Manns Medium

Listening to my local news and wondering, out loud, how someone who has millions of dollars to spend could find themselves millions of dollars in the hole just really did not make sense to me.  Especially since the money that they were spending did not totally belong to them.  I had a hard time understanding how someone trusted to represent those who elected them, could ignore their pleas and cries while pretending to hear them at the same time.  After several days of this and many rhetorical questions later, my wife made one solid suggestion.  She suggested that I either stop complaining or run for office and fix the things I saw was wrong.  As I looked into her eyes, saw that she was serious and felt the faith that she had in me to not only care about the suffering but my ability to figure out a way to stop it, I became convinced that she was right.  It didn’t take much longer for me to begin to conceive of ideas and ways to fix these issues as well as j...

Find me anyone who disagrees with this title and allow me to have a conversation with them, before long you will see clear and convincing evidence that this is more than just pure speculation, it is fact.  It will begin, as all things normally do, as a frank debate and civil discussion but soon it will elevate to personal attacks and in some cases violence because one of those speaking will run out of defenses for their indefensible behavior and resort to that tried and true method of dismissing, ignoring and cowardly act which is violence.  Begin to notice people, that those who turn to personal attacks do so because reasonable retorts to opposition of ideas are no longer available to them. To watch children play proves that they do not care what color that other child is as long as they play nice.  They do not care about color as long as the other child treats them with respect and as a friend.  They do not care unless they have reason to care and that reason ...

Found this story on Facebook and it appears to be posted by a John A. Pasko on April 8, 2012.  It has been reduced for brevity but I hope all who reads this get the gist.  “ I was walking around in a Big  Bazaar  store shopping, when I saw a Cashier talking to a boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old...  The Cashier said, 'I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll. Then the little boy turned to the cashier and asked: are you sure I don't have enough money?''  Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this doll to. 'It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much. I wanted to Gift her for her BIRTHDAY.  I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there.' His eyes were so sad while saying this. 'My Sister has gone to be with God... Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her...

Sometimes a story comes along that makes me see so many different avenues of what it may truly mean that I sometimes don’t know exactly how to phrase them and then comes a story that seems to encompass all of them at the same time.  This is one such story and it comes via an article titled “ Police chase ending near Route 38, I-39 ends in suspect suicide ” posted by Audrey Moon on WREX dot com.  She reports that “ The Illinois State Police and the Ogle County Sheriff's Department say a suspect committed suicide after a police chase stemming from a car-jacking that ended at Route 38 and Interstate 39 near Rochelle in Ogle County.  Officials say DeKalb Police saw a vehicle stolen in an armed car-jacking traveling on Route 38. Police pursued the vehicle westbound on 38 until the vehicle was initially stopped with vehicle stop-sticks.  However, the suspect continued to drive, leaving the highway and stopping in a nearby field. Police say the suspect then shot himself....

Regardless of industry many leadership positions carry with them the exact same ethics and while much of each is identical none probably more so than the correlation between religious leaders and military leaders.  It appears this way to me because in any employment, a worker feels free to choose whether he or she wishes to follow the directions of an employer and there is only one stipulation which is to search for a new job or not.  In the military you are obligated to follow the orders and standards set by your particular leaders and in most cases feel compelled to do so because of the risk you take when you don’t.  Many in the military believe that if they dismiss orders received from their leaders it could go quite far in disrupting and destroying their chosen careers and cause them to receive a dishonorable discharge in most cases.  For religion, the fear is violating what your leaders are saying is the true word of God and thereby condemning your very sou...

You can get no more evident that how we currently live today is to pleasing to God than to have a church file a lawsuit against the city of Rockford, IL when the Bible clearly tells us that Christians do not sue another.  Now maybe some will say that the city of Rockford is not a Christian because it is not a person then we can say the same about the church, can we not?  Some may say that the children who was present during that shooting has been scarred for life and deserve some sort of compensation for their duress, pain and suffering but I say if you are attempting or had been attempting to teach these children the true word of God at this daycare then why not show them the ultimate lesson that Jesus shared with us, turn the other cheek. The title of the article is “ Trial nears in Rockford civil suit over Mark Anthony Barmore shooting death ” and it reports that “ a trial in a lawsuit stemming from the officer-involved shooting death of Mark Anthony Barmore could begi...

For years now many have been complaining about the state of our union and especially Black America has been crying about the state of the black community but no one involved in this struggle has ever considered that the reason these situations exist are simply because we violate, every day, the core argument of religion and we have gone so far to disguise it that many who truly wish to get on the right side of this issue cannot clearly see the lines or borders drawn by the word of God so many billions of years ago. The Bible tells us that we cannot serve two masters and no matter how hard we try, we continue to fail and fail miserably.  The two masters we attempt to serve and the one that God was probably trying to warn us about so many years ago is both God and man.  God asks us to believe in him, trust in him and have faith that he will see us through all of our darkness, pain and suffering but we fail because when we are in pain we seek man’s remedy to cure us and only...

After completing and publishing my newest book titled A Twist of Faith-The Emergence of a New Religious Doctrine, I was asked what my purpose for publishing it was.  My answer to make people think on a deeper level about religion and began to use their own analytical skills to determine how it should work for them.  It wasn’t until last night did it occur to me that the answer should have been more detailed. I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD and when it hits, I find myself easily angered by the smallest of things.  Through-out the years, I have learned a great deal about the disorder and have come to be able to control it instead of it controlling me.  What I mean by control is not being able to bring it on and cut it off because no one can control that.  What I do mean is when it strikes, I do not allow it to take complete control of me and do something that I would not do during non-affected times.   In the beginning I used t...

In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, so many have come to rest on the untrue facts that the way to stop terrorist attacks here in the United States is to stop all Muslims from entering or living here.  If this sounds a little too familiar then it should because it was the same reason many you spoke to assumed when it came to the Jews, the Buddhist and any other form of religion that was not Christianity.  Wonder when we will learn that if you seek to go to a different place than you have been, it may be smarter to take a different route? Many are willing to say that the Quran teaches Muslims to hate others but in saying so are we not now teaching other Christians how to hate Muslims?  What if it is discovered that the Quran is nothing more than another version of the Bible?  What if we discover that those spoke so highly about in the Quran are none other than those spoken so highly about from the Bible?  Would that make us less or more likely to hate...

I used to think that we are the sum total of our experiences and our reactions to them but I am beginning to see that we are simply the sum total of our reactions.  I think this now because the same experience can happen to millions of people and none of them turn out to be exactly alike even if many of their reaction were the same.  Each of us take away from any experience what we choose to learn from that encounter and because only that single solitary individual can choose what lesson that they wish to heed, they are in complete and total control. Car accidents happen each and every day and those involved come away from it with a change in their prospective, way of life or perception of what is important.  Many may repeat the same saying about importance but that does not by no stretch of the imagination make that the number one lesson learned.  Some will never drive again, some seek comfort in a bottle or drugs, while others get right back upon that horse....

There are many things which frustrate, infuriate, confused and seems so misguided to those of us who embrace the title Christian.  But nothing does this more for me than those who claim the title only when it is convenient for them.  I speak of people like myself who often speak of being about God but fail to realize that being about God is more than just talking about him each and every day. Being about God is more than just going to a church or any place of worship.  Being about God is more than just being handed a title for a group of mortals.  Being about God is more than being seen as a Christian.   Being about God is hard work and work that much be continued each and every day in each and every way.  I know this yet I still find myself seeking earthly treasures instead of seeking the one and only treasure that will guarantee my obtaining eternal life. The saying that a tree shall never be known by the name given to it by those with no au...

I, like all others I have come across, would surely love nothing better than to find that one way to secure my place within the gates of heaven.  I sometimes see this as my one and only main task while visiting here on this earth and in this flesh but certain things have come to light which is beginning to make me think that this will never happen and that maybe the primary reason that it won’t is I am stuck living in the same manner that so many of us find ourselves.  I’m beginning to think that the way I was raised to believe in eternal life and how to get there is nothing more than a trick.  I’m beginning to think that while Christianity is a faith, the different branches like Baptist, Catholic, Evangelist and so forth is religion and it is the trap.  Attempting to live my life not by the word of God as interpret by me but as told to me by another just as mortal as me.  I’m beginning to think that the only true way to secure my place in heaven is to listen t...

During preparations for my Internet Radio Show called A Twist of Faith, I was trying to find the right words to express what 1 st Corinthians Chapter 14 was saying to me.  Taking a break to allow my thoughts to clear I hear a phrase on the television which really made me wonder.  The question was asked someone who did not believe in God and used the excuse that because there are so much pain and suffering out there that any real true God would never allow those things to happen to his children.  This was what began to make me wonder, if this is why so many feel that there is really no God. It really made sense because until now I had a very hard time trying to understand how people could even consider that God does not exist.  It makes sense because if you are judging whether there is a God based on the enormous amount of pain and suffering going on in life, it is easy to see why you could arrive at that conclusion.  But excuse me for throwing a monkey wre...

Many people seemed quite confused about the value of a relationship, any relationship, so today I would like to try and help some understand what makes relationships. For some it’s the interaction, for others it’s the distance you travel mentally and emotionally and for others it’s the results at the end of the day.   Believe it or not relationships are those things and so much more but the common thread that holds it all together is past experience. An example is in my past I met a real true angel named Susan.   She showed me what life, love and happiness was all about.   I did not know that then because I had never experienced it before.   I thought it was all about choosing a mate and sticking with them through thick and thin but when it became apparent that it was solely my idea and not one shared by those sharing a relationship with me, that idea soured.   Because that was my only idea of a relationship, I flopped around like a fish out of water f...

Much has been made of the opportunities that Mitt Romney has had to create a Sista Soulja moment.   A moment where he takes a stand against those he believes are the ones who may cast a vote for him in the upcoming election.   Because there has been a few, one can only speculate as to the results of seeing Mr. Romney showing a little bit of backbone.   Below is what I think could be accomplished if he did take that elusive stand for doing the right thing. Because much of what Mr. Romney says is about non-divisive language, taking a stand could finally give him complete control over his party.   It could bring back the real Republicans who have gone into hiding or surrendered to the Tea Party.   He could finally bring Mormonism into the main stream, dispelling all of the lies and myths about his faith and give many a clear and correct look into a faith that frightens people mainly because they know nothing about it.   His stance could finally unite the have...