Author Archives: Kevin Hawke

The Story of The Hawke

The Hawke and Samaro spar in preparation of their next battle with the evil ones.

By Kevin R. Hawke

The Hawke is a superhero of epic proportions. He has seemingly unlimited powers. All of these powers derive from a special ring named Mr. Blue.

You see, this ring was made by a mysterious Navajo Indian in the year 2007. He was called by God to make a special ring for a special person. The Indian didn’t know who the ring was for; he just knew that he had to follow the will of God. He made the ring of sterling silver and turquoise. It was unlike any other ring ever made. Even the turquoise stone had silver strips running through it. He didn’t even quite know how he made it. He had never made anything so beautiful.

By God’s command, it was to be a size 16. The old Navajo thought, Who in the world would be able to wear such a big ring? But God assured him that the man would come along to retrieve it eventually.

The old Indian was told to give the ring to an 80-year-old lady in Greenwich Village. This would be the place that the mysterious owner of the ring would come.

Three years went by. The ring was kept on display for all to see. The lady had been told the story of how God led the Navajo to make the special ring. Even though she wondered if the Indian was crazy, she wanted to make sure that the rightful owner would see the ring if by some miracle he happened to wander into her little shop.

Finally, it was July 21, 2010; the man that would soon bear the ring happened to wander into the old lady’s store. He was there on vacation with his wife of almost five years. They perused the rings for some time and then he saw it.

The man’s last name was Hawke. He was a Cherokee Indian. He spotted the special ring and felt led to it. He asked the old lady if he could see the ring and she refused to show it to him. She had shown that ring to so many people over the years. It was the most beautiful man’s ring ever. Everyone wanted to see it. What would make this tattooed man any different?

Mr. Hawke was a tattooed man with a weird hat on called a trilby. He was a musician. We all know how strange and flamboyant they can be. Let’s face it; the old woman had given up on the dream of the Navajo she had met three years prior. Perhaps the Navajo was just crazy.

Mr. Hawke repeatedly begged her to show him the ring. She refused. She had become so hardened by the streets of New York City. She had lost all hope in God and life. There was so much crime and no one seemed to believe anymore.

The man called Hawke and his wife left and returned to the hotel. He couldn’t sleep that night. The thought of the ring wouldn’t leave his mind. He tossed and turned all night. Why would this ring be so important?

He decided to go back the next afternoon to confront the shop owner about the ring. He entered the store and the woman didn’t seem too happy about it. She was annoyed that Hawke kept asking about the ring. She told him that it was a size 16 and there was no way he could wear it. Hawke insisted that she let him try it.

Finally, she gave in. She searched for the key to open the jewelry case and opened it up. She pulled the ring out and slid it onto Hawke’s finger. Her mouth fell open in surprise. The ring fit perfectly! She couldn’t believe it. After all these years, the prophecy had been fulfilled, or at least part of it.

Mr. Hawke left with the ring that would remain with him forever.

The ring was a gift from God, through a Navajo, through an old woman, to a Cherokee.

What would it mean? Why did God want this man to have this ring?

Not long after leaving the shop, Mr. Hawke witnessed a woman getting beat up by her loser boyfriend.

Without even thinking, something came over Hawke. The ring he had just bought started to change. The silver of the ring started to spread from the ring, up his right arm and then the silver spread over his entire body. And then a strip of turquoise wrapped around his head at the level of his eyes and at the level of his mouth. Turquoise strips also wrapped around his elbows and his knees.

This ring was definitely not a normal ring. It possessed powers given by God for the protection of society.

At that moment, Mr. Hawke turned into The Hawke.

He immediately stopped the man from beating on the woman. He secured him to a pole to wait for the police and got the woman to a hospital.

The ring had made him into a superhero. The ring could do anything that The Hawke could imagine. Its only perceivable limit was The Hawke’s imagination.

When the situation was over, all of the silver and turquoise retracted back into the ring, and Mr. Hawke seemed to be normal again.

But the ring seemed to guide Hawke from then on. It would send him to where a superhero was needed and he would always go where the ring led.

God had made a soldier to fight for His people.

COMING SOON: The Story of Samaro

Kevin: Me, My Dad and Elvis

Me and my dad, about 1977

I feel like I’m constantly evolving into something else. It seems as if my past, my present, and my future are all intertwining into one strong rope that can’t be broken. That is a good thing.

I suspect that Jo thinks I’m a bit extreme for being so interested in Elvis, but he filled a void in my life, and I’ve never forgotten it. My earliest memory of Elvis must have been when he died. I remember sitting in the living room with my dad and watching concert after concert during the night. I thought he was the most awesome personality that I had ever seen.

I remember when my dad left. I remember there being lots of screaming and crying and me feeling like I was caught in the middle. I really tried to sink into the atmosphere and disappear. My daddy, the person everyone said I was just like, was leaving me. The word devastated is probably not strong enough to describe my feelings.

The truth is that I don’t know, with any certainty, how old I was when my dad left. I’m thinking around five or six. Who knows if I’m even remembering that night accurately, or not. It’s been about 32 years ago.

I remember watching my dad getting ready to go play music. He was my Elvis. He had the jet black hair and all. He wore the stylish clothes of the day and wore those cool side-zip boots. My dad was kind of famous around here. He was one of the T-birds. I remember sitting back stage while Susan Lea, the singer, would play with my hair and comb it like Elvis’.

Me, about 1976

I don’t really know how I ended up loving Elvis so much other than my relating him to my dad. After my dad left, I poured all of my hurt and pain into listening to Elvis. It’s like I could relate to the pain and hurt that I heard in his voice. I still hear it. I think that’s what draws a lot of people to him. He’s like a kid crying out for his parent. Perhaps he was crying out for his mommy that he loved so much.

Elvis was a very sweet person with a heart so big, but he also had a temper that matched it. No one could be more loving than me when I was a kid, but I also had that terrible temper. We both love our mommas dearly, and the rest of our family. Elvis and I both loved Christmas. Somehow, I have fought that feeling for many years since my grandpa died. It’s like I let Christmas die with him. I need to embrace Christmas with that love that I used to have for it. I have more reason now than I ever had to absolutely love Christmas. The only negatives are having to work and that some of the family that I love have died, but they’re always with us in spirit. I want to love life like I used to. I deserve it.

I have the most beautiful wife in the entire world. I also have beautiful and smart children that I love dearly. I have every reason in the world to love Christmas. I’m taking Christmas back for myself! I love life and I want to enjoy it now. I understand what Christmas means now and I want to revel in it. It’s all about love and the truth is that I’m bubbling over with love. I need to stop trying to contain it and just let it overflow. I need to stop being so wrapped up in myself and let the people that I love know that I love them beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I love my wife more than life itself. I want her to be bubbling over with my love for her. I’m running out of time. We all are. Time is something we really can’t make more of.

Since I’ve been a dad, I’ve wanted to be super consistent for my children, but what I’ve found is that this desire is not always possible to enact. The truth is that I’m ever-evolving. I don’t want to remain the same and consistent. I don’t really like who I am. I am certainly not perfectly holy yet, so I can’t be consistent. I need to be fluid and to change. Fortunately, my kids are pretty forgiving and understanding.

I want them to know that there is no one on this planet that I love more than their sweet, sweet mama. I wish I could kiss her on the forehead right now.

I’ve got to get past trying to be the same as I already am because that is not where I need to be.

I have just as much love in me as anybody in this world does. My whole life and the life of my beautiful wife and kids and everybody that I come into contact with will be changed if I truly let everyone see all of the love that I have inside. I will do it starting now. I promise to God that this is my highest priority above all else.

I’ve removed my lapis rosary and took my tiger’s-eye rosary out of my pocket. There’s such a fine line between faith and superstition. I need a break from them. I must guard against superstition. I feel good about this decision. The truth is that I don’t need the rosary to pray and I usually pray without it because I can’t hold on to it a lot of the time that I’m praying. Praying is about as automatic for me as breathing. I need to not have requirements for whether I wear a rosary or a scapular, or not. I will always fulfill my commitment to the Church and the Confraternity. That’s all that matters in regards to the rosary.

I need to not bog myself down with anything. My only focus is to be true love. I want to be pure and clean. The presence of pure love will always make a difference and, with God’s help, I will be that. He wants all of us to be that love, and to share that love, for He is love itself.

Currently, I’m wearing only my wedding ring and my anniversary ring. I’m focusing on the incredible love I have for my wife. She is so beautiful. I love her from head to toe. I don’t know why God decided to give me the gift of Jo, but I’m sure glad He did. I want her to totally feel how much I love her. Please help me with that God.

Kevin R. Hawke (John of the Cross)
February 23, 2012

Kevin’s Conversion Story

Grandma Simpson & Atticus, June 2008

My grandma, Ethel Mae Simpson, was quite an extraordinary woman. Born in 1923 and raised in a rather poor environment, she always lived a rather simple life. But her life was extraordinary in that she lived a life of faith and prayer. She was a lifelong member of Mount Olivet United Methodist Church.

She married the love of her life in 1940 and went on to have three children. She remained faithful to Grandpa even after he died. I really admire that. She knew that no one could replace him. She always talked about him like he had just left on a trip. You wouldn’t know that he had been dead for years.

Grandma is largely responsible for my faith. Like I said earlier, she was a lifelong United Methodist. She was the type that couldn’t be stopped if she had her mind made up. When I came along (I was born in 1973), Grandma made up her mind that I was going to go to church with her and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. She made sure that every Sunday I went to church. I believed in God and was even baptized Methodist on December 23, 1984. I was eleven.

I thought I had everything figured out until my sweet, precious grandpa died in 1991. My whole world crashed. I just couldn’t understand why Grandpa would leave me like that. I became quite angry with God. I turned against everybody and everything. For about six years, I was anti–everything.

In about 1997, I started exploring Wicca. It’s a nature–based religion with a “Sun–god” and a “Moon–goddess” and a motto of, “an it harm none, do what thou wilt.” It seemed so peaceful and natural. I prayed to Woden and Freya and became rather spiritual. All creation is special. Like all religions, there is some truth in this one, but not all of the truth. Frankly, I didn’t think any religion had all of the truth.

By 2005, when I married the woman of my dreams, I believed in God, but couldn’t describe it much more than that. Jo and I got married on July 27, 2005, in New York City. What an awesome day. I married the most beautiful woman ever.

We went back to NYC in 2006 for our anniversary. On our one–year anniversary, we left the busy streets and walked into St. Bartholomew’s. Jo was pregnant and needed a break from walking in the 100-degree weather. I thought it would be cool to see a pretty church. I wasn’t really looking for anything or expecting anything.

When my Queen and I walked into St. Bart’s and the door shut behind us, something came over me. The peace beyond all understanding came down on me. I immediately knew that God had reached down his mighty hand and grabbed hold of me. My whole life was changed right then.

Jo bought me a beautiful silver Celtic cross necklace in the St. Bart’s gift shop to remind me of this awesome moment. I felt on fire for God. I wore this cross always.

We had Atticus September 25, 2006. On October 26, 2006, I was ordained as a minister by St. Luke’s Evangelical Christian Ministries. St. Bart’s is an Episcopal church, but I became an Evangelical minister. I preached one sermon. It was on forgiveness. My grandma came to the church that I preached at just to hear me. It was at Victory Family Church in Danville, Va.

In 2008, we went back to St. Bart’s, and I bought a rosary. I didn’t know what a rosary was; I just knew that I had to have one. After we got home, I fell to my knees and prayed to have the dedication of a monk as much as I can, considering I’m a married man. I then felt led to pray the Lord’s Prayer 150 times every day. I used my new rosary to count the prayers.

At work, I asked some of the officers if they ever prayed the Lord’s Prayer. Most of them said no. I found it interesting that people seemed to think it was better to pray a prayer they made up instead of the prayer Jesus told them to pray. Hmmm. I knew the Lord’s Prayer very well because we prayed it every week at Mount Olivet, where I grew up.

One of the officers at work referred to the Lord’s Prayer as the model prayer. I had never heard it called that. So, it was time to dig into the Internet.

I found that someone did call it the model prayer in the nineteenth century, but it was more commonly called the Lord’s Prayer (at least by Protestants). Prior to the Protestant Reformation, it was called the Pater Noster (Our Father in Latin). The earliest record I could find of that was 350 A.D. The monks in 350 A.D. prayed the 150 Psalms a day, but some monks couldn’t read. The illiterate monks prayed 150 Pater Nosters a day.

Wait a minute!! That’s what I was led to do. I was led to pray 150 Our Fathers (Pater Nosters) per day just like the monks did in 350. God had answered my prayer of making me dedicated like the monks by starting with making me pray like them. Wow! God had “spoken” to me again.

My logic started to lean toward checking out the Catholic Church. After all, monks are Catholic. We almost immediately went to Sacred Heart Catholic Church to check it out.

I also did a lot of searching on the Internet trying to disprove the Church, but found that it can’t be done. Jo and I went on to be confirmed Catholic in 2010.

This meant that my ordination was not valid and, for some time, I didn’t wear my special Celtic cross because it’s what I wore when I was Rev. Kevin R. Hawke. I was trying to separate myself from my Protestant roots, but in reality, I didn’t need to.

I love the Catholic Church and know that it is the absolute truth, but I might not have ever found it without the dedication of my beautiful grandmother and her United Methodist beliefs. Or what about the fact that the peace of Jesus came over me in an Episcopal church? God can use these churches to lead you to the true Church, the Catholic Church.

A few days ago, January 15, 2012, was my grandma’s birthday. It was the first one since she died. On that day, I put my special Celtic cross back on. Although my grandma and her Methodist church didn’t have all of the truth, I might not have ever found it without her. Thank God for grandma.

Kevin R. Hawke
(John of the Cross)
January 18, 2012

The Tale of the Badger Ring

(By Kevin)

When my friend and coworker of about eight years, Scott, was a teenager, his dad was a Baptist minister and missionary to the Seminole Indians in Hollywood, Florida.

The Seminoles respected him so much that they gave him a ring they had made for him, and a couple of years ago, Scott gave the ring to me.

Silver with turquoise and jadeite stones, the ring is engraved with a badger claw on either side.

At first, I thought they were bear claws, but when I pulled the ring out of my drawer back in January, I started doing a little more research and realized the paws are much longer than a bear’s. Definitely badger.

According to Native American tradition, badgers represent passion, courage, leadership, health and strength.

Scott didn’t know why the Seminoles chose to make this particular ring for his father. Since much like Catholics, Native Americans see meaning in everything they do, though, it seems likely that it was because his father represented the qualities they saw in the badger.

Looking into the ring’s significance also spurred me to ask my grandmother about my own Native American ancestry. She told me that Loudema Shelton, my grandfather’s grandmother, was a full-blooded Cherokee.

That same day, Lucas, Atticus and I spent the afternoon running through the woods around my grandmother’s house, the woods I grew up in.

I told them about the ring and the badger, and we gave each other Indian names. I knelt down and let the creek water flow over the badger ring. That creek is like a part of my soul.

That day was the last time I saw my grandmother before she went to the hospital, where I lost her forever. :(

Later, I researched the possibility of living on the Cherokee reservation and found out that, since I’m 1/16 Cherokee, I would be eligible for it with further documentation.

There’s a part of me that would love to immerse my family in that culture because of its symbolism and spirituality, much like the Truth, the Catholic Church.

Rejoicing at the Death of Osama?

NOTE from Jo: This is Kevin’s first post here!!!!

I looked at the internet to see what the “news” was saying. Frankly, I have a very difficult time believing anything that comes from the mouth of our president. He is the most pro-death president in the history of our young country. He seems to be pretty much the opposite of me. He is pro-death, pro-homosexuality, pro-war, and seemingly anti-marriage and anti-God.

The people that signed Roe vs. Wade into law are bigger terrorists than Osama could have ever been. Those people are directly responsible for upwards of fifty million deaths, probably closer to sixty million. They killed all of those babies and made us support it financially. The taxpayers of this country are still being forced to pay for Planned Parenthood. 98% of what they do leads parents to commit murder. A more accurate name for them would be Planned Barrenhood. They have no interest in adoption. They are abortion mills (murder factories) more horrible than any concentration camp and more successful in their treacherous terror.

Back to Osama. Let’s assume for a moment that Osama is actually dead. This is a pretty daring assumption considering the trustworthiness of the news and our leaders. How much can you trust someone who is not led by the Creator? How much can you trust someone who is absolutely against the Church and everything it stands for? What’s interesting is that people who do not trust Obama and even hate him, automatically believe him when he says that someone else they hate is dead. And why do they hate Osama? Is it because he is/was supposedly evil. To my knowledge, not one single person that I know has ever met Osama bin Laden. No one I know knows/knew him. The only source we have to feed our hatred of him is what we are fed by the media and our government.

This reminds me of the Cold War days that I grew up in. Some people in our country believed that the citizens of the U.S.S.R. loved us and wanted us to come in and save their country. Isn’t that the mindset we seem to always have? You may be surprised to know that this concept is often far from the truth. Governments are spin doctors. The U.S. was convincing us to hate the U.S.S.R. while the U.S.S.R. was convincing their people to hate us. This is the way that war and propaganda work. People always say that there are two sides to every story. I say that there are at least three: yours, mine, and the absolute truth without our personal (often unaware) manipulations.

The truth of the matter is that God has told us that we can’t hate anyone, including Osama. If we are the Christians that we like to think we are, we have to want love, peace, and happiness for all, including Osama. We have to hope and desire that he goes to heaven. All the Catholic Churches in the world should pray for the repose of the soul of Osama bin Laden this coming Sunday. The Church is to be the example for everyone else to follow. As Christians, we are to desire that Osama repented of his sins and turned to Christ as his savior before he died.

News Alert: If he did repent and accept the Lord as his savior before he died, Osama will be in heaven. You see, the problem is that people really don’t believe what they say they believe. They say they believe that anyone can be forgiven if they are truly repentant and ask God’s forgiveness. But they really only believe this if the person is not too bad by their standards. God would forgive stealing a piece of candy from the store, but he wouldn’t forgive murder, or sexual assault (especially on a minor), or whatever someone deems to be horrible in their own opinion. But your opinion doesn’t change much of anything. It definitely doesn’t change what the truth is.

Mortal sin is mortal sin is mortal sin. No exceptions. You may think that not following Church teaching on something like fasting on Good Friday or not going to Church on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation is not nearly as big a deal as molesting a child. What about adultery? It seems that lots of people don’t seem to think that’s a big deal. After all, it is sex between consenting adults. Of course, they don’t think about the other spouse at home who does not consent, or of God who doesn’t consent. Is Osama so much worse than we are?

There are millions of murderers in this United States. Yes, I said murderers. They’re not murdering people who they don’t even know. Unfortunately, the most likely person to molest you and/or kill you is your parent, not some “terrorist.” How sick is that? We are a sick race in dire need of God right here and now. Maybe we should get the plank out of our own eye instead of being so quick to examine the one in Osama’s eye.

Maybe we’re all terrorists in our own way. Maybe you’re terrorizing your wife by not treating her like you should, or by cheating on her. Maybe you’re terrorizing your children by teaching them false doctrines. Maybe you’re teaching them that it really doesn’t matter what you do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

Wake up!!! Everything we do affects someone else. Yes, even if you do it behind closed doors where no one else sees. You are still sinning and affecting the world. You cannot hide from God. Are you teaching your child that it’s okay to kill a baby, or to be with someone of the same sex? We are held responsible for what we do and for how we guide our children.

Someone said that it was God’s will that Osama be killed on May 1st. That seems utterly ridiculous to me. First of all, we rarely know God’s will. All we can do is study the Bible and try our best every day to be true to the Trinity and the Church. Why would it be God’s will for Osama to die? Is it because we have decided that he is evil and that he should die? Is it because we hate him? If His will was for Osama to die on May 1, 2011, I can only logically concur that God’s will must have been for Osama to live all of the days prior to May 1st.

This is really a dangerous line of thought. We can easily become theologically confused in such matters. If someone walks up to you today and shoots you in the head, was that God’s will? We base what is God’s will on what we like and dislike. See, if we hate Osama, then it is God’s will that he died. What about someone who dies in a car crash at the age of 16? Is it God’s will that they die? Most people I encounter would think that it wasn’t. We like that person, so it couldn’t have been God’s will that they die. Or some people turn against God because of His will being something that they couldn’t deal with.

The theological principle of double predestination states that your destiny will be your destiny no matter what you do. In other words, Osama was going to die yesterday no matter what he did, even if he were a good and holy Christian. His fate of heaven or hell was also decided from the beginning of time. This thinking is dangerous because it follows that it really wouldn’t matter what we did if our end result was guaranteed one way or the other from the beginning. This heretical teaching strips us of one of the gifts that God gave us to help us grow. That gift is free will.

Predestination states that God does have a plan for all of us, but we’re not necessarily bound by God’s control to follow it. We have free will to choose it, or not. There really can’t be true love without free will. If we only loved God because we had no choice, it really wouldn’t be love at all. I firmly believe that God’s plan was for Jo to be my wife, but she still has free will which means that she could have ignored God’s plan and told me to go away. I’m very thankful that she did follow God’s plan, but she wasn’t forced to by God. If you have to make someone love you, it’s not love at all.

The truth is God allows evil people to be. If He wanted someone to die, He would only have to remove His hand from them. The scourges of society are potential saint makers. Dealing with someone who is “evil” can lead you toward being an evil, despising, hateful, warmongering person, but it can also help you to see the flaws in yourself and influence you to strive harder to achieve holiness. The evils we encounter, whether they be evil persons or situations or illnesses, help to refine our souls into the purity that we must attain in order to see God in heaven. We are born impure and we must have trials and fire to burn out our impurities. We cannot wish that anyone dies or goes to hell or suffers in any way. To do so would be evil and against God.

God is love. Where love is, God is. Where love is not, God is not. Hatred and love cannot exist in the same place. We must decide who we will follow. To follow the path of love is to follow God. To follow the path of hatred and unforgiveness is to follow the evil one. To paraphrase my hero, Blessed Pope John Paul 2, we must win with love. Evil will devour itself. Unless we win with love, that evil will just come back over and over under a different name.

Be aware that I am not defending Osama in any way. I just think that our perspective is very warped.

Christ Pantocrator

Jesus coin: ‘Ἰησοῦς Χριστός’

It was the coolest unexpected Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten. It was given to me a couple of years ago by my father-in-law, who is an avid historian. A Roman coin made of bronze, it was made 1,000 years before me around the year 973, during the reign of John I.

The tradition was to have the Roman emperors on the obverse, or front, of the coin. However, it was commonly believed that the world would end in the year 1,000, so people were turning toward Jesus who usually hadn’t before. It seems almost a sort of penance to put Jesus’ image on the coins.

Jesus is pictured on the front of the coin with a halo, holding a book of gospels. You can see what the image would have looked like from the mosaic above of the Christ Pantocrator (usually translated “Almighty”) that’s in the Hagia Sophia.

Even though it’s a Roman coin, the words on the back of the coin are Greek. They say, “XINSUS XRISTUS BASILEU BASILE.” It means, “Jesus Christ, King of Kings.”