The fire within...

It's amazing how varying and diverse fire can be.

Some fire burns quickly, only to fade away into the night air while others burn white hot, maintaining its physical attributes for days, decades, centuries or even millennia. Stars burn out with immense heat for thousands of years yet a candle burns hot for merely a moment before fluttering away into a smoldering red reminder of what came and went so quickly.

Faith can be like fire in so many ways. Some people's faith burns as hot as the core of the sun, never faltering despite the cold hard elements around it. Some burns like a soaked match in the winter wind. Then there's the faith that never waivers but must always stay near a heating source to remain hot. Unfortunately, the moment it moves away from the source, it falters under the duress of a slight breeze.

I always wonder which I fall under. My biggest battle every day is to remain faithful in my walk, while staying true to what God wants me to know and learn throughout each struggle. It's almost as if I need to be in a permanent state of conflict for me to maintain my faithfulness and I wonder if I'll ever get to a point where I can simply maintain the heat within on a consistent basis as opposed to be needing to stay near the flowing lava of destruction to maintain that heat.

So quickly we forget these feelings when we're completely reliant on God. In loss, pain, heartache, fear or any of the countless emotions that require us to lean on Him, it's easy to cry out and find our peace in God's grace. But pain subsides, loss is refilled, heartache is healed and fear becomes courage once your eyes adjust to the darkness of uncertainty.

This is where many of us falter.

The good times provide a great test of our faithfulness. The minute we move away from the fire, we can either cool or maintain that heat like a walking lantern into the pitch black of the world. We move closer to comfort only to find ourselves move further from God, and as we drift, we give into actions we would never think or consider while in the midst of our struggles. Soon, fear becomes overconfidence and loss becomes an overabundance, leading us into a false sense of security.

For those who can maintain that fire, their relationship with God continues to flourish and there is a constant heat but for those of us who haven't learned to maintain that heat, we find a lukewarm existence that slowly cools. I worry about myself because it seems like God always needs to strip me bare before He can minister to me, and I'm tired of it taking so much to get through to me. It's like I live a spiritual life cursed with ADHD, floating to something else when my eyes should be on Him, first and foremost.

Many of my friends count themselves as Christians, as do I, but I can count on my two hands the amount of times we've prayed together. This doesn't seem right to me, and as someone who knows better than anyone else how faithful God is, why haven't we put God as the cornerstone of our friendships? Our friendships can never move to a deeper level unless we allow God to transform it into something deeper. You can only dig so far with a shovel before you need a drill to push past the layers buried beneath the loose dirt.

Not sure who else to blame but myself, I always look to the future for guidance but fail to recognize the need in the here and now. I should lead. I should encourage. I should minister. Do I? Not enough. It takes a momentous calamity for my eyes to reopen and my spiritual leadership to shine through, and this can't be acceptable to me because it certainly isn't in God's eyes. His provisions in life are far greater than our own eyes recognize and it's almost like we take it for granted like we do the air we breathe.

The struggle is daily. The satisfaction is minimal. The results are unacceptable. Sometimes it's best to lead by example, not through words and these past few months have been tests of that ability for me. I know better, have been taught better and should seek to capture that potential God has blessed me with. It's as if I've been waiting for a moment that may never come, procrastinating and wasting precious time God has given me. Must I wait for calamity for me to find that voice, or will I break free of this cycle and become the man God intended on the day He formed me in His own image?

Like the Greek in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," I sit staring at the distractive dancing shadows on the wall despite this knowledge that there is more to all this, that I must break free of these chains and tell all who will hear that their bondage is merely a shadow on the wall, a distraction from the enemy to keep us from becoming the strongest parts of ourselves. Breaking free isn't easy, and it takes time to adjust to the light once outside, but the strength lies within ourselves and all we need to do is lift our heads and see the strings and puppets casting shadows in the wall.

Our potential is so great as humans, yet we accept and expect the bare minimum from ourselves. I don't know where my path is leading me, but I do know the journey takes preparation in ernest. The potential within cannot be wasted and if this frustrates me, I can't imagine how much it must pain our Creator when He sees me fail, falter and turn my eyes on something other than His own will.

Accountability comes from within, and we must all find that strength within before we can expect it from others because this is such a highly personal journey for each and every one of us. So many times I've cried out for strength only to learn it was already within me, but I failed to utilize it. God will carry us, when the need be, but we can't take it for granted as He wants us to put feet to our prayers and live on our accord, free from anything but a flourishing relationship where we are one with Him.

That fire must burn bright at all times, not faltering when the path darkens and as we fumble through the pitch black of the night sky looking for a spark. Then, and only then, will we realize we were in His arms the entire time — it was our own mouths that continued to snuff out the fire and we never even knew it.

And all it took was for us to keep this fire stoked was to close our mouths and raise our eyes to Him...

Which way your heart will go...

My best friend sent me a song a while back called, "Which Way Your Heart Will Go," by Mason Jennings. The song itself is a love song that takes the idea of fate and intertwines it into the human condition of heartache with an effortless combination of truth and soulful reality.

"Where would we be right now, if all my dreams had come true. Deep down I know somehow, I'd have never seen your face."

When we're young, idealistic, focused and ready to take on the world, we never see our future as a fleeting fancy or a faltering timeline of failures and struggle. We only see the end product, and never think for a second that the journey to get to that place can get muddled, altered, distorted, and lost along the way. Staring so intently at the stars above, we see only the station but rarely ever the train itself.

Plenty of hopeless romantics have come before me and many will come after, but it always seems so troubling that we live in an age where hopeless romanticism has become more or less a figment of a writer's overactive imagination. The idea that love will find us — fall into our lap even — is more scoffed at more than the tooth fairy. We search this earth for our kindred spirits, believing deep down that somewhere, someday, we will stumble into the life of the one true love meant for us since birth.

Naivety? I highly doubt it. I personally refuse to let this bitter world beat down my faith in something so special and rare. No matter how often my friends are convinced I'm just being overdramatic, hopeless, my heart resolves itself to continuing that search in earnest. Heartbreak is par for the course because in any thing of greatness, we have to risk pain and suffering, which makes it all the more worth our while.

Our heart breaks, it heals, it scars, but it can't lose that idealism that made it as pure as a child's. The childlike wonder inside of us — that faith — must continue on, even when the world tells us we're hopeless, lost or failures. Each one of our journeys has a different path. One path may be longer than another, one may have more pitfalls than the previous, but it all leads to another soul designed and created for you and you alone.

Giving up one's heart is a leap of faith, and requires a large amount of trust because of what's at stake. Some can be careless with it, some can be too careful and others may simply refuse to accept it. But like the matching designs of the rarest of duplicate snowflakes, the heart's center gravitates towards the core of its reason for existing. Every step on this path takes us one closer to that counterpoint.

You can ask yourself if this is the life you dreamed of when you were a child and most will reply with a negative, but this is what makes the surprise of destiny so special. Where would I be right now if all my dreams had come true? The wait only increases the appreciation for it once it's destiny is fulfilled. My heart's counterpoint may be miles away, years from uniting its existence with my own, but the search can never end.

Deep down I know somehow, I'd have never seen your face...the world would be a different place..all this is with a purpose, and that purpose is you — whoever you are.

Man on fire...

I don't speak much of it because it is a personal demon I have struggled with for nearly six years, but — after tonight and a spiritual experience on par with some of the most memorable of my life — I feel it's time I allow this burden to be lifted from the yoke of my soul.

Most of those who know me, know that I have been married. My bride was pregnant before we were unified through our vows, but we were physically unified beforehand outside of the Will of God. We rushed into a marriage of convenience, although my love for her was never in question but we were young and clueless to the world outside, save for our own selfish whims.

Our marriage came quickly as did its demise. Within months of Isabel's birth, my wife and I were on separate beds, physically and metaphorically, and the marriage failed. Worse off, through the divorce, it was learned that — after raising her for the first 4 1/2 years of her life — I wasn't the biological father of Isabel and I lost all custodial rights, not having seen Isabel since June 8th, 2005.

For years, I have blamed myself, blamed my bride and blamed those who failed to encourage and foster success through our vows before them and God. For years, I allowed this blame that became a seed growing within my soul to govern my actions. I drank too much, gave myself over to others in a manner not pleasing to God and I lived a life full of excuses and slothfulness. I figured since my heart was broken, I deserved a vacation from His will and a break from walking the "path" and my "sin box" was filled to the brim. I went through the motions to simply give my family peace by saying the right things, telling them I had found peace, as I struggled with self-worth, sin, poor life choices and a deranged sense of entitlement. Through my actions, my faith was definitely not on display to those I lived with, worked with or led as a coach...

It was all a clever lie dosed in hypocrisy.

But on this stifling night in late July, while worshipping in the cafeteria of Silverado High School with a malfunctioning A/C and a broken spirit, it finally occurred to me that I have been living what amounts to a sham, a ruse. I had deceived myself into believing that I didn't need to fully forgive those who wronged me and, in turn, failed to forgive myself for my own stake in those failures. It's easy to live life pointing fingers and going through the motions but when God grabs you by the life preserver and drags you back into His boat, it tends to take the finger out of the equation and give you an absolutely clear panoramic view of the picture He has painted with your life as opposed to the fallible tunnel vision of human selfishness.

Through an open heart, God laid it on my soul to give away my Ex, to forgive her entirely and to heartily pray for the success in her new marriage. To forgive members of her family and my own for their part in our failure through pressure and undermining behavior as she and I struggled to survive the toughest of times. Oddly enough, when praying for her marriage, my heart was suddenly born anew with a different kind of forgiveness, one I wasn't seeking but found nonetheless: forgiveness of one's self.

Through letting all the bitterness and anger melt away, I felt — for the first time since she moved out that lonely fall season — peace. Going through the motions for so long, I had forgotten what it felt to captain a ship that isn't sinking, constantly plugging holes in every corner of the boat. For once, the horizon balanced out and I could see the direction God has been leading me all along. My journey may not have been perfect, nor have I been in any way, shape or form, but the destination is still the same and my experiences as a whole can become the basis for my strength, not the excuse for my weaknesses.

1 John 1: 8, 9 states that "⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."

By allowing my own heart to let go of the bitterness that has consumed me for so long, I have found my own peace. I stand on the tracks of life, with a train seemingly headed straight for me yet I have a underlying peace passing all understanding that it will diverge before it reaches my place. If it doesn't, I have confidence God's graced me with the strength to leap from the tracks myself. By confessing my pride, by letting go of my anger, I have found something I have searched high and low through the depths of sin trying to find, only to be turned away and called out for my poor decisions internally and externally.

Sometimes people simply need a tap on the shoulder from God to get their attention, others a slight push...for me, it takes a swift kick to the groin for me to find His will hovering over my life and a means with which to answer His call. Perfection is not the intended goal, but instead I seek a constant fellowship with Him. Through a self-purge of my own resistant bitterness, I have found myself taking the first steps towards walking in peace for the first time in nearly a decade...

My journey is not yet complete, and I will surely stumble along the way. Friends who knew me yesterday won't recognize the me of tomorrow, and I deserve every bit of judgement they send my way. I failed as a Christian, as an example, and it is my cross to bear. My prayer is that my own actions of yesterday won't pollute the message of today, distorting what I feel is God's gentle hands upon a life so waterlogged in sin.

It reminds me of a quote I once read: "Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance." I too remember, but no longer use the burden of failure as a crutch or excuse for a lack of internal evolution in this journey that — for me — is only the beginning...

Things I don't like...

We live in a world that doesn't always bend to our own personal whims. Like it or not, people, art, film, music, etc, won't always be to your liking so it's important to list them once in a while so you can feel better about yourself, and so those who still think phrases like "for reals" can get the memo about the TPS reports.

I've compiled a list of a few basic dislikes on the Facebook status of life...

1. BUTCH'S FRENCH GIRLFRIEND IN 'PULP FICTION': Not sure why. Maybe it's just her annoying voice or cavalier use of the word "mongoloid," but I really find her to be annoying on multiple levels. She tries to kiss Butch with nasty toothpaste in her mouth before spitting, she starts crying after Butch went through hell and back to get a watch hidden up Christopher Walken's butt for years, and she likes "pot bellies." To Hades with your strawberry pancakes, dollface!

The idea of staying with Zed and his gimp is almost appealing when compared to the conversations I'm sure punchy old Butch had to endure with his girlfriend. Butch was really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and I haven't once found her to be attractive nor intriguing. It actually makes me want to turn the movie off, but there are too many good parts to allow this french nuisance to ruin my experience. Instead, I flip over to my iPhone and start playing with "Talking Tom," the coolest iPhone app ever (basically, a digital cat that repeats everything to say to it back to you in a high-pitched voice).

2. HAIR PASTE/GLUE: I mean seriously. Gel is one thing, but when you call something you put in your hair a specific epoxy, you've got issues. Paste? It's what I ate in kindergarden (ok, I still eat it from time to time). Glue? It's for model airplanes and for fixing chairs you accidentally break but want to find a way to blame someone else for breaking weeks down the road.

If your hair is that ridiculous that you need paste to hold it down, maybe it's time you embrace the inner "Screech" and simply let your delicious locks flow in the wind. Seriously, I think this glue/paste is seeping into their brains because these are the target audience for vocabulary expansion using the phrases "for reals" and "bomb-dot-com." It also gives us a free license to punch them in their jeans, which — if you see point four — requires more than just the run-of-the-mill flaccid peter slap.

3. THE BURGER KING: You wake up, he's "creeped" into your bed and under the sheets with a breakfast sandwich...need I say more? Ok, well how about the fact that most rational people would call the cops and punch the living hell out of him while calling 9-1-1. Better yet, I'm sure Richard Ramirez (aka The Night Stalker) started out innocently enough, offering breakfast sandwiches to people before it morphed into his night-stalking killing spree. It's a slippery slope once you casually start accepting the presence of a man in a rubber mask with human hands wearing a royal cape, and once he's there, he'll keep coming back. It's like feeding a stray cat, and — when he decides he wants to come over and scare the corn out of you every morning — you can't ever put the poop back in the horse...

4. PLUM SMUGGLERS: They come in all nationalities. It's like the United Nations of bad taste. Blue jeans that constrict the man-piece so tightly that everyone in the room NOT wearing the same style feels awkward, uncomfortable and slightly sickened by the sight. Worse, the sound of BabyGap jeans stretching as they try and pretend to sit comfortably in their seats at the movies, or their booth at a restaurant, is reminiscent of Henry Rowengardner's shoulder tendons after the cast comes off. STRRRRRETCH! Of course their sperm count will drop lower than Tommy Chong's and sure they're walking Male Moose Knuckle art, but do we have to suffer for their own personal poor life choice? I'd rather them wear a loin cloth or a kilt...in fact, I may start wearing a loin cloth out of protest! If they tell me it's in bad taste, I'll simply gesture towards their off-kiltered Andy Warhol walnut art display in protest.

5. UNCERTAINTY: Can't things just happen as they should? If not, could we get a heads up? Yes, I want to open my Christmas presents early, or at least know what I'm getting. At least I can look forward to getting it. Everything in life seems to be more of a guessing game, or a lucky spin to reach the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. I'd rather like be like the Grand Prize Game on The Bozo Show: We all know that if you get to the final bucket, there's a crisp and new $100 waiting for you, which — for a kid — is like $50,000 for an adult. I don't like knowing if there's a pot of gold or a creepy midget in a green suit waiting for me at the end of the rainbow.

7. PEOPLE WHO TRY TOO HARD TO BE DIFFERENT: It really does those of us who are just weird by nature a disservice when we are lumped in with the people who act a fool out of conscious choice. Some of us can't help being weird and have struggle our whole lives with the idea of normalcy. Instead, we get mistaken for one of these people and their schtick, condemning us to the same stable as them when — in reality — they should be sent to the glue farm so we can enjoy our oddity in peace. Weirdo's aren't made...they're born that way!

8. THE PERSON WHO CHOOSES THE WORDS FOR THE MADE-FOR-TV SWEAR WORD DUBS: Ever since I watched Ferris Bueller on WGN and heard Cameron say, "Pardon my french, you're an AIRHEAD," I've wanted to slap the stupid out of whoever used that choice of words. I'd rather they bleep it out or mute it than give up these pathetic attempts to keep the dialogue "fresh." We're not morons, we know what they were going to say so why not leave it up to the imagination?

9. REALITY TV: This is the death knell for intelligence in the world today. The Hills? The Bachelor? Dawg the Bounty Hunter? I mean, do our lives suck so much that we need to live vicariously through a few dumb bimbos, a dude with a mullet, one night on Steven Seagal's police beat, a bunch of aspiring models under the tutelage of a maniacal set of former models off their meds, or even two morons fighting over a measly $300 on the People's Court that could easily be handled with a hammer and a kneecap? Actually, all the "actors" on the aforementioned shows could be handled with a hammer and a jar of leeches. That's reality I could get into. Worse, we have to actually make our modern comedies LOOK like reality TV nowadays just to get people to watch them and laugh.

Our world is dumb, and the disease is spreading faster than a the Swine Flu...er...the H1N1 Virus (we don't want to offend pigs with such derogatory terms).

And last but not least...my final pet peeve is...

10. PEOPLE WHO CAN'T PROPERLY COUNT ALL THE WAY UP TO 10: Yeah, that means you. He he. :)

Dangerous words...

I love you...three simple words that have done so much good and yet so much damage in this flawed world we live in. Call me bitter and betrayed, but this has been a tough few months with the falsity of love on display while I teeter totter between my belief in love or me filing it away with the rest of "Imaginationland" like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Over time, those three words have healed the brokenhearted and, at the same time, lured innocent people to their death. Life sees no bigger lie than a disingenuous verbal promise of true love and feels no bigger a betrayal than to hear them and see actions indicating the obvious. Loyalty misused, taken for granted and thrown to the wind as casually as a tissue, can destroy faith and shatter the foundation of one's outlook in this world.

It is in our DNA as humans to yearn for love from others, but love unrequited is as painful as any dagger through the stomach. Giving one's heart to another, only to have it shattered, trampled and mishandled in return, makes it difficult for someone to ever feel the need to totally take that chance again. Women blame the "playas" but fail to realize that these "playas" are the direct result of previous women who have destroyed the man's faith in love. Then, the man's direct lack of faith in love leads him to mistreat a woman, who then fails to grasp the concept of true love and creates the world's next "playa."

It's a vicious cycle that spins throughout time and dooms humanity to a constantly waging war based on searching for something that quite possibly doesn't exist. Love at first sight? Lifelong love? All subjected to the fallibility of human nature, thus making them less efficient than the brakes of a recalled Toyota. We say we'll love someone until the day we die yet we find our actions completely contradicting the words that spew from our mouths.

Is true love dead? Perhaps, but commitment to it shouldn't be. Far too long, we've glamorized this idea as a reality. As far back as Greek mythology, Shakespeare, or vintage cinema, we're trained from birth to see love as something that comes once in a lifetime and then is as fleeting as the changing seasons...but in reality, love comes and goes (much like the flu) before another bout approaches. Sometimes it comes in bunches and sometimes over an expanded period of time but it always leaves us wondering if this time will the the "last time."

We fight for it, kicking and screaming, praying that this "last chance" doesn't end but, as the tears fall like rain for love lost, our hearts seemingly find love again. We find it in other things at first, but then slowly, it recognizes another human's need for love and acceptance as well, drawing us to another potential "last chance." While there are no guarantees in life, we can almost always expect love to find us again. A broken heart heals itself over time — hurt, anger, bitterness, optimism and then rebirth, and the cycle it takes is unreliable in its predictability. It could take days, maybe weeks or even years, but — rest assured — it will heal eventually.

Watching others love and seeing others find it also makes it tough on the brokenhearted. Deep down, we are happy for our friends but on the surface, we feel a sense of bitterness and unnecessary resentment. For those who are brokenhearted, it is a lie to say this feeling hasn't passed through the surface of your feelings a time or two, but in the end, you realize that it is the hurt lashing out and you can finally exorcise them into oblivion.

Plenty of other fish in the sea? Don't give me that bull. You'll find another? Suck it. All we brokenhearted need are friends to let us vent, hear us out, allow us to verbalize and then we can find solace in having said our peace. Any advice rings hollow to the ears of a broken man, and it only adds fuel to the resentment. It is better to listen in these moments, allowing the venom to run its course before simply acknowledging your love for us.

Am I done with love? Probably not, but the idea of it sickens me right now. God never gives us more than we can handle in life, but this whole package feels like a little bit of overkill. Like ripping a Band-Aid off quickly, life in my world brings major collapses followed by long periods of clear sailing. Nothing ever comes in individual packages but in industrial-sized calamity. If my life was compared to a grocery store, I'd be Costco, not Wal-Mart...one big moment of struggle followed by relative peace for a time.

I'm not a negative person by nature but moments like these surely make being an optimist a struggle. Those who know me know this. I am a Cubs fan by nature and by heart, but occasionally, Mr. Ra-Ra needs a cheer as well. For now, I'll strap up my laces, keep my chin up, spend some time in the Word and simply allow God to heal me as He sees fit, taking into consideration that it's always darkest before the dawn...

Red rover, red rover...

President Obama says it's broken, and now — in an election year where his party is set to take a major hit at the polls and long after he's lost the control of his unstoppable majority in congress — he's ready to do something about *insert social issue here, using an illusionist's misdirection away from the reality of a continually tanking economy that will take an even greater hit when the "created jobs" of the Census 2010 come to a close.

"I know things are bad here," Obama says, "but I promise that we will...oh look! A yeti! I think it might be Bigfoot. Oh, sorry, it must have been Nancy Pelosi dressed like Snookie. Anyways, I know you asked me about the economy I promised to fix in my inaugural speech. The thing about the economy is that...holy Kennedy!!! Is that Justin Bieber making out with Kim Kardashian?!?! No, it's John Ensign and one of his buddy's wives.

"Sorry, I got a little distracted. So, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, the economy I said would rebound after we dedicated billions of dollars to recovery. Well, the thing about the economy is...is...um...(*teleprompter shuts off after Joe Biden trips over the power cable and his own wagging tongue*)...umm...San Dimas High School football rules!"

Change we need? Nope, more business as usual.

With an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, imagine if each of them paid just $100 a year in taxes. That adds up to roughly $1.1 billion a year...now imagine if they all paid the roughly 10% in taxes like every other legal citizen is forced to? Imagine the taxes they'd be paying if they were protected by proper wages instead of the ridiculously advantageous peanuts companies pay these hard working human beings...

In the end, it's a failure of we American people as a society that propagates this. We are so arrogant in how we treat others as well as our constant nose-thumbing at the laws of our land that we fail to do the right thing for our nation AND humanity. The blame doesn't fall on the businessmen, the military warmongers or even "The Burger King" himself, but primarily on our leaders who have the power to do the most. It's also a failure of those from other cultures to respect the foundation of what our nation stands for as we provide them a chance at a better future. They are so quick to wave their country's flags with pride but, in the same breath, spit on ours without concern.

While I'm not putting the blame entirely on our well-spoken yet arrogantly clueless president, I do find it hard not to blame the coach when a team fails to play the game the right way and without proper fundamentals. His bench coaches — Cleanface Harry Reid and the scientifically altered beast formerly known as Nancy Pelosi — are too busy showing off their muscles, leasing ridiculously large office space, buying private jets, and flaunting their bling to do anything for our nation. Grandstanding for sound bytes instead of fishing for hope.

Democrats want illegal immigrants out so the unions can get their fill of the available jobs but, then again, they don't want to lose the Latino vote that comes with their ability to play minorities against conservatives. Republicans want to keep getting cheap labor for "big business" but don't want to lose the votes of those who staunchly believe in the laws of this land and vote like pachyderms. When will ALL of these constitutionally-appointed leaders follow the guide of those who came before them?

You need unemployment benefits? Ok, let's throw a bill up there that one party will have no choice but to vote for (since so much is on the line) or vote against and look cold-hearted in the process. Better yet, let's not use funds saved for this bailout and add more debt. This way, they'll have no choice but to vote against it and we can look like the "champions for the people" when, in reality, we are merely using them as pawns in a greater game for the votes we've lost with our own poor performance come election time this fall.

Call it bad timing, call it shooting the messenger or call it a performance review, but I'm under the idea that the "change we need" means sending ALL of these morons who are already stuck on the "Beltway Spin Cycle" packing. Term limits, fresh faces, idealistic leaders who still believe in the country instead of the money thrown at them from special interests, the unions, big business and the lobbyist wrecking crew that is manipulating our nation into decay and failed policy with every passing day.

We need fresh blood and admittedly flawed leaders who are human, know it, and still love this country more than they love the almighty dollar and are willing to go to great lengths to protect that above all else. Force our leaders to live on a set salary and prohibit them from accepting any money beyond that. Cover their travel, rip the silver spoon from their mouths and induce them to live like public servants, not well-paid panhandlers in business suits looking for multi-million dollar alms.

After he was elected, Obama said, "I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver."

Unfortunately, we went from heading for a cliff to an ever-looming, oncoming dump truck. When the bus takes a wrong turn onto the train tracks, you can easily blame the GPS but in the end, the fault should be on those who are driving. We swerved from the cliff only to stare down a mack truck set to inflict as much or more damage than the cliff we assumed would destroy us, despite not even checking to see if it was actually a cliff, not a curb.

Hopefully, this fall, and in the coming years, our voters will give our country's governing bodies a transfusion of epic proportion, from both the left side and the right. Educated votes for people outside of the system, willing to work for the people as servants, not arrogant know-it-alls who believe every time they squat over a bidet, the rooms suddenly smells of roses and sweet sugar...