An accident waiting to happen

 I'm going to address a question I recieve often, and that question is why don't you go to the bars? People ask me this all the time, they say Brodrick I know you don't drink but why won't you just go sit and chat and have a good time. Well let me set the record straight. I've been to the bar before, probably about 3 times and every time I've went I have had to fight a strong temptation. My temptation isn't drinking or feeling up and dancing on some girl. Mine is fighting, I'm extremely protective and if one of my guys danced on the wrong girl, bumped into the wrong person, or even worse if a girl I knew was being messed with by a jerk that couldn't keep his hands to himself. I would punch him in his face so hard that every time he took a deep breath he would smell his butt. Excuse my tone but I had to make my point of how angry I would be! I have admirations and all of those dreams probably can't be accomplished with a police record, to be honest with you I don't even have a speeding ticket to my name (knock on wood). I know I could end up fighting someone about the same thing in another place besides the bar but at the bar your asking for it. You just have a collection of drunk people who aren't thinking clearly and everybody is so packed in together. It's an accident waiting to happen! So go enjoy yourselves peeps, I'll just hang at home and do my thing!


 

Every speech isn't perfect

I do believe that speaking is my gift, but last night when, I gave this speech to the SGA, I didn't kill it. I know when I have the crowd on the edge of their seats and excited about the next words I'm about to utter but I pretty much sucked this one up. #1 reason why is because this message isn't fitted for my audience. I went into to much history that left it dry and left them bored and hanging for most parts.#2 and most important reason, is that I think god is trying to show me that in no way will I be perfect every time I step to that podium. I can't let my sucess at speaking be the reason I am happy during my day because... Every speech isn't perfect!
Here it goes

Hi guys I'm brodrick Thomas as Kirk said... And just like the president of our wonderful institution Dr. Gougue would say..... It's another beautiful day in Auburn Alabama ...and the longer I hang around here that statement tends become more and more true to me....I believe god  to be a artist painting away and making beautiful pieces of art and it seems to
 me that auburn is one of his favorite canvases...he continues to make this place more and more beautiful as the days go by! But I'm not here to state the obvious about auburn's beauty...here to talk about a American coming to the kitchen to prepare breakfast... When making this breakfast their going use a orange orignated from the Mediterranean  a canalope that found it's beginning in eastern Asia, and a watermelon that was born in Africa... A pair of waffles that were created by early scandanavians....they'll probably use syrup derived by Indians from Canada and if they are a Christian most likely they'll sit down to pray over this meal to a Jewish deity. My point is that Nothing about America is orignal besides it's ideas...America has always been diffcult or somewhat a problem.. It was a problem when Christopher Columbus, pilgrams, and immgrants sailed the ocean blue to find it, and they found it even more diffcult to conquer america's vastness when they arrived. Actually America was so difficult that no one ethinc group could conquer her...Native American, European Americans, Asian Americans, African American and others had to all come together to find solutions to problems that they had never been seen before...today we face the same type of problems that have never been seen before and if we want to conquer them as Auburn Men and Women... as representive of this canvas of god. we must do it as one, we must do it as one student body at aubrun, we must do it as one state, as one country and as one with humanity... Cause there is no one person in this room who can solve the problems that this sga group face by themselves ...you must seek each other counsel to move auburn in the right direction, and we must do the same when we leave this place and go into much more bigger problems that awaits us in this world. Last week our football coach took a lot of heat for say that our Clemson win was a, "God Thing." What people don't understand is that he in no way meant for that to mean God loves us  more than Clemson. He meant that this football team faith in God is what connects them to each other. The exact reason when Cam throws a int. Josh Bynes can say I got you man... or why Zach can blow a coverage and Darvin can say don't worry about it were going to drive down and score this time. I'm not saying that y'all have to believe in God to work together but you all need to find something in common to fight for each other..... God bless y'all and god bless this small village on the plains of Alabama. 



    

attempted video blog

(I could not get the links or video to work for this blog so if you want to see what I'm talkling about you probably need to paste the link in your url and go watch it....thanks

While leaning on a fence post of upchurch field in the devil's pitt known as Clay County's rival Lineville. I realized between a hurtful text message and a look at the scoreboard that read my beloved panthers were getting beat by 27 in the 2nd quarter that my last semester of college didn't get off to the start I had wished for, its not just those things that have bothered me but between troubles at home and friends with broken hearts its been impossible to sleep, eat, or have a good day. I love The West Wing, its one of my favorite shows and when I watch a show that I like, I try to live it, I try to become part of it, I kind of make it my own. I think thats why we all read, listen to music , or even watch t.v. because those things take us from our own crazy little worlds and relates with whatever were feeling. So this first video is exactly a depiction of my talks with God when I've prayed to him for peace but bad things comtinue to happen. President Bartlet has just lost a woman that has pretty much been a mentor in his life since he was in grade school to a drunk driver in a car crash and is struggling with why all this bad stuff is happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FScv89J6rro

If your wondering what he said in Latin at the end. This is it
"Am I to believe that these are the acts of a loving God? A just God? A wise God? To hell with your punishments. I was your servent here on Earth. And I spread your word and I did your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you!"
The sad thing is thats exactly what I say to God when I think God has tilted the world against me, I wrote a blog not to long ago called "the steel of the ship". I pretty much said that God didn't care about us at all and just threw us to the wolves for his glory. I still believe a lot of what I said in that blog but I feel like I"m missing a large part of the reasons why God do the things he does...Now watch this last part of the same show after the president's spat in the church (that Woman is Mrs. Landingham she is the President's mentor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LjON9NW1I

The thing about me is that there is no tougher crtic of myself than myself. Its nothing you can say about me thats true that I haven't said about myself already. When bad things happen I just sit here and judge myself about what I did wrong or why this is happenning. Then when I can't figure it out I turn towards God and I guess that he is punishing me for some reason. When the truth is that he is building me to be stronger, preparing me for a time thats going to be much tougher then the one I'm currently in. Thats the other half that I was missing to the whole God throws us to the wolves thing. Yes he does throw us to the Wolves and it hurts as the teeth of life bite into our skin and and our problems surround us like a wolfpack, but we have to stop saying why me and say what are you trying to say God. Virginia and Dan help me realize last night that in our impossible situations that God is trying to show us something through it, not just to punish us or to gain glory, but actually drawing us closer to him for we can't concive or make it on our own understanding when our world is falling apart around us. Rick Warren says it best," Pain warns you something's wrong. Without it, you'd ignore what needs to be fixed in your life.What needs changing in you?" Maybe the reason I can't sleep isn't because of home, maybe the reason I can't eat isn't because of something that happen to my best friend but maybe the reason that my days are harder is because God is wrestling with me about some problems that I have. I have no clever punch line to place here, or no heart tugging line to pull the emotions of your heart written into a sentence to wow you. I just have realness, brokeness, and sadness and in some way I'll be better after it and you will be too if your going through the same thing

Believe and Submit!

Mattew 14:29-31
29"Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

I play a little guitar and piano, not much but a little. I have no desire to learn past what little I know now because the only reason I desire to play at all is because whenever life becomes to much for me to handle. I like to sit in a chair and play a couple of sweet tunes. I could defintely turn on some John Mayer, The Fray, or Brad Paisley and listen to them do it much better but its nothing like getting lost in the rift of your on strum and touch as your sadness sails on the sound of those 6 strings vibrating and the intermixing of chords from little black and white keys (thats a long sentence). Life is a sea, you start on a shore and venture out into the middle of it, get lost, find the hope of finding your way only to lose track of your destination again and for me during my lost moments I like to past my time by playing music because of its beauty. The most beautiful thing about this sea and getting lost in it is the fact that a wonderful savior comes walking out to us on the surface of it beckoning us to submit to his will. He gives a smile and say COME, do the impossible give up your dreams and everything you thought was right and submit to my will by trusting me through the wind of the sea and the lack of ground under you. The amazing thing is that when we finally leave the boat in the trust of his will we can stand on the impossibleness of nothing and walk but as we get closer you would think that we would believe more but we actually believe less. When we start to believe less we start to sink and Jesus begins to seem farther away than what he really is. So we panic lord don't let me drown in the tides of my disbelief, and he says "Why did you ever doubt?" I have a hard time listening to the Lord, he can make me feel uncomfortable about something but I will not quit at it, maybe because of a lack of faith but more because of what I want. What I want really doesn't mean much when I can only walk across 3ft of ocean compared to his 30 miles but I continue to struggle with this. Sometimes God remove things from us because it hinders our water walking ability or because at the time it slows our water walking ability only to be given right back to us later. The funny thing is that, I don't believe our doubt in God is the problem all the time. I believe it has more to do with the doubt we have in ourselves. Peter's doubt wasn't in Jesus at the time whenever he was starting the descend into the sea, because Jesus was standing on the water before him it wasn't a question of real life like the poor kid under drugs after his dentist appointment on youtube. It was a question of if I can do this? Can I submit to your will and do what your asking me, Can I make it through the next wave of life coming at me, Can I keep my balance against all the wind of people disbelief in what I'm doing for you, CAN I LEAVE THE BOAT! If you are a Christian you have left the boat! You are on water, believe and submit, step over that wave of life, spread your arms wide and hold your balance against that terrible wind, and submit to JESUS belief that he has in you to accomplish your destination. For God has built you to the purpose you are suppose to fulfill, you are specially made for this and I leave you with one of my favorite quotes ever!
Do not pray for easy lives, Pray to be a stronger person, Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, Pray for powers equal to your task, Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle!
The moment you walk on water is no Miracle, but the miracle was created when you were born and set forth on your journey across the sea! God bless you! God bless these United States of America and may God continue to believe in us!

The Dark Room

Alright this blog is going to be all over the place... its going to go on crazy tangents and left turns thats going to seem not to make any sense at all but hopefully by the end it will all make sense, so with that said lets get started! I believe in evloution to a certain point, I believe that God made us and gave us the ability to change and adapt to this ever changing world. I also believe that no matter what any christian say and no matter how educated or righteous they are, they have no clue of who God is or what he is capable of and I believe the same about any scientist. I believe they can draw physics problems on miles of chalk boards and make the most diffcult theroies true but they will never capture a portion of God's mystery and how he's done what he's done since the inception(Great Movie) of Mankind. So this theroy I'm about to run off on is just that! A theroy from a man who barely knows his right from his left and still has troubles with commas and punctuation in his Blogs. My theory starts like this, Why does water boil and heat up? My answer to this question which could be completely wrong is because there are particles in that pot of water that are moving very slow until you heat them up then they begin to move at a incrible pace, while moving at this incrible pace they begin to bump into each causing friction which leads to heat. Something like what we do when we rub our hands together really fast to warm them up or start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Our sun makes up 99% of the mass of our solar system thats including planets, moons, and all. Its about 875,000 miles across, were talking about fitting 64 million moons in the sun or 1600 Saturns. That big ball in the sky shoot particles at our beloved Earth and warm it up much like my boiling water theroy, not exactly like it but close to it. These particles are really unhealthy and can cause some serious damge to our tender skin, but the beautiful thing about this process is that the Lord provides so many barriers just to where we can enjoy the tingle of the sun on our skin for extended periods of time without pain or side effects. From the 93 million miles that seperate us from our massive star, or a invisible magnetic field that blocks the most harmful particles, to the Earth spherical shape that allows it only to recieve a lot of sun in some areas and not so much in other areas to balance the cooling of the planet. Which leads me to evloution and our lineage, some people lineage is traced from Eastern Europe to far reaches of the Pacific onto the plains of Africa or down into the Latin Continet of South America, but the thing about lineage is that we wear it. We wear it with our last names like Mosbacker, Eguae, Van Pernis, or Schwarzenegger. We wear it with our voice and our accients and especially with our physical features. I've been asked time and time again do I sunburn as a Black Guy, and the truth is I don't. The reason why ties into my belief in God and evloution. We all orginated from the same source, we were all alike at one time I think everyone agrees with that but what happen to make us different? I believe the reason we are so different as far as skin tone is because some people lineage happen to find the top half of the Earth where you don't see as much sun and my lineage, hispanics, middle eastern and other darker human beings lineage found the center of this globe of life where God allowed us to develope a defense mechanism to protect us from our sun particle blasted region. Its why people tell you to wear white on sunny days and not to wear black. Light colors or (white skin) reflect light allowing particles to bounce off your skin particles causing heat, so in other words cooking our lighter friends making them darker, while darker colors or (dark skin) absorb the particles (much like a paper towel soaking up water) stopping them or slowing them to a pace that allows people with darker skin not to get burnt or cooked so fast. Even though this was used and probably only needed many years ago as you see darker people in cooler parts of the world and lighter people in warmer parts of the world our lineage still follows us...but thats it, only lineage. There is no difference between you and me besides these imaginary things that we make up to belong to a group. Like religon or race, but at the end of the day we all belong to one race and thats the Human Race. I have a roomate who is as white as a polar bear but is much more educated in rap music than I and I'm sure I could school him in Country Music. We make departments in our minds and place people into them to use it as an excuse to be too lazy to get to know them or be to shy to peer through our sterotypes. We are one people put on this rocky ball hurling around a gas giant, and we must find hope in each other in order to feel our way through The Dark Room that is our future. Where would Anothny Gulley-Morgan be if a family with lighter skin than he would have left him on the streets when he was younger. I guarantee he wouldn't be recieving a free education playing football for the Tigers of Auburn. So lets not let our Defense Mechanism god blessed us with years ago be used as a judge or allow our lineage to determine our friendships. For how can you love God who you have not seen and hate your fellow man that you walk with every day. John 4:20-21. God Bless you and God Bless these United States of America!

The steel of the ship

People have told me before...not anyone that knows me really well, but they have told me, "Brodrick you have it all together you know what you want to do in life and you love God and your a good person." I usually just say thank you and move forward, because the problems I have are so deeply rooted that I could not begin to describe what's wrong with me. It's time to confess some of them now though, I don't deal with adversity well...if I meet failure I just kind of shut down and I'm not very responsive... I just meet a wall and slump until I can get out of it, and worst of all I usually lose a little faith in God admist those hard times. I won't be very honest about the pain I maybe experencing in that moment either. I don't have a lot of confidence also due to past relationships that have either ended in my partner cheating or just walking away when I thought things were going really well for what I would call no reason. The biggest problem I have is that I wrestle with god and question him way too often with the knowledge I obtain compared to his extensive vast all knowing ability. In other words I refuse to listen him sometimes and when he tells me something I usually ask him, "are you sure God?" How crazy does that question sound? When I'm mad at God our conversations go something like this... why do you allow horrible things to happen to great people and why do you always screw me over and hide from me when I think I've found what I think you want me to do and who you want me to do it with. Notice I said I think a lot in that sentence. The one thing I have discovered though is that I don't matter that much during those prayers because God rarely ever gives me what I'm searching for in those angry talks with him. I think I have developed a little bit of a answer to those questions I have thrown at the heavenly throne all these years after reading Hosea. First thing I want to say is that all men look forward to getting married... Every man does, no matter if they are a slow footed about jumping into the fire or wheather they are scared from a impossible childhood or just has a troubled heart from past relationships. The bottom line is that guys want to find that woman that fits perfectly into his rib cage as if god removed her from him in a reinactment of the first marriage. So when I read Hosea, a incriblely godly man being told by this master who Hosea loves so much that you have to marry a prostitute? Why would you do that to him... Why would you put him in the awful pain of sitting at home alone knowing that the woman meant for him is being tossed from man to man. All while Hosea is at home taking care of their kids and they are looking at him and asking where is momie! Then during the whole story God rarely talks about Hosea, his feelings and what he is going through... It's like Hosea doesn't even matter. Right there, after I finished that sentence it occured to me that we don't matter! That's why bad things happen to great people. God's glory must be met and he needs people who are open vessals that he can pour into and empty out to meet his glory! Hosea relationship with his wife Gomer was a dipiction used by God to show Iseral a sign, to fear what they had done to it's faithful husband (God) but a future of mercey if they want to come home where they belong. If you truely think about it we always win in these situations because Hosea's wife came home to stay, Job life was restored, and Jesus conquered the grave! So the truth is god puts athletes on the field, strecth them to their limits and even hurt them for the good of team Christianty to keep this incrible tradtion going. The reason God choose the best people to do this is because they are usually the only ones that continues to believe in him all the way to the bitter end of pain to be exhalted on the wings of eagles. Just like a stressed, and currently unpopular president said Tuesday night from his desk about American Troops. " Our troops are the steal in our ship of state and though we maybe traveling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true and beyond the pre-dawn darkness, better days lie ahead." Hosea, Job, Paul, Jesus ...All are apart of the stern, hull, and outer edges of this ship of christianty that god continues to steer through the choppy waters of creation and we are just as much apart of it. As wave after wave beat its exterior. So you've heard be a vessal for god but today i'm asking myself and you to be the steel of the ship that continues to right the wrong that this much bigger ocean creates. God bless you... God bless these United States of America and may god continue to impose his painful yet satisfying will on us!                       

What I wrote right before the ASU vs Aub game

War eagle? I can't exclaim how many times a person has asked me.... What is war eagle .... Is it two mascots, are ya'll War Eagles...is it a chant or what is it? To me war eagle is a moment, a god given moment forget about all the lengends of how we got the battle cry it's more than that to me... Its a moment in 1967 when  shug jordan was recruiting a talented quaterback who choice of school came down to Alabama and Auburn. Coach Jordan convinced this player to go with him to a ball game at legion field ...only to have his car break down on the way....on the walk towards the stadium a convoy passes by with sirens screaming and a detail security force and the player ask "who is that coach?" Coach Jordan said, "That's Coach Bryant and you can either ride with him or walk with me" from that MOMENT on Heisman trophy winner Pat Sullivan knew he would play for the Auburn! War Eagle is unexplainable MOMENTS that aren't very factual... it's an intangiable feeling...it's not I got a bigger stadium than you, it's a roar that shakes the ground you stand on and sings war eagle to you from a choir of 87,451...for you could put 200,000 in a stadium and it would not equal the feel of a chant being echoed as a beauitful golden eagle lands on a symbol iconic to auburn men and women. War Eagle is a great MOMENT in which a Pat Dye football team sat dejected after a lost to a much better Georgia team and as Coach Dye reached for words to say a roar from outside the locker room interupted him with yells that said "it's great to be an Auburn Tiger" I know of no better place I could wanna be...I know of no other team I would rather pull for, I know of no other saying I would rather believe, or of any other moment I would want to feel... As i stand on top of the scoreboard now and take on one of my last MOMENTS i would like to say,war eagle to you and yours, god bless you, god bless these united states, and god bless war eagle moments happening to evreyone in this stadium as this sentence ends!