Ryan’s story, in case you’re new, has been told in other posts around here. A young man who struggles with SSA, his story could very well be any of ours. (And for some of us, probably is.)
Anyway, there have been great ups and downs in this story and I’m working on getting us a major update, but you should know that right now Ryan is in a coma from an overdose. His family is standing vigil over him and needs your prayers.
More to come soon.
Got news today of financial disaster hitting my world. Owe money I cannot repay and home health services may be terminated at the end of this month. Your prayers are especially needed right now. Thanks for your prayers and your encouragement.
You’ll notice a new box on the right hand side of the page. It’s one of those “click to donate” things, where you’re basically giving someone else’s money to a worthy charity. To Write Love on Her Arms provides counseling and referrals to young people suffering from depression.
Let me give you their vision and mission statement, which is what caught me:
MISSION STATEMENT:
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
VISION:
The vision is that we actually believe these things…
You were created to love and be loved. You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you’re part of a bigger story. You need to know that your life matters.
We live in a difficult world, a broken world. My friend Byron is very smart – he says that life is hard for most people most of the time. We believe that everyone can relate to pain, that all of us live with questions, and all of us get stuck in moments. You need to know that you’re not alone in the places you feel stuck.
We all wake to the human condition. We wake to mystery and beauty but also to tragedy and loss. Millions of people live with problems of pain. Millions of homes are filled with questions – moments and seasons and cycles that come as thieves and aim to stay. We know that pain is very real. It is our privilege to suggest that hope is real, and that help is real.
You need to know that rescue is possible, that freedom is possible, that God is still in the business of redemption. We’re seeing it happen. We’re seeing lives change as people get the help they need. People sitting across from a counselor for the first time. People stepping into treatment. In desperate moments, people calling a suicide hotline. We know that the first step to recovery is the hardest to take. We want to say here that it’s worth it, that your life is worth fighting for, that it’s possible to change.
Beyond treatment, we believe that community is essential, that people need other people, that we were never meant to do life alone.
The vision is that community and hope and help would replace secrets and silence.
The vision is people putting down guns and blades and bottles.
The vision is that we can reduce the suicide rate in America and around the world.
The vision is that we would learn what it means to love our friends, and that we would love ourselves enough to get the help we need.
The vision is better endings. The vision is the restoration of broken families and broken relationships. The vision is people finding life, finding freedom, finding love. The vision is graduation, a Super Bowl, a wedding, a child, a sunrise. The vision is people becoming incredible parents, people breaking cycles, making change.
The vision is the possibility that your best days are ahead.
The vision is the possibility that we’re more loved than we’ll ever know.
The vision is hope, and hope is real.
You are not alone, and this is not the end of your story.
I like the fact that it’s peer counseling and that their message is strong and hopeful. Every once in a while, would you mind clicking on that ad and sending a few of TNT’s bucks the way of these people?
Just when you thought you’ve heard/seen/read/digested it all, another wave of stupid comes to burn…
more about "Pat. Seriously. Chill. You’re NOT …", posted with vodpod
I have friends who feel very strongly the other way, but as an artist myself I do not believe that artists need to make statements concerning the meaning behind their work. Once the art leaves the artist, it becomes the property of society and any interpretation of that art (or re-interpretation of that art) is solely on the shoulders of society. It may be something completely different than what the artist intended, but then again art requires not just the artist, but the consumer of that art as well. One cannot function without the other.
Still — it’s that very inability to control the effects of your art that’s got to be eating at John Eldredge. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, you know I’m a big, big fan of John’s works. Found a lot of good in them myself and have taken much to heart (most notably, “Waking the Dead” which I listen to once a year.) It seems that others have been using John’s works for…well…according to the website CrooksAndLiars.com:
On Saturday an internal intelligence report on La Familia from the Mexican justice department surfaced in Milenio, bringing the news that the faith-based cartel grounds its indoctrination program on the writings of macho Christian author and veteran Focus On The Family senior fellow John Eldredge, who now heads Ransomed Hearts Ministries in Colorado Springs.
There are four separate references to Eldredge in the Mexican intelligence memo on La Familia. The cartel has conducted a three-year recruitment and PR campaign across Michoacan featuring thousands of billboards and banderas carrying their evangelical message and warnings. La Familia is known for tagging its executions and other mayhem as “la divina justica”–divine justice.
The report says La Familia leader, Nazario Gonzalez Moreno aka El Loco o More Chayo (”The Craziest”) has made Eldredge’s books required reading for La Familia and has paid rural teachers and National Development Education members to circulate the Colorado-based evangelical’s writings throughout the Michoacan countryside.
Reynolds goes on to cite Christian blogger Tim Challies:
John Eldredge became a major player in the evangelical world with the release of The Sacred Romance which he co-authored with Brent Curtis (who has since died). Following The Sacred Romance he wrote Wild at Heart, Waking The Dead, The Journey of Desire and more recently, Epic. I have read all of these except for Waking The Dead and The Journey of Desire. Eldredge’s books are targeted primarily at men and his writings have great appeal for men, many of whom feel that society has forced them to be like Mr. Rogers – harmless and just a little effeminate. Eldredge encourages men to be real men – to head to the wilderness and be the rugged warriors we all want to be if we look deep inside ourselves. Eldredge continually writes about William Wallace of Braveheart or Maximus, the main character in Gladiator – real manly men.”
As Reynolds explores in two follow-up posts, the way this has translated on the ground in Mexico is a wave of violence directed against not merely rival drug gangs, but also anyone who fails to live up to its version of “masculine Christianity”:
“La Familia doesn’t kill for money, doesn’t kill women, doesn’t kill innocent people. It only kills those who deserve to die. Everyone should know this: Divine justice.”–message left with five severed heads on the dance floor of the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruacan, Michoacan, September 6, 2006.
… From all available information so far, it appears that La Familia has developed into a faith-based right-wing populist social movement emanating from and orchestrated by an organization that happens to be a well-armed, well-financed violent criminal enterprise.
… La Familia is strongly pro-family (and all that that implies) and requires its members to abstain from alcohol and drugs. There is an indoctrination program all La Familia recruits must go through that inculcates “ personal values, ethical and morlal principles consistent with the purposes of the organization.” Last year La Familia brought in two motivational speakers to lecture its members. The group is hierarchic and maintains a strict top-down emotional control of its members.
Think of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, only with more money and firepower and you get the idea.
On Saturday an internal intelligence report on La Familia from the Mexican justice department surfaced in Milenio, bringing the news that the faith-based cartel grounds its indoctrination program on the writings of macho Christian author and veteran Focus On The Family senior fellow John Eldredge, who now heads Ransomed Hearts Ministries in Colorado Springs.
There are four separate references to Eldredge in the Mexican intelligence memo on La Familia. The cartel has conducted a three-year recruitment and PR campaign across Michoacan featuring thousands of billboards and banderas carrying their evangelical message and warnings. La Familia is known for tagging its executions and other mayhem as “la divina justica”–divine justice.The report says La Familia leader, Nazario Gonzalez Moreno aka El Loco o More Chayo (”The Craziest”) has made Eldredge’s books required reading for La Familia and has paid rural teachers and National Development Education members to circulate the Colorado-based evangelical’s writings throughout the Michoacan countryside.
Reynolds goes on to cite Christian blogger Tim Challies:
John Eldredge became a major player in the evangelical world with the release of The Sacred Romance which he co-authored with Brent Curtis (who has since died). Following The Sacred Romance he wrote Wild at Heart, Waking The Dead, The Journey of Desire and more recently, Epic. I have read all of these except for Waking The Dead and The Journey of Desire. Eldredge’s books are targeted primarily at men and his writings have great appeal for men, many of whom feel that society has forced them to be like Mr. Rogers – harmless and just a little effeminate. Eldredge encourages men to be real men – to head to the wilderness and be the rugged warriors we all want to be if we look deep inside ourselves. Eldredge continually writes about William Wallace of Braveheart or Maximus, the main character in Gladiator – real manly men.”
As Reynolds explores in two follow-up posts, the way this has translated on the ground in Mexico is a wave of violence directed against not merely rival drug gangs, but also anyone who fails to live up to its version of “masculine Christianity”:
“La Familia doesn’t kill for money, doesn’t kill women, doesn’t kill innocent people. It only kills those who deserve to die. Everyone should know this: Divine justice.”–message left with five severed heads on the dance floor of the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruacan, Michoacan, September 6, 2006.
… From all available information so far, it appears that La Familia has developed into a faith-based right-wing populist social movement emanating from and orchestrated by an organization that happens to be a well-armed, well-financed violent criminal enterprise.
… La Familia is strongly pro-family (and all that that implies) and requires its members to abstain from alcohol and drugs. There is an indoctrination program all La Familia recruits must go through that inculcates “ personal values, ethical and morlal principles consistent with the purposes of the organization.” Last year La Familia brought in two motivational speakers to lecture its members. The group is hierarchic and maintains a strict top-down emotional control of its members.
Think of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, only with more money and firepower and you get the idea.
There are two major upgrades I would make to this blog: one, to put it under it’s own domain, asweresomeofyou.com, which I now own for 2 years. (No separate space yet, but I own the domain.) There are at least a half a dozen searches for this blog title every week by people who can’t remember the formerlygay.wordpress.com address. (It was going to be called formerlygay before I’d hit upon the as were some of you phrase.) The second part of the upgrade would be including a message board to get people to start talking to each other.
The grand total for both these upgrades, which involves moving from the free version of WordPress to the managed one you pay for, is $107.78 for two years. Not a ton of money for most, but for myself it is insanely large. So here’s what I’d like to know:
Once we’ve let this run a week or so, the next question would be HOW to support said blog in the least obtrusive manner possible. (I would do it in this post, but you can’t have two polls and vote on them in the same blog post. The cookie barphs.)
And again, the man gots insight. Here’s a tease of the new article:
Every now and then, I have a recurring dream. It’s not a very holy dream, but I dream it nonetheless. In it, the Colombian singer Juanes appears at my door, shirtless and on his eleventh beer. He confesses that he came across my writings and, through them, has developed a man-crush on me.& nbsp; Me… a 42 year-old, minivan-driving, dreamboat of an office manager from New Jersey. He then authoritatively grunts “I must have you, Robert”, journeys his hand to the back of my neck, and, with confident ownership, pulls me in closer to kiss me. It is always at this point where I awaken, with an unresolved outcome.
Because this dream never plays beyond his mouth coming to within a few millimeters of mine, I often speculate how, in real life, I would respond to this absolutely wonderful stroke of good fortune…I mean grueling test of faith. I have come up with three possible scenarios and cannot, in all truth, tell you which one would play out. It would all depend on the state of my spiritual health at the moment the doorbell rings.
Scenario #1: I boldly turn my lips away from his, genteelly close the door, calmly call my accountability partner to report the temptation, virtuously pick up my Bible, and then peacefully enter into an intimate session of thanksgiving, knowing that I had once again put on the full armor of God and resisted sin.
Scenario #2: Upon opening the door, I become stupefied by raw lust. Unable to pull myself together, I just stand there useless, with my shoulders arched forward, my tongue rolled out and a retarded gaze on my face, looking like a lobotomy patient, 12 hours post-operative. I then quiver a little, drool a lot, and break out in a horrible and spreading nervous rash. Juanes notices the rash, chivalrously hands me a napkin for the drool issue, loses interest in me, turns away and goes home, knowing in his heart that he will never again touch alcohol.
Scenario #3: I yank him into the house, draw the curtains, and make him forget he’s straight.
When I bring up “the Juanes dream” to friends, they typically mumble “whatever” to Scenario #1, nod in unanimous agreement at Scenario # 2, and, with eyebrows raised, smirk and say they wouldn’t put Scenario #3 past me. Who needs friends anyway?
So, why do I…why do WE…continue on this road less traveled if we are still very much homosexually attracted? Why aren’t we out picketing for gay rights and social reforms?
Go read the rest here. Enjoy. Tell him I sent you.
Dr. Warren Throckmorton, friend o’the blog, is going to be reporting on the findings of a just-published Finnish study.
Now I happen to believe that *I* fall a good deal under the reparative therapy conclusions that many of the problems young men face in their sexual determination has to do with wounds real or imagined with the father relationship. So naturally:
A distant (cold) relationship with the father of gay men was expected on the basis of previous studies; however, in this study, gay men reported warmer paternal, as well as maternal, relationships than heterosexual men did.
Leave it to Dr. T. to blow that out of the water. Well, nudge it real hard and throw it a towel maybe.
Find it here: http://wthrockmorton.com/2009/05/18/parenting-homosexuality-and-gender-atypical-behavior/. Were I you, I’d bookmark him for followups on this study. I am.
Sorry, gang. There was a video I wanted to post — entirely off topic — that was embedded in a post on another blog with a…ur…rather obscene title. naturally the vodpod software malfunctioned and posted only the scurrilous bits. Thanks for pointing that out. (And it posted it without permission. How interesting…)
