Love: Kills Slowly

LOVE:
•a strong positive emotion of regard and affection


•any object of warm affection or devotion

•have a great affection or liking for

•beloved: a beloved person

•get pleasure from

•a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction

•be enamored or in love with

•sleep together: have sexual intercourse with
 
It is an amazing thing, this thing we call Love... It can bring joy, pain, happiness, and sadness. It sadly becomes an addiction to many. A mask for hiding the pain many live with. A way to never face fear, and a way to build a facade that others see, a way to look strong, instead of showing their humanity.
This is why the sad reality is that...
LOVE KILLS SLOWLY...
While it may feed hope, it may bring new life in one area or to one person. It may very well be taking from another. What is seen on the surface is not always what is going on behind closed doors. When people are trying to put their best foot forward, they don't show the truth of the pain they live with every day. Just because we see a display of what is perceived perfection, it most likely has it's own set of issues and the most perfect things on the surface are quite often the most hollow on the interior.
So often people who have never been loved properly especially as a child, tend to become manipulators. Rather than getting the help that can truly change their lives, they create the most elaborate fantasyland to live in.. most do it without meaning to or without intent of hurting anyone, but they do. And they do it repeatedly, and even when they learn about themselves, they are not able to stop. Much like the addiction of the alchoholic. Even when they have a  person in their life to be with them, to share and be a support to them to help them past this abusive and destructive behavior, they are often not able to break away. And instead turn the enviroment into a toxic place that sucks the life from the relationship. Where they will tell the person that is there loving them, accepting them, offering to go to therapy with them, that they want to change, the will falsify things in their life to make it look they are acting on it. They will beg, cry, plead on bended knee, make promises of change and improvement, yet take out their wrath on the person there living with them and who is in love them.
LOVE KILLS SLOWLY...
No one knows the pain involved in the giving of one's self to a relationship where the love is given without judgement and then manipulated to be something bad. Where lies are created, and information of one's personal life is manipulated and used as a way to belittle and demean. Things that are actually shared in common between two people who are in love, yet then become the tools to slice and dice the feelings and emotions of the person who has been closest. For when  the person is closest then it is easiest to cut the deepest and seemingly have no emotion about it. To move through life making decisions that if it were made public, people would turn away in horror if they knew the words and actions of the person who portrays to them being their upstanding friend. Yet behind closed doors treats their "soulmate and Love of their life" as a psychological science project to see how much they can manipulate them,use them and get by with. And while they do it, try to convience that person that they are the one with issues and causing their unsettling life.
 
Some operate from an unsettled place where they shift from day to day or in a single moment as if on a bipolar rollercoaster. Expressing great passion, love and writing eloquent words then when something causes insecurity turning on their loved one, verbally and mentally abusing them. Threats and taking advantage of their life situations add to the tearing down and the use of controling behavior to manipulate the interior of the relationship to be what they want from it. All of these things add to the sabotage of a loving supportive relationship where communication could be or had been growing, where therapy could be helpful, but where all is lost in a cloud of delusion and denial. Where they blame all the disfunction on the other person, and take no responsibility for their actions.
Even when they cause, emotional, psychological and eventually physical  damage. The lack of ability to grasp any concept of the depth of their own pain and disfunction only causes them to maginfy their continued actions against those they love.
Causing them to kill the love being given to them...
Sadly...
 
LOVE KILLS SLOWLY...

I AM RICH!!!

I had a friend pass along a story today. Of how his mother told of how her riches were collecting friends. That relationships were the only thing we take from this world with us when we pass other than our soul. The richest part of living is the sharing of ourselves with others. The best part of life is feeling rich... and that does not mean money in the bank, a mercedes in the driveway, or the biggest house on the block.

I was so amazed to hear this, as it is exactly what I beleive in!! Sometimes I think we need to be reminded of the things we have in our heart. We let them get pushed back into the sidelines and have to move them to the forefront to make them part of our every day living.

I so much believe we are what we surround ourselves with! I am reminded every day that I am blessed by the wonderful people in my life. I want only to continue to share my life with those who share theirselves honestly and with a sincerity. I believe we are here to a support to each other, and I am made rich by the relationships I have with people. The soulmate I share my life's adventures with... Amazing! My children who love and accept me as I am... The people who share my hopes and dreams for things that are important to my soulmate & I...

To those of you who know how to focus on the good things of life, to encourage when the times are not at 100%, those who are not afraid to call or message and share when you need help, or return the favor when you know it is needed, I say Thank You!! For being part of the riches of my life!!

In 2010, I want to only become richer, and help others understand that fulfillment!
Peace to you all
AL

Me... a sign...

• Capricorn







December 22 - January 19






You are not in the habit of talking without saying anything constructive, dear Capricorn. Sometimes some people even suspect you or accuse you of having nothing to say! When you are just being patient, they say that you are ignorant. When you are just demonstrating your tolerance, they say that you are indifferent. Today, it's time for those people to learn the real truth about you and understand just how much you have to say about the world.



I read these from time to time... Never actually look at them as something to live by, but more as something to remind us about what may be happening in our lives. If I end up with time to read mine, then that is most likely the day I was meant to read it. Today is one of those days! I often struggle with what I want to say.

That what is playing in my head never comes out the way I want it to sound. I refrain from saying things for fear I will offend by not getting it across with the right meaning. Or that I may hurt someone with my feelings or thoughts. Yet I live in a world where everyone says and does or doesn't say or do what is best for them without worry of it working for others.



Constructive sometimes can be things we need to work on, so they are not always things we want to hear. I can't say I am the best at hearing constructive criticism, but when I present it, I try to do it in an inclusive way. Where what needs to be worked on is something that can be shared...



Patience can be mistaken for ignorance... complacency or a lack of caring. Being patient with others as they work their life issues can be a trying effort, but the most rewarding one in life. Showing the ones we care about, or those who have no one to stand by them when their lives are askew, a bit of patience is something I strive to do each day. I cannot begin to say THANK YOU to those who have taken time to show patience with me as I grow as a person. I am still growing! So I would say we each need patience... daily....



Tolerance... Our world is so lacking in this area! We as a human race need desperately to embrace tolerance on every level of our daily living. We want so much to be accepted as a person, from early childhood, through our lives we struggle for acceptance. Tolerance is something I want to exemplify each and every day!



I hope that each of us take time to look at the things we are going through on this day, and consider those around us. Remember that we are not alone in the things we face on a daily basis. That by making time for others, by allowing room in our lives for evolution to change us, we have the opportunity to become a better person every day!



Peace to you all

AL

A Manifesto! The time has come!

As a person who has studied the bible, theology and was raised in a middle-American Christian home, served in many capacities in my church over the years & consider myself a spiritual person... I ask that you take time to read this as a heart-felt passing on of information that I have never felt stronger about than anything you have ever seen me post here on this blog.
The words of this straight Bishop are riveting...

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one. I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged. In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer. I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable. I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite. I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote. The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon. I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people. Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever. This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
– John Shelby Spong

As a child I was taught to love God & to fear God, to give reverence for the power that his deity manifests in our everyday life. To give thanks in all things, to follow the golden rule. To love my neighbor as myself and to give, even if it was the shirt from my own back. Many of my family members & forefathers have given their version of living out in example to the best of their ability what it meant to be a true Christian. I once met a woman who was born with her sight, but went blind as an adult, she prayed and asked God to give her back her sight so that she might be a better minister for his service. She told of how this happened... and how she had her sight for 7 years, 7 months & 7 days, & then she woke one morning to find she was blind again. In her hour of despair she discovered that her ability to be “in tune” with her spiritual self was at its peak when she was blind... She told me this story when I was but 11 years old. And was struggling from great loss in my life. She told me, “Now is the time to see the world without boundaries, to Love without prejudice & never focus on what you don’t have, but find strength in what you do, for with this you will find power like that of a thousand warriors”. When I received the attached email by Bishop/Author, John Shelby Spong, I was reminded of her words. And I am standing with Bishop Spong in my beliefs, based in my years of studying the bible & theology, searching out my soul’s salvation, years spent as a church member, youth pastor, choir director and many other positions within the church I was raised in. The same church that as an organization excommunicated myself & many others over the years of my life based in their so-called God given instructions to maintain a correct moral order in the church. The time has passed for those types behaviors to be considered acceptable.
The time has come for the world to know & see the “TRUE” love of God manifested.
Love & peace to you all...
Al Glover

Yearly Checkup!!

Its that time again......

It's time for your annual "Am I Gay?" Self-Examination


1. If you are over thirty and you have a washboard stomach, you are gay.
It means you haven't sucked back enough beer with the boys and have spent
the rest of your free time doing sit-ups, aerobics, and doing the Oprah
diet.

2. If you have a cat, you are a Flaaaaming homo. A cat is like a dog, but
gay - it grooms itself constantly but never scratches itself, has a
delicate touch except when it uses its nails, and whines to be fed. And
just think
about how you call a dog... "Killer, come here! I said get your ass over
here, Killer!" Now think about how you call a cat..."Bun-bun, come to
daddy, snookums!" Jeeezus, you're fit to be framed, you're so gay.

3. If you suck on lollipops, Ring-Pops, baby pacifiers, or any such
nonsense, rest assured, you are a Gaylord. A straight man only sucks on
Bar-b-que ribs, crab claws, raw oysters, crawfish guts, pickled pigs feet,
or tits. Anything else and you are in training to suck El Dicko and
undeniably a fag.

4. If you refuse to take a dump in a public bathroom or piss in a parking
lot, you crave a deep homosexual relationship. A man's world is his
bathroom; he defecates and urinates where he pleases.

5. If you drink decaf coffee with skim milk, you like a high hard one in
the poop chute. Coffee is to be hard, strong, black, and full aroma. A
straight man will never be heard ordering a "Decaf Cafe Latte with Skim"
and
he will never, ever know what artificial sweetener tastes like. If you've
had NutraSweet in your mouth, you've had a man there, too.

6. If you know more than six names of colors or four different types of
dessert, you might as well be handing out free passes to your ass. A real
man doesn't have memory space in his brain to remember all of that crap as
well as all the names of all the players in the Major league, NFL, NHL,
college ball, PGA and NASCAR. If you can pick out chartreuse or you know
what a "fre ssier" is you're gay. And if you can name ANY type of textile
other than denim, you are faggadocious.

7. If you drive with both hands on the wheel, forget it, you're dying to
tune a meat whistle. A man only puts both hands on the wheel to honk at a
slow-ass driver or to cut the punk off. The rest of the time he needs that
hand to change the radio station, eat a hamburger, hold his beer, or play
with his honey in the passenger seat.

8. If you enjoy romantic comedies or French films, mon-frere, vous le Gay,
oui? The only time it is acceptable to watch one of those is with a woman
who knows how to reward her man. Watching any of the above films by
yourself or with another man is likely to result in SHC (spontaneous
homosexual combustion), which is what happens to fags when they flame out
too.

Disturbia

Have you ever given any thot to how close to the edge of sanity we all live? Are we safely sane... or is there a fine line that teeters nearby as we speed along life's highway? Like a cliff, ready for us to make the wrong turn, or travel just a bit too fast and go speeding over the edge. One can even wonder if through all the shit life throws at us, if we momentarily hang out over the edge of said cliff. Like a bird flying or the darting of the frogs tongue...
So we go through life looking, sorting through the "stuff" we've been given to deal with. Our baggage if you would. Our childhood, littered with memories of our favorite things, but sometimes erie with bad things that happened to us. Leaving scars that we have to deal with. the teen years when we wanted to be an adult but were not, yet many of us were doing adult-like things. These leave twisted edges on our minds and our memories. They distort our ability to keep track of time, and where things fit in the boxes of when they happened.
Then we jump off into relationships... we tend to connect with someone who seems to understand us. But ultimately we find that we are attracted to people because we need something from each other. This is where expectations are established. Then when not fulfilled, that relationship is tossed aside to move on to the next. As we navigate through our life growing into our experiences, we meet new challenges. We find those who can help us along the way. make friends, some of who have the best of intentions. they get sidetracked, they get selfish. it becomes less fun than we remembered so we move on. Great people come into our lives! We fall in love, we get hurt. We grow! learn about ourselves and the fabric we are made of... we cautiously refocus and move ahead, onward, upward! And if we pay attention we take the lessons to heart! otherwise we only settle to whine about what others have done to us all our lives and never take any responsibility for our own actions. This is when it becomes so easy to pick everyone around us apart about how they are doing everything wrong when really we are only trying to draw attention away from our own issues. All the while we are dishing out vile treatment to the ones we love, hurting them, belittling them, destroying them.
If we are lucky, we meet a soulmate in this world. someone who is a best friend and a lover. Who you can be yourself, no matter how low or how high you are... the person that knows the darkest secrets and still loves you. who helps you drag those skeletons to the curb and break em to bits.
And the one who loves you like no other ever loves you! The reality to this is that the soul mate then is the closest, and the ones closest end up hurting us the most. it is true! Not because they mean to, not because they set out to, but because they are fallible. They are human just like we are... yet somehow we expect them to be without fault. We have in our head, that the soul mate will never say or do anything that hurts us. But they know the truth about us! they know the person we really are. And they are most likely the only one brave enough to tell us the truth. And the cold hard truth is what we really need to hear. We will not grow unless we do... sadly when we do hear it, we feel pain. We will most likely retaliate. And unless there is an ability to act like adults, to think clearly and be rational, a power struggle starts.

I saw the most profound billboard when I was in WV for my daughter's Grad.
WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE IS GREATER THAN THE LOVE OF POWER,
THERE WILL BE PEACE, EVERYWHERE!!!

That will forever stick with me! In fact one day, I may have it tattooed on my body!
Because this truly says it all... when we stop to think that so much craziness in this world is all about power. it is really true! In our relationships, we get in a power struggle to see who is right... who knows best! Trouble is neither party really knows shit! all they know is the experiences they have been through that have shaped their minds, and then they compare the person in front of them to those people in the past. WOW! That's helpful... so let me dissect you and tell you how you hurt me, how you make me feel used, put upon, because I know these feelings! I know them, cause, Mommie, and auntie Laquisha, and uncle comb over all made me have these feelings when I was a kid! And I can't handle this because that one friend i had made me feel used and abused cause I let them in, so now I am settin you beside her, and I see similarities... DAMN! Do we not see we are destroying the people who love us by draggin all this shit along with us. when do we ever let go of any of that and decide I want to be well! I want to have a relationship now! I don't care if my soulmate has similarities to things in my past, that doesn't take away the love we share! that doesn't take away the good communication we are capable of... unless I bury it in drama! When I decide to give love a chance, then my life changes! I know this because I live it! being loved like no other, like never before is amazing! but it does not take away the fact that the two people in love with each other are less than perfect. that they are still going to make mistakes.. and need forgiveness. Words will be spoken in haste that each one will say sorry for...They are going to face new issues as time and factors of life evolve. If we think for a moment we can have it remain the same forever then that is a fantasy! there are so many factors involved. And yes our pasts will always play a part... but they don't have to destroy it! and we don't have to be so buried in little things that we lose sight of the whole picture... I think we forget to appreciate what we have! Get so caught up in our own personal drama that we forget to appreciate the other party. That is sad! I want to always take time to be grateful for the love I share! For the moments to be cherished... I want to build memories, share adventures, and love! Love with all my heart... Every day!! for that is what my soulmate deserves! and that is the kind of man I want to be....

Peace to you all
AL

Believing again

Today I believe in Life! I believe in love, I believe in Hope...
I believe the when we trust and move forward that what we put out there will come back to us!
So many times in our lives we lose track of the goal.. the path...
We get off focus and get bogged down with what is happening in the moment.
I am today believing in the now & in the tomorrow!
We all need to remind ourselves sometimes that we are just human.
And when we are able to look at ourselves in the light of day,
To look in the mirror and accept our own humanity,
Then we are able to stop judging ourselves & focus on the goal.
Focus on the positive and move onward and upward!
I trust today that you can join me in loving yourself!
Trusting in yourself & believe in the hope of the future!!

Peace to you all!!
AL