Sup Juggalos,
I know that I am backed up on sermons. I've been running around frantically trying to get everything done for my Family and archiving sermons and writing them hasn't been achievable until now. I preached this sermon two weeks ago, live on MyJuggalospace and I really encourage you that if you have the opportunity and you are online to tune in and listen to MJSR on Sunday's to hear the service. Ninjas who've been hearing me preach for years will tell you that there is a big contrast between a sermon that has been preached and a sermon that has been written. But I hope that for which ever way that this sermon receives you that you take from it something positive.
My daughter, Lillian Lotus Faanes was born March 5th, 2009. Not only did my Family pull through to help out, but my Juggalo Family really pulled through in our time of need. Rev. Dave, Rabbi Ponix, Deacon Jester and Joker drove 5 hours from Va Beach just to be there for her birth and be there for my wife and I. That brothers and sisters is what true Family can do for you.
I know that when my daughter was still growing in my wife's belly that her and I used to speculate about what kind of woman she would grow to be. What kinds of things would she say and do based on the influence of her mother and father? My wife, who is incredibly gorgeous, never truly thought that she was pretty. Women tend to underrate themselves especially as they are constantly comparing themselves to other women and the falseness of the media's interpretation of what is beauty. I told my wife that I hoped our daughter grew up to look and feel as she does. Not in the sense that she doesn't feel that she is beautiful (enough), but in the sense of being humble and willing to judge people off their character and trustworthiness vice their physical attributes.
I remember that when I was growing up I was never the "cool" kid. I wasn't adorn with friends and popularity. I wasn't part of the "in crowd". Growing up I was programmed that I wasn't good looking and I wasn't going to be good at anything and the cruel chiding of other children and society only served to reinforce that opinion. My father was the one who taught me that other people's opinion didn't matter. I didn't truly grasp that meaning until I was awakened by the Carnival. I remember the cruelness of those other kids and as a parent reflecting back on my youth, I fear that my children will undergo the same cruelness. I joked with my wife and said that when Demitri is old enough he will take up weight lifting like his father and take kung fu classes so that even if he wasn't part of the "in crowd" he could still kick a muthafacko's ass.
The reality of the situation is this. We are who we make ourselves to be. We must break free of the programming and not allow someone else's preconceived notions to control us. Each one of us has the ability to overcome our fears and misgivings and achieve what we want to achieve. If YOU believe that you are NOTHING, then a nothing you shall be. If YOU believe that you are UGLY then ugly is what you shall become. Nary a Juggalo that I have met has there ever been one's of pure crud and disfigurement. Even the scrubbiness of ninja has held a light inside them. It is when we turn away from this light and choose to live in our own dungeon of discontentment that we become that which is ugly and that which is wicked to the eye of the beholder. Even the fattest of fat kids has been known to have a bright smile and beauty that shines within that just makes people want to love them that much more.
Juggalos, we need not to impress the mainstream or to succumb to the cruelness of children. In the Eyes of the Carnival we are who we have made ourselves out to be. We have no one to blame for this. Not the school kids, not our parents, not any other living creature. We choose to shine within, we choose whether to survive or wallow in our self-pity, we choose to bring forth beauty or to live in ugliness. I will tell you that I have yet to see a female Juggalo who is ugly in my sight. We are all beautiful until we open our mouths and perform our deeds, then our true beauty is decided. You can look like Angelina all you want, but if your heart is cold, you might as well be Medusa.
MCL
