Pondering thoughts

Maybe it's just my age, but from time to time I find myself drifting back to the past. Tonight I gave some thought to my early years on the job. I have been working most of my life. Most of that time in factories. I held myself in moderate esteem as far as what I was able to do. So most of my jobs were fairly unskilled. Then one day I applied for a skilled job (I was about 35). I, along with about a dozen other people from the factory had to take tests at the employment agency for motor skills, problem solving, logic, math, and a few other similar exercises. A miracle happened for me that day. My scores exceeded everyone else  that day; but that wasn't the miracle. This counselor told me that with my scores I could do anything I wanted. Wow! I was dumbfounded! All my life I considered myself stupid. This woman opened up a door for me that changed my life.

The job I signed up for I got, but it  wasn't what I wanted, it was too physical for me. However I did move up to a position that was less physically challenging. Then one day a supervisor's  position came up. In the past I would never have considered such a position, but the counselor's comments rang in my head, so I decided to look into the possibility and I applied and I was picked to do the job. From then on I never questioned my ability to seek and find any opportunity that I wanted to pursue.

So what is my point of this story; our successes and failures start in the mind first. All those years that I felt inferior to do more was a self made problem. What we perceive ourselves to be is what we are.

I have always let my children know that they could do anything. They are both successful in their vocations. I am older now, but I live by the rule that I can do it, no matter what "it" might be. "No" is just not in my vocabulary any more, and I am glad. Life is an adventure and all of us should push ourselves to the best we can be.

Thanks for listening and remember, success begins in the mind first.

Why I love Pope Francis

Since Pope Francis became pope this year, he has been a breath of fresh air. He, by example, reminds us what true followers of Christ should do. The media tries to exploit him, as though he were a political person. Pope Francis is the furthest thing from a political person. With Pope Francis what you see is what you get. He has no agenda, other than bringing Christ back into our lives. 

In the past few days the pope has made headlines again. His call for Catholics to respond with love and mercy on the issues that divide the church. The issues he mentioned were same sex marriage and contraception. Depending if you are a conservative or a liberal you may have read into this as the pope redesigning the church dogma. Both sides can relax, the pope isn't going to rewrite the  bible or church dogma; but he is readjusting the attitude of the church, and that is something long over due.

I believe that Pope Francis is trying to tell us not to focus on the negative, not to be judgmental. As Christ had taught us, we should reach out to those in love and mercy. For we will be 'judged as we judge'. Only God has the right to judge, only God is perfect, only God can see inside the human heart.

Yes, I love Pope Francis, he isn't telling us that he is rewriting, he is telling us to revive Christ in our lives. God bless you Pope Francis. We give you our love and our prayers!

Set up to be Disillusioned

I woke up this morning, as I do every morning. Of course I turned on the TV.  Like most people I believe I have it on for sound, more so now that I am older than I did when I was younger. Whatever was said triggered my brain to think about television in the past, when I was growing up.

Such shows as I love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver; these were all family oriented shows. We all loved them.

Television in the 50's and 60's was very happy and pleasant, or about WWII or Korea, or westerns. Now I didn't worry too much about the war shows or the western, for they were not in my period of living. In the 50's and 60's  we played games, some of the games we played in my neighborhood was making movies. It was fun. After playing outside all day (or after school) we would go in for supper and then watch TV. 

I think the adults saw the diversion of real life in these shows, while we as kids saw this is how real people live. Everyone was happy. Every problem solvable. Everyone would have a house and money. The woman would take care of the house and the husband would have a nice office job; and so on.

I'm not sure when it happened, I am guessing I was in my teens, when I realized there was only a semblance of the truth in these shows. The shows did not show the ugliness of the times, only the happy and acceptable version, which was probably why the adults found them to be a diversion from reality. When I was growing up, I lived through the Kennedy assassination, the race riots, drugs, the war in Viet Nam, the counter social revolution. These were the ugliness that shaped my world.

Cruel reality set in when I found out that marriages don't always, "live happily ever after" and getting a job and raising a family often caused chaos in the family. Money problems, school problems, job problems, all made living a journey of joy and tears. Yes joy. Sometimes through these problems the family grows and admiration for one another emerges. Faith in God, family and Country become a mainstay of existence, giving us the courage to look ahead to the future.

The next time we all worry about video games, television and movies destroying our young people, we need to look back on our era too. Too much utopia isn't any better than violence. However as a family unit we must instill in one another the respect for life and faith in God .

May God help our congress with the Syria decision

In the upcoming days our congress will be deciding on whether or not to attack Syria. What happened in Syria is atrocious and morally sick. Yet if we attack Syria what do we hope to accomplish? Our country is not a super hero. We cannot right all the evils in the world. What do we hope to gain by attacking Syria? Showing Assad that what he did is despicable. I think he is already aware of that, and he doesn't care. Will our actions stop Assad? It is doubtful. If anything we become more of a target than we already are.

What our congress must do in these coming days is to look back at our history. In Korea in the 50's we did not win, the conflict is still there, just not violent any more (but still very volatile ). Viet Nam in the 60's. We lost that one, along with nearly 60,000 American soldiers. Our intentions were good with both of these involvements. The problem was that we forgot that these conflicts were not ours.

We have spent the last twelve years in a war in the Middle East. All of us are war weary. The most war weary are our service men and women. Some have done four tours of duty! How long are we going to stretch them to the limit? I don't want to say it, but I think we would be starting up the draft again if we were to be much longer in a war.

I hope our congress takes their time to weigh all the consequences of what attacking Syria would mean. I think it is a lose - lose situation. May God be with our leaders to make the right decision.
 

A TIME FOR PAUSE

A lot of things have been said in the days since the verdict on the death of Trayvon Martin. I don't think anyone has won this case. Least of all the parents of Trayvon. We all must reconcile ourselves that the jury found that George Zimmerman, was innocent of murder or manslaughter, according to Florida state laws. Like it or not, all of us need to abide by that decision. 

All of this being said, I would like to take a few moments to share my views on this subject. I am not going to question the verdict. I am not going to question the validity of the verdict. Anyone of us in that position of finding someone guilty or innocent would have to do what this jury did, and that was to look at the evidence and decide their decision on what they have before them. None of us should question their sincerity in trying to find the truth.

So many things in this case were blurred. The only two people who know what happened are Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. However as I see it there were some terrible mistakes made by Mr. Zimmerman that I am sure he regrets today. The first mistake was following someone to see if that person was going to do something wrong. It's hard not to say that Trayvon Martin wasn't stereotyped, why else would George Zimmerman have followed a teenager with no apparent weapon. 

The second mistake I find to be the real zinger; after calling police to share his suspicions of Trayvon Martin's intentions, he should have let police follow up. George Zimmerman should not have kept following the young man. Zimmerman was found not guilty because he was defending himself from getting his skull bashed on the cement. I get that. Truly I do understand that. However I feel that if Zimmerman would not have followed him, Martin, who obviously was aware that he was being followed, apparently felt the need to protect himself. Thereby using the only weapon that he had, his own physical strength.

I can understand why so many people are so torn and divided in this case. The sad truth is, this is just a horrible tragedy, in which a black teenager was profiled by an over zealous Hispanic neighborhood watch person. End of story.