Welcome to the world of today. The world that keeps me up at night thinking (like tonight, it's 3:30am as i start this). The world that keeps me looking for a way to make it better and training myself hard so i can show others.

A world where:

The working system is to trade currency for product and success is registered as mass wealth which gives influence (power) over others.

The people have become obsessed and cutthroat over the idea of success.

Love is considered weak, an overrated emotional extremity for those too scared to live for themself.

Religion has become a fairy tale fit with restraining rules crafted by men to control instead of to teach the art of unconditional love.

Churchs, where the religious students were once taught, have become a shell full of self-righteous and power hungry capitalist fascists using gimics to impress and wrangle in "potential followers", making God appear as a dictator and selling Him as a product for control ("buy our t-shirts, cds, and WWJD bracelets, it'll speak more volume than your own life could possibly, plus it gives back to us so we can perpetuate more instances like this intead of teaching you to face fear and go completely against the grain of this system we live in, cause if you can't beat them you might as well join them with your own style. It'll work out anyway, cause we won't let anyone in who isn't compliant with our way of things").

Knowledge and application is considered the act of realism where imagination of the heart (what God gifted us with in order to balance the "facts of life" with His will) only dilutes your actions as it's "childish, ignorant, and ultimately pointless in this day and age".

If the imagination goes too far and tries to instill a sense of duty in us, science (man's "proof" of superiority) dictates that we are crazy, schizoid, bi-polar, self-involved, fanatical, in need of medication, a good vacation and/or, in some circles, a decadent hour of self-gratification (there's different levels of decadence that even the most "holy" of people contribute to).

Morals are going the way of the dodo, since self-gratification at any means nessecary is all that matters in your time away from amassing your financial wealth and influence.

Heroes, positive peaceful extremists meant to set the standard for our morals, are non-existent in reality, since heroes are only a figment of our outlawed imagination, another extreme example of the system of control started in religion.

The Heroes of the Light are being replaced by the Champions of the Dark, people who are also extreme in their beliefs, yet appeal to the sensibilities of the new way of seeing and doing things by demoralizing and impassioning societal decay.

The way without God involved has become the only truely free way to live while your fellow man is considered an enemy if he gets in your way but a friend only if he's useful.

Peoples' actions are becoming more base in nature, like that of an animal in the wild. We grow angry, prejudice, decadent, lazy, greedy, deceitful, envious, and ultimately proud of and justified in all of our actions because we have designed a perfect system in which all these traits are allowed to thrive and grow like a cancer, while the "medication" of unconditional love and unity despite differences is decreasing like the oxygen in a drowning child's lungs.

Apathy through fear spreads to those who are inspired to be different, diverting them from the Hero's Journey, the formula/path of life that was laid down by Christ and blueprinted out through the aetheistic research of Joseph Cambell's attempt to disprove the existence of God through fact-based science, common sense, and man-dictated history.

The path of the Hero, which was once plain and visible to all who seek for light's victory over the dark, has become cluttered by painful torturous poisonous brush in order to deter those who seek to light the darkness.

I believe that if you look closely to the prophecy on the anti-Christ, that you will see more of its spirit dwelling in the people. It will eventually take human shape as the Anti-Christ mentioned in the book of Revelations, the leader who will fool the people into going head first into a new age of Godlessness and selfish decadence, maybe even going so far as to outlaw "extreme religion" by pain of death in order to acheive this.

We as Christians have become blind to the internal decay in our pride that we earned from oppressing others through osterization into believing our way. No longer as a whole do we accept each other and our differences. We have become too large and struggle-free, losing our purpose in our own forms of decadence. Our credibilty is gone, our actions are baseless, littered with ulterior motives of dominence and manipulation, instead of love. We are trying to rebuild the temple which is not to be rebuilt and in that pride we are setting ourselves to fall. Instead, we are subtlly and unknowingly rebuilding our tower of Babel.

The communication breakdown began with the start of denominations, Catholics and Protestants alike. We have infighting we "lovingly" yet subtly consider competition. "Our church is better than theirs. WE do it right. WE are the way to God while everyone else is just silly and ignorant. The Pentecostals attempting to speak in tongues, hah! What foolishness!! And those Baptists are a bunch of hypocrites, drinking on Saturday and preaching against such actions the next day. And let's not forget the Catholics and their perverted priests. What significance was Mary anyway? She was just the human birth mother. Silly drunken perverts with their Pope and their Vatican" (congregation chuckles at clever pastor). "But that's really ok, people, because we're all Christians. Love everyone, it's commanded or you won't get into Heaven. What do you mean go preach at a Penecostal church, i'm Methodist. We can't cross-breed like that. Oh, you're non-denominational? Well, you can't get on stage at our gatherings and invite people to YOUR church's mission trips. Yes, i understand we're all Christians but members of our organization, er, gathering has to go through our teachings and ways we received through true Divine Guidance, so the absolute truth WE adhere to can be spread worldwide, not your uneducated, unordained, simplistic chldlike ideas. You may say something that destroys the very fiber of control that WE, oops i mean, GOD created for us to follow."

Listen closely, fellow Christians of all beliefs (such a silly term, but unfortunately it applies), for we are building the system of our own destruction. This is why it will seem logical to the rest of the world to hunt us down and persecute us to death. We are sitting high atop our mountain of pride like the pharisees did when Christ was teaching in their presence. We are to go out into the world, strong smart and reliant only on God's Spirit, and show nothing but unconditional love to those around us. Shurk material things, the fancy cars (or cars period), the nice clothes, the digital cable, the status quo of possessions you MUST have to be anything useful to this world. Those things own you, don't you see, and in that they control you as well. You're so wrapped up in what the humanistic fashionably comfortable norm is and not what's God's simple Will that you are hindering your own testimony. The ones who control this world are seperating church and government and eventually all it will take is the death blow of some fanatically hostile lunatic to drive the final nail in the coffin and destroy the idea that Christ suffered and died to teach. His Love can't be wiped out but the idea can become harder for the mass majority of unbelievers to grasp onto. No one wants to become a fanatic and if they fear this as a possibilty then they'll turn away at first sight. We cannot allow this to happen. We are to be the salt of the Earth not the cream of the crop. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

We are one, all of us, yet we don't mimic the One who gave us the goal to strive for. We mimic a human idea of worldly perfection. We appoint saints and leaders, forgetting that God speaks through all of us, even the most adamant aetheists. We turn away those who are childlike in their faith because a human organization (known as semenary) hasn't deemed you "ready to teach". We establish the ideas of accountabilty to another human in order to help us feel guilty when we screw up and instill fear of retribution instead of teaching the ways to balance our inevitabally sinful lives with the walk of the Lord. We repress and oppress to cut the cancer of sin from others life but do more damage by only instilling the mindkiller known as fear into our every action. When we fear our own sinful shadow we are paralyzed spiritually and cannot grow stronger. You HAVE to sin in order to understand how to combat it or you will see no need in any selfless action. Some callings are for you, others aren't, so don't kill someone and say you had to understand to combat the act of murder. Things happen to you for a reason but there some actions you have control over. To each individual there will be a different definiton and a different realization of what you must do in your life. Not everyone is supposed to make a living as a pastor, but they should make a life out of teaching others through example.

Take what i said and be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. Don't bite like a snake and fly away in fear of your opposition. We've been doing this for far too long. Judge your actions as right and wrong by whether they fall into the catagory (or a sub-catagory thereof) of the 7 Deadly Sins or of simple unconditional Love. You can never foolishly love someone unless you do so with conditions, to selflessly love is to do as Christ commanded. It will take trial and error on your part to get it right in the end, but don't stop until you do. Besides, if you already believe that Christ loved you, imperfections and all (no matter how extreme), enough to be tortured and killed brutally in order for you to be able to enter Heaven, then the only sin you can commit that will insure rejections at the gate is to reject Christ's sacrifice on the cross as a null and void gesture. The slate's forever clean, the sky's limit, all we must do is discipline ourselves through trial, error, and deep study to go into our own cultures (however diverse and dreadful they can be) and teach unconditional love in the language they speak (including the different "sinful" cultures in our own country). Not everyone will understand at first and you don't have to wear a sign on your head that says you're a follower. Let your actions be the key not your fashion (i mean that figuratively and literally). As long as someone sees that you are different from the rest, they will ask the questions. As long as you don't put yourself on a pedestal and look down your nose at them, they'll feel so completely comfortable with asking you why you do what you do that they won't realize that they are being preached to. Infact they won't be preached to, they will be volunterally enlightened. So there's no need to go around thumping the Bible in their faces, that shows pride and self-righteousness. Plus if they don't come to it on their own, then they won't stay with it when it gets hard, which it always does.

I am a Knight of God. This has been a lonely thankless trip but i undertook it in order to make a difference. I have been martyred and osterisized for it. Publicly humiliated, turned away and called a fool, but i still don't quit. Why? Because the Lord won't let me, lol. I'm in His service and therefore i take his orders which weigh on my heart i gae to Him or get lost and confused doing what i wanna do. His everlasting patience and love has been there to comfort me when i feel as if i failed Him, when those "saintly leaders ordained by humans" have told me i was wrong, misled, and even stupid and had everyone under them repeat the same message in a different way to me. I follow no man's authority (stopping only to honor my parents and, to a certain extent, those who employ me) because my allegiance lies with the Lord. We never needed man-appointed men as leaders, but God let us have them after we begged and pleaded out of fear and lack of faith. I ultimately follow Him, overriding anything else i'm told by someone else. I love others unconditionally and do my best to keep myself in check so people can see the difference and wonder what i follow to be so different. When people see the freedom in this, they strive for it, and the Lord wins another dedicated follower.

This is a world where the battleground is subtle and the price heavy for whichever side you take. I'd rather live a torturous life here than an eternally torturous existence elsewhere, so i make my sacrifices physically and mentally now. This is my duty as a Knight and i will follow it even if i live on the streets and it claims my life. Am i scared? Yes, i fear from time to time, but i master my fear and overcome it so i can move on. The Lord blesses this in the end and provides comforts in order to keep me going and keep me inspired. He gave me a gift of writing and i use it to spread knowledge objectively to those who seek it. Remember, you had to click on this message and read it to the end regardless of whether i tagged you in it or not, so you wanted to come this far. Maybe the Lord's tryin to tell you something. And to those evil spirits that wish to sow doubt in the minds and actions of those that read this, bring it on!!! In the end, we win, because light will always overcome the darkness, even if it looks hopeless right before (or after) what we feel is the end. You may take me out one way or the other, but it won't be because i quit trying.

Many people don't understand how to plan for Mother's Day. They think it's about a box of chocolate, some flowers, a sweet/maybe humorous card saying "thanks for caring", or a well planned out excursion for her entertainment. But for me, i don't plan it out at all. I tend to wing it day of and just pull out the gift giving guns and start blazing in whatever way the seat of my heart's pants will come up with. It's more special, unique, and all around more interesting for the receiver and the giver because it's always a shocking unpredictable surprise. Most of all i have peace of mind that it wasn't contrived or someone else's idea. It's all me and then i'm proud to give it. She's new to this facebook/myspace thing so i'm writing this as one of the few gifts in store for her. In a way, this is me telling her all the things i should from the past, present, and future special occasions that life may have or may not have gotten in the way of. Crap happens, but fortunately it can be made up with this lady. She's appreciative of a bag of old poop as long as you mean it when you give it.

Dane's heartfelt definition of Mother's Day: a celebration that you're both still alive after living together for 23 years, lol. My mom and i are ALOT alike. Arguments can be frequent because we're both passionate idealists (emphasis on passionate) with similar yet slightly contrasting views and since we're both anal about the details, we get irritated with each other and the arguments, however loud and nasty they get, come and go. But, ya know, we still love each other even after the messiest things have happened and words have been said from both ends that would send your true love or best friend packing. Passionate people, boy are we fun to deal with. Ever seen two feral cats in a bag? Kinda like that if the timings just right. Course that's growing up, and who better to go through it with than the lady that birthed you. Every rose has its thorn, and my mom's always been passionate about gardening (figuratively and literally, folks, you should our yard)

My mom's been one of the only consistent friends i've had since birth. She raised me like a typical mother should, with good values and morals, taught me how i should treat a lady, and then went a step further by undertaking a task that required more patience than i've seen in any other woman. You see, my mom was also our school teacher, like my dad's mom had been for him, except we were rebels together. We chose homeschooling as the way to learn instead of public schooling and at the time it wasn't nessecarily legal and was frequently frowned on by the mass majority. We were ridiculed, ostricized (sp?), not given a chance, and sometimes it was extremely painful, but my mom was always there to give us a hug and let us know none of them mattered. Because of our choices and my mom's impenetrable willpower/stubborness (she argued the devil down i don't know how many times, i'm still trying to catch up, lol) i became who i am today. While some may think that's a bad thing, understand i'm not done growing yet and learning to apply everything that my mom (and dad) taught me is still a work in progress. Like i said, we were rebels, so even today i have little to no outside support from anyone else on some of perspectives that she taught me (morals in particular). My mother knew we were special kids and that God wanted us to do something outside the box for Him, so she trained us to be able to do so. Pain and fear of the unknown has stopped the strongest of people in the past from changing the simplest things in their life for the better, and even held me back on several things for years, but my mom helped us perservere through it, no matter how much work it took. She was our strength when we were too weak to carry the burden, even if we didn't realize it as she told us she loved us. Sure, in my immaturity and confusion, i've been guilty of decimating her feelings, tearing them right down to the foundation of where they started and scrambling the blueprints around just to prove a point, but those things don't hurt our love for each other. We already went through Hell, why stop now?

I want to be with a lady who's just like my mom. She's the lady that everyone, even the most cynical, smiles when they are around her. They feel accepted, part of a whole, and loved, even if they came from Mars and listen to rap music (my mom hates rap, but i love it). She's beautiful inside/out, patient, understanding, accepting, a great sense of humor, open-minded, unconditionally loving, and selfless. She better get along with my mom (how you can't i will never know), cause we won't get far if she doesn't. My mom and i were a team for many years, through thick and thin, so that lady will need to be one too if we're going to strive to make our world a better place together. I don't need to be coddled or pampered, that's what moms do until you grow up. I need a teammate, an equal player in the game of life, that my mom would approve of before she retires her position as First Lady in my life. She needs to be strong, spontaneous, energetic, smart, intuitive, and able to look me in the face with understanding and say, "hey, you're different, but i love you anyway, here's how you can make this better", then sit back and let me figure it out and apply the advice. My mom's all those things, the closest thing to a perfect human as i've ever met. The truth hurts sometimes but she can't be afraid to tell it to me. I want that repoir with that special lady to be equal to, if not better than, the one i have with my mom. So close that it's almost like reading each other's mind. Cause if you can't top her and stay consistent with that unconditional loving behavior like she did for a quarter of a century, then you can't have me. You just won't be appreciated enough and it will fail even if we don't want it to. Tell you the truth, you have one heck of a standard to meet, cause this mom of mine spoiled me in a good way.

I'm no momma's boy, for the record. I'm not co-dependant on ANY woman. But to paraphrase, a wise person once told me that if you love someone and the love is genuinely recipricated equal to or better than the love your First Lady gave you all your life, then you'll never want to be apart from them and cutting off a limb to ease the pain would seem a better option. I want that lady, wherever she is and whomever she is, to understand that the way i love my mom will be the way i love you and no distance, situation, or action could change that, if you're truely worth it.

Now sit back and ask yourself: do i show that first significant other of the opposite sex in my life all the love they deserve? Whether it's your mom/dad, sister/brother, grandma/pa, aunt/uncle, or a close family friend, the world and it's relationships aren't perfect so whoever came first and influenced you the most. Think about that, reassess or maybe even reconcile your relationship with them, cause love is the only thing that matters in this life and who better to teach you than your (in my situation) simple lil lady of a mother who made the lemonade for us all these years outta life's lemons.

Ok, i gotta go hide before my mom reads this and crying her eyes out hugs me until i suffocate....;)