longing…

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive.
There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.”

George Eliot

“They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same,
but I don’t think it’s possible for you to miss me as much as I’m missing you right now”

Edna St. Vincent Millay


(The Andy Griffith Show / circa 1960)

Today just seems like a day when I dread turning on the television, dread the landline’s incessant ringing,
dread the cell phone’s constant alerts….

Today is a day to turn it off—- turn it all totally off!

Protests
Riots
Double standards
Elections
Division
Civil unrest

Is it any wonder I would opt to watch something simple.
Something that came from a seemingly more innocent time?

Did you know that on this latest runoff election in Georgia that, between all four candidates,
almost $1 billion dollars was spent on the collective campaigns?

Let that sink in…

The local Atlanta news outlets reported that the candidates spent well over $800 million between their campaigns
…closing in one 1 billion dollars.

Oh pray tell…. what could 1 billion dollars do for those in need in
this aching Nation of ours??

And the looming question that will never be answered, where might that near 1 billion
dollars have come from???
I wonder….

And so the landlines have rung constantly, the billboards have lit up the night sky,
people have knocked on doors, flyers have arrived daily in the mail,
alerts have popped up on phones, commercials have run at an olympic clip…

Waste, waste, waste…

And thus in this small microcosm of Georgia, it appears that we are swirling down the toilet.

And now fast forward to yesterday’s protest in Washington…
And thus my obersvations have been confirmed.

Conservative Trumpers protest and it’s declared a calamity.
Protests and riots continue, unending, in both Portland and Seattle.
George Floyd and Breanna Taylor protests were violent, riotous, destructive..
yet they are declared as attempts at expression.

I am sick and tired of the double standards.

I am sick and tired of all this mess.
But that won’t matter to the masses of the selfish.

I long for that which is not of this world.

And I somehow think I’m probably not alone in that longing…

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26

Graciousness appears to have died

“Win without boasting.
Lose without excuse.”

Albert Payson Terhune

“A man who called everyone a damn fool is like a man who damns the weather.
He only shows that he is not adapted to his environment,
not that the environment is wrong.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

DSCN3314
(ghost crab who’s given up the ghost / Santa Rosa Beach, FL / Julie Cook / 2016)

We’re not a people accustomed to losing.
We don’t like to lose…
Who does?!
Nobody, that’s who!

We’re a people of winners.
We like winners.
Who doesn’t like a winner…
Nobody, that’s who!

Maybe we’re a little too accustomed to winning.
Maybe we’ve grown to expect it.
Maybe…just maybe…we’ve forgotten how to lose.
We’ve forgotten that in losing there must be graciousness…

Let’s look at a few things…

We love our sports teams.
We want them to win.
Some of us bet on them to win…
as in… betting money…
as in… betting big money.

Losers don’t make us money.
Some of us have been known to do bad things to make our teams win.
We have cheated, lied, twisted reality, conspired with others to do bad things.
We’ve been known to “fix” a game in order to win
We like to win at all costs…

Others of us get into fights when our teams lose.
We decide to fight those whose team beats our team.
We decide to beat the crap out of the opposing winning team’s fans.
We don’t lose well….

Look at our elections…

We like our candidates of choice to win.
We work for our candidates.
We campaign for our candidates.
We yell at other people who don’t support our candidate.
We call those who don’t support our candidates ugly names.
We get into fights with people who don’t support our candidate.
We vote for our candidates.
We get mad when they lose.
We decide not to accept the winner because our candidate should have won.
We contest the voting count.
We demand a re-count.
We demand a re-vote
We make up stories about the winning candidate to make him / her look bad.
We paint a really ugly picture to sway the results.
We lie, pay bad people money…
We want to win at all costs

Look at our primary elections…
There are a lot of people who don’t like a man like Donald Trump
He’s loud, obnoxious, brash, arrogant and troubling to most…
Maybe he’s not “president” material…
Yet he’s been voted into the top position.
He’s the presumptive nominee.
He earned the spot.
But those who don’t want him are mad.
As those who didn’t vote for him are doing and saying all sorts of things to stop him.
They want to ignore the majority of the other people who voted for him.
They want to say that everyone who voted for him is ignorant and racist and just wrong.
When did voting for a person of one’s choice become ignorant, racist and wrong?
We don’t like the voting to not go our way…

Look at the recent vote in Great Britain.
People voted.
The vote was to exit.
But those who lost the vote are mad.
They’ve decided that those who voted to exit are racist, ignorant, wrong.
It was put to a vote…
stay or go…
Go was chosen…
but now…
All those people who voted their choice to go, are now labeled as ignorant, racist and wrong.
We want a re-count.
We want to block the decision.
We don’t want to concede to the majority’s vote.
We want to do everything possible in order to turn the vote around to our vote, our choice.
We no longer believe in choice, or two sides
We will fight and call those who voted against our wishes ugly names.
We won’t accept anyone else’s opinion or right of choice because it is different from our own.

We forget that there are always two sides—
Winning and losing.
And sometimes we just have to live with losing….

Graciousness appears to have died….

But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness,
and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.

2 Corinthians 8:7