Tag Archives: bikers

My Pictorial Summary of the Last Year of My Marriage

Posted on by Standard 30

I don’t know about you guys, but I love pictorial stories. And thank the Lord, the internet is just swimming with the perfect pictures, quotes, and general information needed to put together a fantastic pictorial story. So, since my day started off like garbage, I’ve decided to write a pictorial of the last year of my life that makes me feel better. This, added to all the encouragement and general outpouring of kindness you have all showed me, has helped me end on a more positive, happier note. You guys are the greatest!!

On October 16, 2011, Chef decided he was old and needed to launch into a midlife crisis to make himself feel better:

It only took me one whole year to decide that I was finished being shook up.

Because he always does things in a really big way, he chose the absolute worst drug on the face of the earth to play around with and lost his mind:

But it looked like so much fun!!! Trust me. It isn’t.

And who could have guessed that inserting Drano, Lithium, and who knows what else into his brain would make him insane? Well, I could. I’d seen it before with my first husband. But I was in love, and I just knew I could save him. How many people on this earth have thought that exact same thing?

Unless you become a meth addict. Then, I don’t want you anymore. Your flaw almost killed me.

For months, I tried to deal with his problem without any help. I didn’t tell anyone…our kids, families, friends…no one. I didn’t want to embarrass him. I thought I could fix it by myself, even without his help.

Everybody stand back! I got this!!

It was ridiculous now that I think about it. I used to think I was pretty smart. You sure couldn’t tell by this whole fiasco!

I mock no one anymore. I’m living in a glass house.

As the drug took over, my life turned into this strange roller-coaster of secrets, PTSD, lies, pain, and addiction. It was horrible. What was worse is that because of the nature of the problem, I felt like I had to keep his secrets, too, and I hate secrets. I seriously HATE them.

He had locks on all kinds of stuff. He had lots of secrets, I guess.

The up side of it was I gained some interesting skills that ensure me a place as a low level mob known associate. Either that or I can become one heck of a stalker. I can pick locks, break passwords, use an adapter to see what websites he’s been looking at, clean out viruses downloaded by porn, and run off bikers from the front porch with a shotgun. I’m flush with new skills!!

My favorite was busting his passwords and changing them to things he’d never guess. I know. But I had to have some fun somewhere.

Finally, I figured it all out, and it turned out he was being unfaithful. It was a kick in the gut, but I seriously already knew that was what he was doing anyways. I just wanted some proof. As things fell even more apart, I finally turned to my family and friends for help. Every single person thought I should leave, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want to believe he would pick a drug over me and the kids. But he was too far gone by that time, and I should have given up. I mean, he was doing bizarre things.

How crazy am I for trying to reason with this?!

He is always surprised at the level of hostility I have about him cheating on me. Seriously. What did he think I’d think?

Finally, after a seriously dangerous incident, I finally put distance between us, but I was a basket case. I couldn’t believe all of this was happening.

My pain and sadness was understandable, but I felt pathetic. I knew he had done things to me that other people would never have tolerated, and yet I couldn’t quit excusing him. I still excuse his bad behavior. I think that makes me somewhat pathetic.

Even though I am a Christian, there were times that I lashed out, wanting him to hurt like he had hurt me. I’m ashamed of that, but it is what I did.

This is pretty close to the terminology I used….

Finally, days started coming and going without the tears. I was able to not think about him, or my whole life, for an hour here or there.

Ahhh. I’d love a little amnesia right about now. :-)

I still harbored some hopes that one day I’d get a chance to talk to him about all of this hellish behaviors that cost us both so much, but he doesn’t want to address any of it with me. However, he’s still pretty upset that I wouldn’t move back in with him when his girlfriend dumped him and turned off his utilities.

Wow. This is him in a nutshell.

Now, even though I live in a new apartment, love my job, have my kids, friends — both online and in real life — I seem to not be able to shake that last little bit of codependency that strives to make me as nuts as he is. I wrote him off forever, and within 24 hours, I’d answered his phone call again. I felt low, low, low.

Wretched Addictions  Why couldn’t we have shared the same one? Oh, that’s right. We did. I’m addicted to him, and so is he!

But, thank God, I was able to get my feelings out, get great advice and encouragement, and I’m back on the path to healing again. Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. Don’t count me out yet. This war isn’t over !!!

Ok. It’s a little off the message, but I want this sign for my bedroom. :-) It makes me laugh.

Love, Bird

Seriously, Just How Important Is A Birthday?

Posted on by Standard 87

Updated: See My Goofy Picture at the Bottom

Today is my birthday.

I don’t say that so everyone makes a big deal about it. I only mention it because I’ve been thinking lately about why most of my life I’ve spent this particular day each year waiting to see who would remember, yet avoiding the internet, telephones, and the mail. What an odd thing to do, now that I really think about it. And on the back of a motorcycle yesterday, I had plenty of time to dissect why I hate most holidays, but especially Christmas and my birthday.

Growing up, my birthday always fell around the time that we were packing up and moving to a new place. My mom was a master packer/mover, and it literally took her one day to get us organized, packed, and loaded. Frankly, it was kind of an incredible sight, but it was also kind of depressing for me. We almost never stayed anywhere long enough for me to make friends, and being a “summer” birthday girl, there weren’t any birthday parties, with the exception of my sixteenth birthday. And,  I am pretty convinced that my Aunt Pamela was behind me actually having a Sweet 16 party, not my mom. We happened to be living in Harlingen for that birthday, and for once, I had quite of few friends from the private school that I had known since we were all small. I remember my Aunt Pam asking me what I wanted to do to celebrate my birthday that year, and I have no idea what my answer was. What did it matter what I hoped for? I figured we’d get a cake and some ice cream, they’d sing to me, and I’d get a present from my Aunt and Uncle and my Grandmother. All of these things were more than we ever did when we lived away from my mom’s sister and mother. Most of the time, Mom would bake a cake a few days after my birthday, promising that the next year would be better. But when it came to my aunt, she wouldn’t dream of not getting me a present. She was always good about things like that.

I knew my mom wouldn’t be able to afford a gift for me for this birthday either, but would promise that next year would be better. Growing up, I can count the gifts I’ve gotten for my birthday on one hand. And most of them came from other family members, but not my mom or stepfather.

It isn’t about the gifts or parties for me, though. It was about feeling special…like someone was glad that you’d shown up in this world, and wanted you to know it. And so, each year was a painful reminder to me that even mom didn’t think much about the day I showed up in this world…And I was her First Born Kid!! In fairness to my mom, though, she was from just as broken a childhood as me, and her family didn’t make a big deal about her birthday either. I think she’d be surprised to know that I always felt this way, and probably a bit guilty as well. She was raising five children, all very different and very demanding in different ways, plus not getting much help in any of the areas of her life from her husband, all the while making a little bit of money stretch to pay for just the very basic needs we had. Birthdays were just not a priority when it came to all that she was trying to balance.

Believe it or not, I didn’t get bitter about it, even as a kid. It was sad, but normal at my house. I didn’t get parties, but neither did the other kids in my family, and to me that was even worse. My two brothers and two sisters are actually quite a bit younger than me, and to see them disappointed when they were little was just mortifying. They seemed always to hope they would have a birthday party with all of their friends, or wish for a specific toy,  but I only remember them getting one or two parties the whole time I lived there. They did get presents, though. Their grandmother (we have different fathers) was always faithful about sending gifts to them no matter where we were, and as they got older, those presents were pretty much what they would request. And they were always wonderful gifts, so that made the sting of their birthday disappointments less potent. But, for my brother and I, who weren’t the biological grandchildren, it was a rub in our faces. We usually got socks and underwear for presents…A keen reminder that we didn’t belong to that family.

Anyways…enough of the sad stuff..

That Sweet 16 birthday party was a surprise party for me, and it always brings back good and bad memories. The happy memories were that all my friends, including Audra, were there, and my cake was Garfield the cat, and we had a pinata, and I got a lot of presents. The only bad memory was that my step-grandmother asked me if I was a lesbian because she’d never seen me “go around” with a boy. And she wasn’t asking innocently…it sounded like a snide accusation. But, I didn’t know what a lesbian was, and by the time she explained it to me in a way my rather innocent mind could understand, I was so freaked out, it took me sneaking a shot of vodka or whiskey, I forget which,  to calm myself back down..

This isn’t my step-grandmother. It is just a keen likeness of how I remember her….

I never knew my step-grandmother all that well, having only met her a handful of times, so her opinions about me were not only not welcome, but downright insulting!  At first, I sat there with my ears turning red, knowing that if I opened my mouth, no good thing would come from it. But I wasn’t going to let this woman accuse me of anything when she’d only ever even seen me less than 5 times ever. It was the principal of the matter. I started off calmly… I told her I wasn’t allowed to date, so it wasn’t like I could bring guys around. But, I lost control of my calm exterior quickly, and I told her that I’d had a few boyfriends, none of whom I wanted around this f***** up, freak-show of family I was in. By the last words, I was semi-shouting, and standing up. I know. There was nothing Godly about my reaction. I was just hoping to have one nice birthday party, and it seemed like this step-grandmother just wanted to ruin it for me.  All in all, though, it was a pretty tame response considering  I had just found out that there was such a thing as same sex sex, which I evidently gave the impression I was into, by an old woman who I always thought was cold, bitchy, and stuck-up (because she always talked about how much money she had, and how she was going to be buried by her dead husband, not my grandfather). She never did anything for me to reassess my initial opinion of her, and that very moment, she actually proved what I’d suspected since the first time I’d met her..she was just a mean woman; she was attending my party to see if she could ruin it, nothing more.  Even now, I’m surprised by these kinds of people, who take some kind of joy in hurting someone else. It isn’t something I ever want to empathize with though. It is just pathetic to hurt anyone else for amusement or sport.

She was very taken aback at my language, as she considered herself a sophisticated, classy lady, and such language was beneath her breeding (and money, I suspect), but evidently was delighted with the proof that I was indeed trailer trash; as for my insulting our family, that didn’t bother her much as she didn’t much care for us “lesser” members of her new husband’s bloodline, of which she wasn’t part of. But, for my lack of respect when addressing her, she was just livid!! And she informed me that this was why she didn’t spend time with my grandfather’s side of the family. We were rude, crude, and disrespectful. I only heard rushing water in my skull while she lectured on, and in the end, she got the last word  because I walked off while she was still scolding me, heading to the bathroom to analyze what had just happened with this strange old woman, process lesbianism and its ramifications in my universe,  freak a bit about how much trouble I was going to be in when the old hag tattled to my mom about our little spat, and figure out how to steal a shot of vodka so I could go outside and enjoy my damn Sweet 16 birthday party.

I accomplished all of these things, and happily, I never saw my step-grandmother again. My mom was too horrified that someone thought one of her kids was a lesbian to care about anything else that was said or done.  I skated by with only a vague frown about my use of the F word, but I think mom was secretly a little glad someone had finally gone off on the haughty new wife. Mom and my aunt whisked me back to my pinata and the step-grandmother was gone when we went back in the house a little while later. Another thing I think I have my aunt to thank for.. …   :-) Best.Birthday.Party.Ever.

As a mother and a wife, birthdays have gotten much better. My kids never forget my birthday, though Chef has forgotten once or twice, but quickly made up for it. I don’t always get a gift, but it isn’t because no one could be bothered. Gifts don’t matter much to any of us.

But without fail, even with my own little family remembering and celebrating for years now, I’ve always waited to hear from my mom, my dad, or any of my brothers or sisters.

My mom has always forgotten my birthday for at least one day. Always. My dad, who had been missing most of my life, has never forgotten my birthday, but could usually not find me to tell me he was glad I had been born. When he had a way to call me, he always has. I know my dad loves me.

I’ve heard from my sisters on a few occasions (once or twice) over the span of 20+ years, and never from either of my brothers. And always, by the end of the day, I feel sad all over again that most of my childhood family cares so little about me, or even each other. We are all so very broken by that life, we can’t even turn to one another for comfort and encouragement in these new, better lives we’ve made for ourselves.

Almost a decade ago, Chef and I moved here to Tulsa from Texas, and we did something that we normally never did. We started to make friends. We started letting people into our lives. It was very unfamiliar to me, but Chef had missed having friends to hang out with, and I soon began to enjoy the interactions as well. And birthdays suddenly became less of a Waiting For Disappointment days, and more of a day to enjoy the company of friends and family who did actually give a crap that I had been born.

A few years ago, my motorcycle club sisters threw me a surprise birthday party…I literally had no clue they even knew my birth date, much less would bother to get the word out to all the girls, without me finding out!,  and gather for my party from not only Tulsa, but some smaller towns further away.  I was so surprised, I wanted to burst into tears. I did tear up, and then I laughed for the next couple of hours. The whole time I kept thinking about the only other party I’d ever had, and how it had been a surprise party too.

Only this time, there was no mean step-grandmother to make me feel ugly or unattractive, taking pleasure from embarrassing me…

Although there was an actual bisexual at this motorcycle biker chick party, but I already knew what that term meant; I had long ago quit judging other people’s decisions for their own lives, so I didn’t care that a bisexual was at my party; I love that bisexual, because to me she isn’t defined by any one thing about herself — good, bad, or whatever; and she would never do something intentionally to hurt someone else just for fun. And best of all, I got to wear a sombrero, and I totally rocked it. :-)

So, while birthdays started out kind of disappointing for me, they’ve gotten a fresh makeover in my mind over the last few years, and to turn over a new leaf, I’m not going to play the waiting game on a family that forgot me, and each other decades ago. Instead, I’m going to enjoy the people that are in my life now, and that includes all of you — my internet friends.

I don’t know that I’ve ever had any group of people pray for me and my family like you all, and it is without hesitation that I can promise you all know more about my life than any of my extended family does. And yet, you keep coming back, encouraging me, crying when I cry and laughing when I laugh. I appreciate all of you, and will never be able to express how all the kindness has helped me.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!

– Bird

 

PBOL Vickey still had a picture from my party…I’m not photogenic, but I think the sombrero works. Proceed at your own risk….  :-)

Chef Likes To Make An Impression

Posted on by Standard 18

When Chef and I moved to Oklahoma 9 years ago, neither of us had any clue how different our lives would become. Being largely from

Back then, Chef belonged to a club called BTU, but that club is now defunct, and most of the members now belong to this club — Callejeros. Chef went on to join a 1%er group, as most of you know by now.

big cities, Chicago and San Antonio, we had not noticed just how closed off we had become. Our adult lives had become so routine, working during the day, eating dinner at night, going to bed, and starting all over again in the morning.

All of that changed one day when I bought Chef a motorcycle, and within a month, we suddenly were making friends. It was a rather odd awakening for me, realizing just how closed off Chef and I had been all these years, and I have to admit, I was nervous about letting people into our lives. But Chef was just eating it up, and I eventually relaxed enough to make a few friends myself.

We really hit it off with another couple that I will call Brett and Sunny. They had been married a little longer than Chef and me, had raised two kids to adulthood, and had similar senses of humor. We spent a lot of time before the accident with them.

One day, we were out taking a joy ride on our motorcycles, when we all decided to go back to our house. Brett and Sunny had never been to our home….In fact, no one really had. Yes, we were that secretive.

So, Chef led our little group, and soon it became clear to me that we weren’t actually going the right way. We were travelling through Tulsa‘s more up-scale neighborhoods. I remember thinking that Chef was trying to impress Brett by showing off the well-off neighborhood located right next to our rather lower middle class one. Silly, I thought, but I went along.

Finally, Chef turned into a really large, fancy gate with initials weaved into the top, and down a long, long winding driveway,surrounded by immaculately groomed lawns and flower beds, surrounded by majestic, sculpture like trees,  up to a mansion that went on for days. Here is a picture of what it kind of looked like:

Getting off the bike, he told Brett, ” Just leave the bikes here. I’ll have someone move them to the garage.”

Brett and Sunny could barely keep their mouths from hanging open as they dismounted and began following Chef to the front door. Right before he got to the door, Chef burst out laughing.

“Just kidding….This isn’t our house..,” he could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard.

Brett and Sunny started laughing nervously at first, and then really, really hard.

We got back on the bikes and drove down the large driveway, out the fancy gates, and left behind the gorgeous neighborhood, heading back to the real world. It was a pretty funny moment for me.

I always wonder if there had been anyone in the mansion, and if there had been, what had they thought seeing a patched set of bikers who obviously were club members, drive their motorcycles up to the front door, turn the bikes off, have a conversation where everyone is laughing hysterically, and then get on the bikes and leave just as mysteriously as they had appeared… I know it would have freaked me out anyways, probably for weeks to come.    :-)

– Bird

How Important Is Sin When You Love Someone?

Posted on by Standard 38

In order to clearly show my heart on the matter of homosexuality, I would like to write this post specifically to pinkagendist, Daniel Postlewaite, and John the Aussie. It is my hope that you will see that I don’t rank any sins that people grapple with above others…sin is sin, yet that isn’t what God is interested in. Yes, sin is evil. But He could have rid the world of all sin by just destroying all of it, and us with it. It is God’s love for us that is important, and was the reason He sent His son to die. To restore us back to our God, and to free us from the chains that sin places us in.

When my kids were in high school, my stepdaughter Brenda (not her real name) showed up in the middle of the

night with her high school aged brother and sister. We lived in Tulsa, and Brenda, Cole and Charity were all from central Texas. I hadn’t heard from Brenda in years, knowing that she had gotten pretty heavy into drugs and was learning some pretty hard lessons in life. It had been even longer since I’d seen Cole and Charity, who were the children of Brenda’s mother from a different father.

Brenda was beside herself, tumbling out this horrific story about the abuse and neglect that Cole and Charity had been suffering at numerous relatives hands. I explained to her that I couldn’t harbor run-aways but she was inconsolable, and I told her I would figure out what to do in the morning. Going to bed, I was freaked out. I couldn’t return them to being abused, but I didn’t know how much trouble I would be in for them being at my house. I prayed, hoping God would give me an answer by morning.

The next morning, Brenda was gone. Some time in the night she had split, leaving the two teenagers behind. After discussing options with the two teens, I finally called their father, who informed me that he didn’t want them back. “Just keep them,” were his careless words. What a winner.

Both of them had dropped out of school in the 7th grade, and it had been years since they had gone to school. And without the proper paperwork, I wasn’t going to be able to get them enrolled in school. Add to that fact was that they were both in terrible health. Their mom had abused drugs consistently when they were in vitro, and both had been born addicted to meth, cocaine, and other substances. Their immune systems were trashed. Cole’s bones were brittle, and a spill on a skateboard that should have been nothing left him with a broken arm. The whole experience made me furious at their parents.

But even worse than their physical health was the emotional scars that were devastatingly familiar to me. Ask any child who has been molested, and we will tell you..we recognize each other..Both of them had been severely molested, and I spent a lot of time listening to these children as they cried for their childhood that had been lost to them. Trust, stability, and security had been annihilated for them.  Especially Cole, who I could already tell, was so hurt and obviously leaning more toward the homosexuality that he’d been introduced to at such a young age. I spent more time listening and comforting, and less preaching…God wasn’t interested in me getting Cole to not be a homosexual. He was interested in me showing Cole that there was someone who cared about him, no matter what, and I never once addressed his sins with him. It wasn’t the time. God didn’t just want Cole to stop sinning..God wanted to love Cole, and the sins were secondary and could be addressed later in his life. What mattered was Cole, not what he was doing.

About three months later, the father decided he did want them back after all, and he drove to Tulsa to pick them up. They both cried, not wanting to leave, but the law was with their parents, and I had to reluctantly give them back. My whole family cried, including Chef, because they had come to belong with us.

Years later, while on a run with one of the most notoriously badass motorcycle clubs in the world, Chef and some of the other bikers he was travelling with stopped at a diner one night, and Cole was there working. Cole, obviously a homosexual that had come out, was so excited to see Chef, and Chef, equally excited to see him,  gave him a big hug and introduced him to all the grizzled bikers he was with,  as his and my son. And those bikers treated Cole respectfully and kindly, even though homosexuality is not embraced in the 1%er biker culture. There were no judgments, no sneering, no anything, but respect. He was part of our family, and no one had better have a thing to say about him…Because we love Cole as a whole person. He isn’t a poster boy for homosexuality…he’s a full, three dimensional hurting boy who needed us to love him no matter what. And we do just that.

If Cole were to suddenly show up on my doorstep wanting to know about God, my first words and actions would have absolutely nothing to do with his homosexuality. His sins aren’t what I, or God, would care about first. I would only show him every single verse in the bible that talks about how much God loves him. I would show him how God wants to heal the broken parts of his heart, and how we can trust God when there doesn’t seem to be another person in the world we can count on. There would be plenty for me, and for God, to show Cole before any of his sins would need to be addressed.

Christianity isn’t about a bunch of rules to me. It is about a relationship that heals and restores us to what we should have been before sin was introduced to the world. Yes, sins need to be addressed, but that really is between Jesus and his child.

Knowing what my past did to me, and what Cole and Charity’s pasts did to them, I’m loathe to rant and rail about how much someone else is struggling with. Instead, I tend to assume that there is a very real, painful reason that this sin is so hard for them, and I can pray about them getting the healing they need…

I hope this story shows that my heart isn’t against any one, no matter what they are struggling with. I judge NO ONE by what sins they struggle with…

– Bird

How To Argue With A Fool

Posted on by Standard 41

This is my recipe for arguing with a fool…don’t. It has no reward at all.

Awhile back, before I really got into this blogging thing, I joined one of the many, many writing communities, and wrote a piece similar to Be True to Yourself or You’ll Become Constipated and posted it as my one and only contribution to that site. (Yes. I do this periodically and then quickly become bored with it). Now, the way that site is set up, other writers are invited to critique your work and offer constructive criticism in order to help you develop as a writer.

If you’ve read Be True then you know it is about my inability to physically altercate in a bar scene, and the

Zolpidem

Zolpidem (Photo credit: Wikipedia) - I have done some extremely weird stuff while on Ambien. Just ask my daughter about my alter-ego's blog site!

actual need to at least portray a sense of being a tough, biker chick, to keep random women from beating me up in order to win the affection and back seat of my husband and his motorcycle. The article was just a cutesy thing I wrote; I wasn’t trying to lay down some hard, deep wisdom on anybody. I soon forgot about my membership to the writing community, and I certainly never really expected anyone to actually read and critique the piece. Boy, was I wrong.

Yesterday. mainly because I was really bored, I went through my computer on-line history. I do this occasionally because I take Ambien CR at night, and I’m one total freak sometimes when I’m on it, and periodically I have to make sure I’m not sending mean emails to family members or web-noodling random hate sites. Evidently, my Ambien-ed out alter ego loves to debate, mainly politics, and I’ve done this a couple of times and have had no memory of it the next day. I’m happy to report that I’ve recently only been sleeping when on it…no stirring of the pots recently! And so, I came across that writing community website again, and thought I’d go see if anyone had actually read my piece.

There was quite a response to my piece. A couple of the writers liked it, and only corrected some of my grammar, which is actually helpful to me, as I’m always finding grammatical mistakes in my writing. (My grandmother would be sooooo appalled!) But the real interesting stuff was about the content. One person took big exceptions to me being married to a biker and being a Christian. According to her, you can’t be both. No surprise there…a shockingly common reaction. Another writer took exception to me going out to bars at all, and instead advised me to stay home and let my husband get this biker thing out of his system. Since it’s been in his system for over a decade, that would have been one really, really long wait, and it still wouldn’t be over yet. My guess is that this little phase is here to stay. Another woman basically called me a slut. Now, here is where I get confused. There is absolutely nothing sexual in my piece. How does this make me a slut?

The truly funny part about this though, is that this is a message board kind of thing and other writers could read what each person was saying, and there was a very long, very highly charged debate on whether I could be a Christian, a biker, a writer, and a slut all at the same time. I laughed and laughed through the whole thing. People take their own opinions too seriously sometimes. And all these barbs that were aimed at hurting my feelings, or making me angry, or even to draw out a reaction from me had all happened months ago without me even knowing about it. Toward the end of the montage, there were even comments on the fact that I wasn’t defending myself and my lifestyle, and therefore I must know that I was wrong, not a Christian, couldn’t be a writer, and was, in fact, a slut.

I didn’t answer. I thought about it, but then I thought, when you are trying to draw someone into a verbal fight, the only thing worse than being made a fool of is when the other side decides you’re such a big fool, you aren’t worth fighting with at all. Trust me, I’ve been on the embarrassing end of that stick, mainly when I’ve been drunk. So, I just left the site untouched, and chuckled at how infuriated the pot-stirrers would always feel every time they thought of the Somewhat Pure-living Christian Biker Chick Writer refused to defend herself against some pretty base, rude, foolish insults. The bible is pretty clear on this one –

“The mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge; But the mouth of fools feeds on folly.” Proverbs 15:14

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1

“A scoffer does not love one who reproves him, He will not go to the wise.” Proverbs 15:12

“He who conceals hatred has lying lips; and he who spreads slander is a fool.” Proverbs 10:18

All of our own opinions are just that…opinions. There is no reward for verbally beating someone else into submission to our own ways of thinking. And if you are secure in who you are, then there is no need to sell yourself on the truth either. Some people just like the verbal jockeying that insulting someone else leads to, but I have no interest in trying to defend myself to a fool. What’s to be gained by that?

Respect from a fool = Nothing much worth having at all!

– Bird