I have a list, both actual and mental, of quotes that speak
to something in me. I've added two this
week; and both are helping me change the way I look at the world and my place
in it. The first brilliantly speaks to
my struggle with self-image in an over-sexed society.
"It's not any woman's duty
to starve herself so that someone she hardly knows, and most likely never wants to know, thinks she's sufficiently
skinny." –Kiri Blakeley
The second makes me consider how I come across to
people. Not people who know me, but to
people who have never met me, people who might be from other cultures or
countries.
"I was curious, however, why I
hadn't seen a relative number of Americans working aboard the [cruise]
ship. His words stung me and have been
branded in my memory ever since that moment.
He said, 'In the cruise line business, one must be willing to
serve. Service is an art. I have found that Americans, for the most
part, don't want to serve. They want to be served.'" –Babbie Mason, FaithLift
Think about that for a moment, if you will. What's interesting to me is that I had a
conversation with my mother yesterday that was almost eerily similar to that
passage of Babbie's book. We were
discussing the almost-perennial short-staffage of my company (because,
fortunately, my company is very particular about who they hire. We're not in the mind-set of hiring warm
bodies to fill hours.), and she told me about a pest control company that was
having the same problem.
The story she told me is reflective of the above quote. The pest control specialist that serviced
their area joined the service and had to quit, which meant stretching their
other employees rather thin to fill his shoes until they could hire people to
take over the area entirely. Which means
that the pests were getting out of control.
It also meant my mother was growing increasingly frustrated with the
company. So she called their office one
day and asked what the deal was (I'm paraphrasing this story, by the way). The office gal explained what was happening,
and my mother, naturally, asked how, with unemployment at 8%, they couldn't
just hire someone to do the job. The
office gal replied that doing the job was exactly the problem. They could hire plenty of people, but nobody
wants to do the work.
It's indicative of the American attitude. Not only do we want to be served without offering service in return, we also want free
things without offering anything of value in return, like our time or effort.
I couldn't live with myself if I could work and yet didn't. I can't respect someone who can work and doesn't. In fact, my general
opinion of people like that is that they should be made to work. It goes back
to the days of colonial Jamestown, and the policy of "don't work, don't
eat."
Just FYI for all you liberals out there using the
Constitution to justify your socialism- WELFARE IS NOT A CONSTITUIONAL RIGHT.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. The liberal agenda is primarily
unconstitutional. Handouts are
unconstitutional. Not working when you can work may not be illegal, but it is
immoral. YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!
I suppose I should change the subject before this turns into
a massive tirade, but let me just say this one thing. All of you liberals who keep telling me how
wonderful Obamacare is and how it's doing great things for health
insurance…instead of repeating what you heard on MSNBC, try talking to someone
who actually works in health insurance and knows what's in the so-called
"Affordable Care Act." It's
not affordable and they don't care. Stop
making yourselves look stupid by insisting that it is and they do.
You know, it's rarely quiet in my head, and right now, I
have so many excess thoughts flapping around like demented owls (I'm in a Harry
Potter mood lately) that it's making it hard to focus on what I want to be doing, which is, I want to be
writing. As much fun as it is to express
myself on a blog, I want to be writing another book. I can't do it with all this chaos in my
brain. Which is, actually, where a blog
comes in handy. I think of it as a sort
of mental drain de-clogging agent.
That's what I should have called this blogpage! "Mental Draino"!
In my conversations with my mom yesterday, I also confessed
a struggle. As Christians, we are called
to pray for, submit to, and bless those in authority over us.
First Timothy 2:1-4 says, "First of all, then, I urge that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and
all who are in high positions, that
we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight
of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth." (emphasis mine)
Titus 3:1,2 says, "Remind
them to be submissive to ruler and
authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil
of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy
toward all people." (again, emphasis mine)
And Romans 12:14 tells us, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not
curse them."
These are just three of the passages I found telling us to
pray for those we don't like. It's
exceedingly difficult to pray for those who are persecuting you, making your
life difficult. It's very, very hard not
to speak ill of someone who is, basically, walking all over you and then
smiling and saying it's for your own good.
It's so incredibly hard not to say to someone drinking the Kool-Aid,
"Stop being so stupid!" But
that's what we're supposed to do.
I remember the night of the 2008 presidential election. I stood in the living room of the group home
I worked in and I stared at the television that was announcing the election of
Barrack Obama as the newest president-elect of the United States of
America. I recall with vivid clarity
whispering over and over under my breath, "God, if this is your will, then
please bless his presidency. Lord,
please help our country."
Six years later, and I've sort of given up praying for the
president. It's difficult to pray for
wisdom and prosperity to be showered on a man who steals my money and uses it
to go on multi-million dollar vacations when I can barely afford gas to get to
and from work. It's difficult to pray
for blessings and divine favor to fall on a man who has shown time and time
again that he is not only a liar, a charlatan, and a thief, but also a
terrorist. Here's some food for thought:
since 9/11, those providing funding or weapons or supplies to terrorists have
been locked up as terrorists themselves.
So why is the president still in office?
How can I support a man who wants to give more power to
people who want me dead?
You know, I've just realized that talking about politics is
incredibly hard work. It has an adverse
effect on my blood pressure. I have to
give major props to the political correspondents who do it for a living. Even when they've been drinking the Kool-Aid.
There are good days and there are bad days. Then there are great days and there are horrific days. On a scale from one to horrific, I've had some 'hellacious' and 'horrendous' days lately. Actually, one 'hellacious' and one half of a 'horrendous'. The rest haven't been all that bad.
I've been reading the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth over the past week or so. I like it, generally. I find some of the characters to be simplified archetypes just filling space (case in point, Jeannine Matthews, the primary villain throughout the first two books), but there are a few exceptions (SPOILER ALERT). For all that he ends up being a traitor of the highest order, I do enjoy the author's portrayal of Caleb Prior, the heroine's older brother. I also like Christina, Tris's best girlfriend. I like Tobias/Four to a point. When he starts going all googly over Tris, I kind of have to take a step back. 
