Why I'm Voting for Donald Trump... (An Open Letter)

*I really hate the whole "Open Letter" thing. But Trump is very aware of social media and I'll never have the chance to say these things to him in person. So I'll say them here and hope he see it. -Craig

Mr. Trump,

     I generally detest the whole “Open Letter” trope. I’ve done it twice in my life. Once, knowing full-well that the intended recipient was not going to read it, and another time I wrote President Obama, because I had just lost a job offer after Obamacare was implemented and the cost of my position rose above what the employer was able to pay. I had hoped he might see it, or perhaps one of his staff, but I never got a response. I am certain my plight wasn’t one he would have publicized, because it didn’t fit his narrative.

     However, I am writing this open letter because you are very aware of social media and you seem to notice when you are addressed, even by “insignificant” regular folks. So I thought I’d give it a try. I cringe at the mechanism, but it’s worth a shot.

     I wanted to write to tell you my story and to encourage you in your push toward the presidency. I think I am much like the average conservative American these days. I believe that my story is reflective of millions of stories out there right now, and –to be honest- you seem to be the only candidate who hears us, sees us, and has actual experience in helping people like us. My story could easily lend itself to me becoming a mindless Sanders supporter, seething with rage against the faceless “one percent” who succeeded in my stead and somehow took all the money from the system and left me broken. I could fall for Hillary’s farce of being helpless unless the government steps in and does it all for me.

I am neither.

     What I am is a fifty-two year old man who has tasted bitter defeat in recent years and still believes that the American system (at least the one I grew up under) is still the best solution, because it allows me the opportunity –when it runs properly- to work hard and fix it myself. I believe you embody that ideal better than any candidate out there.

     My story could be taken as tragic if I chose to see it that way. I do not. It was hard. It was difficult. It broke me down and shattered the dreams and plans I had. But I believe that I am bigger than those hardships, my faith is placed in a God who is certainly above those depths, and I believe that this country was created especially for a man like me.

A man who has tasted defeat by the pound, but still desires to do the hard work to rise from the ashes instead of letting someone else come along and give it all to me.

     From 1998 until 2008 I was in the mortgage industry. I entered the business, as green as anyone could be. I had a wife of two years and a four month old baby.  I left carpentry to enter a field where every penny was commission, no base salary, and I had absolutely no idea how to do the work. I had never owned my own home, had never even filled out a mortgage application. But I knew I could do better in this industry than I could do as a carpenter and my family needed me to succeed. So I did.

     I threw myself into the business with all my might. I studied loan matrices until one or two in the morning after running appointments until nine, ten, sometimes eleven pm. I spent time in the processor’s office, learning to put together a better file, while other guys were on the golf course. The first month I made nothing. In fact I sold much of my construction equipment to pay the bills because, being in a straight commission job, nobody was paying my gas, or food, or expenses. The second month I closed my first loan and made $795 dollars. The third month I was the number three Loan Officer at that company and made $8950, after taxes. I was so proud. I worked hard for that money.

     Nine months later, I had my own branch of a national mortgage company. It takes most guys five years to get their own net-branch, but I was already producing volume and had become so knowledgeable in the field, that I was offered a branch.

     For the next eight years, I was increasingly successful in business. Sadly, my wife was just plain not happy and we divorced. My daughter was eighteen months old, and I settled into the life of a divorced dad, and a mortgage banker. I bought my first home in 2000. I sold it and bought my next home in 2004. I was making very good money –in the six figure range- and had flexibility to spend more time with my daughter than just the given “Once a week and every other weekend.” I received multiple awards from my employer, was active in the community and my church and had a good, comfortable, but modest life.

     Then came 2008. I did not survive the crash of the industry. I was 45 and had two years of college, and the most success I’d had was in a field that had now all but vanished. I lost my home, and by May of 2008, I was literally homeless. I slept in my car, which I hid behind a church. My daughter’s mom had remarried and had a home, so, thankfully, our daughter did not have to endure this with me. I could not leave my daughter. I grew up without my dad and would not let my precious daughter grow up without hers.

I am a Philadelphia native, but lived in Nashville, TN during this time. I could not go home and could not move to another city where there might be work. So I stayed.

     I lived this way for almost 6 years. During this time I would sleep in my car (and after that died an old GMC Yukon that was bigger and more “comfortable”) and showered at the county recreation center. I took odd jobs. I have built chicken coops, washed windows, and cut grass for meal and gas money. I took my unemployment because I felt that was okay since I had paid into it for so long. But after that ran out, I refused any other government assistance. I am not against it entirely. My biggest fear was not shame from taking a welfare check or food stamps…although it would have been shameful for me…but I feared it would eliminate my drive, and my ambition and my desire. We are all fueled in part, by pride. Not arrogance but pride. I was proud of my success in the mortgage industry. I was proud of the dad I was to my daughter. That pride drove me daily and helped me succeed. I felt like a government handout would strip that from me and I would never again succeed as I had before.

     During this time of homelessness I returned to college, through my alma mater’s online program. It was hard. I studied in my car, at the library, or in restaurants that provided free Wi-Fi. I graduated in May 2012, from Liberty University, while still homeless. I had hoped that this would open doors of employment for me, but alas; while I had my degree now, we still had the same president and the same horrible economic policies.

     I tried returning to the mortgage industry, and was immediately offered a job. My reputation in that field was stellar and the local manager was more than happy to hire me. However, one week later, after Obamacare was official and the guidelines for commissioned employees took effect, the offer was withdrawn. They simply could not afford the enormous costs the new policy would incur and froze all hiring. I was crushed. Perhaps more than any other time in my life and certainly more than any other time while I was homeless.

     I returned to carpentry as a last resort. There was not much work at the time, but I took whatever I found. Meanwhile, my daughter’s life was unravelling because her home situation became dangerous. It is the hardest thing in the world to have a child who needs your help and not be able to give it. I could not. I did what I could, but I could not get her out of the situation then. There were times when this was too much. Times when the work I was doing was extra painful…like the time I was hired to build custom, hand-made porch columns for government subsidized housing in Nashville. There I was, living in my vehicle, homeless, and building beautiful porch columns for people who would not have to pay a dime to live in the houses I was building them for. Sometimes it drove me to tears.

     Finally in 2014, my daughter and I decided to move. (Her mom saw the trajectory of her husband’s behavior and agreed to let our daughter come with me) I applied for a job at my alma mater and, without a guarantee of work, moved to Lynchburg, Va. We came here with two months’ rent, and no furniture except the brand new mattress some folks had bought for her before we left.

     For the first time in 6 years –almost to the day- I had a home. I slept on the floor, on the foam that I used in my truck. But I was in a home. I did carpentry that summer, and in August was hired at Liberty University. I have a wonderful job at a place I have loved since high school. I work hard and I still do carpentry on the side. Liberty takes good care of me, but we are a nonprofit, and daughters in college are expensive. While I get her tuition as part of my benefit package, there are still many expenses incurred. I have bills to pay. I am digging out of a big hole. I work most weeks, about 70 hours between my job at LU and my side business. I am blessed that I have a craft that I am very good at, that pays well. I love my job here and I love working for my school. I know you have a friendship with our President, and I love working for him. He’s a great boss and a visionary.

     My road was hard, Mr. Trump. Very hard. But it never occurred to me to give up. I wrestled with the thoughts sometimes, but I never could imagine myself living in public housing, or letting someone else pay my way forever. My pride remained intact. Damaged for sure, but intact. I overcame, entirely by the grace of God and the faith I have in Him and His providing me enough –just enough- when things were hard.

     Three of my grandparents were immigrants. They came (Legally!) with nothing, worked hard, built a life, and took nothing from anyone that they didn’t pay for. That is my heritage and that is what drove me to do it the same way they did it.

     And that is why you will have my vote this fall.

I did not arrive at this decision easily. I had my reservations. Honestly, I initially would have preferred someone who is a little less rough around the edges. But I realized that when you spoke, you spoke with the voice of people like me. People who have been miserably failed by this “president” we now have and who feel the full weight of the truth that he does not care about us. That he never cared about us. I know you hear us, Mr. Trump and I believe you care.

     And so I wrote this because I wanted you to understand the history behind this one vote. You’ll be getting millions of them this November, Mr. Trump…but mine was hard earned. I lived this mess for that long, six-year period. It made me better. It did not defeat me. But it hurt. It hurt in ways I can’t describe. I lost things that had nothing to do with money. I lost those years with my little girl. I went almost six years not tucking her in at night and hearing her bed time prayers. I can’t ever get those back. She was ten when this started. She was sixteen when we arrived here and I finally had a home again.

     This vote I give you in the fall is dear to me. It’s precious. It’s sacred. Those immigrant grandparents of mine ventured far and wide to give it to me. I did not give it to Barack Obama. But his eight years have steeled my resolve as to how precious this vote of mine is. I am giving you mine this November and now you understand how valuable it is to me. You understand how much I have endured just to still be here and vote this fall.

     I love this country. Love it with all my heart. This country gave life to my family and gave me a chance. I took it and succeeded. I plan on succeeding again…I already have simply by surviving this. I know you love this country as well. While I still have questions and reservations concerning your presidency, I do know you love this country.

Take care of my vote, Mr. Trump. Now you know what I had to do to hold onto it. Bring this country back. Give people their pride back. The pride that comes from doing it ourselves, against long odds, with our leaders cheering us on, not standing in our way.

Listen to the voices of those who love this country, this flag, that Constitution, and our freedom. Treat my vote like the sacred thing it is.

     You are getting my vote because I believe you will do exactly that. I trust you will not fail me in this.

     Respectfully yours,

     Craig Daliessio

          5/21/2016

Happy 18th Birthday Daisy

“Oh the happiest day I have ever known

Was the day you took your first breath.

And to watch you grow in the warmth of the sun,

Is the only other wish I could ever have.

But if cold night winds should begin to howl

And if trouble should come your way,

Remember these words I’m telling you now

And all your days I pray you’ll call His name.

Rain will fall, as it surely must,

On the heads of the wicked, and the just.

God forbid that rain turn your dreams to rust.

And all your days I pray you’ll call His name

On that bittersweet day many years from now

When you take your first steps on your own.

Remember this, my precious child,

As much as I’ve loved you,

There is One who loves you more.

So if cold night winds should begin to howl

And if trouble should come your way,

May the warmth of the sun, comfort and guide you,

May those cold night winds stay forever behind you

If you lose your way

Know that God will find you…

And all your days I pray you’ll call His name.

                                  -Rick Elias

                           “For My Children”

Today, my daughter Morgan turns eighteen.

Eighteen years ago –tonight at Ten p.m. to be exact- my precious daughter came silently into this world.

Her entrance was silent…no crying, no distress. She was the quiet baby and she is a quiet adult now. But her impact on my life was as loud and as forceful and as brilliant as the Mummer’s Parade on New Years.

Everything they tell you about a baby changing your life is true…and none of it is.

I never saw her as an inconvenience. I never calculated what I could have been doing or might have done had I not become a dad. I never thought about the extra hockey games or the extra golf or the travel or whatever. I am a dad. I was born to be a dad and I have only found my happiness since that wondrous night, May 7, 1998.

It was chaotic and hectic and amazing.

She was perfect.

She calls herself “Daisy” because she doesn’t like her given name. 

I swallowed hard at that for a while, but if that’s the only headache she gives me I’m fine with it. She really is a Daisy anyway. She’s bright and lively and she adds color to the meadows of the world.

But she’s not a little girl anymore.

It went by so quickly, these eighteen years. Being divorced from her mom when she was only eighteen months only hastened the arrival of this day. When you see your child once a week and every other weekend, you miss more than you see. I missed as little as possible. I took days each week to eat lunch with her at school so I’d have those extra 3o minutes. I was in the mortgage industry then and I had the flexibility. I learned a silly magic trick every few weeks to entertain her friends at the lunch table. They thought I was the best dad ever. I sat there –all 6’ 4” of me- hunched in the tiny cafeteria tables at Park Avenue Christian School where she went to Kindergarten, or at Westmeade Elementary, and I looked like Shrek amongst those tiny little people. Those were some of the best days of my life.

She suffered terribly because of the divorce. In many ways she still does.

She suffered more because I refused to allow myself to find happiness again. I didn’t realize this until a year ago or so. 

I realized that I felt so bad for how much she was hurting over the divorce –a divorce I did not cause or want- that I felt guilty inside every time I thought about entering a relationship and going on with life.

I would literally think to myself “My daughter is unhappy, what right do I have to be happy?” I thought that her having me all to herself was better than her having to share me with someone else, the way she had to share her mom. I was so wrong.

I thought about how, if I remarried, I’d probably wind up with someone with children, because that was the age I was then. I felt guilty because I would have been spending more time with someone else’s children than I did with my own.

And so I stayed alone and tried to be devoted to her. I was so wrong about that. I denied her an alternative to the horrors that soon revealed themselves after her mom had been married for a year or so. I denied her the chance to see her dad love someone, to see what that looks like and to use it as a standard. I denied her the chance to see someone love her dad too. The only archetype for marriage she has is terrible, because I didn’t give her an alternative view.

She endured my homelessness. The nights I couldn’t come get her when her mom’s husband was on one of his usual benders and was becoming violent. I couldn’t get her when her mom sided with her husband and told her to get out. I remember one night, going to get her at 10 pm because the situation was so bad. We drove to a Waffle House and just sat there for a few hours and ate something and let things cool down. Then I had to take her home. I have no words to describe those days.

She has such a broken family. A grandfather who has never met her and probably never will. A grandmother who is too harmful a person to be around her, whom she has not seen or heard from since she was 7. She has Uncles and Aunts and cousins she loves and loves being a part of, but who she sees far too infrequently. She has two “adopted” sets of grandparents whom she loves as her own flesh and blood, but sees not nearly enough of. (Jewell and Pop are gone now)

When she was little, she was happy and outgoing and joyful. As she got older, and her world grew dark, she retreated into her gifts. She has a magnificent voice. I don’t say that lightly. She is a music major here, and already gaining notice because of the purity and beauty of her voice. Music became her refuge. The thing nobody could take away or damage with their own agenda. Her art is the same. She can draw and create such beauty on paper and media. Beauty that she can’t always –or often- find in the world she lives in now.

I have tried my best to shield her from those hurts and wounds, but I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do. Not entirely anyway.

I wish I had given myself permission to get over the divorce sooner than I did, and to let myself love someone when it still could have impacted my daughter. Not that I wanted to “find her a mom,” but she needed to see that love and marriage and relationship can be wonderful, can be good. She needed to see a real-life second chance, because she…like everyone else on Earth, will need them as she goes through life.

But she is grown now. Eighteen and ready to move to the next adventure. She moves on campus this fall and I pray she finds great friends on her hall and people who can pour in love and healing to the wounds she bears.

I love this young lady more than all my many words will ever reveal. All that I have or ever will have could be burned to ashes if it meant her dreams and hopes would live longer. She is the only arrow in my quiver, and today begins the flights from my bow.

She’ll spend half the summer here and half with her mom. When she comes back, she’ll be in the dorms at Liberty and not my roommate anymore.

I am scared. I am a perfectionist and all I can see are the things I didn’t get right. The mistakes I made. My faults as a dad.

Did I pray enough? Did I live my faith right enough of the time? 

Is she going to be okay?

My dear friend Rick Elias wrote the song that I quoted in this post. He wrote it for his son’s first birthday. I have loved this song and always wished he’d release it.

I trust that if my daughter loses her way she will know that God will find her.

And her dad won’t be far behind.

Happy Birthday Daisy.

All the best things of my life have their genesis in you and in this day eighteen years ago.

I love you more than you will ever know. I am more proud of you than I can possibly show. God has such a plan for your life. You are my beloved daughter…I am very pleased with you. Take flight, my arrow…and don’t ever stop. The world needs the targets you were meant to hit.

I love you,

Daddy

The Fashionable Fascism of Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen announced yesterday that he has cancelled his show in Greensboro N.C. scheduled for this Sunday, April 10.

He did this after the North Carolina legislature passed a law restricting bathrooms to the gender to which the users were born.

Instantly this was seen as an “anti-gay bill” and the outcry was astounding. The facts be damned, these people were screaming about this law being discriminatory.

North Carolina HB2, as the law is officially designated, is specific. It allows for public, multi-occupant restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms and changing rooms to be used only by the gender notated on one’s birth certificate.

The bill makes CLEAR provision for single user, unisex bathrooms. So the bill takes into consideration the claim that transgender people are at risk using the restroom to which their birth certificate (or most would say God) has designated them. They are not making a law that mandates that you pee in the men’s room even if a unisex room is available.

It’s apparent that Springsteen never read the bill in it’s entirety, and if he did, he chose to ignore the facts, and twist the words so that his adoring minion would get riled up and revolt.

Bruce needs to feel relevant again…I get it. He’s sixty-six. He hasn’t written a truly great album since “Tunnel of Love” back in 1987. That’s 29 years of half baked, halfhearted efforts, punctuated by repackaged box sets of old songs that all his diehard fans (like me until this week) already owned. Each set was to celebrate the anniversary (typically the 30^th or 35^th) of one of his landmark albums. Currently it’s “The River” we are revisiting with the box set “The Ties That Bind” which is getting horrible reviews from diehards like me who plunked down a C note (I didn’t…I can’t afford it in Obama’s economy) for a box of stuff they already had. I have read review after review where the buyers were dismayed over spending the money for a collection of songs that have been out there for three decades now. Bruce’s studio albums used to be a guaranteed sale of about five million units minimum. Now he’s trying hard to sell a couple hundred thousand. That’s why we get these repackages and it’s why his live shows are predominantly sets of the great Springsteen songs of old…back when he gave a damn. Nobody really wants to hear the new songs and he knows it.

Bruce’s worst enemy is his own success. His wealth is rumored to approach a half-billion dollars and I’ve heard even more. Yet he writes song after song about the evil rich and those horrible bankers on “banker hill” (Banker Hill??) yet nobody wonders where he keeps all that money he has? Mayonnaise jars in the back yard? Under the mattress?

Bruce’s middle kid went to Duke. She rode for their equestrian team. You think she got a scholarship? Old Bruce plunked down close to $125000 a year for her to go there. Oh, and that horse she jumps with…almost a million dollars.

God bless him! Seriously! I love me some capitalism and I am all for a guy hitting the jackpot. But don’t let your guilt from doing so, be used as a means to attack me or punish everyone who disagrees with you.

That’s really the point of this article. Bruce’s fraudulent, guilt-driven attack on anyone who doesn’t line up with his politics. Bruce decided that a 66 year old rock star from New Jersey, who lives in New Jersey, grew up in New Jersey, lands his private plane in NJ, houses his horses on his farm in New Jersey, keeps his wealth in New Jersey (except for that which is doubtless secured in the Cayman’s…he’s not stupid) knows better what is best for North Carolina than North Carolinians do.

But he is so sure he knows better that he doubled down and told them all that unless they agree with him entirely on this position, he would not be bringing his services to Greensboro this Sunday night.

He was withholding his art because their policy violated his personal beliefs.

Sound familiar?

Imagine Bruce was a cake baker and 20,000 people wanted a wedding cake and Bruce told them all “No!” because he disagrees with their “legislative lifestyle.”

Is it clearer now?

Bruce is a fraud. And every single person who sides with him is a fraud as well.

Bruce is doing exactly what the bakers in Washington and Colorado did and he is being applauded, while they lost everything.

Bruce is telling you and me that unless we adopt HIS personal views on life, we are no longer allowed to hear his music or enjoy his shows. He cannot TOLERATE dissent in any form.

That, folks, is fascism.

Bruce Springsteen…you are a phony. You are a self-loathing rich man who can’t handle the blessings God bestowed on you and so you punish yourself vicariously by writing scathing songs about people who are, in fact, exactly like you.

You are intolerant. You are, by definition, a bigot. You defy everything you claim you stand for by denying your fans their joy in hearing your music unless an entire state does your bidding.

Who the hell do you think you are?

I refused to discuss the points and counterpoints of the bill in question here…that would take far too long.

I won’t go back into my devotion to Bruce from the time I was eleven years old…forty one years ago now. That has been documented on my blogs in the past.

This is about the fascism and hypocrisy he demonstrates today.

A dear friend once said to me –about five years ago when we were discussing the demise of Bruce’s writing skills- “He needs to lose every penny, lose his family, and end up working on a crab boat in the Bering Sea for about a year. He’s led a charmed life since he was about 25 and he has no idea what his real fan base even thinks or feels anymore.”

My friend was right.

Bruce only connects with mindless idiot millennials now. Kids who think the world owes them everything and everyone else needs to pay for it. Kids who believe in a phony equality because it’s better than proving yourself against long odds.

The people, like me, who’ve been fans since Bruce was a Northeast novelty, have fought the wars…military and personal. We’ve earned the money we bought those records with. We knew he was a liberal but he kept it out of his music back then and so we tuned out his politics and turned up the music.

Now he’s punishing us for disagreeing with him. He who values dissent above all…

He is a hypocrite.

It’s time to retire Bruce.

Book Review: Bronner: A Journey to Understand by Sherri Burgess

Bronner: A Journey to Understand

Sherri Burgess

New Hope Publishers

Released January 2016

*I am not a professional book reviewer, but I love to write and when a new book particularly touches me I like to post a review here. *

I had to catch my breath before I could write a review of this wonderful book. I've read several works written by grieving parents over the years. My own family experienced two such losses and so I read these books from time to time to see how others process so terrible an event as a child passing. This, however, is no ordinary "grieving parent" book.

I have read books that obsessed for endless chapters about Heaven, in an effort by the author to draw comfort from the fact that their child now resides there.

I have read books that were on the verge of dabbling in the occult with their repeated claims of signs and sightings and "God nods" that somehow signified that their lost loved one was literally making their presence known on this plane.

But until reading this book, I had not read someone who rushed headlong into the awesome and terrifying truth that this is a fallen world, and the God whom we love and confess, the God whom we trust and obey, is the same God who can permit something so tragic because it is part of His greater plan. Harder still is facing that truth and somehow believing that He is no less good and loving that He was before the tragedy struck.

Sherri Burgess has done a masterful job of expressing the immense pain that she and husband Rick and their family experienced that dreadful January night. But beyond that, Sherri has dug deep into the scriptures to offer the hope and comfort that only those who truly trust God will know. When Paul speaks of the "Peace that passes understanding..." he is not referring to some mystical numbness that overtakes your devastated and shattered heart. He is talking about the deep, under-the-surface peace that comes from knowing somewhere in your soul that even this is somehow part of God's plan. The Burgesses lived it. They still live it. This is a story about the home-going of a precious child, but also of the dreams, plans, visions and hopes that are always wrapped up in our children. It's about arms that ache for a hug that doesn't come, ears that listen for a voice that has fallen silent, and a special place in the heart of a mom and dad that is for now filled only with memories and yearning. Thankfully it's also about the truth that those disappointments and sorrows are not eternal.

Sherri and Rick's story is breathtaking in it's pain and also in it's strength. Yes, God has granted them the peace that passes understanding, but He also granted them the Faith to say "It is well with my soul" even when the world is crumbling.

Beyond all this. Beyond the masterful way Sherri relates this story and recounts every painful step on the trail of tears and healing, there lies the fact that she is a masterful theologian. I have a Bachelors degree in Religion and I am beginning seminary this spring, I love the Word and have a deep respect for those who truly know how to "Rightly divide the Word of Truth." Sherri is amazing in her depth and breadth of biblical knowledge. One of the reasons I shy away from these books is because so frequently they contain so much terrible theology. This book is the opposite. This book is truth. It's not just for those who have experienced loss -because in the end, who hasn't- it's for those who know that life IS loss...but to be with Christ, both here on earth and in eternity, is truly gain.

Thank you Sherri and Rick for having the courage to walk back down that dreadful path and share this story with us all.

If you struggle with loss -whether of a child or a parent or sibling, or simply the loss of your plans and dreams- I cannot recommend this book highly enough. 

Craig

Open Letter to Cam Newton

I detest the whole “Open Letter” thing. It’s become passé and overwrought. But, since this is playing out on the national stage I thought I would give it a go.

     Mr. Newton

         I’m writing this to you as a result of your recent comments regarding your behavior after the Super Bowl on Sunday. I have a problem with your behavior, and with your continued sulking and pouting and so, since you played this out on national TV, I thought I’d respond publicly as well.

You need to grow up.

This is life, kid. People lose big games. They lose much more. They lose jobs. They lose houses. Dreams die before ever getting off the ground. Parents lose children at a young age and never get over it. Young couples try and try and never are able to have children.

The love of your life dies too soon, or decides they don’t love you anymore and they leave you suddenly. This is life. This plays out thousands of times a day and the people who face life after disaster have to suck it up, pick up the pieces and soldier on. This is a hell of a lot more important than the Super Bowl.

Your defenders continue to say “Unless you have walked in his shoes, you can’t judge him. You don’t know what it’s like to fail with 150 Million people watching.” Actually Cam…I know something even more heartbreaking. Sure, your loss took place on a worldwide stage. But half of the onlookers were cheering for you. They love you and wanted you to get up and win the fight. It was not to be this time, and they love you regardless. After the game, you pouted, sulked, whined, growled, and finally stalked off like a petulant child, who was just told “No!” for the very first time.

You know what is worse than losing a battle in front of millions of fans? You know what hurts more than your dreams dying in public view?

It’s when your dreams die and not a soul notices or cares.

You want to know how I know? Because I’ve been there.

When the economy collapsed in 2008 I lost my career. The industry I worked in vanished. I was 45 and could not find a job. I lost my home. With that I lost my pets, my ability to have my daughter on weekends anymore. (Thankfully, her mom and I are divorced and so her mom still had a place to live.) I lost my sense of accomplishment and worth. I felt like dying.

And nobody noticed.

Precious few people cared how I was doing, or asked about where I was staying. I lived in my car, showered at the county rec center and nobody noticed. Every single night for the first two years I lived like this. Every single night I wanted to give up. That is tragic. Not losing a stupid football game and then whining about the questions they ask you, or the fact that you could hear your opponent’s statements from the other room.

Life is tough and nobody cares how you feel about things. You put your head down and pick yourself up and do better. And if you are a real man…you do it with dignity.

I tried to do exactly that. I was homeless. I literally slept in a Volvo 850 that I would hide behind a church. It hurt. It hurt more than this loss you just experienced ever could.

I cried myself to sleep some times because I love my daughter and I was worried about how this would affect her. I worried that maybe it was never going to change. I wondered how I could ever change it. But all the while, I tried facing it with dignity because –while you had millions of people watching you falter- I had only one. My daughter. But she was the only one that mattered Cam, and so I endured this battle with dignity because I knew I was setting an example. I wanted to pout, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to bark at every stranger who walked across my path. But instead I did what I could to hide the fact that I was homeless and I faced it all with dignity.

You need to learn what that word means and what it looks like.

You need to apologize to the world for sulking and pouting and making the whole event about you. You need to stiffen your back, face your failings and shortcomings, and have some dignity and some humility. Humility is not the same as humiliation. Jesus was humble. Einstein was humble.

I can deal with your exuberance and your dancing and your dabbing and your youthful ridiculousness. But I can’t sit by while people defend you on the grounds that I have never failed in the public eye. I’ve done something far more painful.

I failed alone.

You drove home to your nice estate and your nice life and your adoring fans. I had a beat up old car and a sleeping bag. You will have another chance next fall. It took me almost six years to get another chance and rebuild my life.

I didn’t have time to sulk. I went back to school and finished my bachelor’s degree…while still homeless. I stayed active in my daughter’s life, while still homeless. I started a business because I still couldn’t find work…while still homeless.

In all that time, I was beaten, I felt defeated, I was depressed, I was sad, and I wondered if things were ever going to change.

But I behaved with dignity.

My daughter was watching. And whether 150 million additional people had been, or if I endured all that alone with only her eyes seeing me…I HAD to behave with dignity.

Manhood is tough. Adulthood is tough. Responsibility is tough. Your profession affords you the easiest life imaginable. Football is hard work. I get that. But you are well paid for your efforts and it affords you a dream lifestyle.

Almost no one else has that benefit. Most of us struggle in anonymity, wondering if anyone cares at all. Most of us have no resources to rebuild after loss, so we work multiple jobs and sometimes…we sleep in cars and finish our degree and hope that somehow we get that second chance.

That’s what being a grown-up is. It’s time for you to be one. You are 27. That’s not “young and immature” that’s a full-grown man. Suck it up, buttercup. This world, the league, these fans, your opponent, the press…they owe you nothing. Everything you have and everything you will gain is because of the fame and opportunity that football provided you. You have the opportunity to live a life that almost every other soul on this planet only dreams of. You have NOTHING in this world to whine about.
I think you are a good man. I enjoy the fun you have and the way you seem to "get-it" that the fans are the reason you play this game. I genuinely like you. So this doesn't come from hate.

Next time, take your lumps like a man. Answer the questions, smile when it hurts, and be gracious. Because if you can’t lose with grace, you will not win with grace. There are lots of people who would trade places with you and they’d be gracious and dignified all along the way.  Time for you to do the same.

Jerry Falwell Jr. was right. My take...

*Note: I'm a Liberty graduate, a Liberty dad, and a Liberty employee. These words are MY OPINION and not reflective of LU as an institution. 

So last Friday, Jerry Falwell Jr. made a short statement about concealed carry permits and eligible students, and staff carrying on campus.

…and the whole world done lost it’s mind.

In the wake of yet another terrorist attack by peaceful Muslims, we were instantly force-fed more gun control rhetoric. The solution, to liberals, is to remove all guns (That is, all guns that you can find and confiscate, ignoring the fact, of course that you can’t possibly ever remove all guns) leaving only criminals to possess guns. The problem is that, in these shootings…it’s already a criminal who had the gun. Legally or not, he used it in a criminal method.

So the liberals say we should further disarm the populace in order to prevent mass shootings. Hmmm. Let’s look back at the mindset of these folks, shall we? These are the same people who hold that the way to produce better parents is to kill babies.

…Liberals lost they ever-lovin’ minds.  

These are the same people who want to take away guns because of shootings. But then, these are people who think the way to decrease the debt is to spend more money. Liberals aren’t logical to begin with, but I digress.

The point is, to restrict someone’s rights when it fits their narrative is just fine with them, but God forbid you try that with one of their sacred cows.

Back to last Friday…

Jerry Jr. stated what every one of us thinks already, i.e. the only slim chance you have in the event of a terrorist shooting is to return fire. Or as Clyde, the one-armed deputy from the classic movie “Unforgiven” so eloquently stated: “Well I just don’t want to be killed for lack of shooting back.”

Neither do I.

So my boss said it in a way that we all feel in our hearts anyway, but in a politically correct world run amok, nobody has the nads to say it. “If those Muslims ever come here, we need to be able to fire back.”

Those Muslims…

That’s the term that has people losing their hair. Gee, Einstein, there was a mass shooting in California the day before, you think maybe he was referring to THOSE Muslims? Of course he was, but if you admit that, you have nothing left to be worked into a froth over so you can’t scream at Jerry. You literally have to TRY to see his words as “hate” and “bigotry” for them to add up to that. I never batted an eye when he said what he said, so you can see why I was mystified by the uproar.

But why should I have been surprised? This is, after all, what liberals do. They wait for one word and seize it and redefine it and push it down your throat until you suddenly see the word as something new…and dangerous. Don’t believe me? Look at the word “hate” now. As soon as you disagree with someone, they start accusing you of “hatred” and your logical rebuttal has now become “hate speech” and your whole life is examined to see what else you hate. You are a bigot, You are intolerant. If you disagree with the president, it can only be because you are a racist. These days you don’t dare disagree with a black man over anything because you might be labeled a racist forever.

Your favorite baseball player had better be Willie Mays and not Mickey Mantle and you had better roll your windows down and move to the rhythm whenever some 17 year old pulls up next to you with Kanye shaking the trunk lid of his lowered Honda Civic.

You better not even be a NASCAR fan because “racing” sounds close enough to “racist” these days.

Yeah, okay I’m adding my typical Yankee snark to this to make my point, but seriously…I’m not that far off and you know it.

Jerry Jr. didn’t say anything that anyone else wasn’t thinking and feeling and all these hurt feelings and gasping liberals are simply reacting in accordance with the company line. As Scrooge said, “An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is…”

And libs are what they are.

But there is another group that attacked President Falwell and that group is really where my wrath is aimed. The Neo-Evangelicals.

All I’ve read over the last three days was one limp-wristed, pasty-faced pansy / pastor (or “navigator” or “spiritual path guide” or whatever the heck else they call themselves except PASTOR these days) after another, attacking Jerry and flaying him open as a hateful, anti-Jesus. “Jesus would not hate!” They proclaim, ignoring the fact that Jerry never said he hated anyone. Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Jesus never resisted the brutality of the crucifixion.

Correct…except Jesus came here for the explicit purpose of dying for my sins. I was not born with the same purpose and before you attack me for ignoring the command to “take up my cross…” you’d better understand that the cross Jesus spoke of in that verse was not necessarily the cross of physical death. It was death to self, and to the things you elevate above Jesus in your life. 

You Bible wizards forget the truth that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb, once. He rose from the dead as a King and his next appearance, as told in revelation, will find him riding on a horse with a sword coming out of his mouth (symbolism depicting his commanding an army) leading a charging army and killing everyone who stands against him. Yeah…it’s in Revelation 19: “11: I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.  15 Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Call me crazy but that’s not some glaze-eyed, sissy-boy Jesus who sways back and forth at the latest Matt Redmon song. He’s not hip, and trendy, and wearing cool clothes and whining on his blog about social injustice in Poopistan. He comes riding on a fearsome horse, leading the charge, commanding an army with words of death.

That, my friends, is also Jesus.

That’s the “gentle baby meek and mild.” The same man who wept over Lazarus, got so angry at church money-makers that he made himself a whip and beat them violently and then turned over their tables. Remember when “Karl” found out his brother was killed by John McClain in “Diehard?” Remember when he flipped the desk over and said “I want blood!” Yeah…that’s pretty much Jesus in the temple courtyard that day.

Jesus was no pacifist. He was here for a specific time and for a specific purpose but his history throughout eternity is one of power, authority, and, sometimes, force.

Jesus does not hate Muslims. But Jesus does hate murder. He hates when families are torn apart by terrorist attacks at community centers. He hates the collective grief of 3000 people on 9/11. He hates murder of those four servicemen in Chattanooga.

Jesus also dislikes stupidity. How many times did he ask his disciples “Do you still not get it?” Jesus commands us to take care of our families. Paul wrote that if a man does not provide for his family he is worse than an infidel. Provision includes safety and protection. If you don’t want to carry a firearm, good on ya. But if we do have to answer for our deeds, I think that will include answering for being purposefully reckless.

Evil is here folks. Islam is the place where it lives and where it is nurtured. Does that mean all Muslims are embracers of evil? Of course not! It does mean that they all embrace a culture that embraces evil, which puts them one step away at best. The problem is I can’t tell which ones intend me harm and so I have two options…rid myself and the country of all Muslims –which would be unfair to truly peaceful Muslims- or prepare myself for the worst case scenario.

That I must do.

I am a dad. I have a daughter on this campus, besides being an employee and an alumni. I have to think about her safety all the time. She’s already at just about the safest place I could imagine for her college years. I have to do whatever else I need to do to ensure she gets through it all. In this world, maybe that includes carrying a gun, and, sadly, it includes being suspicious of anyone from certain groups. Suspicious. Not hateful. Not bigoted. Suspicious. Wary. Cautious.

As a Christian, I have to admit…it hurts to say those things. It hurts. Nobody wants to go around suspicious of anyone else. We all want peace. We want diverse friendships and cultural patchwork quilts…blah blah blah. But, I fear, there is no Arabic version of Kumbayaah. We apparently can’t all just get along. That’s reality, and it’s life and death now.

Jerry Falwell Jr. only said what realists already knew…that the threat is contained within Islam (notice I did not say the threat IS Islam…not yet anyway) He said what real people think in a way REAL people say it. Not couched and politically correct and sparing of everyone’s feelings. It is what it is.

You hipster theologians who think that having a pair is tantamount to being some hateful Neanderthal, I have one last parting gift for you. This is the real world now and you live in it. Jesus called us to die to HIM…not to Allah. Turning the other cheek means giving someone one more chance to make it right. Jesus did not call us to be chai latte sipping girl-boys, wearing skinny jeans and loafers with no socks while hiding our emasculation behind some faux-lumberjack beard.

He called us to be Davids. Men after God’s own heart, who snatched lions by the hair of their mane and charged headlong at giants with stones and slings and who lopped of that bugger’s head once we knocked him out! David wrote poetry and songs…some of which begged God to smash out the teeth of his enemies and bash their baby’s heads against rocks. David was a man. He had a temper. He got pissed sometimes.

If this picture bothers you…take it up with God. He is, after all, the one who loved that manly man so much that he made him the progenitor of the Savior himself. Ecclesiastes teaches us that there IS a time to kill and a time not to. There IS a time for harsh, often violent responses to humanity. That’s in the Bible too, along with the Beatitudes.  

Live with this, and more importantly…let ME live with this without calling me less of a Christian than you are. Get yourself a pair, bro!

Or to quote the late, great Dale Earnhardt…

“You’d better tie some kerosene rags around your ankles so the ants don’t crawl up your legs and eat your candy a**!”

That’s how I see it.

Web Page for my Carpentry Company

While I still work full time at Liberty University, I have returned to carpentry as a means to augment my income. (Daughters are expensive!)
Here is the web page I created for my business. Please share!

http://decksbycraig.blogspot.com/