The Holy Spirit

Recently, I just started going back to church.
At first, I was going to this predominantly White church (I was 1 out of 5 black folks there), because it was close to me and it wasn't the traditional type of service (honestly.....it was really because it was only an hour long and they are very prompt).
The music was usually led by 1-3 singers and a guitar. Whenever the congregation really got into one of the songs, they would simply put 1 or both hands in the air and slowly wave it from side to side (not like in the rap video's more like an Aerosmith concert)
But last Sunday, I visited this Black church, which was also close to where I lived.

It had been so long since I had gone to a Black church, that I completely forgot about catching the Holy Spirit.
If you have never been to a black church and saw someone catch the Holy Spirit, then you are missing out on one of life's great wonders.

You can always sense when someone's about to get the Holy Ghost in them.
First the person on the piano or organ will slowly play those 4 famous notes seperately......Then they start to gradually speed it up until it is finally a very high tempo chanting sound.
And then out of nowhere.....Someone jumps into the middle of the aisle and begins to dance.
Well.........I wouldn't call it dancing though... It's more like someone having a seizure while they are standing up. Then they start kicking and throwing up their hands like it's a rat loose on the dance floor.

Next comes the competition.....That's when the middle aged men jump out there and try to prove that "they still got it" and show up the old folks who are just turning in circles screaming "thank you Jesus".
Tooooooooooo funny.
Have you ever seen a 45 year old black man, in an Aqua-Blue, 3-piece Suit with matching Gator-skinned boots, trying to do the "holy-spirit" version of the Running-Man.  LMFAO.

This aint the guy in blue, but this gives you an idea of what it looks like. 

But I felt good though.
The music was moving me too.
I looked down and noticed my knee was bouncing up and down like my body was trying to get me dance too. By the time I left the service, I felt like I needed to go home a take a nap from all that stomping and clapping I did.
It was truly a great experience and I can't wait to see who catches the holy spirit next week.

P.S. The guy in the above picture can be seen doing his Damn Thing at the link below........Tooooo Funny.
I mean flips, jukin, fall backs......he does it all
http://youtu.be/7EaI0U1_IW4

Where Does Your Allegiance Lie

A puppy can not nurse on two bitches.........
A dog can not have two masters..........
And A master can not serve two Gods........

You must decide where your loyalty lies. Although, you may love, respect, and honor many things at the same time, your true allegiance can only be to one thing and one thing ONLY.

When I was young, my mother and father taught me about loyalty.
I had two friends who got into a very nasty fight over a girl (of course...they seem to always be at the source of male confrontations, don't they?)
 I was torn between the two of them because they were trying to force me to choose which one of them I was going to continue to hang with. The hatred that these friends had between them, was so substantial that they refused to be within sight of the other.
I really didn't have that many friends at the time, so I wasn't trying to lose either of them.

So I went to my parents and asked them how I was to decide which friend to align myself with, because I didn't know what to do. I was expecting for them to tell me some bullshit about coming together....singing kumbya...not choosing sides .......and continuing to be friends with both of them.....but that's not what they said. I was surprised at what they said to me.

They said:
Parents: Son....Do you know the difference between easy and simple?

Me: huh.....No, I guess not. I thought they were the same.

Parents: Son....Do you know the difference between difficult and hard?

Me: They aren't the same thing??????

Parents: No they are not. DIFFICULT is like solving a very complex math problem, while HARD is like deciding which friend to let go.
Making a DIFFICULT decision is very SIMPLE, choose A or B. But it isn't EASY, because there are consequences to each one, and should not be taken lightly.

Me: So what are you saying?????

Parents: Life is going to be HARD son, but if you are able to determine early-on, what is most important to you.......Then all the decisions you will have to make will be EASY and SIMPLE because all you will have to do is pick the option that best supports what is most important to you.
Determine where your loyalty is. If it is school, then all your decisions should put school first. If it is sports, then all of your decisions should put sports first.

Me: But what if I want to be loyal to both of my friends?

Parents: Then you can try son....but you will fail. Because there will come a day when 1 of your feuding friends decides to do something bad to the other and you will know about it before hand.
If you do nothing, then you have betrayed the friend who is about to be done wrong. If you warn them, then you will betray the friend who was plotting the attack.
You will have to make a decision and will have to chose where your loyalty lies. So why not make the the hard choice now, so that all the future ones will be easy?


Although I didn't understand exactly what they meant at the time, it eventually became clear as day as I grew older.
No matter how faithful you are to the people in your life, if you are not truly LOYAL to 1 person, thing, or ideal, then your life will be filled with HARD choices.
Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too, but in the end.........you can only have 1.

Hiatus

Well........Ladies and gentleman,
It is with great sadness that I inform you that the 2nd Big Bang is about to hit the "Tales from the Oracle" Blog.

I was hoping to make it to the Century mark and post 100 blogs, but it seems that 92 will have to do.
I see absolutely no point in posting empty garbage topics simply to reach a milestone. I wouldn't bore you like that.
Therefore, I will just end it with this temporary good bye.

Hopefully, I will return with some great material for you and make up for the time that we are going to be apart.
I would like to thank you for the years of faithful patronage. The funny topics that have made us laugh together, and the heartfelt serious obstacles that we have tackled, have helped us grow.
I encourage you to check out the previous 91 post over the next few months and relive those moments until I return.
Continue to send me your topic requests and words of motivation and condemnation.....because I appreciate the honesty in both.

May the worst days of our past, be the best days of our future.
Love, peace, and KFC chicken grease,

 
GTP-OUT......2's

Background Check

When the air is filled with the smell of bar-b-q chicken, ribs, and smoked sausages.......while slow jams are serenading your ears in the background......and you are surrounded by familiar faces that you haven't seen in years.....it can only mean one thing.
It's A FAMILY REUNION.

So this year, we went back to our roots and they hosted the reunion in my mom's home town. It was great food, fun and fellowship as usual.
I wish that I could write about all the hilarious shit that happened down there, but that is family business.

What I can talk about is a conversation we had about Background Checks.
I want to get your personal opinion on this subject (not that it fucking Tatering matters).

So, after learning that one of our family members performed Background Checks on people, one of my cousins stated that he wished he could do Background Checks on everybody before he dated them.
WHY?????

Why, would you want to research every body before you went out with them?
That would take all the fun out of dating, wouldn't it?
So what if they used to be a thieving, homicidal, rapist.........
Can't people change?
How do you know that it all wasn't "a simple mis-understanding"?

So what if they have 6 kids and 3 baby-Mama's or Daddy's.
Maybe they got a chance to get all that out of their systems and now they are ready to settle down and be the type of person you need in your life.....

So what if they have 3 liens on 2 cars and 4 judgements against them in civil court.......
Why in the hell would you want to know that Corvette they are driving ain't theirs and that $200,000 house is 3 weeks from belonging to the bank?????
Ignorance is bliss. Let them drive you around town in that flashy car and spoil you with breakfast in a bed with a flat screen TV on the ceiling.
Worry about that other shit when the repo men get there. Carpe' Diem .

See, if you would have never looked at that Background Check report, you would have enjoyed life for the next 3 weeks...but NOOOOOOOOO,
You had to look at the damn report and judge them, for their past.

I mean, personally, I like to learn new things about people. If you knew everything about someone after the first date, what the hell are you going to talk about on the second one.
And as far as them being some sexual pervert.....who knows.....you might actually like some of that kinky shit.
leather..and shackles...and chains.......OH MY.
.......Just sayin

Embrace Your Fear

4th of July weekend definitely has a way of bringing a sense of excitement into the air. It also takes you back to the time when you were a kid and couldn't wait to play with the fireworks.
Most "responsible" adults, like MY PARENTS, wouldn't let kids play with fireworks without direct, parental, supervision.
Therefore, we were left with no other alternative but to sneak some out of the house when they weren't home.

Fireworks, are awesome. As a matter of fact, they are only a couple of table spoons of gun powder away from being weapons of mass destruction.

So anyway, as with many things that I have done, I learned another valuable lesson in life, while playing with fireworks as a young boy.
Based on the things that I did growing up with firecrackers and small animals, a psychologist might have predicted that I was going to be a psychopathic killer when I grew up......but luckily I was just going through a phase.
At first, I was sooooo afraid of firecrackers. I wouldn't even dare to get close enough to one in order to light it, so my brothers or friends had to do it for me.
As I got more comfortable with them, I became very brave.........Actually, more like beyond brave.....somewhere in the realm of stupidity.

I would take on any dare that someone would give me.......I was the TATERING Evel Knievel, of firecrackers.
So anywho, one day I managed to get my hands on the "illegal" M90 firecracker. I had heard stories about how dangerous these things were, but I laughed in the face of danger and shit on the legacy of the great M90.
First, in order to find out just how powerful the M90 was, we tested it on a frog.

(*********I am unsure about the statute of limitations on animal cruelty crimes, so I will not confirm or deny what happened next......so let's just say that the M90 definitely deserved its reputation*********.)
Now that we had proven that this was the most powerful firecracker ever, I was dared to hold it in my hand, light it, and throw it at the last possible moment, before it would blow off my hand.
Shit, .....I didn't even need a double-dog-dare before I shouted  "give that damn thing....I'll show you".

I don't think I have to even go any further with this story, because you all know exactly what happened.
The lesson that I learned that day, was this:
Fear is a God given mechanism that protects us and keeps us alive. The moment that a person loses his/her fear is the moment they are most susceptible to danger or death.


The moment I lost my fear of firecrackers, was the same time that I lost respect for them and what they could do to me. The most dangerous thing is the one that you respect the least.
The same is true in all aspects of life...........ESPECIALLY WITH PEOPLE.

Embrace your fear,
Let go of disrespect,
And you will survive.

Adam and Eve

So, in case you haven't heard,
A super duper long time ago, there was this guy named Adam, who was all alone on this Earth, so God decided to create him a female companion named Eve.
See Adam and Eve were best of friends and they did everything together. (maybe cause everybody else was busy, right?)

As they got to know each other more and more, Adam began to notice that Eve had an insatiable thirst for information. ****Not Knowledge**** but information. Eve was Nosy as Hell.
(I guess Hell was not a good word for this story....Replace with:Shit)

She was always gossiping about which deer was sneaking off with the gazelles and where in the world did the donkey come from. There weren't any donkey's there the previous year.

It was this extreme case of curiosity and nosiness that got them kicked out the Garden of Eden.
She just had to know more about that Damn apple, didn't she?
The snake said that he had the inside track on some secrets about the apple tree and she couldn't resist not knowing.

So ladies all over the world, I want you to know that it isn't your fault that you all have an insatiable thirst for information.
It is in your DNA and has always been a part of the estrogen hormone.

That is the reason that you can not help yourselves when a gossip talk show comes on TV......or a drama filled reality show comes on.
You find yourselves glued to the TV screen, with your mouth wide open, thinking......" Oh no, she didn't".
You can't get enough of NBA housewives can you?
Or
The Real World....TMZ......or Better yet, the Wendy Williams Show.
There is something about drama and scandal that attracts women like flies to shit.
Most women understand and accept their condition, because there is no point in trying to fight it. It's like a vampire telling themselves that they don't like blood.........You can't fight the urge.

But never fear, because Adam loved Eve unconditionally and followed her even when he knew she was wrong.
And they suffered the same fate together and equally.
For better or worst,
Richer or poorer,
In sickness and in health,
Tell death do them part,

But just keep in mind, that the next time Adam say's "....you know Eve....honey, darling.......     Maybe this time we should mind our business and leave this tree alone"
You might want to consider listening to him. Cause your fate, is also his.