Spring in the tornado alley part of the nation sometimes is a crapshoot. Yesterday was the day we went for broke and came up snake eyes.
The National Weather Service told us in time. But they couldn't tell us the magnitude of what was going to dump down upon us. The reality of it all is never something you can truly speak of because it simply isn't known.
Nature's fury is often spoken of as an aphorism. We tend to 'poo-poo' the reality of what nature can truly create when in complete fury. God is in charge of all aspects of our lives and when the elements rage around us, upon us and through us, He still has His hands upon us.
Yesterday through last night, storms ripped through Alabama like a sharp knife through rice paper. Homes destroyed, property lost, trees turned into so much kindling... and the lives - the lives of people lost to mortality through the violence of the elements gone wild.
I don't know the reasons for these kinds of storms.
I do know that I was scared out of my wits for my innocent son while we rode out a tornado in our van.
I know that I prayed with a fervency that my daily prayers often lack. Perhaps that has something to do with the elements raging... some of us don't talk WITH Our Father in Heaven. Instead, we tend to barter, bargain and bully our way through our prayers trying desperately to tell God what to do and how to do it so we can at last be snatched up and saved into His kingdom.
But yesterday, I prayed. Lacking elecutory skill and fancy verbiage, I prayed literally begging for the life of my son ... and, yes, myself. I prayed for my family members in harm's way. I prayed for the neighbors who likewise suffered the destruction I saw all around me and for all those nameless strangers who gave their life for a storm that they could never defend against.
When we finally arrived home safely, I prayed again thanking God for getting us home safely. I sat and hugged my sweet Jared, thankful for another day with him and his gentle smiling face.
Then, I hugged my dog, Gypsy, and inhaled the stinky fur that needs a bath.
I didn't care!! I was ALIVE to smell the stink and hug my wicked dog!
Gypsy HATES storms. They scare her and make her shake all over. I matched her tremble for tremble yesterday.
The sun is shining today but the reminder of the power and violent fury of nature remains.
I don't call it "mother" nature. No mother I know could produce this kind of horror.
We speak of the forces of nature as if they are human and caring. That usually happens on sunny, beach-like days. We talk about "mother nature gone wild" when things get ugly. But the truth is something different.
The God of nature is Divine and cares beyond mortal comprehension. When His Spirit is grieved, it withdraws from all that is wicked. I believe those are the times when the elements rage. Only God can calm the elements at that time.
I hope that everyone who has suffered loss of family and property feel the comforting arms of God around them now. I know he weeps with them.
April 28, 2011
April 19, 2011
Manufactured Outrage
The older I get, the more I hate "politics as usual". At the drop of a hat, and they drop the hat themselves, various political personnel gin up a tempest in a teapot over one thing or another that truly doesn't have one whit to do with the business of running the largest checkbook in the free world.
Fighting over which pork project gets fed versus which essential service gets cut creates a great deal of hostility from the people who benefit from either. Their representatives in the halls of power often participate in back door dealings that make the Cosa Nostra look like the neighbors down the street.
The manufactured outrage over what should be done versus who should pay for it is making me queasy.
Everyone blames everyone else.
Did you know that republicans, democrats, communists, Zionists, Muslims, Mormons and independents ALL receive welfare, SSI, SSI disability? There are Baptists who are receiving the largess of pork barrel spending and young moderates who are benefiting from the college grant program. Yet ever person from all stratas of life wants to hold out their hand to receive their 'fair share' into their grubby little paw while denying the same 'fair share' to another.
Our nation has been about 'fair shared' to death.
In my world, this is how it goes:
Hubby brings home the bacon, namely a paycheck from a job well done, and deposits said bacon into the bank to use to pay our bills. From this deposit, the bacon is distributed to the various people who hold the "powah" over our lives.
Truck payment, house payment, insurance, utilities, phone service and internet, credit card bill, groceries and sundry things like gasoline and medical payments pretty well eat up each paycheck.
So, when the bills are paid and there is a chance that there might be a few bucks left, the priority list of where those few bucks goes is well established. I try VERY hard to avoid overdrawing the Merrill Family Accounts. It just isn't kosher.
Contrast that to our nation.
The same folks that are filling the airwaves with their political outrage are the same folks that run the nation's checkbook into the ground. They whip out their pens and sign the taxpayers names to all sorts of boondoggles, both within and without our national borders.
We don't get to decide.
Our "representatives" do that job for us. Except once they enter the D.C. Beltway, they can't hear us anymore. The Siren Song of Policial Committee Membership sings to them in the dulcet tones of their invisible but palpable power. So intoxicating the lure, they forget the people who elected them and seek to serve only those who can push, pull and lift them to higher office. We, the people no longer matter.
We send billions of American tax dollars to foreign countries. They hate us.
We send billions of American weapons to foreign countries to "liberate" others. Those others hate us.
We send billions in food and aid to help the suffering. The suffering never see it. It's held up by their evil national leadership and used as a bargaining chip against their own people.
But our representatives blithely keep signing checks for the aid as if we can keep dipping into the empty, cracked and broken national cookie jar to pay the bills.
Do any of them learn math at the high priced hoity toity schools they attended? Doesn't seem like it. At least, it isn't the same math I learned.
Deficit mathematics dogs ALL political parties like the Hounds of Baskerville. They all believe that they are somehow anointed to be in office and that they have the personal right to spend, spend, spend. Yet if the "other" party does so, that party is akin to Satan's offspring.
Folks, I have a message for you: Y'all are all Satan's offspring the way you lie to us, manipulate the wording, massage the data and in all ways corrupt the numbers to present your perverted message at the expense of real truth. And kiddies, this isn't some exestential theory. No need to go all philosophical about "what is real truth".
IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY THE PRODUCT DON'T BUY IT! Taking out loans from other nations just destabilizes our own!
That goes for nations just like it does us 'regular' people in the "flyover" part of America.
The problem really comes down to this. For all of the manufactured outrage in the Beltway, there is some all-fired REAL outrage in the hearts of people being screwed out of their pension, their job and their lives by the people in positions of power who no longer care enough to represent them.
It's become the grossest example of "I've got mine" that there is.
We are ALL Americans.
All of us.
Not just the politically powerful, but that little old lady in Detroit trying to dodge gang bangers to spend way too much at the store for milk, bread and eggs. It's the man in California trying to keep his 5 kids in clothes, college and cucumbers until his money runs out. And it's the gal in Iowa balancing her farm's accounts against ever mounting fuel and seed costs is an American too. That farm has been in her family for generations, but does her representative care? Nope. It's all about keeping entrenched power and position.
I don't have to manufacture outrage. It's the real deal.
Those on Capital Hill need to stop shelling out money to strangers, people who hate us, and enemies ready to nuke us into oblivion. They need to stop printing money that has only faith backing it because there isn't enough gold, silver and jewelry to back the currency's worth.
They need to start listening to us taxpayers who are sweating bullets trying to keep our homes while they enjoy their two or three on our dime.
They need to stop flying all over creation for fact-finding missions and get into a beat up 17-year old van to do their business and pray that it actually starts.
And most of all, they need to understand that "we, the people" don't really hate the government, we hate what people have become when they join the ranks of the government of our nation. They become puppets to whomever is in power at the time. They fight and squabble like babies over a toy. They act as if someone will always clean up their mess and deal with the stench of their actions because "we, the people" always have.
But I wonder just how much outrage we could manufacture if "we, the people" told them flat out: "NO MORE!" and stopped en masse paying our obesience to them as if they were demigods?
What if we all showed up at our representatives office and demanded to know why he or she wasn't really there handling the business for which they were elected?
Most of the time, the pictures on CSPAN show half empty chambers. Where in the hell are they? Because doing what we pay them for should mean their butts are in the chair we elected them to sit in and vouch for OUR needs.
I don't think any level of D.C. outrage can match the anger of the man and woman in "flyover country" who have lost their home due to the lies and machinations of the politically connected. I don't believe they can gin up the raw fear of the soldier who wonders if he or she is going to be paid while they are in harm's way and their family is going hungry while they serve. There is no way those guaranteed their paycheck can understand what it is like to hope you can scrape up enough money to just feed the kids when you have nothing left in your wallet.
It's time for some meaningful changes - it is past time for them. But the most important change we can make is to prevent ANY politician in D.C. from serving more than two terms in office. Then NO ONE gets to be so powerful that they can afford to forget the people who sent them there in the first place.
Then, we need to ensure that from the President on down that NONE of them get a paycheck AT ALL when they refuse to do the business of the nation and get us out of debt and manage our national affairs like adults instead of preening adolescents trying to score points.
Outrage? You bet! I got a bellyful right here!
Fighting over which pork project gets fed versus which essential service gets cut creates a great deal of hostility from the people who benefit from either. Their representatives in the halls of power often participate in back door dealings that make the Cosa Nostra look like the neighbors down the street.
The manufactured outrage over what should be done versus who should pay for it is making me queasy.
Everyone blames everyone else.
Did you know that republicans, democrats, communists, Zionists, Muslims, Mormons and independents ALL receive welfare, SSI, SSI disability? There are Baptists who are receiving the largess of pork barrel spending and young moderates who are benefiting from the college grant program. Yet ever person from all stratas of life wants to hold out their hand to receive their 'fair share' into their grubby little paw while denying the same 'fair share' to another.
Our nation has been about 'fair shared' to death.
In my world, this is how it goes:
Hubby brings home the bacon, namely a paycheck from a job well done, and deposits said bacon into the bank to use to pay our bills. From this deposit, the bacon is distributed to the various people who hold the "powah" over our lives.
Truck payment, house payment, insurance, utilities, phone service and internet, credit card bill, groceries and sundry things like gasoline and medical payments pretty well eat up each paycheck.
So, when the bills are paid and there is a chance that there might be a few bucks left, the priority list of where those few bucks goes is well established. I try VERY hard to avoid overdrawing the Merrill Family Accounts. It just isn't kosher.
Contrast that to our nation.
The same folks that are filling the airwaves with their political outrage are the same folks that run the nation's checkbook into the ground. They whip out their pens and sign the taxpayers names to all sorts of boondoggles, both within and without our national borders.
We don't get to decide.
Our "representatives" do that job for us. Except once they enter the D.C. Beltway, they can't hear us anymore. The Siren Song of Policial Committee Membership sings to them in the dulcet tones of their invisible but palpable power. So intoxicating the lure, they forget the people who elected them and seek to serve only those who can push, pull and lift them to higher office. We, the people no longer matter.
We send billions of American tax dollars to foreign countries. They hate us.
We send billions of American weapons to foreign countries to "liberate" others. Those others hate us.
We send billions in food and aid to help the suffering. The suffering never see it. It's held up by their evil national leadership and used as a bargaining chip against their own people.
But our representatives blithely keep signing checks for the aid as if we can keep dipping into the empty, cracked and broken national cookie jar to pay the bills.
Do any of them learn math at the high priced hoity toity schools they attended? Doesn't seem like it. At least, it isn't the same math I learned.
Deficit mathematics dogs ALL political parties like the Hounds of Baskerville. They all believe that they are somehow anointed to be in office and that they have the personal right to spend, spend, spend. Yet if the "other" party does so, that party is akin to Satan's offspring.
Folks, I have a message for you: Y'all are all Satan's offspring the way you lie to us, manipulate the wording, massage the data and in all ways corrupt the numbers to present your perverted message at the expense of real truth. And kiddies, this isn't some exestential theory. No need to go all philosophical about "what is real truth".
IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY THE PRODUCT DON'T BUY IT! Taking out loans from other nations just destabilizes our own!
That goes for nations just like it does us 'regular' people in the "flyover" part of America.
The problem really comes down to this. For all of the manufactured outrage in the Beltway, there is some all-fired REAL outrage in the hearts of people being screwed out of their pension, their job and their lives by the people in positions of power who no longer care enough to represent them.
It's become the grossest example of "I've got mine" that there is.
We are ALL Americans.
All of us.
Not just the politically powerful, but that little old lady in Detroit trying to dodge gang bangers to spend way too much at the store for milk, bread and eggs. It's the man in California trying to keep his 5 kids in clothes, college and cucumbers until his money runs out. And it's the gal in Iowa balancing her farm's accounts against ever mounting fuel and seed costs is an American too. That farm has been in her family for generations, but does her representative care? Nope. It's all about keeping entrenched power and position.
I don't have to manufacture outrage. It's the real deal.
Those on Capital Hill need to stop shelling out money to strangers, people who hate us, and enemies ready to nuke us into oblivion. They need to stop printing money that has only faith backing it because there isn't enough gold, silver and jewelry to back the currency's worth.
They need to start listening to us taxpayers who are sweating bullets trying to keep our homes while they enjoy their two or three on our dime.
They need to stop flying all over creation for fact-finding missions and get into a beat up 17-year old van to do their business and pray that it actually starts.
And most of all, they need to understand that "we, the people" don't really hate the government, we hate what people have become when they join the ranks of the government of our nation. They become puppets to whomever is in power at the time. They fight and squabble like babies over a toy. They act as if someone will always clean up their mess and deal with the stench of their actions because "we, the people" always have.
But I wonder just how much outrage we could manufacture if "we, the people" told them flat out: "NO MORE!" and stopped en masse paying our obesience to them as if they were demigods?
What if we all showed up at our representatives office and demanded to know why he or she wasn't really there handling the business for which they were elected?
Most of the time, the pictures on CSPAN show half empty chambers. Where in the hell are they? Because doing what we pay them for should mean their butts are in the chair we elected them to sit in and vouch for OUR needs.
I don't think any level of D.C. outrage can match the anger of the man and woman in "flyover country" who have lost their home due to the lies and machinations of the politically connected. I don't believe they can gin up the raw fear of the soldier who wonders if he or she is going to be paid while they are in harm's way and their family is going hungry while they serve. There is no way those guaranteed their paycheck can understand what it is like to hope you can scrape up enough money to just feed the kids when you have nothing left in your wallet.
It's time for some meaningful changes - it is past time for them. But the most important change we can make is to prevent ANY politician in D.C. from serving more than two terms in office. Then NO ONE gets to be so powerful that they can afford to forget the people who sent them there in the first place.
Then, we need to ensure that from the President on down that NONE of them get a paycheck AT ALL when they refuse to do the business of the nation and get us out of debt and manage our national affairs like adults instead of preening adolescents trying to score points.
Outrage? You bet! I got a bellyful right here!
April 15, 2011
Emails for the gullible
Enough already with the dumb emails promising all kinds of things about not buying gasoline!!
If you don't buy gasoline this weekend, it just means you have to fill up Monday when the price may have gone up. The companies will not miss your $100 over the weekend because too many other people whipped in to fill up their cars, trucks and boats.
It doesn't "stick it to the man" or "show the big oil companies" anything. They KNOW you will just come crawling in later to feed the need for gasoline.
Unless you are TOTALLY prepared to live in a primitive fashion, then you aren't prepared to go without oil, gas and other petroleum products.
Think about it.
Bikes, wagons and walking.
EVERYWHERE.
Have an appointment in Huntsville or Birmingham? Pack a lunch or twelve and start hiking several days in advance.
Want to heat your home in the winter? Kiss that propane goodbye and learn to chop wood again.
Relatives live at a distance? Get that conestoga packed for the journey and hope a semi doesn't cut you down on I-15.
The truth is, we have become a commuter nation. We value our mobility and never developed the infrastructure of Europe for shared transportation. No real railroads and no real bus lines in our communities unless they are larger communities with metro rails either.
So we have a love affair with our automobiles going on daily.
We don't appear ready to break up with them either.
Unless we are prepared to be Amish, we don't really mind paying for gasoline for our vehicles no matter what day it is.
Enough with the dumb emails already.
You aren't going to stop buying gas and I'm not either.
If you don't buy gasoline this weekend, it just means you have to fill up Monday when the price may have gone up. The companies will not miss your $100 over the weekend because too many other people whipped in to fill up their cars, trucks and boats.
It doesn't "stick it to the man" or "show the big oil companies" anything. They KNOW you will just come crawling in later to feed the need for gasoline.
Unless you are TOTALLY prepared to live in a primitive fashion, then you aren't prepared to go without oil, gas and other petroleum products.
Think about it.
Bikes, wagons and walking.
EVERYWHERE.
Have an appointment in Huntsville or Birmingham? Pack a lunch or twelve and start hiking several days in advance.
Want to heat your home in the winter? Kiss that propane goodbye and learn to chop wood again.
Relatives live at a distance? Get that conestoga packed for the journey and hope a semi doesn't cut you down on I-15.
The truth is, we have become a commuter nation. We value our mobility and never developed the infrastructure of Europe for shared transportation. No real railroads and no real bus lines in our communities unless they are larger communities with metro rails either.
So we have a love affair with our automobiles going on daily.
We don't appear ready to break up with them either.
Unless we are prepared to be Amish, we don't really mind paying for gasoline for our vehicles no matter what day it is.
Enough with the dumb emails already.
You aren't going to stop buying gas and I'm not either.
April 11, 2011
Will you be my friend?
I remember being a 'wittle kid' in first grade. Kinda nervous entering the classroom holding onto Momma's hand, Kari waving as she walked down the hall to second grade, I remember seeing the kind smiles of Mrs. Christopher, Mrs. Scanlon and Mr. Chisolm. They were so good to us 'new kids on the block' yet the scary part was yet to come.
School means that you are leaving the nest and beginning to fly. And you want to be identified in a flock, be that flock great or small. To be alone is to be a target for the predators that exist in every facet of life.
I took the seat marked with my name on a little carefully lettered cardboard plaque. From the time I was born, I don't think I knew what it was to be shy. But I also wanted to feel like the people around me weren't "out to get me" either.
There were a lot of kids in the room. Maybe 24 or so. We were all beginning our school adventure together.
Boys and girls and brand new clothes, pencil boxes and little bookbags filled the spaces.
But who would be friendly first? Would someone help us get to know each other? Would someone smile and break the ice?
Fortunately, first grade friendships came easily. Skipping rope on the playground, playing tag around the trees, running like the wind from base to base after a long hit in softball... they all guaranteed new and old friends played together.
Not so much anymore now that the realities of adult life have settled into place.
While it would be nice to have social introductions complete with mini-biographies to help us choose as we wade through the lives that come into contact with our own, it just doesn't happen that way.
And the older I have grown, the more I realize that having "lots" of friends just doesn't feel the same as it did when I was in elementary school.
Friendships require time. And there are days I am extremely jealous of my time. It's not that I don't feel friendly feelings, it's just that I don't like being told how I should spread those feelings out.
My sisters and brother and I have a blood bond. That's nice, but it isn't what makes us friends. We know enough about each other to love one another through the good, the bad and the blackmail. It's just how it works. Not all siblings enjoy that kind of bond. I get that. But I feel blessed to say that's how my immediate family works.
I also feel blessed beyond reason to add to that immediate family through the careful addition of friends who bring a richness to my life that is better than icing on a cake. They require time and energy to be expended in their behalf because my friends, though the number is few, are all high maintenance... just like me.
That's good though.
If a friendship is to be worth anything at all, it requires time, sacrifices, a few fights, a few cry fests, times where you laugh so much you can't breathe anymore... otherwise it's just a superficial contact.
My biggest issue is that I can care about someone in that casual and superficial way that doesn't wish them any harm but not care deeper.
Does that make me evil?
I sure hope not, because I don't want to be told who has to be my friend. I want the opportunity to develop the friendships I enjoy because of shared interests, different interests, laughter, tears and some hard times that bind us together by the heart.
It comes down to choice.
Choosing to be my friend means that work will be involved because I am not perfect. Far from it. Sadly.
Choosing to be my friend means that just as I will be expected to accept you just as you are, the same requirement will be expected from you in accepting me as is, where is. That doesn't preclude growth and improvements, it just means that if you and I love each other, we realize that any growth that might occur will take time and probably lots of patience to accomplish.
Unfortunately, there are people who 'audition' me for friendship potential. They attempt to change me and make me into what they think I ought to be in order to fit into the requirements they have for their friends.
Balky as a southern mule, I resist this molding and shaping because well-meaning as it might seem to be, it isn't by MY choice nor is it by MY design. I don't want to be FORCED to be your friend!
That isn't friendship at all!!
Friendships take TIME.
Friendships take ENERGY.
And most of all, you actually have to LOVE the person enough to desire to become 'of one heart and one mind' in the process. Sadly, I don't desire that relationship with every single person I have ever met.
I struggle in my emotions over this because I feel on the one hand like it isn't Christ-like to feel this way, but then on the other hand, I realize that I cannot fill the emotional cup of need that every single person has. It isn't possible.
I also confess that the tiny, selfish, evil part of me doesn't really want to try to do it, either.
Sometimes, people rub me the wrong way for reasons that I cannot define. To be fair, I also rub people the wrong way and frankly, I don't care most of the time because I don't think we are all supposed to be bosom buddies. That just doesn't compute.
It doesn't mean I wish other people ill will. That really isn't in my nature. Despite the direct and blunt approach I take to life in general, I do feel badly when something I have done has hurt another person, be they friend or stranger. But I cannot be held responsible for the people who carry an emotional target around in front of them just daring the world to offend them in some way so that they can play the "victim" card because I am not what they wanted me to be to them.
I want and need friends. I have them. There are circles of interconnected people in my life whom I am extremely blessed to love. They have a piece of my heart that is individual to that relationship. It is theirs for so long as they wish to have me in their lives.
But if I am reluctant to pass out pieces of my heart without developing a relationship over time, it is because I realize that there are limits because I am mortal. There are also limits because of personal circumstances.
I can't be all things to all people even in the best of times. And only my deepest and truest friends will put up with me during the worst of times. It is an epic truth worthy of Dickens.
When someone reaches out in friendship, sometimes things just gel. It defies both description and verbage. Sometimes the reaching doesn't quite make a connection. That doesn't mean either person is wrong, it just means that maybe that connection isn't the one for you.
Attraction to people who become part of our lives is a complicated process. Sometimes things just fall into place guided by a higher power. Other times, they require work and a lot of it.
I still come back to that same moment in time. Someone asks if a friendship is possible. Is it wrong and/or evil to say no?
There isn't a simple answer to this one, folks.
We can be kind to everyone and considerate of their feelings. But that doesn't necessarily equate to friendship. The bonds that we develop in our lives are extremely personal to us. No one on the outside SHOULD get to define them. That would be anachronistic and just plain wrong.
To be forced into a 'friendship' is a lie of the blackest hue. For if you don't CARE for that person, how can it be friendship? If you are not invested in them and their life, how can you know their heart?
Will you feel the emotional needs of one who is a stranger to you? I believe that to be an impossible task. We cannot fill the cup of another if our vessel is empty.
Are we truly supposed to be that kind of friends to everyone? If someone can figure that out, I'd be most appreciative. The longer I think about it, the more my head hurts and my heart aches for what I cannot be.
So we are back to the original question.
"Will you be my friend?"
To which the answer is dictated by truth.
"It depends".
School means that you are leaving the nest and beginning to fly. And you want to be identified in a flock, be that flock great or small. To be alone is to be a target for the predators that exist in every facet of life.
I took the seat marked with my name on a little carefully lettered cardboard plaque. From the time I was born, I don't think I knew what it was to be shy. But I also wanted to feel like the people around me weren't "out to get me" either.
There were a lot of kids in the room. Maybe 24 or so. We were all beginning our school adventure together.
Boys and girls and brand new clothes, pencil boxes and little bookbags filled the spaces.
But who would be friendly first? Would someone help us get to know each other? Would someone smile and break the ice?
Fortunately, first grade friendships came easily. Skipping rope on the playground, playing tag around the trees, running like the wind from base to base after a long hit in softball... they all guaranteed new and old friends played together.
Not so much anymore now that the realities of adult life have settled into place.
While it would be nice to have social introductions complete with mini-biographies to help us choose as we wade through the lives that come into contact with our own, it just doesn't happen that way.
And the older I have grown, the more I realize that having "lots" of friends just doesn't feel the same as it did when I was in elementary school.
Friendships require time. And there are days I am extremely jealous of my time. It's not that I don't feel friendly feelings, it's just that I don't like being told how I should spread those feelings out.
My sisters and brother and I have a blood bond. That's nice, but it isn't what makes us friends. We know enough about each other to love one another through the good, the bad and the blackmail. It's just how it works. Not all siblings enjoy that kind of bond. I get that. But I feel blessed to say that's how my immediate family works.
I also feel blessed beyond reason to add to that immediate family through the careful addition of friends who bring a richness to my life that is better than icing on a cake. They require time and energy to be expended in their behalf because my friends, though the number is few, are all high maintenance... just like me.
That's good though.
If a friendship is to be worth anything at all, it requires time, sacrifices, a few fights, a few cry fests, times where you laugh so much you can't breathe anymore... otherwise it's just a superficial contact.
My biggest issue is that I can care about someone in that casual and superficial way that doesn't wish them any harm but not care deeper.
Does that make me evil?
I sure hope not, because I don't want to be told who has to be my friend. I want the opportunity to develop the friendships I enjoy because of shared interests, different interests, laughter, tears and some hard times that bind us together by the heart.
It comes down to choice.
Choosing to be my friend means that work will be involved because I am not perfect. Far from it. Sadly.
Choosing to be my friend means that just as I will be expected to accept you just as you are, the same requirement will be expected from you in accepting me as is, where is. That doesn't preclude growth and improvements, it just means that if you and I love each other, we realize that any growth that might occur will take time and probably lots of patience to accomplish.
Unfortunately, there are people who 'audition' me for friendship potential. They attempt to change me and make me into what they think I ought to be in order to fit into the requirements they have for their friends.
Balky as a southern mule, I resist this molding and shaping because well-meaning as it might seem to be, it isn't by MY choice nor is it by MY design. I don't want to be FORCED to be your friend!
That isn't friendship at all!!
Friendships take TIME.
Friendships take ENERGY.
And most of all, you actually have to LOVE the person enough to desire to become 'of one heart and one mind' in the process. Sadly, I don't desire that relationship with every single person I have ever met.
I struggle in my emotions over this because I feel on the one hand like it isn't Christ-like to feel this way, but then on the other hand, I realize that I cannot fill the emotional cup of need that every single person has. It isn't possible.
I also confess that the tiny, selfish, evil part of me doesn't really want to try to do it, either.
Sometimes, people rub me the wrong way for reasons that I cannot define. To be fair, I also rub people the wrong way and frankly, I don't care most of the time because I don't think we are all supposed to be bosom buddies. That just doesn't compute.
It doesn't mean I wish other people ill will. That really isn't in my nature. Despite the direct and blunt approach I take to life in general, I do feel badly when something I have done has hurt another person, be they friend or stranger. But I cannot be held responsible for the people who carry an emotional target around in front of them just daring the world to offend them in some way so that they can play the "victim" card because I am not what they wanted me to be to them.
I want and need friends. I have them. There are circles of interconnected people in my life whom I am extremely blessed to love. They have a piece of my heart that is individual to that relationship. It is theirs for so long as they wish to have me in their lives.
But if I am reluctant to pass out pieces of my heart without developing a relationship over time, it is because I realize that there are limits because I am mortal. There are also limits because of personal circumstances.
I can't be all things to all people even in the best of times. And only my deepest and truest friends will put up with me during the worst of times. It is an epic truth worthy of Dickens.
When someone reaches out in friendship, sometimes things just gel. It defies both description and verbage. Sometimes the reaching doesn't quite make a connection. That doesn't mean either person is wrong, it just means that maybe that connection isn't the one for you.
Attraction to people who become part of our lives is a complicated process. Sometimes things just fall into place guided by a higher power. Other times, they require work and a lot of it.
I still come back to that same moment in time. Someone asks if a friendship is possible. Is it wrong and/or evil to say no?
There isn't a simple answer to this one, folks.
We can be kind to everyone and considerate of their feelings. But that doesn't necessarily equate to friendship. The bonds that we develop in our lives are extremely personal to us. No one on the outside SHOULD get to define them. That would be anachronistic and just plain wrong.
To be forced into a 'friendship' is a lie of the blackest hue. For if you don't CARE for that person, how can it be friendship? If you are not invested in them and their life, how can you know their heart?
Will you feel the emotional needs of one who is a stranger to you? I believe that to be an impossible task. We cannot fill the cup of another if our vessel is empty.
Are we truly supposed to be that kind of friends to everyone? If someone can figure that out, I'd be most appreciative. The longer I think about it, the more my head hurts and my heart aches for what I cannot be.
So we are back to the original question.
"Will you be my friend?"
To which the answer is dictated by truth.
"It depends".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)