I am working hard these days. I have little time to write, and when I do have time I'm tired and I feel like my brain is fried.
I have been reading what SunDancer wrote before my recent post and what Lookin' has written since and am continuing to watch the treatment of the Native Americans who come into my place of business......how they are treated by other customers and by fellow employees.
A point I meant to make in my last post but failed to is that, while we have many, many nationalities that frequent our store, it is the Native Americans who are treated with the most disrespect as a whole. If a black child acts up in the store, or God forbid a WHITE child, they and their parents are treated kindly and respectfully as if the way their child is acting is just normal, which it is. If a Native child acts up (which is, admittedly, rare) there is the underlying "tsk tsk" attitude combined with a wince and a smirk. What they say is, "They need to control their children". What they mean is, "The savages.......".
There is one class of people in this country.....heck, in the world, that I can honestly say I can't stand. I mean, I don't actually HATE anybody.....but there is a certain kind of person that I just have a hard time stomaching. Arrogant people who think that they are somehow better, more deserving, smarter, etc. than the rest of us poor peons have always gotten on my nerves but now they are seriously aggravating me. As Vison pointed out in his post called "The Short Bus".....we are ALL on the short bus. Every single one of us. Even the greatest of us.....world leaders, Olympic athletes, great artists, musicians, etc. they may be in the front of the bus but it's STILL the short bus. It is STILL the short bus.
That's why I find it so hard when I am accused once in a while of being arrogant. It's funny that it should be said about me because my family, for the most part, wishes I would STOP reaching out so much and could just "settle down" and "enjoy the good life" that I supposedly so richly deserve. That was actually said to me when we took in Gabriel. "Why can't you just enjoy the grandchildren that you have? Why do you have to keep taking in other people's children at this stage of your life?"
See? There it is. Bad me.....I guess I thought I wasn't that old, and that I still had too much energy and passion to just suddenly stop thinking about and doing what I was good at. I'm just stupid enough, I guess, to think that we are put on this earth, especially if we purport to believe in God, to do more than just sit around in our comfi-fied homes and enjoy the "American Dream" I thought we were here to help each other along life's road in whatever way that might be for each of us.
None of us are 'better'. All of us are 'handicapped' as my father so aptly said to me once. It's true. Our handicaps are different, and that is good, because if we were all handicapped in the same way then we couldn't help each other. But we all need to see that we ALL are handicapped.
"For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?
But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it." 1 Cor. 12
See? That's what I'm talking about. Christians will reply that this verse is talking about the Body of Christ which is specifically Christians. I will boldly proclaim that this applies to ALL of life. We are all part of something called the Human Race. We all live on the same planet. Why..........WHY.......do we then insist on fighting against each other? I have read blog post after blog post asking the same question over and over.....how do we stop war? My answer is always the same.....it never fails to be "how can we?" We can't even stop it on the playground, for God's sake. We can't stop it in our own families!
I have what was once considered a VERY upstanding and respected family. Ooooooo, we were SOOOOO special, weren't we?
NOT-SO-MUCH!
We were and continue to be, as my fellow blogstreamers have so witnessed, a screwed up, messed up family. I never claimed to be otherwise. Those who looked at our beaming faces on our Christmas card in my gallery, or read what I wrote on my blog, which for the most part either was not about my family, or if it was, it was something positive (I'm talking about before last March) may have made ASSUMPTIONS about what we were, but I never claimed to be and in fact refuted any outside claim that we were perfect in any way. No, none of my kids (to my knowledge) drink too much, do drugs, are promiscuous or even smoke for that matter. Yet, what happened to two people on the lake last spring constitutes depraved indifference to human life. What's worse? Being a drinker and a smoker or a would-be murderer? I know what kind of child I would rather have.
It is our "job" in life, if I can put it that way, to be the best human beings that we can be. The most loving and giving people we can. Nothing else matters. Not the money we bring in, not the car we drive, not the homes we own, not the clothes we wear. The Bible says that even our preaching of the Gospel means NOTHING if we have not love. It is a clanging bell. Yes, I believe that with Jesus we can be better human beings, but our reason for wanting HIm is not to be so that He will bless us with a Cadillac and a million dollar home! God forbid! I'm not saying that God doesn't want to bless you....He does! But it is NOT for YOUR benefit! It is so that you can SERVE OTHERS with what you have. If someone has need of something and you are just as poor as they are how are you going to help them? THAT is why God will bless you..........NOT so you can horde it up to your own selfish desires! Read the Book of James. You have not because you ask not and then when you DO ask, you ask to horde it to YOURSELF! Our purpose here, whether we are rich or poor, smart or not so much, is to be a blessing to others. Our purpose isn't even to preach the Gospel, even though I believe that people need Jesus. Our purpose is to LOVE. If we have not love we are nothing. NOTHING.
This post was not so much to sound the trumpet about our Native American brothers and sisters, even though that was the impetus that got me to write. My purpose in writing today was about calling everyone together in love and reconciliation. I don't really know how that is done. I can't even get the person who gave birth to me and the ones to whom I gave birth to reconcile with me, how can I expect to bring reconciliation to long-standing racial divisions and hatred in the world around me? I don't have all the answers. All I know is that we need some of the love that the two Johns were talking about. Whether yours is John The Revelator or John Lennon isn't as important as whether you got the message or not. All that remain are faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.
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