Talkin' Lowdown Amarillo, Texas Street Preacher Blues

There's a fella here in Amarillo, Texas whose days are filled with street preaching via megaphone, spewing the basic "everyone but me is going to hell" doctrine of those like Westboro Baptist Church and others cut from their blasphemous cloth. The man's basic message is that, even if you think you're a Christian, and think you're saved, you're actually not a Christian and are going to hell if you've sinned after accepting Christ.
People with this false doctrine build their argument, like any false doctrine, on Scripture misunderstood, twisted, or taken out of context; passages like 1 John 3:6-9, which says, "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God." What the man with the megaphone doesn't realize is that this sin refers to the unrepentant, habitual sin of those with an empty proclamation of Jesus, who attempt to trample on grace, rather than live under it. This doesn't refer to true Christians - and what is a true Christian? A true Christian is not someone who suddenly becomes perfect, but someone who acknowledges that their sin is great, but abides in the truth that the love and grace of Jesus Christ is greater.
Also, Amarillo's megaphone preacher forgets the Holy Spirit's words through John just one chapter earlier: "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1).

Paul writes to us in the epistle to the Romans that sinning because you're saved, shrugging it off and saying "God will forgive me" is not right: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:1-2)
So, what is the truth of the matter? Are we literally unable to stumble once saved, our DNA changed as well as our hearts? Does God put us in a moral straight-jacket that makes it impossible to err? Or, has the precious blood of our Savior Jesus also covered the sins and mistakes we make as Christians? To suggest that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is good for some of a believer's sins, but somehow becomes ineffective, powerless against those after his or her conversion, is to suggest something as powerful as the blood of our Lord is fickle and limited by a believer's time and circumstance.

In arguing against the belief that true Christians do not sin, I would point to two incidents in the life and ministry of Paul. In the second chapter of Galatians, we read of a dispute between Paul and fellow apostle Peter. Paul describes confronting Peter, and even Barnabas, on a matter of "hypocrisy." This event obviously took place after the resurrection of Jesus, and during the apostles' ministry. So, then, did Peter's stumbling render him unsaved? Not a true Christian? And if so, why would God, sovereign over His word to us, allow two of his epistles to be part of this book we came to call the Bible?

The other example from Paul comes from the second epistle to the Corinthians, where we read of Paul's instructions to the church at Corinth - a church that was often plagued with sin and erroneous ideas about Jesus - concerning a brother who had done wrong and strayed (2 Corinthians 2:5-11). Paul instructs the church there not to shun or ostracize the brother, but to comfort, love, and forgive him. This is just what the Holy Spirit does to each of us when we, like the straying brother at Corinth, wander from God's direction.

Like many people who shout things on the street, I suppose it might be ineffective to confront megaphone man with these truths; for his mind seems made up, and a wall built over his heart. And with such people, the Proverbs give us sound advice: "Go from the presence of a foolish man, when you do not perceive in him the lips of knowledge," and "Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, Yet his foolishness will not depart from him."
If you argue with a brick wall, who looks foolish? You, or the brick wall? The Proverbs also tell us, "He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you."

But - Jesus tells us "the things which are impossible with men are possible with God." And it is Jesus who took upon Himself the shame and hate of sin - and sinners - on the cross. Before we knew Him, we scoffed at Him, hated Him, scorned Him to shame. But His mercy and grace are unfathomable, as they should be, for they belong to a God who is often so impossible to comprehend, to grasp, to understand. This is why He came to us in the form of that lowly Servant, our ladder to heaven like the one dreamed by Jacob at Bethel.

I won't say this megaphone man gives preachers a bad name - that's impossible, for a true preacher of the word is under the name of Christ. We must pray he receives love from even those at whom he spews the venom of ignorance, and gentle rebuke, done only out love and a desire for him to see how mighty the works of Christ truly are.

The Day God Froze the Weather For Me

The day God froze Amarillo, Texas just for me was Black Friday, 2015.

I'd studied myself into a rather dark corner of mind. A mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon had caused the heated debate on gun control to wake from its troubled nap. Wanting to address the subject via YouTube video, I did research on several spree killers and mass shootings. I recorded the video and uploaded it to YouTube on October 15, 2015. But reading about all of these men who had slaughtered other people in public rampages caused my mind much grief and worry. 
But I didn't have the nerve to be surprised.

I began analyzing every place I went, wondering if the next mass shooting would occur there, and how I could shield people with my own body. I eyed anyone who looked shifty or disturbed – though most of the gunmen were described as calm during their killing sprees, as if their rage, illness, and isolation was being weaned by the sound of death.
With Black Friday approaching the day after Thanksgiving, and knowing it to be the biggest and most chaotic shopping day of the year, traditionally, it instantly clicked in my mind to go to the Westgate Mall, where a mass shooting would take place. My mind had decided that someone was going to unleash horror with a semi-automatic rifle at the mall that day – it was an indisputable fact already, as if the event had already been recorded. All that was missing was my being there to try to disarm the shooter, or protect someone else from death by giving my own life. Then, in the trending news, with the callous irony the media loves, one story would read, “Amarillo Victim Posted YouTube Video About Gun Laws One Month Before Shooting.”

"Vanity, says the preacher."

November 27th would be the day I died. But as Thanksgiving wound to a close, a merciless slew of winter-like weather moved into the area. The next day, the city was frozen. Very few vehicles traveled over the ice-covered streets. No one was going shopping in this Goliath.
Slowly, less quickly as my mind had predicted the shooting and my death, it occurred to me that God had assigned this frigid weather for this city for this day, for me. He had frozen an entire city, rendered it to look like the barrenness of death, to show me what a mind that dwelt on death would look life if it were a place – activity and life everywhere, but all of it locked up for fear of the danger and the cold.
I don't know if a shooting would have occurred at the Westgate Mall on Black Friday. It certainly hasn't happened heretofore. I'm convinced that God predestined that day's weather for me, a troubled and unprofitable servant.
Why couldn't He? Why wouldn't He?

A couple of weeks later, a brother and sister in Christ gave me some money so that I could pay some bills and do some Christmas shopping. I walked that mall in peace as the city basked in the bright near-winter sunshine, made so much brighter by its reflection from the pure white snow of God.

Big Spring State Hospital, I Hate Every Inch of You: The Problem With America's Mental Hospitals

Although my first admission to a psychiatric facility came as an adolescent, I would eventually carry thirteen stays in such hospitals under my belt, from 2001 at age fourteen, through 2008 at age twenty-two. I identified many of the same problems with these places in both adolescent and adult wards, which further suggests the apathy given to the treatment of the truly mentally ill. We've come a long way since the days of shock treatment, lobotomies, insulin shock therapy, and ice baths, but the general malaise in which patients find themselves in these places is just as counterproductive and damaging.

The reason I've not entered another mental hospital in four and a half years is not because I don't need treatment, but because after over a dozen stays in these facilities, I was finally smart enough to realize nothing they offered was any help to my condition.

The biggest problem I noticed was that all patients are treated as if they have the same psychiatric problem; I'm sure in the ten minutes during which they see the resident doctor, they're given slightly more specific attention, but otherwise all patients are treated as if:
a.)  they are threats to themselves or others;
b.) they've done something wrong by coming to the hospital, that their mental or emotional issue is a character flaw that needs working on, rather than a chemical imbalance in the brain for instance;
c.) self-esteem is the cure for any of their ailments.

Not to take anything away from the knowledge and expertise of the lady who hands out the ping-pong equipment, but during my last visit to such a facility, the Pavilion in Amarillo, Texas, the group of patients in which I found myself was scolded by the lady who ran the rec room - not for playing White Rabbit on the stereo system, but because we were in the hospital. She spoke to us of "responsibility," and asked us what we need to "evaluate" in our "personal lives" to keep us from coming back.
I don't pride myself on being a great guy, because I'm not. I also have very little sympathy for myself. But, I am quite sure that the malformation on my brain and other chemical imbalances that cause my psychiatric dysfunction are not caused by tardiness to work or social functions, leaving the toilet seat up, or wearing the same shirt two or three days in a row.

All patients are treated the same - socially dangerous, personally irresponsible, and in need of a game of Nerf basketball to perk them up. If we were in a hospital for physical problems, the patient with the fractured ankle would be treated differently than the patient with bronchitis; the woman in childbirth is given different and more immediate attention than the man who accidentally put a Swingline staple in his finger.
This should be no different at psychiatric hospitals. Patients should be treated and segregated according to the severity and nature of their illness - someone suffering from an especially bad time with panic attacks should not be made to share a room with the patient who suffers from violent episodes and smashes hospital property. Likewise patients without suicidal urges or thoughts should not be treated or restricted for something from which they don't suffer. A doctor in an emergency room would not put a cast on the leg of a patient with appendicitis.

Some may say "How do we know? We don't want to take the risk of someone lying about suicidal thoughts." One reason doctors and staff can't tell who's suicidal and who is not, is because so many leeches on the system will dig at themselves with a spoon, make a superficial cut across their wrist, or make empty threats of suicide, all to spite a loved or hated one at home - they're then sent to these psychiatric facilities, consuming the time, energy, and resources of the available staff, not to mention the funding of the hospitals. One would think this is predominant in adolescent wards, but unfortunately I've seen it quite often as an adult. This also may be why so many patients with genuine illnesses are chided by recreational therapists for perceived character flaws.

One final suggestion, pertaining to one specific hospital - Big Spring State Hospital in Big Spring, Texas. That particular facility can be helped by the following measures: sending all of its patients elsewhere, preferably to places that have stepped out of the 1950s in terms of treating the mentally ill, the buildings themselves burned to the ground, paved over, and a Panda Express built in its place.
The staff meanwhile could benefit from evaluation, and possible treatments, for mental illnesses themselves.