and to send them out in the world trying to ‘WIN THE WORLD FOR CHRIST!’

I’ve preached from day one about Muslims needing to police their own. Those nut jobs who blow themselves up in the name of ALLAH! Yet their clerics maintain; they are a peaceful religion, only trying to make the world a better place. 

Christians might not be blowing themselves up. But, why don’t we police OUR own? Every time Terry Jones threatens to burn Korans our service men and women and Coalition partners get mortars and rockets raining down on them and people die. People are dying in Afghanistan because Christians are not policing their own. People are dying because Muslims are not policing their own. 

I defy both groups of zealots; if your Gods are so big and powerful, why not just chill out? 

Christians maintain the Holy Spirit is the catalyst for salvation. I am by no means well versed in Islam, but I would imagine; heaven is granted or obtained – NOT by creating terror and murdering people. 

I am aware that Muslims believe in a code of conduct that mandates: charity, compassion, selflessness and other virtuous traits. Christians are taught to treat everyone as you want to be treated, to love their neighbor as they love themselves, to be patient, kind, long-suffering, loving and honorable. 

It seems to me; both religions rely on some sort of God intervention to ultimately be granted some sort of salvation. Christians believe that a complete renouncing of sin and past life and by wholly accepting Jesus’ sacrifice as the only way to heaven. 

I can’t imagine anywhere in either of those factions there is a clause which states: ‘Do everything you can to sully the name of your God, alienate people with self-righteousness and just be a nuisance to the general population to the point where you are profiled and people avoid you.’

People/souls are not Pokemon. You cannot catch them all. You can be kind to them. You can be Christ-like. You can be peaceful, loving, supportive and caring. 

Zealots are annoying. People don’t like them. People avoid them. The only people who like zealots are OTHER zealots. 

I’m going to tell you something right now. Are you ready? 

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO SAVE SOULS. YOU CANNOT GRANT PEOPLE ACCESS TO HEAVEN. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. YOU ARE NOT ANY BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE. 

I recently visited the church my parents have not decided to leave yet, for whatever reason. The preacher there, who will remain nameless, because he is embarrassing already without his name on the internet, mentioned how many people HE had LED to CHRIST. LEADING people to Christ. I’m sorry, bro; according to textual, Biblical accounts; you are to PREACH the good news, not LEAD people anywhere. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. The cool thing is that HS doesn’t have to lead far because; Biblically – He is also God. The Holy Trinity. BOOM. 

He is a sterling example of why religion is turning people off. “Look at ME! Look at all the things I AM DOING FOR GOD.” Hey buddy, how about some humility? Some sincerity? Any realization that in your line of work it is NEVER going to be about you. 

I’m saying all of this to say this: ALL religions are mucking up the world and muting the powers of the very deities they are striving to proclaim.

God doesn’t need your help. God needs you to be a nice person. Stop being a dick to people. Take the things written in all of the ‘holy’ books and actually DO THEM. 

If we could transcend religion and just treat each other well. Respect people. It is fine to not agree with someone. It is not fine to threaten them or cause them physical harm.

For clarity I’m talking about things people are allowed to do. I don’t think people should be able to have sex with children. I don’t think illicit substances should be legal. I agree with speed limits, gun registration, taxes, drinking/tobacco ages and other words of law.

I’m talking about life choices people make that aren’t illegal.

On the flip side; why are all of you freaking out?

Your respective deities have it under control – I’m going to assume. I believe that my God is in control. You can believe your God is in control. Our Gods might be the same guy. Who knows?

I am going to do my best to rely on my God and the strength He’s blessed me with; operating within the life He’s also blessed me with and if anyone needs anything – you know where to find me.

In the end – when human beings are evicted from this blue, soggy marble, hung in the universe – we’ll see how it all pans out. I very well could be wrong. You very well could be right. May the best faith win, until then; a friendly handshake, a held door, a kind word, a dollar when you’re short, a hug when you’re sad and when we find ourselves on the doorstep of our last departure, may we be found in the glory we’ve dreamed of during our mortal days.

Don’t Stop. We need you now more than ever.

WP

Mothers and Society – Our often overlooked matriarchs.

Mothers are the beginning of all life as we know it. As you sit here and read this, if it weren’t for your mother and the masterpiece and miracle of life, you wouldn’t be here. 

My mother is woman far stronger than her 5′ 3″ frame would lead you to believe. She is a woman of character, of integrity and of power. She is the calm and the storm. She bestows the wisdom she’s gleaned from jobs she’s  had, places she’s lived, classes she’s taken, her daily Bible study and her own mother. 

My mother is a school teacher. Homeschooling the brood of us starting in the early 90’s before homeschooling was cool. Before it was just another adjective to tack on to being a vegan, yogi, vegetarian, pacifist, green-peacer, democrat, republican, communist and the list goes on and on. There are 10 of us. I am the oldest at 29. My youngest brother is 14. 

My beautiful mother is also a grandmother, having passed on teachings and precepts to my younger sister who blessed the world with my beautiful niece. 

My mother is not to be taken lightly. My mother is a fighter. Not just a fighter, but a winner. She was raised in a U.S. Navy family and if that wasn’t enough she married my father who was one of the finest of America’s enlisted fighting men; a United States Marine.  

There comes a time where a trade of needs to happen. Our mothers protect us from the time of conception until we’re grown. Our mothers will stare down dogs who don’t understand personal space, they protect us from physical harm and sometimes will cause their own injury to protect us in our fragile, child-state.

The trade off is us assuming a protective role for our mothers. Protect them from loneliness, protect them from hunger or cold if that is the case, protect their minds. Ensure they know how wonderful they are, how much they are appreciated, how beautiful they are.

There is a piece, written by: Andri Antoniades who found a woman who glorifies motherhood to the degree it warrants.

Photographer Jade Beall never believed she lived up to traditional standards of beauty. And so when she snapped a semi-nude self-portrait of her un-retouched post-partum body, and published it on herFacebook page, she was somewhat surprised at how popular the photo became.

Not only were users liking and sharing it, but Beall was flooded with requests from other women asking her to photograph their post-partum bodies as well. And so she did.

Since then, taking these pictures has turned into a mission for Beall, one that she hopes will help “redefine beautiful.”

In a recent interview with HuffPo Live, she explained, “I just want to empower…other women to feel authentically irreplaceable.”

The women she’s so far captured on film have become part of a series she named A Beautiful Body, which Beall hopes to turn into a published book, backed by the help of her Kickstarter fund.

Airbrushing the reality out of women’s bodies has become so much the norm, reality isn’t often seen, let alone celebrated. Even supermodels are Photoshopped into standards of total perfection that can’t be met in reality. The problem is pervasive enough that last year 14-year-old Julia Bluhm petitioned Seventeen magazine to show just one non-airbrushed photo each month. The fact that just one was considered “revolutionary” speaks volumes.

But Beall’s work is the antithesis of that commercialized woman’s body. Here, stretch marks, C-section scars and rounded bellies are the marks of a woman who’s grown life inside of her. They’re brandings of power, but when the rest of the world airbrushes them from view, they’re treated like badges of shame.

Beall’s mission is to change that standard of beauty from one that’s exclusive and based on illusion, to one that includes actual women and is rooted deeply in reality.

I was moved to write a blog post about this piece after reading this article and having a recent discussion with my mother. I’m constantly humbled by how perfect her advice is, even without talking to her nearly as often as I should. 

Mom, I love you. You’re beautiful, wise and I’m eternally thankful for you and your love. 

WP