Is It Too Much To Ask?

I truly hope you took time to vote in the general election this year. As a wise man told me a long time ago, “You’ve got no right to complain if you don’t take the time to exercise your right to vote.” If a citizen isn’t involved in the process of electing those who represent them and their interests in government, then they have no room to squawk. And, in my opinion, the reason we have selfish representation in our state and federal governments is the total lack of election poll attendance. Complain all you want, but the only way to change the status-quo is through you, and your vote.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if we could have voted on the “Congressional Reform Act of 2010”? You haven’t heard of it? Let me brief you. (Tongue in cheek) (1) Term Limits: 12 years only, for any one person. For example: A. Two six year Senate terms. B. Six two year House terms. C. One six year Senate term and three two tear House terms. Twelve years total, and you’re out for life! (2) No Tenure/No Pension… A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when out of office. (3) Congress (past, present and future) shall participate in the Social Security Program or Congressmen can purchase their own retirement plan, just like all Americans do. (4)Congress will no longer have the power to vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional raises will reflect cost of living raises the same as all other government recipients’. (5) Congress must participate in the same health care system as the American public. (6) Congress will equally abide in all laws they have and will impose on the American people they represent. Is this too much to ask for? I don’t think so.
[Colossians 3: 1 - 4: 1] Is God asking too much of the Christian for righteous living? If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two, if he came unexpectedly, I wonder what you’d do. Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room to such an honored guest; that serving Him in your home would be joy beyond compare! But when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door, with your arm outstretched in welcome to your Heavenly Visitor? Or would you have to change your clothes before you let Him in, or hide some magazines and place the Bible where they’d been? Would you turn off the radio and hoped He hadn’t heard and wished you hadn’t uttered that last, loud, hasty word? Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out? Could you let Jesus right in, or would you rush about? And I wonder, if the Savior spent a day or two with you, would you go right on doing the things you always do? Would you keep right on saying the things you always say, would life for you continue as it does from day to day? Would your family conversations keep up there usual pace? Would you find hard each meal to say a table grace? Would you sing the songs you always sing or read the books you always read, and let Him know the things on which your mind and spirit feed? Would you take Jesus every place you had planned to go, or would you maybe change your plans for just a day or so? Would you be glad for Him to meet your very closest friends, or would you hope they’d stayed away until His visit ends? Would you be glad for Him to stay forever on and on, or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone? It would be interesting to know the things you would do, if Jesus came in person to spend the holidays with you. (Luke 19: 1-10) Are you like Zacchaeus, wanting to see Jesus? He repented his worldly ways for salvation.

Babel

I’m never sick except for an occasional chest cold, maybe once a year, so to be as ill as I was is a new experience for me. The phrase for “I totally don’t get it” is generally considered to be, “It’s all Greek to me”, but when it comes to medical nomenclature I’ve got to stick with, “It’s all Latin to me”. The named diagnosis, the procedures to get to the diagnosis and the medicine to treat the unpronounceable illness can have one scratching his head wishing someone would simply write it down in plain English to be understood. Like other professionals, the medical field has its buck and a quarter words that only they use, but in the end what matters is that their work brought about a healing of which I’m grateful. I do have to say, everyone I encountered, be it at our little hospital or at the medical institute, had a compassionate attitude and went out of their way to be of service to all their patients. I can’t say I would want to repeat the experience right away, but my attitude toward the profession is more trusting today.
When it comes to words and language, I don’t guess there’s any more confusing than English. In the publication, “Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners” by T.S.W., there appears this little poem: I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble, but not you, on hiccough, thorough, lough, and through. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, to learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word that looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead – for goodness sake don’t call it “deed”! Watch out for meat and great and threat. (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.) A moth is not a moth in mother; Nor both in bother, or broth in brother. And hear is not a match for there nor dear and fear for bear and pear. And then there’s dose and rose and lose – just look them up – and goose and choose. And cork and card and ward, and font and word and sword, and do and go and thwart and cart. Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive! I’d mastered it when I was five. (I’m still working on it)
An old man was having a discussion with his new doctor. “I’ve sure gotten old! I’ve had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, and new knees; fought prostrate cancer and diabetes. I’m half blind, can’t hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take forty different medications that make me dizzy, winded and subject to blackouts. I have bouts with dementia, have poor circulation and can hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. I can’t remember if I’m 85 or 92 and I’ve lost all my friends. But, I’m thankful for one thing – I’ve still got my drivers license.”
[Genesis 11: 1-9] Mankind has almost come full circle. A universal language is permeating business and commerce throughout the world and it must be learned to compete. Man is seeking total reliance on himself thus attempting to build a world without God. Mankind is forever seeking self gratification, to make a name for his-self, not acknowledging the Creator, without whom we would have nothing. Science is the discovery of the wonders of our great and awesome God, yet man strives to put God in a box and prove he is smarter than God. Ain’t gonna happen! Search for the edge of the universe and look for the smallest particle all you want, you’re not going to find it. God will continue to baffle man, attempting to reconcile a broken relationship. Those who seek God first find love and a less competitive world in any language. Understandable?

Feeling Better or Bitter?

“Gloom, despair and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery; If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all; Gloom, despair and agony on me!” HeeHaw! I haven’t been much good for anything the past month with illness keeping me sitting on the porch feeling sorry for myself. The high-powered medicine I had taken to cure one disability opened the door for another type of bacteria to attack my body, which sent me into a tailspin for another week. It’s terrible to not have the energy to get out of bed when a person like me is used to running nearly eighteen hours a day. Today I’m very much on the road to recovery and hope to be up to full speed by the beginning of the new work week. Oh, by the way, as if I don’t have enough on my plate already, I had my regular vocal cord check-up the other day and it looks like more surgery. The right cord is showing some potential bad cell growth again and to stay on top of things another biopsy and surface cleaning is needed. The voice I keep trying to preserve is slowly being whittled away, but then again I always did talk too much, generally saying the wrong things at the right time. November 2nd is the date.
You know you are getting “Marvelously Mature” when… You try to straighten a wrinkle in your sock only to discover you’re not wearing socks; At breakfast you snap, crackle and pop but you’re not eating cereal; It takes two tries to get up from the couch; When you’re memory is shorter and you’re complaining lasts longer; It takes twice as long to look half as good; People think you have more patience, but it’s actually that you just don’t care anymore; You find you finally gotten your head together and your body starts falling apart; You wonder how you can be over the hill when you can’t remember be on top of it; You wake up looking like your driver’s license; and, All you want for your birthday is to not be reminded of how old you are.
Illness and disabilities which limit the movement of a person, as I’ve rediscovered lately, has a humbling effect on the soul, and/or a rattling effect on the mind. Case in point, the recent rescue of the miners in Chile. The youngest miner at age 18 was very disturbed and at times unruly while trapped underground. I can’t imagine the mind bending thoughts that ran through those men, but cooler heads prevailed and all but one survived. On the other end, the oldest miner, I don’t recall his age, stepped out of the rescue “cage”, and fell to his knees in a prayer of thanksgiving to God. Just an observation I made and the thought that the trials of life are humbling to the soul.
[Hebrews 3: 7-19] An old and wise preacher used to say, “Trials will do one of two things in your life: they will either make you better or they will make you bitter!” Two men, famous in English literature, were both lame. Lord Byron was embittered by his handicap. He brooded on it and allowed it to drive him to anger against God and rebellion against society. Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, never complained or spoke a bitter word about his disability. His writings are touched with optimism and a largeness of soul which were a reflection of the man. In the circumstances, it is not surprising that Byron had written a letter to Scott in which he said, “I would give my fame to have your happiness”. During my short illness Satan has injected doubt and bitterness and a little “why me?” challenging my faith and beliefs. Life is fragile unto death and the spirit is forever. Where do I want to spend eternity? With my creator.

Twinkies and Root Beer

Every time I’m called on to do something for someone else I can’t help getting the feeling, “I don’t have time for this right now”. Yet it seems when I get past that selfish feeling, helping someone else in their time of need always works out for the best with plenty of time to spare. The older I get the more time I find for others and the happier I seem to be with my everyday schedule of things. If you’re feeling down and lost as what to do in life, try helping someone else. I don’t mean dictate to and change someone else’s life according to your thinking, because that will only produce another messed-up you. No, just simply help someone successfully negotiate their day on their terms. It’s amazing what a body can learn by living someone else’s life for a few hours.
"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all." Leo Rosten
More than half a century ago, a Johns Hopkins professor gave a group of graduate students an assignment. They were to go to the slums and find 200 boys, aged 12 to 16, investigate their background and environment, and predict their chances for the future. After their interviews, the researchers concluded that 90 percent would spend time in jail. Twenty-five years later, another group of graduate students went back to test the prediction. They found that some of the boys, now men, were still there. A few had died and some had moved away, but the researchers were able to locate 180 of the original 200. They found that only four had ever been in jail! Why? The answer came: “Well, there was this teacher…” In three-fourths of the cases, it was the same woman. The researchers found her in a home for retired teachers and asked her how she had exerted such remarkable influence over a group of slum children. Her only answer was, “I loved those boys.”
[Luke 10: 25-34] A little boy wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of Root Beer and started his journey. When he had gone about three blocks, he met an elderly man. The man was sitting in the park feeding some pigeons. The boy sat down next to him and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the man looked hungry, so he offered him a Twinkie. The man gratefully accepted it and smiled at the boy. His smile was so pleasant that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered him a root beer. Again, the man smiled at him. The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon, eating and smiling, but never saying a word. As the shadows grew long the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave. Before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the man and gave him a big hug. The man gave him the biggest smile ever. When the boy opened the door to his house, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, “What did you do today that made you so happy?” He replied, “I had lunch with God.” Before his mother could respond he added, “Ya know what? God’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!” Meanwhile, the elderly man, also radiant with joy, returned to his home. His son was stunned by the look of peace on his face and asked, “Dad, what did you do today that made you so happy?” He replied, “I ate Twinkies with God in the park. You know, he’s a lot younger than I expected.” Peace.