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

nip it in the bud vs the good bits

NIP IT!
NIP IT IN THE BUD”
Barney Fife

(Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith Show)

You remember Barney right?
Barney Fife?
From back in the early 1960s?
The hapless deputy helping to protect the imaginary town of Mayberry, NC?

Thank goodness for his even-keeled, laid back boss, Sheriff Andy Taylor.

When Barney wanted to make a point of how certain things needed to go, in what direction
his long-suffering boss should proceed…all the while emphasizing the need for
no further discussion on his part, he was famous for using the quip,
“Nip it…Nip it in the bud.”
“Ya got to nip it, Andy, nip it in the bud now!”

According to the dictionary, the expression means:
suppress or destroy something at an early stage

Meaning cut it off at the source before it, whatever it might be, spreads and thus
creates a deeper tangled mess.

Such an expression could be used, say, toward gossip…stopping idol hearsay before
it becomes so distorted that folks get unnecessarily hurt or unfairly maligned.

And so now we have it…we know our troubles…

Our trouble is that we are currently living in a sea of irony…
a sea of nipping things in the bud.
I hate to say it but we are living in a culture lead by those who are nipping anything
everything, anyone, and everyone in the bud.

As in, get rid of it, get rid of them… now!

In other words, cancel it out.

I’ve never really been a big fan of comedians, I think I’ve mentioned that before.
I’ve never been one to enjoy amusement derived at the expense of others.

Now I can be self-deprecating as the day is long…but I just find
many of today’s comedians and their schticks to be either laced with foul words
and or imagery and simply tasteless, offensive and irreverent dribble.

Of course, those like Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr.
Dean Martin and even Flip Wilson were of a different generation of comedians.
They could make me laugh.
They often laughed at themselves or laughed at things we could all relate to…

But I must say, that whereas he’s never been high on my list, I am finding
that I can actually readily appreciate the British comedian Ricky Gervais.

He has not shied away from going after those whose circles he has run in
or at least run around.

Recently, he let loose on the Hollywood elites when he hosted the last Golden
Globe awards. Yes he can be foul and irreverent, which is why
I don’t much care to watch him, but he has, however, been candidly truthful.

And it is his truthfulness that I can certainly appreciate.

I caught a news story yesterday about Gervais speaking out
against today’s cancel culture.

I found his observation to be most telling…

“Everyone’s got a different definition of cancel culture,” the 59-year-old explained.
“If it is choosing not to watch a comedian because you don’t like them, that’s everyone’s right.
But when people are trying to get someone fired because they don’t like their opinion
about something that’s nothing to do with their job,
that’s what I call cancel culture and that’s not cool.”

He added: “You turning off your own TV isn’t censorship.
You trying to get other people to turn off their TV because you don’t like something
they’re watching, that’s different.”

“I did a tweet a month ago about freedom of speech, quoting Winston Churchill.
Someone came back with, ‘You know he was a white supremacist?’
And I wrote back, ‘Not in that tweet he isn’t.’
It’s like if someone did something once that’s wrong, everything they did was wrong,” he said.
“You are allowed to have things in common with bad people as long it’s not the bad things.
I’m a vegetarian and I love dogs, like Hitler.
But the only thing I have in common with Hitler are the good bits!”

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/ricky-gervais-speaks-out-cancel-culture

So it seems our culture has lost the notion of the good bits
while they mindlessly race to nipping both you and me in the bud!

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,
but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion,
that it may give grace to those who hear.
Ephesians 4:29

pranks +mimicking = vandalism and stupidity which leads to “Citizen’s arrest”

Hey! HEEEYYYY – –
BARNEY! You made an illegal u-turn YOURSELF!
You’re breakin’ the law, and so I, as a responsible person, need to arrest you!
Citizen’s arrest! Citizen’s arrest!
Gomer Pyle

(1963 episode Andy Griffith Show)

I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show.
A time when you really didn’t have to worry about what was on television and what
your children would be exposed to.

Despite growing up in an expanding city, as a young girl, I felt a lovely familiarity with the show.
Our world was still somewhat small despite our living the city life.

It was a time when we were urban yet still maintained a rural feel.

Walking down a dirt road with a fishing pole, skipping rocks on a pond did not feel far removed.

One of the funnier episodes, that has remained etched in my mind, was the 1963
episode where Gomer uses his right as a citizen to make a citizen’s arrest against the
inept deputy Barney Fife.

I can still hear Gomer hollering “Citizen’s arrest, Citizen’s arrest” when Barney
made an illegal U-turn in the patrol car.

To this day I so often wish I could slap a blue light on the top of my car,
just like Kojak would do in his unmarked police car, going after the idiots on the street who seem
drawn to my direction like a magnet.

Who loves ya baby?

I’d be screaming “Citizen’s arrest” while nabbing the idiot who was on his cell phone
(which is now against the law in Georgia) while he was driving and weaving over the
yellow line, making a beeline right for my car in the opposite driving direction.
A narrowly missed near head-on encounter because someone was on a cell phone,
driving—when it a violation of the law let alone endangering other drivers.

Sadly my only recourse is to blow the horn and swerve.
Praying the idiot misses me.

Recently, I caught a news story regarding the latest Sandra Bullock Netflix series where
much of the action takes place with the heroine and family being blindfolded.

I watch very little television so this latest show is not something I care to watch…
but the fact that the producers are now having to issue a warning…
“Please do not do this at home” is sadly a sign of today’s pure idiocy.

Who in their right mind thinks mimicking the plot of a movie, like driving blindfolded,
or doing any sort of activities blindfolded is a good idea??

So today I went to get my hair cut.
The gal cutting my hair proceeded to share a story regarding a local
grocery store we both frequent.

She told me a rather unsettling tale while offering a warning.

She told me that she had made her way past the produce section and the meat section
and was now working her way toward the dairy section.
Doing what we all do…zeroing in on our own quests while staying in our own little zone.

It was at this point when she noticed a young teenage male pulling his empty cart
right up beside hers.
He was on his phone while he proceeded to reach into her cart,
grabbing out a bag of oranges which he explained he needed…
and so he was going to simply take hers.

My friend thinking quick on her feet pulled the bag back out of his cart,
replacing it back in her own cart while telling the young man that that was great but
that he would have to go back to produce to get his own bag.

He next told her he was posting her to Youtube.
Her response was…”Oh no you are not!!”

He kept repeating that he was posting since she agreed.
She continued with the “I DO NOT AGREE”

She found a manager and explained what happened.

The manager explained that there seems to be a troubling a new trend of kids
coming to grocery stores while wanting to create “pranks” in order to post
on YouTube.

The kids will head to the dairy section where they grab gallons of milk and smash them
on the floor while filming with their phones in order to upload to Youtube.

Prank or vandalism?

Vandalism I say.

The manager found the kid, along with a friend, who both wanted to know why they
couldn’t record their pranks and why would the manager be throwing them out?

Really???

How about harassing paying customers for starters?

The manager kicks them out of the store and watches as they proceed to make
their way to Target. The store manager calls the Target manager to explain
what’s coming his way.

What about vandalism, the destruction of property, theft, harassment, loitering…

What does any of this have to do with silly pranks—
Nothing.

I’m not a prank fan.
I’m not a fan of fine lines.
I’m a black and white kind of girl.
That it is or it isn’t mentality…

Just so everyone can cash in on the 10 minutes of a million likes of fame.

There is obviously a very fine line that our misguided youth seem to be missing…
One that has me screaming “Citizen’s arrest!!!”

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2