Oh wow, I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Well, that's not true, I actually posted something on Tuesday, but took it off two minutes later. I'll revise it and re-post it at a later date - time-sensitive material of a sort.
All I can say is the past two weeks have been INSANE. If you think running a school and dealing with teenagers, Kindergartners, staff, and an occasional daycare issue is challenging - you're right. Now throw on top of it a budding writing career and you've got the recipe for a nervous breakdown. But, I didn't have one, not even close, there have been a few OMG moments, but for the most part, things haven't been bad, just challenging. I like a challenge. I'd rather be running around like a headless chicken and busy with the work of the Lord than sitting around, idle and bored, with time to get into trouble. It is a pleasure to use the mind God blessed me with!
Some things clicked for me this week. I find myself earnestly desiring to wade through the muck and mire people allow to build up around them. I desire to do this because maybe I can teach them something, maybe I can make a difference. There are people in my life that I do not enjoy dealing with, but finally this week, an answer to prayer no doubt, I've just decided that my preferences really don't matter. I've just got to keep a smile on my face and put up with them and show love, kindness, patience, and all those other good things - not because I have to, but because I want to. I want to see a change happen in that person. I want that person to be successful. I want that person's future to be different. I want them to grow up and pay it forward.
What do I get out of this? God will show me His glory, His abilities, His power. He can do anything, heal anyone, deliver anyone, and if you've never experienced God's glory, never had those chills race up your back when His presence sweeps into a room, you're missing out.
There are many things in this life that I enjoy, that make me laugh, that I get excited over, but none of them compare to the feeling I get when I know God just took care of business. When He does something to remind us all down here that He is the B.O.S.S. He healed my grandmother of "terminal" ovarian cancer 18 years ago; He healed my aunt of breast cancer two years ago; He has provided for me in every way for two years following a substantial pay cut because I've followed His leading on my life; when my vehicle spun out of control and there was nothing for me to do but cry out "Jesus", He heard me, and my car came to a safe stop; He kept a dear friend and now family member safe during two tours of duty in Iraq; When I'm out of answers and options, He listens, He watches over me and gives me the measure of peace I need to rest, and the next morning, it's always better. These are just a few examples that came to mind just now, but He does it every day, I pray every day, so ultimately, only He knows what He's kept me from, only He knows what He's done for me and my loved ones, and only He knows what my continued faith will make possible for the future.
I can do nothing without Him, but I can do anything with Him.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Welcome to my (now) political blog
As a child, I lived in constant fear of going to jail. This was no doubt the result of an adult in my life bending the truth somewhat to insure the Barbie or Bubble-Yum lust in my eyes did not manifest itself in the form of elementary shoplifting. Then, I saw Aladdin, and my fear of jail was shadowed by the fear of losing one of my hands. I learned early not to steal.
Early in the week, almost certainly out of anger with the teenage specimen's whose education I am responsible for, I jotted down some random thoughts that I intended to turn into a blog later in the day. The blog never came to fruition. It's probably a good thing, because this blog would have been a tie-dyed mixture of anger and loosely, wildly connected causes and effects. One sentence I wrote blames a certain Vietnam-era celebrity and her bra-burning for my students' inability to meet a deadline. Oh yes, I did find a way to connect the two in my mind, but if I ever want to be considered a serious, and sane, writer, it's best I save that one for the winter of my writing career when it is acceptable to be crazy and spout off unfounded theories. Oh, why don’t I just live a little? If Michael Moore can get away with it . . .
I believe we are witnessing the degeneration of our society's work ethic. I believe it will be extinct in another generation, or at least endangered. Initiative? Personal responsibility? Hard work? These, not spotted owls, deserve Hollywood's charity balls, and prime real estate on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Fostering these traits in our young people, instilling them in the ones that will lead our nation (what's left of it) should be ousting the left’s insatiable thirst for social programs. However, this is one more area the government has no business sticking its bureaucratic-booger infested nose into. It's a job that should be done by the parents, and somewhere along the way there's been a breakdown . . . one exponentially multiplied by the government’s empowering of citizens to be lazy and desecrate the vision and values of our founding fathers. Our Christian founding fathers, no less.
I am not an expert on child development and I do not have any experience in sociology other than a freshman course, which oddly, probably qualifies me to make this assumption more so than if I had a Ph.D. behind my name (depending on the university). Minimally, three generations of Americans have been raised largely without physical discipline and with both parents working, if they even had two. They’ve been allowed to talk back, allowed to be lazy, and have been handed a weekly allowance and keys to a vehicle after doing very little to deserve either. In our public schools, they have been pushed along, nursed with dumbed-down, propaganda-infested material. When they misbehave or fail to meet standards, often the teacher’s hands are tied. Research shows that children’s intelligence actually decreases the longer they stay in our public schools.
I present to you the group that elected our president! They want fetuses aborted and serial rapists and murderers spared from the needle. They want illegal immigrants to have education and health care while hard-working American men and women avoid preventive exams and take out loans to pay for their children’s college tuition, thanks to inflated taxes. Come to America! It’s the land of opportunity! Unless, you are in fact, an American.
The upcoming workforce (I use that term loosely) and voting class has been taught that it's okay to do wrong, that they're not hurting anything or anybody, that it's some other person's fault and never their own. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people have been taught to be irresponsible by ma and pa government, elected officials even. While drunk, I drove a car off a bridge and left my passenger to drown, but I'm me, so it doesn't count. Who am I? (I’ll let you do the research on this one yourself – it’ll be good for you.)
As I said earlier, I learned stealing was wrong at an early age. . .until, an adult in my life (not one of my parents) witnessed me breaking an item in a store and hurriedly ushered me away from the evidence and out to the car. (Breaking something and not paying for it is still stealing – don’t want anybody to get confused.) That moment stands out in my memory. I was scared, I was sure I was going to jail. I didn't. That one example of escape did not enable me to become a hardened criminal with lose morals. Fortunately, I was raised in a Christian home where there were consequences for my actions and where right and wrong were taught as black and white. One event was unable to undo actual parent involvement and good upbringing. What about all the people that didn’t have that? Thanks to policy being signed as I write this, they will look to the government for everything, including moral example. Consequences? What are those?
So, with the moral, ahem, deficiencies present today, how are those that have had no teaching going to lead, and lead us well? How do they know the policy being put in place is wrong, wrong, wrong, and destructive, destructive, destructive? They’ve never had to sacrifice to keep this country free, never crawled under their desks for bomb drills, they have never had to really fear what the soldiers of another nation could do to them (obviously our armed forces are excluded from this remark). Neither have I, but I do have a moral backbone, and I do read (despite going to public schools), enough to know that the reason I’ve never had to endure those things and fear those things is because we’ve always had a somewhat competent leader at the helm. I’ll even throw Bill Clinton into that pool, but let’s face it – George W. Bush is what kept us safe after 9/11. In fact, he kept us so safe, the great majority of our nation has forgotten we need to fund national defense.
These truths are evident in many, if not all, of the challenges facing our nation right now. And, the worst part is, the people drinking the government's Kool-Aid are being set up for a catastrophic let down. This won't last. Irresponsibility NEVER leads to prosperity. Unless of course, you're on Welfare.
On an online community I sometimes visit, I read a person's comments about Europeans and how their lives are so blissful. How the greed so prevalent in America isn't present there and there is no rat race. I quote: "The people there live on and with so little."
That's because they don't have a CHOICE!! Their wealth is redistributed to the masses!!
Some day soon, that person may have the chance to live just like the people he envies on The Continent. There’s a chance it might not happen in our lifetime, but I think the footers are in place and the slab is about to be poured. Maybe, if there was time to undo decades of poor child-rearing and ethical decay, my generation or the one after me could do something about the walls being raised.
Early in the week, almost certainly out of anger with the teenage specimen's whose education I am responsible for, I jotted down some random thoughts that I intended to turn into a blog later in the day. The blog never came to fruition. It's probably a good thing, because this blog would have been a tie-dyed mixture of anger and loosely, wildly connected causes and effects. One sentence I wrote blames a certain Vietnam-era celebrity and her bra-burning for my students' inability to meet a deadline. Oh yes, I did find a way to connect the two in my mind, but if I ever want to be considered a serious, and sane, writer, it's best I save that one for the winter of my writing career when it is acceptable to be crazy and spout off unfounded theories. Oh, why don’t I just live a little? If Michael Moore can get away with it . . .
I believe we are witnessing the degeneration of our society's work ethic. I believe it will be extinct in another generation, or at least endangered. Initiative? Personal responsibility? Hard work? These, not spotted owls, deserve Hollywood's charity balls, and prime real estate on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Fostering these traits in our young people, instilling them in the ones that will lead our nation (what's left of it) should be ousting the left’s insatiable thirst for social programs. However, this is one more area the government has no business sticking its bureaucratic-booger infested nose into. It's a job that should be done by the parents, and somewhere along the way there's been a breakdown . . . one exponentially multiplied by the government’s empowering of citizens to be lazy and desecrate the vision and values of our founding fathers. Our Christian founding fathers, no less.
I am not an expert on child development and I do not have any experience in sociology other than a freshman course, which oddly, probably qualifies me to make this assumption more so than if I had a Ph.D. behind my name (depending on the university). Minimally, three generations of Americans have been raised largely without physical discipline and with both parents working, if they even had two. They’ve been allowed to talk back, allowed to be lazy, and have been handed a weekly allowance and keys to a vehicle after doing very little to deserve either. In our public schools, they have been pushed along, nursed with dumbed-down, propaganda-infested material. When they misbehave or fail to meet standards, often the teacher’s hands are tied. Research shows that children’s intelligence actually decreases the longer they stay in our public schools.
I present to you the group that elected our president! They want fetuses aborted and serial rapists and murderers spared from the needle. They want illegal immigrants to have education and health care while hard-working American men and women avoid preventive exams and take out loans to pay for their children’s college tuition, thanks to inflated taxes. Come to America! It’s the land of opportunity! Unless, you are in fact, an American.
The upcoming workforce (I use that term loosely) and voting class has been taught that it's okay to do wrong, that they're not hurting anything or anybody, that it's some other person's fault and never their own. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people have been taught to be irresponsible by ma and pa government, elected officials even. While drunk, I drove a car off a bridge and left my passenger to drown, but I'm me, so it doesn't count. Who am I? (I’ll let you do the research on this one yourself – it’ll be good for you.)
As I said earlier, I learned stealing was wrong at an early age. . .until, an adult in my life (not one of my parents) witnessed me breaking an item in a store and hurriedly ushered me away from the evidence and out to the car. (Breaking something and not paying for it is still stealing – don’t want anybody to get confused.) That moment stands out in my memory. I was scared, I was sure I was going to jail. I didn't. That one example of escape did not enable me to become a hardened criminal with lose morals. Fortunately, I was raised in a Christian home where there were consequences for my actions and where right and wrong were taught as black and white. One event was unable to undo actual parent involvement and good upbringing. What about all the people that didn’t have that? Thanks to policy being signed as I write this, they will look to the government for everything, including moral example. Consequences? What are those?
So, with the moral, ahem, deficiencies present today, how are those that have had no teaching going to lead, and lead us well? How do they know the policy being put in place is wrong, wrong, wrong, and destructive, destructive, destructive? They’ve never had to sacrifice to keep this country free, never crawled under their desks for bomb drills, they have never had to really fear what the soldiers of another nation could do to them (obviously our armed forces are excluded from this remark). Neither have I, but I do have a moral backbone, and I do read (despite going to public schools), enough to know that the reason I’ve never had to endure those things and fear those things is because we’ve always had a somewhat competent leader at the helm. I’ll even throw Bill Clinton into that pool, but let’s face it – George W. Bush is what kept us safe after 9/11. In fact, he kept us so safe, the great majority of our nation has forgotten we need to fund national defense.
These truths are evident in many, if not all, of the challenges facing our nation right now. And, the worst part is, the people drinking the government's Kool-Aid are being set up for a catastrophic let down. This won't last. Irresponsibility NEVER leads to prosperity. Unless of course, you're on Welfare.
On an online community I sometimes visit, I read a person's comments about Europeans and how their lives are so blissful. How the greed so prevalent in America isn't present there and there is no rat race. I quote: "The people there live on and with so little."
That's because they don't have a CHOICE!! Their wealth is redistributed to the masses!!
Some day soon, that person may have the chance to live just like the people he envies on The Continent. There’s a chance it might not happen in our lifetime, but I think the footers are in place and the slab is about to be poured. Maybe, if there was time to undo decades of poor child-rearing and ethical decay, my generation or the one after me could do something about the walls being raised.
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