insomniac

I can’t believe I’m doing this at 4:30 a.m. but I can’t sleep.  In my walk with God, it seems like I am learning new things about God everyday.  I woke up with my head swimming, thinking about a bunch of union stuff. Then I started praying, asking God to calm my head down but it wouldn’t. Then it hit me.  Send out some e-mails to my superiors in the union.  That doesn’t sound like a big deal but I know that I had to get up and do it or I was going to toss and turn all night or whats left of it.  Scott Hobbs said to me on a couple of occasions that when that thought comes out of nowhere,that God could be telling me something.  That’s what happened tonight. I know that there would be no chance of relaxing until I listened and did what God was telling me to do. It is what Scott was talking about Sunday night at Ethos about silence, listening, and waiting on the Lord. God is always here. What we are responsible for is opening our hearts up and letting him.  I need to do that daily because if I don’t, I will screw things up.

Thank you God for waking me up to talk to me. I need to listen to what you have to say and do what it is that you want me to do.  The enemy wants me to forget that you are my daddy. I am so grateful for the times when I do hear you and long to be able to hear you all the time.  Forgive me when I miss it.It’s not on purpose.  Thank you for your patience and mostly for your love.

Crunch Time

In 2 weeks CWA and Verizon’s contract expires at midnight.  As a member of the executive board of the union, this is a real stressful time. This is also the first time I have faced a strike as an officer of the Union. Mobilizing people, making picket schedules(if we strike), traveling up and down the state, and trying to find time to actually do my job  combined with wanting to be with my family, church and friends are the source of the stress.  I find myself questioning what I am made of and if I am the right person for this job of union vice president.

 Then I remember, give yourself to Jesus everyday and ask that his will be done in your life and things will be ok. Life is filled with conflict, some we can do something about,some we can’t. So what I need to do is ask for peace in the storm. Notice what I said. Peace IN the storm not from the storm.  Peace is not absence of conflict, it is remaing calm in the midst of it. 

  We as Americans are in the midst of one of the worst storms we have seen and we are all feeling the effects. Our economy is worse than it’s been in years.  The job scene is bad. People are out of work and losing homes and Iam sad about that. This is probably why I am having a hard time with the union business I was talking about.

  Everybody wants to blame somebody for the mess we are in. the poor blame the rich, the rich blame the poor. We want to blame the Chinese for sending us cheap stuff made with tainted materials .  I personally find myself blaming corporate America and our government for all this mess in our country. We are supposed to be the most powerful county in the world with the strongest economy but look what has happened. Companies who were created in the US, built by US hands and manned by US workers have been decimated by greed.  Being motivated by greed, they have resorted to sending our work to other countries to be done by people who work for pennies.Their money stays in their economy not ours.  The corporations have lied to everyone . Look at Enron. In the interest of the bottom line and looking good on Wall Street, they wasted their employees pensions. Something they were promised. Pretty sad. They want to blame the unions for their financial problems.  Granted ,some union leadership has earned the reputation for being crooked. What we need to look at are the honest, hard working people who deserve to make a fair wage, have great healthcare, and the opportunity to save for a life after work. 

  When I went for an orientation at Verizon, I was told that I was working for one of the best companies in the world, that i would be taken care of as far as benefits and retirement were concerned. What I wasn’t told was that these benefits were the result of nearly 50 years of bargaining between the union and the company. Now they want it all back. Why? Bottom line. They are blaming us for rising healthcare costs when they need to be going after the healthcare companies themselves. Not the workers who have families to take care of.  About 2 or 3 years ago ,Verizon started taking benefits away from their low level mgt. They started requiring them to pay for their healthcare and froze their pensions which now thes folks won’t have the retirement they thought they would.  Guess what the CEO did? Gave himself a raise on his own pension after he gutted theirs. And people say that union workers are bad people.  Unions helped build and maintain the middle class which shrinks a little more when a union member retires or passes away.

  I knew this blogging thing could get crazy but wow this is so theraputic! Had no idea I would end up there. Anyway with the possibility of a strike looming, I am nervous but I know God will take care of me and my family through all this. I trust God. Not man.  Through the negotiations I pray that both sides can come to an agreement soon so we don’t have to strike. God bless us all.

My Story- Part Two

  As I sit here typing and listening to Jonathan Helser on my wife’s ipod I can’t help but think about my life up to this point.  I am the prodigal son.  The best part of that story is this- no matter what I did when I turned my back on my daddy, He was there all along, watching the driveway waiting for the day that his son would come walking down the lane, spiritually bankrupt just hoping his daddy still loved him.  When I returned home He was there,arms open wide, tears of joy running down his face rejoicing because his little boy found his way home.

  You see, as I said in my last post we need to give God all the glory and praise  for the gifts and talents he gives us.  When I graduated high school I couldn’t wait to get out on my own and get back to the freedom I had tasted in the drum corps.  I got involved in a band called Tainted Halo (can’t get any more 80’s than that).  We were kind of into that Poison style of music without all the hairspray.  That lasted a little while until I and the singer realized that band was not going to get us anywhere.

  We left Tainted Halo and took the leap over to the darkside to join a band called Cauldron and I knew that was the music I was destined to play.  Heavy METAL!!!   What a leap it was from the halo to the cauldron.  Hairspray to hellraiser.  Anyway I moved to Florida so we could be in the middle of the death metal capital of the USA.  Central Florida was the home of some of the greatest metal bands: Atheist, Death, Obituary just to name a few.  It only took a couple of weeks before I knew I had to get out of there and I came back to Delaware to get back with my girlfriend at the time.  It was not long after that that my grandmother died and I was so glad that I could be there.

  That brings me to 1993.  My girlfriend and I had split up and I was off to the races again chasing fame behind the drumkit.  A friend of mine named Kelly Mcglaughlin called me and asked if I was interested in jamming with him some and I was quick to say yes.  He was  and still is a really good guitarist so I couldn’t wait to get back to playing again.  After a couple months and a couple of bass players we hooked up with a guy named Tom Kimbler and had created a couple of songs.  Kelly had a great concept for a band and he wanted to bring it to life with us so we became the first 3 members of a band called Pessimist.  I saw an add in a music paper from Baltimore MD that said a vocalist and guitarist were looking to form a band so I called them and set up a meeting.  They came to Delaware to check us out and they loved the music we had written and we also liked theirs.  The line-up was complete.  The singer was Rob Kline and the guitarist was Tony Mallory.

  I ended up moving to Baltimore to be closer to those guys so we could practice more.  I was able to stay in the basement of the Klines and quickly found out that Rob’s mom was a devout Christian. I know today that she must have prayed for me and I love her for that.  I also knew that God was right there and as much as it was a relief, I was also angry that He would not leave me alone.  Pessimist started playing out and started to get a small following.  My ego took over and I just knew that we were going to be famous which for me meant that I would be buried in beautiful women and have record contracts thrown at me.  Wrong kind of music for both of those fantasies to be fulfilled.  The women that showed up were actually the mothers of the girls who were our fans. Not cool.  Anyway, things started to go south for me after a couple years with Pessimist and I decided to leave the band and take a break for a while. Not even a year later , they were going on tour in Europe and are now one of the most popular bands in death metal although they are no longer together but I heard they were planning on getting back together again.  I really held a grudge against them for a while because they got famous without me but what a blessing that turned out to be.  See where the ego can get you?

  After about a year or so I got a call from a guy in D.C. asking if I were interested in playing in a band from Argentina called Boixous Nois.  Don’t ask me what it means but it sounded cool.  I auditioned and was brought into the band after one session with them.  This is where things got weird.  We wrote some music and started playing out and doing some traveling.  We played  shows in South Carolina, Pittsburg and then one night in New York City something really strange happened inside of me that I could not explain or make any sense of.  We were right in the middle of our set in CBGB niteclub when it felt like someone turned off a switch inside me.  I suddenly lost the desire to play drums.  I can’t explain in words how it felt to love playing drums and be done with it at the same time.  Two weeks later I left the band and about $2000 worth of drum equipment south of D.C.  I told them that they could keep the drums until I needed them.  I guess I never needed them because I never went back for them.

  I now know that had to be a God thing that happened in CBGB.  I was only in music for ME when I should have been doing it for God.  That was 11 years ago when God took drumming away from me and He did not give it back to me until I gave myself back to him last August.  Now when I play, it’s for Jesus not Rob.  The rush I was looking for all those years now hits me like waves in the ocean when I play.  To hear people singing songs with us just sets my heart on fire.  To see their hands lifted in worship to Jesus is a beautiful thing to see.  Hearing people say his name fills me with joy. I am so grateful to be playing again.  Ijust love to be behind a drum kit with my eyes closed getting lost in the thing we call worship.

 Like I said before, GOD GIVES US TALENTS, it’s up to us to use them for his glory.

  Dear Jesus, thank you for all the things you have given me.  There are too many to mention.  Thank you for the miracle you have performed in my life.  Forgive me when I mess up.

My Story- Part One

Playing For Jesus

I started playing drums at the age of 10.  Lessons started on just a snare drum learning the basic rudiments .  As I got older, I fell in love with rock music and had aspirations of being a famous rock star when I grew up.  I was always involved with marching bands and when I got to junior high school I quickly made my way to being captain of the drum line.  I was introduced to a drum kit when I was in the eighth grade and knew that was what I wanted to play.  When I was a junior in high school, I had the privelage of playing in The Crossmen drum and bugle corps.  That was where I really learned how to play!  I had no idea what I was getting into. 

  Before I tried out for the drum corps, I was being told by my band director that I was the best drummer he had seen at my school so of course I went up there with an inflated ego about myself.  I was quick to learn that I was out of my league and wanted to quit after the first night of try outs.  Thank God for a mother who encouraged me to keep going because I really learned to play that summer.  That was the first memory of God bringing me back to reality.  One thing I have learned in my life experience is that being a musician, like anything else, can be an ego driven lifestyle. I think that is something we as Christians and non-believers have to deal with.  If we let our ego get the best of us, we forget about the people around us.

  That summer on tour with the Crossmen gave me my first experience of being on my own in the world and I loved it. I was introduced to all  kinds of things the enemy uses to get us away from God. Alcohol,drugs,sex,stealing were some of the things I learned about  when I was on the road.  I even got my ear pierced which back then was a huge act of rebellion in a Christian home but man I was cool.  When we got backfrom tour,I was a changed kid wno thought he was a man.  I was cocky,and forgot that it was God who gave me the opportunity to do all that stuff.  That is one of the things that amazes me about God, that He sends gifts and opportunity our way and then steps back and waits to see what we do with them.  If there is one thing I could say to anyone it’s this- always remember God gives us talents and all he wants us to do is use them for his glory and not ours.  He will reward us when we do that.  When we use them for our own gratification, He just might take them away which is what I will write about in my next post.