This is geared toward a male teen that I am mentoring currently, but feel free to modify it. I kept it pretty general and at the same time pretty direct.

Things You Should Know Now

1. Learn to think for yourself
a. Often times we let our friends or culture tell us what we should think or believe – be sure that you do your own research and to not take anything at face value unless it comes from a very reliable source.
2. Be Grounded
a. Mentally – Do you ever struggle with depression? Highs and Lows?
b. Spiritually – Do you have a church? Do you know where you will go when you die? Do you believe in Heaven/Hell?
c. Emotionally – How are your relationships? How do you react when you are upset?
d. Financially – Are you saving your money and spending wisely?
e. Physically – are you taking care of your body? Your teeth?
3. Sex
a. Sex is a gift and should be treated as something special between two people that are married.
b. Culture, television and media will try to devalue sex and make it something that is recreational and that should be done like dancing or playing sports. But it is much more emotional and physical and dangerous.
4. Pornography
a. Is addictive
b. Will subtract – not add from your physical relationships
c. Can be a destructive trap that keeps you from living in reality and leave you always wanting more than what is actually possible.
5. Drugs and Alcohol
a. Even after you are 21 there is a large emphasis on using alcohol to have a good time. It really isn’t necessary and can become a crutch for some people.
b. Alcohol, like many things in life, can be fun, but becomes dangerous when people are stupid
c. Drugs are illegal and addictive – but you probably already know this! The point is sometimes it is more fun to do them because they are illegal, but they will really only limit you from reaching your goals
6. Dream Big
a. Things rarely just happen, if you want something, take small steps to get there and eventually you will.

7. Failure teaches us more than Success
a. When we fail it means we are really challenging ourselves. If you win all the time you aren’t getting any better, you aren’t growing and you will become lazy and arrogant all the while your competition is getting stronger
8. Don’t limit yourself or allow other to limit you
a. If you want to try something, try it, don’t let fear hold you back
b. Be constantly looking for new opportunities to excel
9. Be Humble
a. No one likes arrogant people
b. Know the difference between confidence and arrogance

10. Be Unselfish
a. It really is much better to give than to receive
b. Participate in your community, give back, help others
c. Life can be depressing if all we focus on is our own wants and needs. Real fulfillment comes from helping others.

alcohol · drugs · mentoring · sex · teens · youth

I’m really happy with how my house is looking, check out the pictures: http://www.Obeo.com/585718

Call me partial, but I have to say I think I have one of the coolest houses on the block, if not in all of Plano for it’s price range. Listed at 165,000 my home is a great first-time buyer property and the furniture, minus the green chair and the artwork, can be included with the property. I’m down-sizing dramatically and simplifying my life and I hope that this house sells quickly so I can get moved back to Denton. Am I a bit apprehensive? Yes. I’ve gotten used to having my own place with a garage and lots of space, but the trade-off is that you have more to take care of and the costs are really astronomical.

When you buy a house they don’t tell you that your mortgage can go up even if your rate is fixed due to increases in taxes and home owners insurance. My mortgage went from $1167 a month to $1451 after living there for 1.5 years. I asked why and they said, “Your taxes went up by 1000 dollars a year” and my response was that they increase the money they were taking from me by $3000.

Anyway, long story short, having a house is awesome, but as a single guy I don’t think the investment is worth it. I would have done better if I had just saved all the money I invested in this property… but on the upside, I got to live in a really great house in a really great location.

No tags

But Words will never hurt me.

I’m not sure that there has ever been a more untrue children’s mantra. I think bones heal long before wounds created by words.

While at Boyd High School in McKinney I saw this circle of flowers right in the middle of the hall area where students enter. I asked this student, “What is with those flowers?”

“A Student Died, a freshman…”

“Was it suicide?”

“Yes, he was picked on a lot.”

This type of things makes me sick to my stomach. As someone who was bullied incessantly all throughout school I know what it is like to wake up every single day and dread going to class and facing cruel peers. Toss in hormonal imbalance and pressures at home and you have a recipe for disaster – especially if you feel like you have no place to turn or no one in your corner.

My mom was always there for me when I was hurt by words, but it took years for that pain to heal.

The student I was mentoring today brought up the subject of using false confidence as a way to push back the negativity. He said that he was picked on in 6th grade and that he became good at defending himself by insulting students back. I did the same thing. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I really started to understand that when I tear someone down it is really just me trying to make myself feel better about me.

Eventually I gained self-confidence and I stopped insulting others or comparing myself to others. It’s a lesson in futility – there is always someone in the world that is better than you at something or has something better than yours. It is so much better to just be content with what you have and to find peace in the Lord. It’s really so freeing when you’ve finally taken a hold of that concept.

If you have young students, please remind them that words do hurt and that if they are being picked on that they can come to you and talk about it. Then do something to help them in their situation. If nothing else, just be there to listen and to love on them – a little love can go a long way to healing a broken spirit.

No tags

Wrapped in warm shades of brown with hints of orange and subtle undertones of cream, Village Tea is an inviting sensory experience that is pleasing to the eyes and the palette.

Gnutella filled crepes served hot with fresh whipped cream and hot ginger lemon tea was one of the many highlights of the Blogher networking event planned by Jessica Ferris.  When I was first invited to this soiree I thought I’d be eating finger sandwiches and sipping tea in frilly china cushioned by lace doilies. Could I have been more wrong?

Almost immediately a waitress named Carla started asking me what I’d like to drink and made the suggestion of a Chai Tea Latte sweetened with Agave Nectar. Talk about a mouthgasm. Deliciously spiced tea with just the right amount of foam made for one of the best hot drinks I’ve had in recent memory. And if the service and drinks and decor weren’t enough to keep me captivated, the owners brought out plates of sliced scones and real spinach salads and sandwiches with a variety of cheeses.

Even though I’m not a “Her” the ladies of Blogher always seem to welcome one or two men and I always appreciate their allowing me to be part of this unique culture. Hi Jenny!

Overall, Village Tea at Park and Preston in Dallas impressed me not only with their great products and AMAZING staff, but with their desire to comfort and educate their customers. Almost instantly I felt at home their despite it’s trendy and upscale location. And with free Wi-Fi and a place for kids to play in a colorful corner it is sure to be a hit with mom’s and businessmen alike.

A special thanks to the beautiful Bryce Gruber for hosting us and keeping us entertained, if you see her, tell her Eddie sent you.

No tags

While I was at the Song of Solomon conference on Oct. 2-3rd Mark & Grace Driscoll took some Q&A’s from the audience. People would text in their questions and then they would answer them live on stage.

Question: As a single woman, what do I do to satisfy my sexual desires? Don’t give me a pat answer.

Now the assumption here is that you should not be having sex before marriage. Take that one step further and you can say that you should not be masturbating before marriage. Why not? The Bible never mentions that it is a sin, therefore, we can clearly rule out that the act is a sin.

However, the Bible does clearly state that lust is a sin and so you can infer that if you are lusting while masturbating that is a sin.

I thought Grace gave a very good answer…

While masturbation and self-gratification aren’t a sin, feeling the need to satisfy your sexual urges without self-discipline can lead to destructive behaviors. Looking at Pornography, Fornication, Adulterous affairs, etc.

I thought that this was an interesting way to answer a difficult question and it applies to every area of our lives. In our American culture we are very used to instant gratification and pleasing ourselves. We have instant everything and self-discipline gets put way on the back burner.

The Only Way To Rid Yourself of Temptation is to Yield to It…

So personally I think that sexual urges are like any appetite of the flesh. It is obviously both biological and mental and anything that is biological and physiological are going to require some sort of restraint. Food is necessary to survive and without it you would die, but that doesn’t mean that you should eat sugar at every single meal.

So what do you tell your kids? If you are a dad what do you tell your son? Should you tell them that sex is bad, but when it comes to masturbation limit it to one time a week? What about your daughters? How do you talk to them about sex? Masturbation? Do you talk to them at all or just hope that this is something that they aren’t tempted to do?

I found this line on a website with some good information that you should share with your students probably as early as 10 or 11:

Remember, you need to master your behavior, or else sin will master it for you. Even a good thing can become sinful without the right heart. Even if you don’t believe that masturbation is a sin, if it is controlling you then it is a sin.

1 Corinthians 6:12 – “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’ – but I will not be mastered by anything.”

In my own childhood sexual topics were always very taboo. I’d say not talking is much more harmful than talking. It’s amazing how much being educated about something can help you make an informed decision. It might not always be the right decision, but you can’t look back and say, “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

No tags

Recently a friend of mine posted a scanned copy of our 6th grade class newsletter. I was tagged in the image and when I looked at it I saw that there was a short story that I had written about a Russian named Vladimir and a really large donut the size of a sheet cake.

Wow, 23 years ago at the age of 10 I was already writing about food! As I read through the story it was obvious that I didn’t have any real creative writing style, but, the story had a beginning, a body, and a conclusion and the grammar was awesome for a 10 year old.

I remember growing up I was always writing poetry, some of it inflammatory, but mostly it was simple rhymes and short stories.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me back then that I should be a writer when I grow up?

There are a few things in life that come easily to me, the most natural thing I do is dance. It is something I do well without any thought or practice. For me “dancing by ear” is similar to the way people play music by ear. You don’t understand how you do it, you just do.

Later in life I realized I was pretty decent at spatial concepts and understanding balance in design. I’m no artist, but I can sense when something is right.

I think that in our culture we often direct our children down a path that seems to fit something that is accepted by society as great: Doctors, Lawyers, Fireman. We ask “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead of asking, “What do you LIKE to do the most?”

Perhaps if we asked the latter question we would better be able to direct our children down a path that they will not only excel in, but they will also find satisfying.

I think our society and culture is wasteful. We spend hours of time and thousands of dollars forcing students to take years of math and science. Instead we should probably have our students get a general grasp of the math and science they need to relate to all parts of society as a whole, however, I have never needed to use Algebra and I’m not sure the 4 years of my life spent in Algebra classes was time well spent. What if instead I was thrust into a creative writing class, dance, art? What if once we got to high school we spent those 4 years finding out what we excelled in and then by the time we got to college we could really intensify those areas of study and then we would be awesome at our careers.Instead we force high school students to endure 2 more years of information that we should have already learned in the previous 12 years of our education and then, once we’ve spent thousands of dollars learning these “basics” we finally get to the meaty subject of what we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives and we spend just 2 years on that. It doesn’t make sense.

Now here I am at 33 years of age and I just now fully understand the areas that I am good at and I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars acquiring skills in an area that I only sort of enjoy and I will never seriously excel in without a lot of work and effort.

So my choice is to either throw away the investment that I have made in my education, or to live a life doing something that I only partly enjoy doing.

I, personally, should have been a writer, or a dancer, or possibly an interior designer. What should you have been?

No tags

I think people often forget what it is like to be single. They parade their chubby cute kids in front of us like they just won the baby lotto complete with baby showers, baby laughter and new friends that just so happen to have babies.

“Look at our baby! Isn’t he/she adorable! Watch out for the spit up!” They blurt out these phrases in high-pitched voices complete with gitchy goos and ga gas all the while oblivious to the suffering of us singles.

It’s cute at first. One of your friends gets married, then another, then another. You keep your hopes up, you date, you have some good relationships but they all fizzle out. You congratulate your friends with sincerity, truly happy for their new wedded bliss, but part of you has to wonder, “What about me?”

You push those thoughts out of your head and keep moving on as if you are in some sort of race and if you just keep your eyes focused on the prize then maybe you won’t notice the kids playing in the park next to you or the couple holding hands, or the new mom pushing the pink and blue bedazzled stroller.

At first you are surrounded by lots of other single friends and so the hunt is still sort of fun. You don’t feel so alone because you have singles parties and game nights. You have your freedom and there is always that rush of meeting someone new. But then those circles thin out and the friendships recede like your hairline or begin to sag like your breasts.

You try to stay optimistic only to continue to watch your friends pop babies out left and right. They’re beautiful babies, possibly the most adorable babies that you have ever seen in your life and you love them so much that it’s a little frightening. They aren’t yours and so you can’t get too close because at any moment they could move away, off to some remote place like Tennessee, or worse, Japan and then you are left there with a gaping hole where a warm snuggly toddler should be.

It’s been so long now since your first friends got married that many of them have gotten divorced and already found someone new to marry. You shake your fist to the heavens and scream “Why God, Why?!!!”

Why is it that they can find 2 people to fall in love with when I’m still searching for the first one?

You start to lower your standards and expectations and soon the bar is so low that people don’t even notice it, or you, anymore. You feel like you are fading into the background becoming nothing more than an ephemeral ghost floating through life shrieking silent screams that no one hears but you.

Positivity is one of your strengths and so you join a gym and start working out, you lose some weight, buy some new clothes, start dating again and still nothing. Then finally you meet that someone special that takes your breath away, the one that you know is “The One” and you ask them out or you pray that they ask you out, but they won’t go out with you despite your many attempts to entice them into just a simple dinner.  “Can’t we just be friends?” They say and your heart breaks into a million little pieces and falls to the ground and for the next 6 months you grope around on your knees trying to put it back together.

You’ve tried and failed repeatedly so you go and hang up your hat. You put away your “date” clothes. Shut the door to your closet and that part of your life and you just go on smiling and pressing down the deep ache of desire that pangs you every single time you see a happy couple or hear the laughter of a baby.

The hardest part becomes not merely facing the reality of your plight, but every day filling the gap between the time that you wake up until the time you go to bed. The hours seem longer. The loneliness becomes tangible and it becomes harder and harder to press on and say, “Today is a new day, a new opportunity, perhaps today will be the day I see a change or meet someone new.”

And maybe that day will come… tomorrow?

No tags

This kid is really, really good. I mean his level of skill for his age is unbelievable. When you dance, you know how hard it is to balance and he copies moves from You Got Served almost exactly.

No tags

As a DJ I run into this all the time. “We are on a tight budget” normally means, “Please do this for free.” It gets very old as my DJ equipment cost about 10,000 dollars and the song library constantly has to be updated and of course there is a great deal more to being a good DJ than just playing music. If you just want music played, just break out your home stereo and hook up your iPod…

No tags

With over 450 names submitted, we have narrowed down the names we like to these:

TruthPark Media
Soul Road Media
Change MEdia
OneClick Bible
Deliver MEdia
Trust MEdia
Edified Media
Yearn Media
Heart Change
BibleTV
WordTV
VoxLight Media
Move Me Media
Move MEdia
Hud Media
Epic Love Media

Can I get your thoughts? Which of these names do you like?

If you aren’t sure what this is about, we are rebranding www.songofsolomon.com since our site now encompasses more than just Song of Solomon.

Thanks for your feedback, it is Extremely important!!

No tags

1. The average age in Waco is 112
2. Waco is full of strange people who look crazy, I am sure that is why David Koresh picked it as a launching pad for his cult.
3. Waco got pregnant during junior high and that is why the Capital was moved to Austin instead of the original Waco location. 
4. Waco has a number of people who ride around on scooters – sometimes they use their scooters instead of their cars. Probably because their cars are upon blocks in their front lawn.
5. One upside to Waco is the River, the downside is that it looks like a great place to dump trash and bodies. 
6. The things that you can do in Waco are either scary or annoying – scary because I think people want to mug me or annoying because people won’t get out of my way. 
7. While driving through Waco I saw a lot of expensive wheels hauling out their trash. 
8. Waco, your mom called from the grave and said stop embarrassing her, she’s tired of rolling over. 

No tags

Or at least Texas Holly and Miss-Elaine-ous are cool like that. Thank you ladies for planning such a great event!

About a month ago my friend Jes sent me an email that read, “DFW Blogger Dinner Party planned for February 28th” and I replied immediately, “I’m in!” I mean you are combining 3 of my favorite things: Food, People and Blogging. How could I say no?  The only thing more tempting would be a pillow fight with Giselle Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks.

When the date for the blogger party finally rolled around my best friend Joe came into town for a wedding and so I forced him to come along with promises of delicious food and fun people. Unfortunately for the price the food wasn’t all that delicious, but the people more than made up for it.

When Joe and I first arrived at the Grand Lux and we saw this gaggle of women all standing around I turned to Joe and said, “Do you want to stay or should we just go someplace else?” I was feeling a little out of place and that is when Texas Holly swooped in and introduced herself and then I met Jay and Jenny B and I was suddenly at home. In a group of strangers I need only a couple of nice faces to bring me out of my shell and then look out! Seriously, look out, because I have a tendency to try to dominate the conversation and put on a show. As Britney says, “There are two types of people in the world, the kind that entertain and the ones that observe.” I’m the one that entertains… or I try to.

At my table: Bianca, Jes, Laurie, Jean, Jenny, Anything But Nice and of course Joe. We had a great time talking about everything and nothing and then the ladies at my table started hovering together and talking about Twilight – here is where I piped up and said, “My name is Edward!” – what I didn’t divuldge was that I am also a Vampire and that the Twilight series was based loosely on my life.

At the end of the night I zipped down to the other end of the table and met Natalie and Dorsey and a few other cool ladies. I think part of the reason I feel right at home with a group of ladies is that I have two older sisters and I graduated from Texas Woman’s University and because women like me. I always smell like chocolate and I look huggable and women like hugs and chocolate.

Photo is courtesy of Jenny B.

It was very nice meeting all of you ladies and gentleman. I hope we can do this again soon!

P.S. Jean left a comment and so I have updated her blog site address! Yeah!

No tags