I made a post last night about my family’s experience at Six Flags in Atlanta.
I removed it.
Comments became a cesspit of garbage.
Park staff did nothing to help, despite this situation causing a medical emergency.
Just don’t go there.
@HebrewWifey You can love your enemy and still fight them. It’s not about suicidal empathy. It’s about the transcendence of love. Joshua was teaching us that even in the darkest of transactions we have with one another, there is still room for God.
@giantgio No idea but I’ve wondered if there were perhaps some criss-crossing aesthetic currents with films from the previous decade… like the apex scene in Contact (1997) & the paradisiacal setttings in Cast Away & The Beach (2000).
I see your profile picture. That’s Johnny Cash. My hero too. Arrested seven times. Smuggled 668 amphetamines across the Mexican border in 1965. Took every drug there was and drank like I did. Cheated on his first wife. Slept with more woman than I ever did. Hit bottom in a cave in Tennessee in 1968 trying to crawl off and die. And then he got up. He got clean. He spent the rest of his life singing for prisoners and addicts and the people the country threw away because he knew he was one of them.
That was the whole point of the Man in Black. He wore it for the poor and the beaten down. He wore it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime. He wore it for the ones who never heard a word of Jesus. He wore it for the addicted and the dying. He wore it as a standing witness that no one is past saving.
You picked his picture. You did not pick his message. Try listening to the words.
This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21.
The choice was not made lightly. We really appreciate all of the personal stories that you guys shared with us, especially the unconditional support we received from fans with no matter what we decided.
I know some of you may be very disappointed to hear this news. We are devastated. This has been extremely traumatic for both of us, especially Ashley.
She underwent the procedure earlier this week and is on the mend. Thankfully, everything went smoothly, but emotionally we are drained.
Trisomy 21, also known as Down Syndrome, is caused by an extra chromosome. It is caused by an error in cell division, like a glitch. The odds of a baby having it is 1 in 1000.
When I first confronted this news, I was shocked but optimistic. If they’re a little slow intellectually, then we’ll make it work. I signed on to be a parent, come what may…but I just didn’t fully understand what Down Syndrome entailed.
Once we made it public, it became clear that MOST people don’t know what Down Syndrome entails (and no, it’s not the same as Autism):
50% of babies with DS have heart defects. 75% will have hearing challenges. Over 50% will have vision problems. Impaired immune function, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, delayed physical development, poor muscle tone, structural issues with face, decreased lifespan, etc…Sadly, the list is long, feel free to look it up…Down Syndome isn’t a “blessing”, it is objectively shitty from a health perspective.
I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family…more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.
The miscarriage risk is also close to 50%, which made matters worse…they may never see the light of day and it puts Ashley further at risk.
We spoke with doctors, friends, family and genetic counselors and learned that up to 90% of women terminate their pregnancy after learning the baby has Trisomy 21.
This was WAY higher than I expected, I thought it would be lower given that I hear so many say they kept or would keep the baby. I believe that’s because most terminations happen privately, it feels shameful. A lot of judgment being cast.
You never think you’d be in this type of situation until it happens to you and then things change.
To all of my fans who have weighed in on this topic who have Autism, Down Syndrome or any other conditions…we appreciate you. You matter a lot and we’re glad you’re here. I commend you and your families for having the strength and courage to push forward.
As for us, we made a difficult decision that we believe in the long-run will be beneficial for our family. Thankfully, we had a choice.
It will take a little time to move on, but we are excited to try again in the future and hopefully have a better outcome.
Love you guys & thank you for understanding. ❤️
@SoundDobad I know this may sound petty, but I can’t stand it when people put photoshop a meth pipe in my mouth. A crack pipe doesn’t have that little bowl at the end. This is why we can’t trust AI. Please make the appropriate edit. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
No. I’m saying if you need a tax break to incentivize donating time and labor a church, meaning you otherwise wouldn’t have donated the time and energy unless you had that incentive, then you’re doing it for material reasons. You’re not doing it to serve God, you’re doing it to serve yourself.
@BonifaceOption The incentive is the spirit of service to God and community. If you need a tax break to incentivize you to help a church, then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, which is not a good thing.
Yes. I notice much of what you are saying and glad you took the time to articulate. Just the other day I was struck with a sense that the golden age is already over. Felt like it only lasted for a brief moment.
I often wonder if, at some point, as the labs layer more and more onto The Assistant, that ultimately it will collapse under its own weight(s). Thanks for sharing.
I wish I had this level of conviction about such things. All I can say is that time and motion seem to be the same thing to me. I can’t think of time without motion and I can’t think of motion without time. It’s an open question to me as to whether they are really any different from one another.
I have a great quote for you from physicist Carlo Rovelli. He was asked “What are you convinced of, but cannot prove?”
“I am convinced, but cannot prove that time does not exist.
I am convinced that time and space are… convenient macroscopic approximations, flimsy but illusory and insufficient screens that our minds use to organize our reality.
I am convinced that time is an artifact of the approximation in which we disregard the large majority of the degrees of freedom of reality.”