A man of God . . .

Today I was decidedly not going to church. I was tired from a day at home with the kids while Robert traveled to the windy city for a peace rally, and I had one wicked headache that I had been nursing since Thursday. I had gone to bed late, and I was not going to get up early for church. Do you hear me . . . not.

Well, my dear sweet children had different plans, and thus, we went to church. I was so happy that I got my lazy butt up, because an old friend was a guest speaker. We need to go back about 15 years. . .

I was involved in the youth group at our church when I was just out of college. We had a new youth paster and he wanted some older "twenty-ish" kids to help out as "youth leaders". I becam pretty close to Pastor Tim, or PT as we called him. PT had a desire to reach others and really connected with the kids. He was also a bit unconventional, and didn't care much what the older generation thought of him. He instilled in our youth a fire for the word of God. Our little youth group grew from about 40 weekly to well over 200 weekly. PT left after about 4 years, but he definitely made a difference in the youth of our church. PT once brought a man to our church to speak named Roosevelt Hunter.

Roosevelt became a good friend of our head pastor and he comes to speak every now and then. He is a wonderful man and I am so glad I did not miss him this morning. He has a unique ability to transcend barriers of race and generation and even denomination when he speaks. He is a sought after speaker. He spoke this morning about being REAL. His one comment I really liked was "In a world where we crave reality TV you would think people would be looking for authenticity."

I am not known for my tact. Pretty much what you see is what you get when you meet me. I think being "plastic" is far more difficult than being "real". I don't have time to try to shmooze you, and then remember it for next time. I hate fake. I am by no means saying I am perfect, but I do not fake anything. I hate something, you'll know. I like it, you won't wonder. I think that my father really instilled that in me. He was pretty upfront as well. For me it's about simplicity and effort. It's easy to be real, hard to fake it.