I’d like to thank the many who helped make me more aware of what I don’t need to do in 2009.

I don’t need to accept what some overpaid mouth says on TV or the radio. Click them off and think for yourself. These are wordsmiths, with a staff of writers who jobs are depending on you listening and dittoing what they say. No need for facts, they just get in the way of the anger they are trying to build. Angry people tend to group together to keep the level of anger building and keep the facts from seeping through.

I don’t need your religion. Sorry, but I’m no longer calling myself Christian, thanks to you. Today’s version of Christians are yesterdays Pharisees and Sadducees. The degree of hate being pushed in Christ’s name appalls me, so I’ll just be a simple follower of God. Yes, I believe in John 3:16, but that is just the beginning. The overall theme was love, not hate, love the person, not the sin. Yet all I seem to hear is hate in His name.

By the way, I don’t need your approval because in the long run it really is just about me and Him, it is not about you or what you think.

I don’t need to try and browbeat someone to my beliefs. I haven’t seen a rush to the alter by spewing hate.

I need to live them. I’ll spread the Word, but I’m learning that someone in need doesn’t need your strange version of the Gospel, they need to see the gospel in action. I’m going for the “this is what God wants me to do, and He wants me to help you to rise up from your “sickness” and go and then go pay it forward”. That is spreading the gospel of love, instead of spewing the hate for anyone who doesn’t fit your little narrow-minded version of misquoted scriptures.

I’m sick of most of the churches. They are busy mining the pockets of their members and have forgotten the mission field. I watch as a place known as Fort God beats their chests and points to the good they do, while adding another structure. Where is the structure that fulfills the scripture: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Where is the structure that houses the homeless, feeds the poor and helps the indigent? Why is there such a disparity in the number of expensively dressed Sunday morning worshipers and the volunteers who help the poor? And why isn’t the stadium sized sanctuary just that, sanctuary?

Every day, I pass the homeless, the hungry, the out-of-work. I try to help, with donations, with taking on some of them and offering some work, some food, some housing. And I will continue. When I look at the huge stone edifices that are supposed to be holy places, I try to reconcile my feelings as I learn that more money is spent in other countries than is spent right down the street at the soup kitchen.

My favorite bumper sticker is “God, please protect me from your followers.”

Every day I get at least a dozen religious chain letters telling me how to get a blessing by forwarding them on. I don’t need that blessing, I need the blessing of seeing a child get a warm coat, I need the blessing of serving some guy down on his luck a hot meal, I need the blessing of giving a homeless man a blanket on a cold night.

2009 is the Year of the Blessing. Forgive me if I ignore your emails…I don’t have time to tell you just how wrong some of those things are, and you wouldn’t listen anyway. As the famous quote goes: You can’t handle the truth.

It’s time to quit sending emails about praying for people…when in reality you have the ability right now to fulfil those prayers. I watch people spend more on bottled water than it costs to feed the hungry. I see more waste in local restaruants than it would take to clothe a homeless person. I’ve seen people travel to China rather than adopt a black child, then turn around and hate the child because they grew up in drugs.

You want the truth of America, the reality of Jackson? It’ll cost you about $25 or so.

Go to the grocery store and buy several bags of chicken soup mix (Bear Creek or Mrs.Grass brands, makes about a gallon if you water it a little, maybe add some canned corn/peas/noodles/rice). Buy one bag of frozen skinless boneless chicken tenderloins.

Cook.

Get some stryrofoam bowls and plastic spoons.

Go downtown and set up in a parking lot: put out a sign: Free Soup.

Then see if you can handle the truth.

And like things I’ve been doing, you can take it to the bank: this truth will set you free. Learn first hand the reality of what the truth of the Gospel is really about. Love.