- Not The Only One!
- Post # 136
- 31 May 24
- ” Big Foot”
- Howdy,
- Welcome once more to the not so always gentleness ☺️☺️. I hope that all is going well, and let’s talk a little bit about some ” folk lure “☺️☺️. I think that probably most of us have some slight recognition of ” Big Foot”, probably most from some TV show or in some other form of media, and hopefully not from a first hand experience ☺️☺️. Big Foot, also known as Sasquatch, propagated itself into our culture in the early to mid twentieth century. It is most closely associated with the United States pacific Northwest and also in parts of Canada. However, just like multiple cultures have different accounts of the great flood, the tales of a large hairy humanoid like creature also has roots in other cultures, such as in Asia it’s known as the Yeti, or in Australia its known as the Yowie. There has been put forth various pieces of evidence such as strands of long hair, blurry photos and even cast footprints in plaster, but nothing concrete for it to add up to more than tall tales or Folk Lures. And if you are waiting for me to break out into song and dance about this or famed “Area #51” , then you are going to be slightly disappointed, but we are here to discuss another kind of big Foot, as in the kind that goes into one’s mouth. 🤣☺️☺️
- I do prescribe to the belief that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, but I know that we all pick up all sorts of habits as we walk through life, some of them good and others, not so much !!☺️☺️. So we all come with some hardwiring from the factory, but often what we turn into can’t be attributed to God’s handiwork ☺️☺️. Its a little a kin to us all having opinions about or on certain things and those are mostly about life experiences or some kind of training or indoctrination or possible trauma 🤔.
- Take myself for instance. I’m an extrovert, and always been an alpha, and probably a little bit more prideful about that than I should be. ☺️I’m the person who would step up and make the call, when others may be indecisive or fearful to do so. If I’m being honest, probably about fifty/ fifty, so not always right on making the call, ☺️but again not frozen or paralyzed by fear to do so. I’m a person who believes in bang for my buck, and that’s across the board. It could refer to a particular product or a service, but I believe in and like order. So!, if you are being paid to do a particular job, especially after signing an offer letter, I’m looking for and expecting performance, aka bang for my buck☺️☺️. I’m always going to choose quality over quantity, with maybe the exception to time constraints, depending on who and what it is. I fall into the category of its better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission ☺️☺️ So of course , I prescribe to its better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six☺️☺️. I don’t consider myself to be brash or without a filter, but being an alpha doesn’t always lend itself towards sensitivity or compassion. I’m not saying that those things can’t coexist together, but I just never found away for them to play nice within my personality.☺️ I could go on here, but I think that You can gather that I’m a person who believes in work first, then play, and that You should do both of those things to the best of your abilities. The one thing that you should gather from this detailed description is that, I rarely miss out on opportunities to put my big foot in my mouth.☺️☺️ There is nothing more disconcerting than going through the majority of your life and then have God or someone else that you really respect to tell you that you got it all wrong or are going about things in the wrong way 😪😪.
- I’m not going to make excuses about upbringing or worldview, but I do believe that both of those things play a part. Almost from a very early age we are taught that competition is good , and I’m not saying that it’s not, but we have both warped and perverted it. When we want to win at all cost, and only see others as something to be stepped on or over to get what we want out of life, is truly sad😔. We may congratulate others on their successes in life, but we don’t celebrate with them and we usually plot or find ways to undermine their success, or the age old back stabbing in full effect☺️😝.
- As far as upbringing goes, I’ve said before how I was late to the party that everyone doesn’t respond well to tough love. The thing that had served me so well in life and pushed me to new bounds, was and is something that turned out to be one of my biggest detractors 🥲
- Just a few weeks ago I encountered a woman who was a little, let’s say chunky around the midsection and I chose not to ask her when she was due, so, a little growth on my behalf ☺️, but turns out that she was indeed pregnant, and it works out so much better when they volunteer the information , opposed to me making an insensitive assumption ☺️☺️. I want to make a little comparison if I may. I’m employed by a fortune five hundred firm and just like the military and so many other places now, we do an annual sensitivity training, which to say that I’m not a fan of , is a vast understatement☺️☺️. I’m not saying that we don’t need to be sensitive, it’s just that the things that they encourage us to be sensitive about is none of my business and I could care less about who and what You choose to be, and do in your off time, as long as it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the work environment and their ability to do the work assigned to them, again bang for buck☺️☺️. Then I want to contrast that with my friend Tom who works in a hospital. He tells stories of walking the corridors and encountering people with blank looks on their faces. He said that he sometimes wonders what they are walking through. Did they just receive a cancer diagnosis that was accompanied with just a limited amount of time to get their affairs in order? Perhaps they just lost a child or a parent or someone else that was dearly close to them and that they loved passionately. I think that we may often say that we never know what someone is walking through without ever really giving it credence as to what that actually means. It’s like looking at someone in a bad situation and saying if not for the grace of God, there go I, while all along somehow thinking that we are impervious or somehow above it all.
- In both situations, the one at work and the one that Tom brought to the table, if we were just loving people and doing that in a real tangible ways and not just lip service, then maybe sensitivity training would be even further unneeded. I have confessed before that when I read and examine scripture, I often find myself on the wrong side of history or the narrative. I find it to be quite humbling and convicting. God’s word says that we speak out of the abundance of what is in our hearts. This means that every time we rush to some snap judgment or opinion about someone or situation, that we ran it through some internal filter, that makes us think that we know enough about the situation to speak into it. Again!, we rarely know what we think that we know.
- It’s not as popular as it was twenty years ago, but every once in a while, I will see someone sporting one of those WWJD bracelets. You know and remember those what would Jesus do! Well, it’s in print as to some of the things Jesus said and did, and I’m here to tell you that we are a long, long, long way off from that, with so much work to do, just to get vaguely close to that 😅😗. It’s not just about putting our foots into our mouths, we will often come right out and use our tongues like a Ginsu knife and slash someone into tiny little bite size pieces. Sometimes that’s not even enough for us, so we will toss a grenade or two of Sarcasm in there, just for good measure☺️☺️. We may roll our eyes or other none approving body language to get our point across. The saying is, ” If looks could kill”. Well, let me break the news to you that looks do indeed kill, and it’s just one reason that we have so many walking wounded, so I guess Zombies are real☺️☺️. Sadly enough one of the place that we may see this most is in our own homes with our kids. You may have a crap job, or a crappy boss , but that doesn’t give you the right to come home and dump it on your family. Freshen up that resume of yours ☺️☺️. If I had just one penny for everyone that I have encountered through the years who has been wounded by words, from someone at school, work, home life, or even at play, I would be an extremely wealthy person ☺️☺️
- I believe that on one hand we are way to sensitive, and it’s a dying art form to be able to laugh at ourselves and not to take ourselves to seriously. I use to be able to go out of the house with two obviously color socks on. When ever I got to where I was going, someone would point it out to me, and we would laugh about it and I may get teased through out the day, but You didn’t find me out on a ledge somewhere, just because I provided a little humor for the office or my class mates. Well for most normal people that would be a teachable moment to make sure you check before you leave the house in the morning. My personality would do it every day, until they got tired of commenting on it ☺️☺️. Sadly, now days , this could be something that would be taken to HR and treated as a case of bullying. We seriously have forgotten how to laugh at ourselves. If men are like dogs, then our society must be also. What I mean by that is, men for the most part are very simple creatures. If you want to discourage a behavior, then chastise them for it and you will get less of that behavior and the opposite is true as well, what you reward, you will get more of it, be it a super sensitive person that you just accidentally looked at them in the wrong way or even panhandling. What we reward, we get more of. Comedians are constantly under fire now days, because people can do outlandish and ridiculous things and they think that they should get a pass without consequences or comments being made….never gonna happen!
- I have jested before about me riding the short bus to school ☺️☺️. I talk about how sometimes when I’m being extremely slow and thick headed that God will give me what I call a “Gibbs”. It’s from the show NCIS. The guy who played the lead on the show, would slap his subordinates in the back of the head when they failed to connect the dots or follow the obvious bread crumbs☺️☺️. Well God does that to me an awful lot. It’s just amazing at how far off the reservation I can be at times. . If there is such a thing as super sizing a big foot, as In putting both feet in simultaneously, then just know that I’m that talented ☺️☺️. This is when I hurt or crush someone without even trying or being aware that I’m doing so. It is immediately met with feeling like you are only a few inches tall. So I’m usually pretty good at reading people, not the room so much, but individuals and the more time I spend with them , the more I usually refine my gift at reading them. And before you ask, yes, I have used this super power of mine for evil, not proud of it, just saying it’s been done and it’s unfortunately an option ☺️☺️. Ok, so most Saturday mornings, I meet with a group of guys at seven thirty in the morning. It’s a Bible study and for the most part we are just brothers in Christ. It’s only one gentleman who is an only child, so most of us grew up giving and receiving the “business “”☺️☺️. Well one morning recently one of the guys was attempting to read a section of scripture out loud and he was just bungling it, really bad. I don’t even remember what I said, but after group was over, someone pulled me aside and told me that my friend, this brother was struggling with finding his place, as in all seriousness, not keeping up. So much for me reading people and immediately just about three inches tall🥲🥲. I had no clue!
- Let’s get back to WWJD, before I run this completely off of the rails☺️☺️. Many of the things that Jesus taught, modeled and did are out of favor now days , which actually means that they are more needed than ever ☺️☺️. He was full to the brim with grace, mercy and compassion. It showed itself often as kindness, service to others and love. One of Jesus’s greatest attributes was Meekness and that needs to be my goal. I think that word is out of favor and when we see it or read we think of a shy , weak , introverted person, but that is not what it is at all. It’s more like strength under control. He never once had to tell anyone that He was in charge or in control, people just knew by the way that He spoke and carried Himself . Never, not once was He not in control. He was in control when He told the religious leaders of the day, their very own thoughts and motives, which frankly would have scared the frosting off of my cake☺️. He was in control, when He spoke to the storm and said peace be still. The most impressive and meek situation that He ever controlled was dragging that cross up to calvary for me and for you as well.
- We all to often judge a situation by what we would do, or what makes us the most comfortable. We never think about our horse play forcing someone out of their comfort zone, leave that one up to God. I want to remind you that if you ever plan on getting past just the lip service, then if you love, truly love , be prepared to make some sort of sacrifice and be prepared to be inconvenienced. Remember that for every wrong there is a right, regardless of what it is. It may be wrong for me to run home and sit on my butt on the couch and watch TV, but for someone else with a heart condition, it may be precisely what is needed . Think about it for just a second, what life would look like if everything that came out of our mouths was for building up and encouraging one another . No more gossip, and yes someone would be in trouble with all of those left over words at the end of the day ☺️☺️. Final challenge, God’s Word says that it’s better to be silent , instead of letting foolish things roll off of your tongue, and I know first hand how hard that can be at times☺️☺️.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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