I now post all of my process pictures and before after shots on my Facebook page! 

So please come visit me there!!

Cheers.

Saint Rooster

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

DIY Numbered Table!

My latest creation! $325

Saint Rooster

what was meant for evil, God uses for good.

I've been thinking a lot about a certain sentence from the Bible. I haven't read the Bible in quite some time I must admit, but there is one scripture that keeps replaying over and over and over in my head. It's Genesis 50:20.

"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..."


It hits me. 
It hits me like a ton of bricks and I am wrecked and I am humbled. 


We all carry grief, dear friends. Brokenness, hate, resentment, anger, fury, spite, whatever it may be... We are human and we have a great capacity to hurt. And even though our pain can seem overwhelming, unfair and even cruel at times, our capacity to love is far greater than that.

I read this scripture of Joseph's story and I feel whole and I feel honest.

And it's hard as hell to get here....to where Joseph was. Humbled and subservient to the Lord. But I can tell you one thing, he didn't get here because he tried hard enough or cared enough about it. He got here because of who God is in Him. He got here because he sat in the presence of the Lord and he gave up. He saw His heart. He felt His heart, and despite all of Joseph's anger, righteous anger at that, he wept (Gen. 50:17).
He forgave.... and he loved.


May we all seek to be humbled and feel God's love like Joseph. May we seek to touch the Lord's glorious redeeming robe.

"I could hear my heart beating, 

I could hear everyone's heart.

I could hear the human noise we sat there making,

not one of us moping, not even when the room went dark."

                                                                   

                                                                            - Raymond Carver, 1938-1988

polka dot ceiling

What a pain to paint but I really do like this polka dotted ceiling for a kid's room!

By the one and only, K F Davis

Gotta love her!

Easter is among us.

DIY Chalk Paint

A lot of people have asked me lately about chalk paint. So I thought I'd share a simple How to post about it.

First off, what Is Chalk Paint?

Chalk Paint was designed by Annie Sloan and is a formula paint that is designed to go on nearly anything you could ever wish to paint on the inside or outside with no prepping or sanding.  It covers easily, dries quickly and helps you achieve a beautiful patina that is perfect for distressing with very little time and effort.

Chalk paint goes on smooth, dries very quickly and is easily sanded to distress your piece for a well-worn look.  It is called chalk paint because it covers the piece with a soft, chalky patina that is perfect for creating an exceptional antique look.

The problem is that it’s a little pricey at $34.95 and up/ quart.  However, the other wonderful thing about chalk paint is that it is also very easy and inexpensive to make yourself.

Ingredients you will need:

2 cups latex paint

5 tablespoons Plaster of Paris

3 tablespoons of cool water

Step 1

Mix the Plaster of Paris (chalky powder) and water together in a separate bowl.  I prefer to use cool tap water.  Mix thoroughly until the plaster has become smooth with no lumps.  The consistency should be similar to a cake or pancake batter.

Step 2

Then add the plaster mixture to the paint and mix well.  Mine bowls look similar because I'm adding my Plaster of Paris and water mixture to a Cream colored latex paint. Be sure to get all of the plaster stirred up well and dissolved thoroughly into the mixture.  Use your stirring stick to verify there are no lumps in the bottom.  If there is plaster in the bottom then it could end up on your piece. 

The paint should be as smooth as it was before.  The paint will appear at first no different than the paint you had before, but when the chalk paint dries on the furniture you will begin to see that faint, aged and chalky patina that you are looking for. You can double the recipe for a quart of paint, quadruple for a 1/2 gallon and so forth.

* For those artists who don't want an aged chalky patina, after you have chalk painted your piece, let it dry completely and then paint back over the entire piece with your regular latex paint (minus the Plaster of Paris and water mixture). That will get rid of that chalky sheen. And then always Polycrylic your piece a few times to protect it and give it a shine. *

(And remember that your Plaster of Paris and water mixture will dry rock hard, so be sure to clean out your bowl as soon as you have poured your mixture in with your latex paint!)

Et voila! 

Navy Black Chalk Painted Hutch turned Bar!

Check out my newest piece from Saint Rooster! 

IN LOVE! 

Hutch Bar

I decided to separate my personal FB account from my work, so please show your support and "Like" my new page if you feel so inclined! I will still highlight some of my pieces on this site, but my FB account will have all of my work. This site will be more for discussing topics on faith and highlighting other artist's work.

SaintRooster Facebook Page

See you there!

Bourbon and Boots

a bunch of Southerners and one Yankee.

Want "Americana air in the online shopping world", visit bourbon and boots. 

I recently purchased this lil diddy for myself and am in love.

And yes, they drink Bourbon and wear boots.

hear hear.

Give me a sec.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and here we are at 7:22am and I still can't sleep. So after tossing and turning, sitting up and stretching, and finally getting up and eating leftover pizza, I decided to utilize this time to pray.

I found myself praying for someone very special in my life who has a lot of pretty large burdens on their shoulders right now. I first started to pray for specific things in this person's life to turn around, go better, lighten up, and then God calmed and focused my heart to pray for something different. He wanted me to pray for my friend to sit and stop.
The Lord in His word says, "Be still and know that I am God." Why does He say that? What does He mean by that? And....? Why doesn't he just say "Be still and know that I've got your back? Be still and know that everything will be okay?"

Friends, the fact that this sentence is phrased the way it is in Psalms 46:10 is extremely important.

He means that the most valuable thing you can do is to stop, sit, and intentionally know that God is our provider because he simply cannot not be. No matter how hard and crazy our lives can get swirling around us with today's agenda and tomorrow's deadlines, the Lord remains Love.

My prayer for my friend, for myself, and for all of you out there is that we might first and foremost believe that God is, and then seek to find His face. The more you intimately know who the Lord is, the more those burdens lose their might.

DIY Tufted Headboard

Hey friends!

So I took on my first upholstery job and thought I'd share the process with you. It's not difficult and I've laid out all the steps. If you have any questions in addition to this, don't hesitate to shoot em my way! YOU CAN DO IT!!

First of all, determine the size of your headboard. I have a Queen size bed so my headboard is 5ft wide and about 4ft tall. About half a foot tucks behind the bed with 3.5 feet showing above the mattress.

Once you’ve determined the finished size you want, go to Home Depot or Lowe’s and purchase a piece of 1/2″ MDF, and have them cut it to size for you. I had to buy a piece 5ft by 6ft. They cut it down for me right in the store free of charge and the guy working there was on his lunch break so even drove it to my house in his truck! So gentlemanly right?

You’ll also need:

• a bowl or small plate (optional);
• a Sharpie marker;
• an electric meat carving knife, or hand saw;
• a tape measure;
• a yard stick or other long straight edge for marking lines;
• staple gun and staples;
• your choice of fabric, large enough to cover the headboard size, plus about 18 inches on each side;
• 2″ foam, large enough to cover the MDF (this can be pieced together, if necessary..foam is expensive so I went to Target and got 3 foam mattress pads for $10 each);
• hi-loft polyester batting, enough for at least two layers to cover the MDF;
• adhesive for the foam (I prefer spray adhesive, although the fumes are quite noxious, so it has to be used outside, or you need to wear a protective mask);
• buttons…lots and lots of buttons (my headboard required 47 buttons, and I used half ball cover buttons and covered them in the same fabric as the headboard.)
• one package of thin nylon or polyester upholstery/roman shade cord (can be found in the upholstery section at JoAnn Fabrics or other fabric stores)...you can also use waxed dental floss but I'd use something thicker because it's easier to staple down;
• a large-eye upholstery or embroidery needle; and
• an electric drill with 3/8″ drill bit.

Here's a picture of some of the supplies.

I know this might look overwhelming but ignore that crap and believe in yourself!!

To start, you will need to place your MDF on some support where both the top and the bottom can be accessed. Workhorses would be preferable. I used two chairs in my little apartment. 

Here is a picture of the MDF before I propped it up on 2 chairs.

This next step is optional but I recommend it. On the two top corners of the headboard, use a small bowl or plate as a template to round the corners.

Then cut off the corners with either an electric jigsaw or a small handsaw like you see below. Smooth rough edges with sandpaper after the edges are cut. 

Next, remove the MDF from the chairs and place it on top of the 2" foam (or in my case, the 3 layers of foam). Trim down all extra foam so that it aligns with the edges of the MDF. You can see that I had quite a lot of foam to cut off. I used fabric scissors, but regular scissors will work as well. Fabric sissors give you a more efficient cut. I've also heard of people using a meat carving knife.

When I was researching on how to make a headboard myself, a lot of people say that it is at this point that you use your spray adhesive to secure the foam to the MDF. I found this to actually be bothersome because later down the process when you are feeding your thread through the holes you make, I had to lift the foam off of the MDF in order to pull the thread through. You probably wouldn't run into this problem if you use 1 piece of 2" foam, but since I used 3 layers of foam, it was too thick to feed the thread successfully through to the back without lifting up the foam, passing the needle from one hand to the other, and continuing to feed it all the way through. But if you bought a piece of 2" foam, by all means, spray the back of the foam and secure it to the MDF. The spray adhesive dries super fast.

Now it's time to mark where your buttons will go. 

Place MDF back onto chairs with foam now on top of it. Starting from the top of the headboard, place a mark at 8″, 16″, and 24″. Do this in several places so that you can use those marks as guides to draw horizontal lines. Then use your yardstick or straight edge to create horizontal straight lines all the way across the width of the headboard. 
Now that you have your horizontal lines drawn, find the center of the headboard, and place a mark at the center of each horizontal line. Use your tape measure, and beginning from the center marks, place a mark every 8 inches. (Ignore that little group of 4 dots. That was a mistake!)

Now use your straight edge, and place diagonally between the marks you just made at 8″ intervals. This will show you where the buttons need to be placed on the diagonal.

Next, use your drill to drill a hole through the foam and the MDF. Warning!! DO NOT go slowly on this. If you begin to drill slowly, the drill bit will grab the foam and rip it to shreds. You want to place the drill bit on the button mark, press down all the way so that you can feel the MDF, and then at FULL SPEED, drill very quickly through the foam and the MDF. (I didn't take a picture of that because that's pretty self explanatory).

This next step is the one I dread the most, but it’s necessary. Professionals have a nifty little tool they use for this, but since I’m not a professional upholsterer, I have to make do with substitutes.

The goal here is to make holes in the foam for every single button that’s large enough for the button to rest at the bottom of the hole. Make sense? In order to do this, I used a really sharp kitchen knife (which probably wasn't the safest idea, but it worked!) and my fingers to pinch out the extra foam. Cutting out trenches around the holes that you drilled takes a while, but it's an important step because it will give you a deeper tuft. And FYI- the smaller the buttons you use, the deeper they will fit down into the holes, giving you a deeper tuft as well. The buttons I used were a little larger (about the size of a quarter) so I didn't get a super deep tuft.

Now it's time for the batting. I used two layers of hi-loft batting (it’ll say hi-loft on the package). The more layers you use, the deeper the tufting will appear…but of course, the more you use, the more your project will cost, and this stuff ain’t cheap! Simply lay the batting on top of the foam. I let some of the batting flow over the headboard at the top so it could wrap around to the back. That gives the top a little more cushion all the way around. 

Then spread your fabric on top of the batting. Make sure the fabric is centered and there is plenty of extra fabric to flow over all four sides.

To begin the tufting, you’ll start in the center of the headboard, working your way down on the main lines you drew at 8″, 16″, and 24″ (so working vertically threading the buttons through the entire headboard). As you work from one button to the next, be sure that the fabric is not pulled too tight. If you pull it too tight, you’ll lose the look of the deep tufting. Here is a picture of some of the buttons I covered as well as what one looks like connected to the thread (or waxed dental floss). You just follow the instructions on the back of the button package to cover them. 

The thread was connected to the button by tying 3 knots where the back of the button attaches to the thread. 

Continue working across the horizontal lines with the buttons. (So at this point you have your MDF sitting on top of the chairs, your foam, batting and fabric laying on top of it, and the holes on the horizontal lines that you drew have buttons with the thread hanging out the back). And as a tip, I took some blue tape and as I pulled the thread through each hole, I secured it down temporarily with a small piece of tape on the back of the MDF. 

After you finish all of the buttons on the horizontal lines, you’ll start on the diagonals. This is where the magic happens! When you press down on the diagonal, the tufts and folds should pretty much form by themselves. You may want to work with them a bit to create neater and cleaner folds, but you shouldn’t have to do too much.

In the above picture, I've flipped the headboard over to show you the back. The blue tape is the tape I used to secure the thread to the back of the headboard until I was ready to staple the thread down. 

Once ALL holes have buttons threaded through them, it is at this point I recommend you flipping the headboard over onto the ground like I did above. Some people like to lie underneath the headboard in between the 2 chairs and work from there, but I found it hard to put enough pressure on the headboard with the staple gun. So just flip it over carefully like you see in the picture above. 

Starting with the buttons on the horizontal lines, pull the thread pretty hard and staple it down on the back. It's a zigzag stapling process so that the thread is secure and doesn't give. I had to use a hammer to pound the staples even further into the MDF in order to make sure the thread wouldn't move. After the horizontal buttons are secured down with staples, do the diagonal buttons. 

Then finally, secure the edges of the fabric and batting around the edges of the headboard by pulling it to the back and staple gunning it down. Cut off any extra fabric and batting since you won't need it on the back. Below, you can see that I propped up the headboard to show you what it looks like finished on the back. This picture was taken before cleaning up the edges by cutting away the extra batting and fabric that you don't need.

And you're finished! 

I didn't mount my headboard on the wall since my walls are plaster, so I bought 2 pieces of wood and using a drill and screws, attached them to the bottom/back part of the headboard. It fit nicely behind my bed and didn't need to be attached to the wall because the mattress came up high enough to keep the headboard pressed firmly against the wall. 

This last step is optional but I decided to also run duck tape over the stapled down thread just to double ensure that the thread doesn't move. The staples should work fine, but I thought why not!

The back is so purty. I know.

...and BOOM. Why spend $2,000 on a Queen size headboard when you can DIY for $200?

Please feel free to email me with any questions at saintrooster@gmail.com!! Enjoy your masterpiece. :)

redid my kitchen table!

this makes me feel good.

mmmbook tree.

Alfred Hitchcock Directs the MGM Lion, 1958

Great time in Linville this weekend!

Some of my best friends. :)

"All right, then, I'll go to hell."

today i thought i'd share a post by one of my favorite thinkers, Rachel Held Evans. i hope it challenges you and i hope it moves you as much as it did me. hats off rachel.

If I had to pick a favorite American writer, it would be Mark Twain, and if I had to pick a favorite scene from an American novel, it would be the one where his unlikely hero, Huckleberry Finn, accepts his fate in hell.

It’s the moral climax of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The duke and dauphin have betrayed Jim and sold him to the Phelpses “for forty dirty dollars,” and the Phelpses have locked Jim in their shed, where he awaits his return to his rightful owner for a $200 reward. Huck goes back to the raft to figure out what to do next, and there he gets to thinking about the lessons he learned in Sunday school about what happens to people like him who assist runaway slaves.

“People that acts as I’d been acting about [Jim],” he’d been told, “goes to everlasting fire.”

(After all, the Bible is clear: “Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear”
- Ephesians: 6:5.)

Huck feels genuine conviction regarding his sin and, fearful of his certain fate in hell unless he changes course, he decides to write a letter to Jim’s owner, Miss Watson, to tell her where Jim can be found: 

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:"All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.”

It is a moment of true moral courage, complicated though it is by troubling ingrained cultural assumptions. (Later, Huck can only make sense of Jim’s kindness to him and Tom Sawyer by concluding he must be “white on the inside,” a comment that reveals Twain’s gift for creating characters that both critique yet fully inhabit their cultural contexts.)

I often think about Huck’s resolution when I am told by religious leaders that “the Bible is clear” on this or that, and that I’ve got to stop listening to those gut feelings that tell me maybe we’ve gotten a few things wrong, that maybe there’s more to the story than we’re ready to see.

“Your feelings don’t matter,” they say.

“Your feelings cannot be trusted,” they say.

“Once you start listening to your feelings, over and beyond the plain meaning of Scripture, it’s a slippery slope to hell,” they say.

A part of me agrees. I want to be faithful to the inspired words of the Bible, not bend them to fit my own desires and whims. Being a person of faith means trusting God’s revelation, even when the path it reveals is not clear or comfortable.

But another part of me worries that a religious culture that asks its followers to silence their conscience is just the kind of religious culture that produces $200 rewards for runaway slaves. The Bible has been “clear” before, after all—in support of a flat and stationary earth, in support of wiping out infidels, in support of manifest destiny, in support of Indian removal, in support of anti-Semitism, in support of slavery, in support of “separate but equal,” in support of constitutional amendments banning interracial marriage.

In hindsight, it all seems so foolish, such an obvious abuse of Scripture.

...But at the time?

A few months ago, I was invited to serve communion at a church in San Diego that included quite a few LGBT Christians in its membership. A lot of things happened in that service that would make some of the leaders in my evangelical religious community very angry: a woman serving the bread and the wine, a lesbian couple partaking of the elements with their baby daughter in tow, a gay man embracing me in a big bear hug and telling me that it was the first time in twenty years he felt worthy to come to the Table.

In that moment—the one with the big bear hug—I knew what my Sunday school teachers would say. They would say that this man was most certainly not worthy to come to the Table, that I was most certainly not worthy to serve, and that daring to participate in this endeavor would surely take me one step closer to “everlasting fire.” 

“The body of Christ, broken for you,” I said anyway.

“The blood of Christ, shed for you,” I said anyway.

“The body of Christ, broken for you,” he said anyway.

“The blood of Christ, shed for you, he said anyway.

As we embraced, I knew in a way that I cannot put into words that sharing communion with this man was the right thing to do, that it was an act of bravery and grace for both of us—together unworthy, together worthy, brother and sister, in the mystery of the Eucharist.

So when the thought of my Sunday school teachers’ disapproval crossed my mind, the only words to surface to my lips were, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”

God and Gays #2: Sharing the Gospel

So I got a lot of flack for my post entitled "God and Gays". I got a lot of encouragement and support, but I also got a lot of flack...which should be expected if you write about things and put things on the internet.

Most of the tomatoes that were flung my way were by conservative readers who were upset over my take on what it means to "properly" spread the Gospel. And I want to first and foremost say that I appreciate your positions and respect your viewpoints on what it looks like to present the love and compassion of the Lord. There is indeed no formula for this and to be honest, there are many of us who are going to have differing opinions.

Just with any book one reads, the mental pictures developed and the lessons learned will vary from one person to the next. The slight differences in raconter of the four Gospels alone show us how our viewpoints on the same story can look slightly different sometimes. Are the underlying lessons and standards Jesus set for us open to being altered and colored by our own opinions? No. No they most certainly are not. I am not here to adjust the Good News to my liking. In fact, I promise you that I will always address difficult issues from a compassionate, Bible-based, Christ-centered perspective.

So back to the subject on what it looks like to spread the Gospel.

In order to answer that question, it is important to answer a few others first. My answers will not be lengthy, they will be to the point and hopefully clear.

What is the Gospel and why is it important?

The Gospel is the account of Jesus' life, and the central Christian message is a proclamation of redemption through the offering of Jesus Christ for one's sins.

I am keeping this answer short not because I want to spare you from reading an 8-page blog post, but because I hope that it is at this point you will stop reading here, pick up a Bible, and read one of the Gospels yourself. Christian or not, it's important to have a grasp on all religions in order to love others well. Beliefs are important to people, and that matters. This goes for you too Christian friend of mine. Don't be ignorant of other faiths. There is beauty in all and even though you don't embrace something in another faith, doesn't mean it's irrelevant and isn't important to someone. It's extremely difficult to love others well if you don't understand what they value.

No matter what religion you follow, we can all agree that there is a lot of corruption in the world. We have to teach babies to be good, not bad, and we go through our days rarely feeling hook line and sinker satisfied. Yes, we have moments when we're on cloud 9 and yes we have days when life just makes sense and feels good. But please don't be arrogant enough to think that life is consistently happy, your bank account is always so full it's embarrasing to talk about, and your significant other meets every beating desire of your heart. If you disagree with me here and your life is perfect, then may I borrow some money and have the keys to your Bugatti.

Christianity shouldn't be something you're convinced or scared into. Christianity is born with God's perfect will revealing Himself to us and us responding to that Grace. The wisdom and tenderness of the Lord's work becomes more apparent to me with every scripture I read and every moment I give. It is liberating and humbling, and unfortunately, I feel that a lot of us miss the mark due to an austere formula of what it looks like to share it.

A dear friend of mine from college, Gabriel Mudd, wrote what I feel is a theologically sound and compassionate view on what it looks like to share the Gospel.

"At this day in age in the US, you would be hard pressed to find someone who has not heard the gospel message, doesn't have a minute familiarity with the bible, or at least hasn't heard the arguments for, about, or against sin, and specifically homosexuality. There tends to be a lot of bitterness (legitimately) because of how someone has been treated, spurned, thrown out of a church, rejected, unloved, hated and abused for being honest, trying to seek help, or feeling different.
If someone confesses to be a charismatic Christian, generally speaking, people in the US know what that means, and often the association is having a hard-line stance on certain issues, complete with biblical support. And there is nothing wrong with standing for what you believe and knowing why you believe it. But often what gets lost in the balance is love for others. Some people are so zealous that they forget the human aspect of our basic intrinsic needs, to be loved fully and completely. They overlook the person’s heart in the balance and some are unfortunately trying to exault their own holiness over someone else for whatever reason. Instead of handling a situation with compassion, they blatantly say the hard line answer, not knowing the person’s history and not handling it with tact or understanding the story behind the situation. I’m not saying the situation is right, but from my own experiences, struggle and treatment, I know that things can be handled better so that others aren’t burned by Christians.
Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. That is how you share the gospel. By consistency. By compassion. By having a stance but not judging others, (which is exactly what “sinners” have come to expect from “Christians,” almost so that they are pulling for the judgment to justify their uneasiness). We are to share the love of Christ, let God be the judge of all morality, and gain a better understanding of someone else’s heart and struggles."

I am a Christian. And my responsibility is to humbly and boldly follow the Lord and lay down my arms. It is to live like Jesus did. It is to stop waging war. It is to wash your feet.
So here is another apology on behalf of the Christians before me and around me who have not only epically failed at this, but who have put a chip on your shoulder or a dager in your heart.