- NTOO- Not The Only One!
- post # 30
- The Covid Effect
- Howdy , and again, I appreciate you guys dropping in . According to the Word of God, we are all fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. There are different interpretation as to what that means ,but in the simplest of terms, it speaks of God’s physical attributes such as his loving arms, His strong and mighty right hand ,the words, that come forth from the mouth of God. His feet as He walked along in the garden with Adam, and David spoke of seeing eyes that he could not hide from. Ok, so you get the point, but more so, the characteristics of God, such as His love and compassion. His mercy and grace. His wisdom, patience and His long suffering with us. God is also righteous, kind, forgiving, but it also speaks of His justice , anger and wrath. Again, there are far too many attributes of God to list them all here. The point here is to see that we are made up of some or all these qualities and more. The exception here is some of these phenomenal traits can only be possess through the power of God and even then on some limited scale. Take righteousness for example, we ,apart from God, can only possess self righteousness ,,which misses the mark completely and the same is true with anger. Our anger is not righteous anger, but most often is selfish in nature. We are hurt by others and our immediate response is to return in kind . Apart from God we do not possess the holiness of God and can not display these attributes in there correct understanding, or in the way that God would, or have us too. There could be a strong arguments made , that we never would on this side of eternity. This post is not about all of that, but at the same time it absolutely is. Ok, confused yet? Good, ok, myself as well, but let’s see if we can unravel it a little. The whole Covid thing has been with us for over two plus years and is rapidly rounding the corner for a third. And never has it been more clear to me as to how diversified we are as human beings. I mean it’s always been there when you take into account of all of the different political views, religious beliefs, and everything else from how you should raise your kids, to HOAs telling you what colors you can and can’t paint your deck:):). So we see all of the physical characteristics played out in our various skin pigmentations, eye colors, body types from the very thin, almost sickly looking to the obesity types, which we know aren’t healthy, not judging, just saying it’s hard to argue against the science. We all have so many different taste, likes and dislikes that it is absolutely amazing how God put us together, and each one of us is unique and a stand alone original. Some of us just love spicy foods and for others their constitutions will just not allow that. This goes way beyond one’s preference for the beach or the mountains. Ok, it’s easy for us to connect with the physical realm and understand about the arms of God, or His mighty right hand, even when some are born without those physical body parts. So why Covid? Because it has just put on blast all of our unique understanding and perspectives. I’m one of many in the crowd who is just extremely tired of all of the face masks, the distancing and every other restriction and limitation we have had to endure the past couple of years, along with vaccinations status and who has and hasn’t been boosted. At the same time, there are other at a one eighty opposed to that. See, it doesn’t really matter what the subject matter is , we all fall some where that is uniquely us on the scale . I get that it’s a pandemic and that people have died, and not to make light of that, but put the information out there and then let individuals make their determinations as to what to do with that information, because ultimately that is what they are going to do with it anyway. I know that there is a large contingent out there that doesn’t believe in personal responsibility and just as large of a contingent that thinks that the masses are stupid or should we say a little less than the brightest light bulbs, and they have to be told exactly what to do and that their hands have to be held completely all along the way. Please don’t email me about exceptions of the elderly with reduced mental capacity , or small and young children, because that is not who we are talking about here .We put a warning label on each and every pack of cigarettes that are sold. The warning is not vague or in general terms, it states very clearly that they can give you cancer and you will die, and guess what? millions of people each and everyday choose to role the dice and make that choice… because they can. Ok, back to Covid just for a quick second before moving on. I said that we go from the extreme left to the other extreme on the other end, but can someone please tell me what is with the people in the cars all by themselves with the Mask on ?. Are they thinking that the car is going to give them Covid or is it coming in from the vent system or what? And don’t tell me that they just forgot that they have it on, because I’m not buying, what you are selling :):). Covid has been a highlighter , but all of these subtle nuances have always been there as far as you can go back and at every step of the way. There was once the belief that you could sail a boat of the edge of horizon and at the time it made perfectly good sense to most. I like to think of myself as a balance guy, even though sometimes everything in my life might point contrary to that. So perhaps we balance each other as a society and as a culture, so for every extreme person on the left, with whatever their ideology may be, there is some one of equal resistance on the other far end of the spectrum, but at each tick and degree towards the middle there are people who exist there as well. So if you think about it , as you move toward the center you will meet people on both sides of the divide where their views are so close that it is indistinguishable about their view points, and they ultimately agree with one another .And I argue that to be true on every frontier. If you apply this to religion for instance, on the left you may find individuals that will strap a bomb onto themselves and kill innocent people for an ideology and on the right you will find as equally nut jobs , blowing up abortion clinics for a different ideology. They think it’s wrong to kill innocent babies, and it is, but they don’t see their short sightedness in killing others to make that point known. I think as we move to the center here, we may find people who truly know God or want to know Him . It’s not the angry atheist who says that there is no God on the left, and its not the ridged fundamentalist on the right, trying to follow a bunch of rules and judging everyone else along the way. I think the centrist here are the ones who comes closes to getting it right. In the middle you will find people who have an authentic relationship with God or people with genuine sincere hunger and quest to know God. They aren’t discounting His presence or existence, but they truly want to know Him. They aren’t the people who are sticking their heads in the sand, thinking that they will cross that bridge when they get there, nor are they the ones living a false delusional outlook that they are okay because they treat people the way that they want to be treated. Again this is not just politically, or about religion, it is also true in relationships, and all kinds of relationships. Have you had a group of friends and their is this one who never wants to pick up the check, when it’s been firmly established that you guys have been rotating who would pay for the rounds of beers. Clearly not a good friend and someone missing some level of understanding to the cause. There are partnership where one may bring the creative ideas and the other brings the financial aspect of it , or something else that is crucial to the functionality of the partnership. The important thing is some kind of balance. I think the most tricky of these is in personal relationships . Tricky probably doesn’t even come close to some of tight wire acts that take place here. And I will admit this is the one place that you will encounter the most opportunity for things to be unbalanced or out of balance. I will use my ex wife and I as an example. On some levels we were opposites ,but not incredibly, it usually came down to something that the other didn’t care about much, let’s say like a color scheme for a room in the house. She may have felt quite passionately about it and i may not have given it a seconds glance. Some of the bigger things we had to come together on and some what meet in the center for us to have success there. This may not be the best example, but when you are somewhat opposites, it cuts both ways. She brought unique perspective to the situation that I may have been completely ignorant of and the opposite was true as well, and that is why two heads are better than one. Opposites balance one another out, but it can be a strength as well as a weakness. When the balance is out of sorts, it makes itself known in glaring ways. Again this may not have been the best example, because even though we did implode, it worked well for a while and given the choice, yes I would do it again but somethings differently. We are trying to bring examples to the table that make you think what the hell was I thinking. So we have this horizontal plain and dead in the middle is the center. This is where we see people all over the place. One may be just slightly left of the center and the other is far right as you can possibly go. These relationships are multifaceted and you would have to look past the immediate surface to see why these relationships work or cease to exist. Sometimes you will find one partner giving way more than the other, sometimes people with servant spirits or attitudes towards others will stay in a relationship that does not give as much as they put into it ,,and if it helps you any at all, think about your relationship with your kids, they usually take a lot more than they give , especially during the younger years, and sometimes well into adulthood. You would have to get into people’s psychological make up to determine if this is a pattern that they learned from watching their parents, or if it’s some derivative from low self esteem and they accept it as normal or as if they seeing themselves as not being worthy of more, or deserving of a partner who gives as well as they get. Many times you will find that people have different, beliefs, understandings , and degrees in which they receive and interpret love and relationships. And why it can be extremely rare, there are people who can only love themselves, or maybe close family members, such as a child, sibling, or parent. Often these individuals will float from relationship to relationship, without the slightest thought of looking in the mirror. Some people just aren’t givers, and again this reflects back to the exception of perhaps family members or a close friend or someone they want to impress. If you are old enough, you may remember the sitcom “All in the Family ” which featured Carol O ‘Conner as Archie Bunker. If you remember this show, then you remember the dynamics between him and his wife, and the antagonistic relationship with his son in law. These relationships were out of balance and it went one further with him being putty in his daughter’s hand. I Know that some of you are saying…really come on !, it was just a TV show from the seventies. You may choose to see it that way, or you could view it as art imitating really life. I will go one better and put this in some modern day context for you. My relationship with Ms. Annomuis, we had different perspectives on love, relationships and commitment. I was at a level of, I would give you a kidney if you needed it, and she was more like, if I saw you standing out on a corner with a sign, I may or may not offer you a bottle of water. I know that some of you may think that harsh, but I have met both men and women who have spent decades in a loveless marriage or relationship and sometimes it is amazing that the decades can sometimes exceed three or more, and again I’m referring to love not sex. Some individual are completely unaware of their selfishness in their relationships, while others simply just don’t care, and some stay out of fear, or some other codependent behavior. I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence here, but clearly something is going on here in these sometimes, somewhat , lopsided affairs. I spoke of how we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, but you can’t blame this one on God. The culture or some other value system allows us to except less and for the other half of the equation to be able to justify their behavior and poor treatment of others. We may all be created in the image of God, but we clearly not all conduct ourselves as if we belong to God, and that is because we are not all His children, but we will save that for another time. I will end with this, we all fall some where on the scale and it is absolutely amazing and beautiful when two individuals find themselves at the same place and time. That is what that old game show “The Love Connection ” was all about. If you find yourself in a place where you are unappreciated, not so much, under appreciated, because we would have to get rid of our kids . And if they don’t consider you when making choices or decisions, and they believe that their life is just as well with or without you, then you may want to do a little bit of reevaluating of your current situation.
- A bit long here, so until we meet again. ✌️
- Sandy The Southerner
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