Posted on

The Only Shape That Fits

Most of us have enjoyed the beauty of a painting. Artists spend their time crafting what they believe to be a good painting. When they are done, they sign the painting somewhere on the canvas. The creator makes a mark on the painting that only he can make signifying it is his. Our Creator did the same thing. I’ll explain.

I was in the doctor’s office waiting room with my daughter watching a few kids play. One kid concerned me a little. She kept trying to put the square piece in the round hole. Over and over she tried. She finally threw the square piece. Then she picked up the triangle piece and put it in the round hole. Again, didn’t fit. She threw that one too. It seemed no matter which block she picked up, if it wasn’t the round one, it wasn’t going to fit.

Then it hit me. This is exactly what we do in life. We go through life trying to find something that will fill the hole in our inner most beings, but it never seems to fit perfectly. We look up and wonder why we are still miserable.

I recently watched the Johnny Football documentary. He had achieved everything he had ever dreamed of and more. He was a D1 star. He made more money than he knew what to do with. He beat Alabama. Ha. He won the Heisman as a freshman. He was drafted in the first round of the NFL. Then, sitting on his couch in Cleveland, he was miserable. All of that still didn’t equate to fulfillment. He tried taking his own life. The only reason he’s alive is because the gun malfunctioned.

Then there’s the time Deion Sanders attempted to take his own life after winning the super bowl 3 times. Or how about the time Dennis Rodman contemplated taking his own life. He had won championships. But he was miserable.

Robin Williams was a living legend. Kate Spade had more money than I’ll ever see. Anthony Bourdain had his own show traveling the world doing what he loved. It wasn’t enough. There’s a reason.

There’s a hole or void in our souls in a certain shape. It’s the shape of God. We have all tried to put things there that don’t fit. Money, substances, fame, cars, friends, careers, our spouses, our kids. They don’t fit. But we try to make them fit. Then we look around and wonder why we are miserable. We are miserable because we are trying to make a square block fit in to a round hole.

When it comes to the creation, the Creator was clever. He made you almost whole. But he left one piece out. And made sure that it was only in the shape of Him. After all, He did say He made us in His image.

So if you are in a place where you can’t figure out why you are miserable, apathetic, sad, frustrated, lonely, full of anxiety… it may be that you still need to fill that void with the right shape. If you will just give up trying the other things, that don’t seem to be working, and fill your void with the shape of God, you will find that there’s peace and relaxation in this. Try it. What do you have to lose?    

Posted on

Still the Greatest Show on Earth

Why is America the greatest country on earth?

In the opening scene of the pilot episode of The Newsroom, a student asks Jeff Daniel’s character that question, His answer, in short, was, “It’s not, but it could be.” In part, I agree. In part, I don’t. Let me explain.

He was referring to certain statistics in his response. Primarily education statistics. He is correct about where the US ranks in education against other developed countries. It’s not good. However, I have stated for some time now that I firmly believe social intelligence far outweighs academic intelligence in the US. When you apply both, you see a few things.

Our country was founded on the idea that there had yet to be a form of government that wasn’t completely tyrannical. The founders saw that it had become so easy to do when the primary governmental leaders, mainly the monarchy, was in close collaboration with the church. There simply was no such thing as a country that did not also have an established religion. To break up that tyranny, they set out to establish a country with no set religion. They also put in place a series of rules for the government that forces the government to be severely restricted. That document is called the US Constitution. It was designed to restrict the government. They also gave a powerful voice to the people so that the rule was not coming from tyrannical leaders sitting in high places, but rather from the people on the ground.

When looking at our nation’s past, you also see slavery. This deplorable, peculiar institution was definitely a stain on an otherwise brilliant endeavor. Many can quote stats on slavery and how bad it was. Here are some things that few quote. The first slave owner in America was a black man. The last slave owner in America was a native American man. The last slave was released on June 14th, 1866, not June 19th, 1865. June 19th represents the last day a white man had a slave but not the last slave that was released. Slavery in other countries lasted at least hundreds of years. In England, it had already been in place for at least 400 years before arriving to what is now called America. American slavery lasted 89 years. So while it is a nasty past, we came a long way and did it quicker than other nations. We have a history of awful wrongdoings, but also fixing those issues and moving forward.  

America is still the primary destination for those seeking a better life than where they are. There is a massive problem on the Mexican border because WE ARE THAT GOOD. We still live by and uphold that every person has the right to PURSUE happiness. They don’t have the right to happiness. They have the right to the pursuit of happiness. We live by the idea that each person can subscribe to the religion of their choice, or no religion at all.

Free speech means no one can demand that certain words come out of your mouth. This applies to both self-incrimination and your pronouns. If I choose to call you by preferred pronouns, I’m being cordial. But that free speech thing protects me from having to call you anything.

That second amendment is just in case they (tyrannical government) try to take the first one away. Learning from history is important. Past history and recent history. Past history will show you that Hitler disarmed Germany “for the good of the people.” We see how that worked out. In recent history, Australia disarmed their people. Then when covid came around, they forced everyone to stay in their houses. The people had no recourse for such tyranny. They were stuck.

This country still gives you the right to live where you want to live, go where you want to go, and do what you want to do, as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else’s individual rights and freedoms. Check out these financial stats:

  • If you have $61,000 in assets, you are among the richest 10% adults on earth.
  • If you earn $25,000 or more, you are in the top 10% of the world’s income earners.
  • If you earn $50,000 or more, you are in the top 1% of the world’s income earners.   

We have now had our first black president of the US. We have story after story of people fleeing places like Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Guatemala, Russia, and the list goes on… with a hope for a better life. And their hard work, gifts, and talents lead them to sufficient success. If this country is so bad, why is the rest of the world trying to get in?

The answer is simple. We are still the greatest country on earth. No, we are not perfect. No one will ever be. And no, a republic hierarchy is not a perfect system. But it is the least bad system ever created in the history of mankind. A republic that gives the little man a voice. A republic that is built to deter tyranny. We are in danger of losing this status. This is point of my book, America’s Greatest Threat: America. But as it stands, Americans live in the greatest country on earth.

Posted on

The Content of My Character

The 1960’s were a wild time. Black people in America were still being treated as subhuman. Black children were still being told the most interesting and repulsive thing about them was the color of their skin.

Picture this scenario… A teacher had separated the class by color. Black kids were on one side and white kids were on the other. One child hears her teacher say, “You can’t sit there. That’s reserved for the children that don’t look like you.” She already knows she can’t drink from the same water fountain. She can’t sit at the same lunch table. Now the teacher is making sure she knows that she’s being judged by the color of her skin over her personal qualities that make her unique. And in the great words of Jake Tyler Brigance (Matthew McConaughey), “Now imagine… she’s white.”

I’m fully convinced that if MLK Jr was alive today, he would be repulsed at the idea of segregating people (especially children) by the color of their skin. He would be disgusted at the idea of judging someone’s morality and intent by what color their skin is. My statement is based on his own words.

I truly can’t imagine any non-racist free thinker believing that a person’s skin color is more important than who they are as a person, how they treat others, and their contribution to society and the free market.

I also can’t imagine thinking that the answer to wrongs from one group over 200 years ago towards another is to enact those wrongs towards the descendants of that group. There is no good outcome of this. Not one good thing can possibly happen by enforcing policies on a group of people based on things that happened 200 years ago.

Anytime one group is oppressed, it leads to revolution. The oppressed group will only stand by for so long before they’ve had enough of wrongful oppression. We saw this with women’s suffrage. With the Supreme Court decision in 2015 to federalize gay marriage. The groups had enough and fought until they had equal rights. This applies to any “group”. If you oppress them, they will fight back.

As you can see above, the goal of CRT goes directly against the goal of Martin Luther King Jr. One was helpful. One is not.


We have to implement systems that refuse to oppress anyone and allow for equality of opportunity with the full knowledge that it will NOT lead to quality of outcome. The obvious reason for this is because some will take the opportunity and some will watch it pass by. Individual responsibility is the cornerstone of any great society.

Reading history is 100% free. And learning from it is an opportunity that some will take and some will pass by and be destined to repeat. Marxism as a core beliefs system revealed the effects of one group of people having too much power and thus globally racked up a body count of almost 100 million people. Even the most devout followers saw the error of its ways. Thomas Sowell was one of them. He now sees how that was a terrible idea. We must learn from history.

The Holocaust didn’t happen overnight. It was a series of changes that were made over time like: segregating people into groups, taking guns away from citizens “for their own safety”, propaganda given through media and controlled by the government, supporting groups who shame other groups that they disagree with. Sound familiar?

Not knowing you have an enemy gives the enemy the automatic win. Sitting silent is not an option for those that want to live and thrive in a free country. Understand that, right now, Marxism (that includes CRT and the destruction of the nuclear family) is your enemy. What will you do about it?

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

Posted on

Is Mrs. Doubtfire Under Fire?

Nope. The recent bill signed into law raises quite a few questions. All of the sudden, the same people that wanted to force you to put experimental drugs in your system are now saying the new TN law is a violation of free speech. I thought it was “my body, my choice”? This same group is saying this is an attack on the LGBT community. They’re saying if it isn’t bothering anyone, why do we care what they do. Some are saying it’s a violation of the constitution. So let’s break it down.

First, no one is being forced to change anything about their dress or speech. So that’s out. No one is monitoring or changing anything about sexual orientation. So that’s out. And the constitution provides a representative democracy where we vote leaders in that represent us and make laws to be voted on by the general assembly. So this new law abides perfectly within the US and TN constitution. So that’s out. What is it that is causing controversy?

Well, for one, the law makes it illegal to perform a drag show in public where children under the age of 18 can be present. It specifically lists the word “obscene.” This would imply things like stripping, sexual actions of a dancer, and lack of clothing. So the drag bus in downtown Nashville, as long as it continues to operate outside of those actions mentioned, will be able to continue its business as normal. Venues like Play will be operating as normal because you must be at least 18 to enter. So the law does not apply to them.

The purpose of the law is to prevent children from being exposed to obscene shows that are sexual in nature. The newest trend is performing strip shows in libraries for children. That can no longer be an option in Tennessee. When asked about this clarification, sponsors of the bill as well as Governor Lee said just that. This is not aimed at what is currently taking place. It is aimed at what could take place and has taken place in other states. This is entertainment that is sexual in nature. There is literally a psychological term for it, Autogynephilia, or AGP. This is the arousal of a man when he considers or sees himself as a woman. It has recently come out that Lia Thomas, the trans swimmer, has this. Which makes his actions to become a female swimmer all the more malevolent.

This new law boils down to one thing, children are under attack by those who wish to indoctrinate children with their adult political views and agendas at any cost. Protecting children should always be a priority in society. They can’t even be admitted into a rated R movie theater. If that’s the standard, then this is no different. There’s a reason that they’re not considered adults until age 18. They can’t make decisions for themselves fully. They are confused about many things. So throwing very complex, sexual behaviors at children only confuses them more. They don’t even consider things of sexual nature until they’ve reached puberty. Research shows that 90% of kids who are confused about their sexual orientation in their early teens reach an understanding of this by age 18 or 19. The research also shows that 80% of them are gay or lesbian. Which begs the question of why are people trying to push 15-year-olds into mutilating their reproductive organs? Doing so is damaging 80% of the gay population. Every 15-year-old I’ve ever known is confused about life in general and everything that comes along with it.

I agree, if it’s not bothering anyone, why do we care what they do? Good point. It’s not bothering anyone… until you parade it in front of children. And these issues, transgender surgery for early teens and drag shows in front of children, go together. It is driven by the same evil backbone.

Again, I hope that the statements are upheld that the law is not intended to apply to current activities but to what could take place. I say that because in order to make public drag shows illegal, they had to classify it in the same area as strip clubs, or cabaret. But most of us feel the same way…have your fun, just don’t put it front of children. And if you are angry about that, then you should have a much longer conversation the next time you see your therapist. 

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

Posted on

The Journey

It’s something that I still have a hard time with. I see the goal. I see the outcome. I see that I missed the goal, not once, not twice, but three times. But I have to be reminded of the journey.

I’m watching TV one night and I see this guitar player jamming away. I wanted to write songs. I’d seen my dad write songs. I begin to write. I write one of my first songs about a celebration of one of my friends from school beating cancer. I was insanely nervous singing that song in front of my youth group. That was the first and last time I was nervous singing. Made some good friends through that. I’m walking around singing one day and a friend of mine hears me. She says, “you should think about doing that for a living.” A few years later as I’m finishing high school, I begin pursuing a career in music.

I began going to writers’ nights. Met many great writers. I had cuts, mostly by new bands or artists that never made it. Made some lifelong friends during that phase. There are a handful of people I still talk to from that phase of life. People that if I called today, they’d help me with whatever I needed. At the end of the day, I did have three cuts that made some noise, one of which was an all-star cast of artists. It went to #75 on billboard. On that song, “Dare the World”, I was a writer, producer, played acoustic, sang background, and sang one lead line (because I forgot to get that line from anyone else).

Me and Eddie Dunbar

I then moved into being an artist. It started with sitting in with a band led by Eddie Dunbar. That led to 6 different production deals. With each step, I made friends with the producers themselves, the players on the sessions, and writers that helped contribute. I spent a great deal of time in studios. I made friends with engineers at these studios. Made lifelong friends. Still talk to many these days. Some of the more notable producers were Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts, Rob Galbraith (Ronnie Milsap’s producer), Shelby Kennedy of the famous Kennedy family (with credits like Garth Brooks, Reba), among others.

During this time I played the bar scene in Nashville. I spent most of my time at a bar called the Fiddle and Steel Guitar bar. Here I met many cool people, met a couple of heroes, and made lifelong friendships that stand strong today. I got to hang with Michael English, Toby Keith, Eric Church, Gary, Jay, and Joe Don from Rascal Flatts, and a host of others. I met my future wife there. I became close with the pickers that played with various artists. That period of time was a blast.

Fiddle and Steel

After 5 production deals came to an end, I took one last shot. I formed a band of a bunch of great players. Started with players that are world-renowned. Two of them chose to move in a different direction in their career. I ended up with a group of amazing musicians that seem to gel together nicely. We began playing out, writing, and pitching our sound to various labels. We then went into the studio with Rob Galbraith and Regie Hamm to record some amazing music. Warner Brothers was on board. They loved what we were doing. We were about to be signed when they had a meeting and decided that were simply were not country enough for where the industry was headed. And like that, 15 years of pursuit came to screeching halt. I looked around and realized no one was looking for the next big 36-year-old. It’s a young man’s game.

The next two years felt like one long funeral. It felt as though someone close to me had died. I was attempting to come to the realization and understanding that the idea of me touring with a record was out the door. But it still felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut. It felt like I had been chewed up and spit out of the industry. This contributed to my divorce.  

Dink Cook

That leads me to the journey. Looking back on that, it was the journey all along that was the part I remember the most. It was those I made lifelong friendships with that stood out. It was the process, not the culmination. It was the journey, not the destination. To this day, I’m still close to Eddie Dunbar.   

As this was wrapping up, I began officiating basketball. I quickly moved from refereeing middle school to high school, to college, to minor league professional. As I began, I wasn’t sure if I was any good. As I began getting hired by college conferences, I felt that I may have something. I spent thousands of dollars each summer on training to get better and better. I moved up the ranks until I was given a verbal queue that I would be on a division 1 staff. That person was fired from that D1 position before he could see that through. I continued to push forward but fairly quickly saw the writing on the wall. And the writing was familiar. It was a young man’s game. I made it up to D2 and everything below. There I settled in. I failed again. But there was still high school.

I came to my 16th season of refereeing high school ball and was selected to the state tournament championships. There were only 14 refs selected, so it was definitely an honor. Of those 14, there was only one there that had been in the TSSAA longer than me. At the end of the week, 12 were selected to work a championship game. I had a very good week. But I was aware that the leader of the state simply did not like me. All I could do is do everything he asked of me to the best of my ability. And that’s what I did. It wasn’t enough. When asked what I could do better, I did not receive an answer that I could do anything about. He just didn’t like me. Once again, 16 years and I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out of a profession for nothing that I could control. I spent the next two weeks trying to find the energy to get out of bed. I’ve now failed majorly three times!

Mason Smith & Justin Dorris

This leads me to the journey. The refs that I’ve met through the years are now lifelong friends. I’ve had many times where they came to my rescue, and I’ve come to theirs. At any moment, if I’m near their town and I need anything at all, they’ll be there. I have no doubt.

If the why is people, I’ve been blessed beyond measure. It doesn’t make the ending any easier. It’s still painful. It still makes you wonder. But it was never about the destination anyway. It was about the journey. Thank God for the friends. Thank God for the fun stories. Thank God for the journey. If you take anything away from this story, the destination takes care of itself. So don’t ever lose sight of the journey.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

Posted on

Comparison

Don’t compare, enjoy nature, don’t break trust. Sounds simple. It’s not.

Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world for the 5th year straight. One psychologist from Finland helped explain why she believed this was so. It was based on those three principles: don’t compare, enjoy nature, don’t break trust.

Comparison is the thief of joy. I believe that quote was attributed to Theodore Roosevelt and Dr Ray Cummings. Comparison does a few things. Primarily, it distracts you from who you are and who God made you to be. Believing that you must be something you’re not is the equivalent to believing that God made a mistake. He didn’t. Comparing yourself to someone else distracts you from what’s true and robs you of experiencing any joy about that truth.

The other problem with comparing is that we’re usually comparing the knowledge of our best and worst to only their best. No one puts up their worst on social media. No one shows you what they look like when they first wake up and comments about how bad their breath is. You only get a “perfect” version of the totality of who that person is. That’s a false representation of reality. If you knew as much about the person that you’re envious of as you do yourself, you wouldn’t be so envious of them.

One last reality about comparison is comparing how great you are compared to others. This is equally troubling, maybe more so. You have gained success and you make sure everyone knows it. You flaunt the bling out loud. The problem is, when you no longer have that success, or you realize it doesn’t provide eternal joy, the smile goes away. One way to achieve true happiness is to be humble in your fortune/blessing.

Enjoying nature is simple. It’s usually quiet. It’s amazing to look at something and think a creator put it all together. The same creator that made nature made you. It’s humbling. Sometimes it’s breathtaking. Enjoying nature helps you put things in perspective.

Trust is something that is given until broken. The longer it isn’t broken, the more is given. My favorite definition of integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching and no one will find out. Be the person that is so trustworthy that everyone knows they can depend on you. Be the reason people smile. Keep your word. If you find money, do the right thing. And know that one day you will be wishing someone else does the same for you.

The more we find these things in our society, the happier we become. In America, it’s worth stating the obvious 4th thing to do to be happy, limit your social media intake. It’s designed to stoke the fire of whatever angers you. It’s designed to give you only one perspective, yours. You learn nothing that way. Get off of it and look around. People are way nicer in person than on social media.   

Stay Classy GP!

J Grainger    

Posted on

The Girl Who Cried Wolf

We have all heard the story called “The boy who cried wolf.” Unfortunately, this is happening in sports today. The latest version is the BYU story. If you haven’t heard, BYU plays Duke in women’s volleyball. A player from Duke claims to have heard a fan behind her yell a racial slur while she was serving. The country went into an uproar, again, assuming the story was accurate before the conclusion of an investigation. Today’s society judges in a trial by social media, not facts.

Immediately following the incident, the BYU athletic director let the coach and the player know that if indeed someone did this, they were very sorry, and that person would be dealt with. BYU then immediately began their investigation. They interviewed over 50 people and viewed video footage of the entire area where the vitriol came from. The even isolated audio from that area. They found no such word said and saw no one say anything remotely close to that. The conclusion of their findings was that there was no such thing uttered from the fans.

What if they’re covering for someone?

This would be worse than the guy having said it. This would mean that not only one guy had serious hatred for someone based on their color, but an entire group of people would all share the same hatred and manage to cover it up. The likelihood of this in 2022 is virtually nonexistent.

Why would she make that up?

This isn’t the first time someone in a bad position in a sports event has used this claim as an excuse for poor performance in sports. I didn’t even have to look it up to know that BYU won that match. I didn’t have to look it up to know that Duke played terrible in that game. But just to be sure, I looked it up and confirmed all of that. BYU won 3-1. The reason someone would do that is tough to understand but at the same time, reasonably simple. Someone would look for a way to excuse the poor performance of the team or a certain player. And if the other team is all or predominately white, one excuse could be to claim racism. The simple part is that everyone knows that if you cry racism, everyone WILL believe you and stop what they’re doing, point out the accused, and label them guilty, regardless of facts. It’s so serious of an allegation that you have to stop and treat it with extreme importance. And rightfully so. Everyone will believe you until it is proven otherwise. And even when proven otherwise, as is the case in two stories I’m sharing in this blog, they will still believe you, in spite of facts.

I’m a basketball referee and I have a colleague that was in a game where this happened. One team was all black and the other had roughly 5 black players (3 of which were on the court during the alleged incident) of the 9 on the team. The all-black team was getting beaten badly. One girl didn’t like a foul called against her and stormed off the court. After a couple of minutes went by, she claimed the referee used a racial slur towards her. This was investigated thoroughly. The mother claimed she heard it. There were problems discovered in the investigation. Problem #1: the mother was roughly 80 feet away in a noisy gym. It’s impossible for her to have heard that. Problem #2: none of the black girls on the other team heard any referee say anything close to that. They stated had they heard that, there would have been major problems. Problem #3: there were roughly 15 black students and parents sitting on the first row of the bleachers approximately 10 feet away and the referee was facing them when he was supposed to have said it and none of them heard anything like that. Problem #4: The school where the girl attended refused to cooperate with the state’s investigation. Problem #5: the other 2 referees were standing right there, and I know them personally and they told me privately that had he said anything close to that, they would have sent him home. But he never said anything close to being inappropriate. A black representative of the state was the person investigating the incident. After weeks of interviews, video, and audio research, his conclusion was that there was no wrongdoing by the official.

There are a few problems with this. The most obvious is that it is a lie that can cost someone their job and livelihood. This official could have lost his day job due to his company not wanting the bad press. Another problem is that each time there is an allegation of this magnitude that turns out to be false, it dilutes and takes away from the ones that are true and real. Are there allegations like this that are true? Sure. For instance, this week in Katy, TX, a group of high school students made monkey noises towards black volleyball players. This is inexcusable and needs to be dealt with. This was a real issue. But when someone is playing poorly and decides to cry racist/wolf, this only makes it harder to investigate the real ones.

Another problem is it creates a new oppressed group. Just this week, a teacher at Madison High School in San Diego wrote “fascists” on the board and then listed under that term, who the fascists are in our country. The teacher included all white people, Christians, heterosexuals, and the Republican party. Anytime a group continuously pushes down, oppresses, and suppresses another group, in the history of our country, it only gets ugly. It never goes well and eventually the oppressed group has had enough and does something drastic to end it. Look at women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights. At some point, we have to believe the best in our brother and sister, black, white, or brown. We have to let ancient history be just that. We have to expect the best of people, not the worst. Because if you continue to push a group of people down merely for existing and being born a certain color, it will only hurt everyone, and not help anyone. We learned this in the late 60’s. We need to avoid repeating that.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger 

Posted on

Till the Ground

Parents of small/young children, I’m begging you to read this.

The issues I’m seeing the most among parenting young children these days are:

  1. We plant seed before we till the ground
    1. Tilling includes
      1. Teaching them how to obey the first time.
      1. Teaching them that we act differently in public than we do at home
  2. Too much autonomy
  3. We make the child too important

Tilling obedience.

I see many parents of young children spend a great deal of time plotting out how they are going to do creative things to help their little one grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. And these are good things. But if we haven’t taught them to first obey you the first time you speak, the other things you teach them will be for nothing because a) they believe the world is all about them and b) they don’t really respect you or they’d obey the first time. Asking a kid to do something is not always a good thing. Sometimes it is, but not always. Sometimes, I dare say most of the time, it is a better idea to tell them to do something, rather than to ask. Telling them or asking them multiple times shows a few things. It shows they really don’t respect your authority. They don’t believe there is a consequence to deliberately ignoring your request or demand. It shows that they believe they are so important, they don’t have to listen to you. It also shows they don’t believe you really want them to do whatever it is you’ve told them to do.

Tilling how to act in public.

I see this all the time. Actually, every time I go out. Kids are not taught to act differently in public. Therefore, they act exactly the same way in public as they do at home. There is a clear difference on how to act to not disrupt social interactions. I understand that society has defined this. I also understand that if your child is to succeed in this world, they must learn social aptitude and develop social intelligence. Teaching them that it is rude and wrong to kick the back of a chair on the plane or at the movies is necessary. Teaching them when it’s time to sit calmly and quietly and when it’s ok to run and have fun is necessary. Teaching them that destroying their dinner table at a restaurant is rude and won’t be accepted… is necessary. Teaching them not to interrupt is necessary.

Too much autonomy.

“But why can’t I go to this party? Everyone I know will be there! I should be able to make my own decisions!” My response was, “At 14 you can’t operate a vehicle. At 15 you can but with someone else in the car. At 16 you can operate a vehicle without anyone in the car, but you can’t vote. At 18 you can vote, but you can’t buy a glass of wine. At 21 you can buy a glass of wine, but you can’t rent a car. At 25 you can rent a car. Even the government knows that with age comes the ability to handle responsibility and make better decisions.” She didn’t like that, but it’s not my job to worry about what she likes.

Children are being given way too much autonomy. They are being allowed to make way too many decisions. I understand the need to let them make some decisions so they learn how to make good decisions. That isn’t an issue. The issue is in our best effort to teach them how to make good decisions, we let them make decisions they aren’t ready to make. If their chances of making a good certain decision is 0%, they’re not ready for that decision and the parent needs to make it for them. Children shouldn’t be deciding where you’re going, when you’re going, and when you’re leaving. They shouldn’t be deciding where you (or they) go to church or dinner. With each birthday, they get to decide more, but in very small increments. But this leads to the last point…

Too important.

Children are being taught that they are way more important than they really are. They are NOT more important than their teacher, their coach, their principal, their boss. They are making those decisions we just talked about because they believe they are the most important person in any room. There are serious consequences to believing this and it going unchecked by their parents.

Repercussions:

The results of these not tilling the ground before you plant the seed is that the seed will fall on ground that won’t let the seed grow. They will not take the seed seriously. Therefore, the seed is planted in vain because the ground wasn’t tilled first.

The results of too much autonomy is they don’t really learn how to make a good decision because all they do is make bad ones. It also teaches them false social interactions. They believe their way is the right way and no one tells them otherwise and when they are confronted with this in the social world, they’re met with great opposing force and don’t know why. “Mental health issues” are to follow.

The results of them being too important is simple. It puts them in a place to believe something about themselves that simply isn’t true and prohibits them from succeeding socially.

Other results include being a total disruption to your home and any social interactions you may have as a parent with other adults. Some may read this and say, “well why are we treating social aptitude with greater emphasis than self-worth?” Good question. Self-worth will come when they realize where their REAL place is in this world. If they are not believing those in authority, making too many decisions too early, and believing they are more important than they really are, they are set up for disaster, not success. I’m firmly convinced that social intelligence is FAR more valuable than self- worth, self- esteem, and academic knowledge. When you are socially apt, the rest of those attributes fall into place. Liberty resides within a set of boundaries. Without the boundaries, there is no liberty. If you want to free your children, create boundaries.

Posted on

The Debate over Abortion and School Shootings Have a Common Theme

You can’t scroll two posts without seeing someone sharing their opinion on abortion. The division. The vitriol. Everyone has an opinion and they’re willing to lose friendships over it. It’s worth noting two distinct things: 1- I won’t be covering the opinions of abortion in this and 2- the recent ruling merely returned the jurisdiction to the states, where it belonged in the first place. Nothing has been banned. The fury is over the fear that it may be banned in their state.

Just before that, it was the shooting in Uvalde, TX. A young man decided to commit multiple evil acts. Shortly after this event, the conversation about fatherless homes began to gain momentum, and rightfully so. The young man who committed those acts did not have a father in the home. I’m not shocked.

What is the connection between the two events? Lack of fathers. I firmly believe that’s the reason for the most recent outcry. If men were upholding their end of the bargain after sex, we wouldn’t have nearly the fury surrounding this issue. Mothers wouldn’t feel so helpless and alone. There would be more money available because the man is helping provide.

It started a long time ago but went something like this: President Johnson decides to lay out his plans for the “Great Society.” In it, he lays out a plan to help single mothers. He offers financial assistance to any woman that had a child in the home and no father/male in the home. While it probably had good intentions originally, it incentivized mothers to remove the men from their home so they could continue receiving money for their child. They were getting a certain amount of money per child. So not only were mothers incentivized to raise their children without fathers, they were also incentivized to have many more children to maximize their income. This is what led to the jump in fatherless homes. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, approximately 8% of white children and approximately 25% of black children were born to fatherless homes. Both of these numbers tripled by 2015. 25% of white children and 75% of black children were being born to fatherless homes. This plan obviously did not work and those negative effects were irrespective of race.

Now we’re left with the statistical nightmare of fatherless homes. Here are some of those stats:

*90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (32 times the average).

*85% of all children who show behavior disorders are from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*71% of all high school dropout come from fatherless homes (9 times the average).

*85% of all youth in prison come from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*Daughters of single parents without a father involved are 711% more likely to have children as teenagers AND 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

*90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live only with their mother.

President Obama stated in a speech that children from fatherless homes are 5 times more likely to grow up in poverty and commit a crime, 9 times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. Tupac Shakur recognized that he joined gangs because he searched for the things that fathers provide. He stated, “I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline and more confidence.”   

Studies have shown that children living with both biological parents are 20% to 35% more physically healthy than children from broken homes. Following divorce, children are 50% more likely to develop health problems. A child raised in a married family can reduce the child’s probability of living in poverty by 82%. Studies have also shown that growing up in a two-parent household is influential on reducing out of wedlock births. Studies show that kids who grow up in two parent homes have higher high school and college graduation rates as well as a higher likelihood of sustaining long term employment.

You want to fix the abortion issue for good? You want to do away with almost all school shootings? Fix those stats. Men were originally told to get out but then settled in this new life of laziness. I’m looking for an all-out revival of men stepping up and being the man God designed them to be. It takes a few things to accomplish this.

First, it takes the man willing to admit he could be better tomorrow than he is today. That’s a huge step for most men. We think we have all this figured out. Then we’re forced to admit that maybe we don’t. Once we can admit that, then we can work on it. The next thing that has to happen is men have to find someone they trust to point them in the right direction. Then they have to apply what they’re learning.

Next, their wife/girlfriend has to allow them to be who God designed them to be. She is capable of stopping that by not allowing him to lead his family. If she takes care of everything and he has no real responsibilities, he will never operate in the gifts God has given him. The wife/gf has to allow him the room to lead and make mistakes. Ouch. That’s where it gets ugly. Make mistakes? I once had someone ask me, “Well, what if you just know he’s going to make a mistake? You just let him?” My response was, “Unless you are 100% certain that you know exactly what he’s going to do and exactly what the repercussions are, then you don’t know if it’s a mistake yet or not. And even if you do, if he loves his family, then he won’t make that mistake again.”

“Men Step Up to Help Foster Families in Need Amid Pandemic“

Men have to stand up and be men. Love your spouse in front of your kids. Get them up and help get them ready for church, be the initiator. Pray over your children. Don’t know how? Ask someone to help. Serve your family by listening and caring. Caring about them more than yourself.

I’m fully convinced that the solution to the mass school shootings AND the heated abortion debate resides in the outbreak of men taking their roles and responsibilities seriously and choosing to do the right thing, even when it’s not easy. If the decision to overturn Roe v Wade did anything, it called men to step up. And if men will step up, society needs to let them.

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)!

Grainger

Posted on

What We Say

NyQuil… It’s the Nighttime, Sniffling, Sneezing, Coughing, Aching, Stuffy Head, Fever, so you can rest, medicine. These are symptoms we are all familiar with. Each year, there are periods when this “goes around.” Reminds me of the time I heard someone ask my dad if he heard the flu was going around. He said, “yeah, right around me!” In this moment, he refused to give in to the societal norm of just getting sick when everyone else got sick. He also didn’t give in to the norm of just agreeing that you will get sick, whether you know you will or not. Why is this vital?

I firmly believe that our words create action. I’ve said this before, but God said, “Let there be light”, and then there was light. His words created action. Then He went and made a bunch of people in His own image. This means OUR words create action. Consider the story of Nick Sitzman.

Nick was a hard worker, married man, had kids, a good job, and overall, a good life. The only problem was that Nick was known by all to be a bit of a worrier. He worried about most everything. So on the day he was working on a railroad car and accidentally got locked inside a car, it was no different.

The story was published in Reader’s Digest many years ago. As it goes, Nick was stuck in a freezer car. He realizes, at some point, that his coworkers had all left the worksite. Nick begins to panic because he’s in a freezer car with no way to get out unless someone gets him out. He finds a knife and begins to carve out sentences in the wood floor.

“If I can’t get out, I’ll freeze to death in here” … “It’s so cold, my body is getting numb” … “If I could just go to sleep” … “These may be my last words.”

Nick was doing what we all do in times of despair, makes observations. Only this time, he wrote them down for his wife to find. The next day, he was found dead inside that car. The cause of death was listed as freezing to death. His body showed all signs of someone’s body shutting down due to freezing.

This doesn’t sound like a remarkable story, does it? That’s because there’s one more important part of the story. The freezer car was inoperable and had been turned off (some reports say it was unplugged altogether). As a result, the temperature in the car was 55 degrees. This wouldn’t kill anyone. But wait, he died of freezing to death in a 55 degree railroad car? How?

To this day, no one can scientifically explain it. It makes zero sense to the science community. But to many psychologists, it’s quite simple. Nick Sitzman spoke into existence the desperation of freezing to death to the point that his body followed what his brain told it to. He literally spoke his death into existence.

Understand, I’m not referring to “mind over matter.” What I am referring to is that if you speak of something enough, you will begin to believe it, no matter what it is. And as you believe it, your body serves your brain. Part of the reason for this is for every thing you say once, you’ve heard it twice. You hear it in your mind before you say it, then you say it and hear yourself saying it out loud. Everything you say once, you hear twice.

An example of this is many reports that came out of the Vietnam War. Stories had been fabricated by people too ashamed to admit they didn’t take part in any actual conflict. So someone in the soup line would make up a story about how they climbed over their partner’s dead body to get a gun and kill the opposition and how horrific it was. Here’s the problem, they told these stories so much, they began to believe them and the next thing we know, the hospitals were flooded with people who are telling horrific stories from Vietnam and their minds and bodies are reacting to these stories, displaying genuine signs of PTSD. The issue here is that it was proven that these things didn’t happen. But their body and their mind were reacting as if it did happen. They said it once, they heard it twice and their body followed their brain.

With so much going around about whether we should wear a mask, masks are useless, should get a vaccine, vaccines do nothing, we find ourselves in a position to make choices about our health daily, which is new to most of us. We normally think seriously about our health about once a year. But now it’s daily. Are we saying that we are healthy and that if we get sick, are we saying we will get well? If you don’t know the future, and you have no certainty that you will or will not get well, then exactly what would it hurt to say you will get well?

I know what it would hurt, our ego. It would hurt our hope. We are afraid to say something hopeful because we have been let down so many times believing something hopeful about a situation, only to see it go the other way.

So what do we have to lose, besides a shot to our ego? Nothing. Begin to speak positively of things to come. If it doesn’t work out, there was a reason and God uses every success and every failure to move us in a forward direction. The Bible says, “The steps of the righteous are ordered.” It doesn’t say that the steps of the perfect are ordered. We’d all be doomed. But the righteous, or those in right standing, have ordered steps. Watch what you say. Your words have ENORMOUS power. If you say something horrific enough that you begin to believe it, this means you can also say something good enough that you will believe that too. So the next time someone says there’s a sickness going around, look at them and say, “right around me!”

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)!

Grainger