“Gunslinger”

Not The Only One!
03 Aug. 23
Post #91
“GUNSLINGER “
Howdy!
And once again I say welcome aboard and thank you for popping in. One of my all time favorite Quarterbacks was Brett Farve, I know that he has had questions raised about his character since his playing days were over, but I’m not here for that, not giving him a pass, nor am I condemning him, not enough information about the actual facts, and honestly it’s of low importance to me. However, I want to get into his mindset as a Field General on the Gridiron. As a player, he was a risk taker, and often thought of as a GUNSLINGER. He had the mentality that he could just always make a play. Each and every time he lined up under center, his mindset was the same, he was going to make a play. He was tough and many times in his career played through injuries and it seemed that he always put the team first. I’m not making him out to be some kind of a saint, he has flaws, just like everyone else, but on the field of play, he was pretty amazing, and in my mind a world a part from a lot of the players now days, that are all about me first. I completely understand the dangers of the game, and the risk that they take every time that they step on the field, but it is a choice, no one holds a gun to their heads to make them play, and at the end of the day, it is just a business. Sometimes the fans are held captive , or hostage, but now days that is just part of the price of admission. Now, I can tell you that I’ve heard interviews that have been done by Brett, where he stated that playing through injuries was partially do to the fact that he didn’t want to be replaced by someone else and loose his starting job. I mean that is a real concern in that business, and if you think not , just ask Drew Bledsoe☺️☺️, if you don’t remember the name he is the guy that gave us the G. O. A. T. If you don’t know the reference then, I’m just going to assume that you aren’t a football fan. Regardless of the motivation that pushed Brett onto the field, we as fans were blessed by some very amazing and magical plays at times. I think that one of the things that fascinates me most about Farve and the position as a whole, is to be able to make a mistake, or a turn over , as in a fumble or interception, and in the very, very near future, put it behind you and act as if it never happened ☺️☺️. It requires ego, Moxie, and just the simple belief that the last time out wasn’t your best work. One of my beliefs about Farve, was that he left it all on the field, meaning he gave it his all, win ,loose or draw, he gave you whatever he had in the tank. A true competitor and a champion for the sport. I’m not going to look up how much money he made over his career, but what we want to take away from this is that he was paid to take risk, make plays and to win games. Part of that equation earned him the label of being a gunslinger, someone who would make throws that only God knows how they became a completions, very gifted receivers on the other end of those mind blowing throws. Ok, so he was paid to take risk….what’s your story? Life is full of uncertainty and pitfalls, and if it’s not our turn to fall off into the abyss , we have plenty of examples around us every day of people seemingly having the bottom drop out of their lives. There is barely a day that goes by that you can’t get on Facebook or some other social media feed and not see a ” go fund me” campaign. The cast and the story lines are vast and diverse, from sick children needing some life saving surgery, to parents needing funding to bury an unexpected death of a child, loss of jobs and hoping not to loose the roof over their heads or having a vehicle repossessed . They are all bound up in the common need for funding to some how save the day. I have mentioned before a guy named Dave Ramsey and his take on finances and the one thing that many of us believe in is insurance. In fact Dave Ramsey talks about how sometimes we carry to much insurance and of course, you are probably thinking….what?, well his point is that we often carry duplications of insurance under different banners, such as some car insurances offer roadside assistance, but we also carry AAA. That’s just one example, but there are others and I’m not an insurance guru, so don’t ask me to pull them out of my hat like a magic trick☺️. There are things that we can insure against such as accidents, so we carry auto insurance and for the most part that is mandated by the state. We insure against a burglary or a house fire with homeowners insurance, and then we get into some questionable areas. Health insurance to me is a big question mark ❓️ and it has been for sometime. It just seems to have to many moving parts, partially because of all of the options, but also because of some of the gray areas, yep, gray areas. I get and understand fraud, and I get that there is a certain percentage of people who want to take advantage of the system and in the mean time, make it harder on the rest of us. And unfortunately for us, some doctors have forgotten the meaning behind the hypocritic oath that they took to become doctors in the first place, so some of them do or recommend unnecessary procedures and putting their Mercedes ahead of their patients. I think for me, one of the biggest gray areas is when insurance providers are making decisions on people’s health ,opposed to an actual physician. When you get right down to it, a bean counter sitting somewhere in a corner office, is making the call on if someone lives or dies. The health care system is broken, just like our political system, our criminal justice system, and our tax code. They could all use a major overhaul, but that would require leadership, which seems to be in short supply now days, just like common sense, major shortage ☺️☺️. I think that there are just to many powerful people invested in what puts money into their pockets. After that dissertation, you can decide for yourself if you actually feel protected by carrying health insurance or not. Yes, it helps to cover some of the cost, but its not insuring against your health and that is actually the point, there are just certain things that make us gunslingers as well. We roll the dice, if your house catches fire, they can build another one good as new, but think about your vital organs, if one goes bad, they aren’t going to replace it with one like it’s brand new. I think about my friend Amy who is on a waiting list for a kidney and they are telling her that the average wait is three years, does that make anyone feel protected and assured of anything? , probably not so much ! I get that I’m not comparing apples to apples here and I’m not encouraging anyone to opt out of their health care coverage. My thought process is about the fact that we all take risk each and every day with many different factors and it’s just humanly impossible to insure against all of them. I mean there are risk in life and then there are unnecessary ones, such as some of the ridiculous things that people do in traffic, each and every time they get behind the wheel. I don’t think that there has ever been a time in our history before, when you could see so many late model cars on the road with so many dings and dents, sometimes whole bumpers missing or held together with duct tape. See, people do not smart things behind the wheel of a vehicle, because they have gotten away with it before. It’s great until it’s not so much!, anymore. People play gunslinger with their vehicles, their lives, and the saddest part is that they put others at risk, who are often unaware of the lunacy that is in the next lane or a few car links behind them. There are many other different ways and places that we do our impersonation of Brett ,that we would make him look like some kind of girl scout or something close. Many people choose not to engage in the political arena, and trust me, I completely understand that to some degree. I mean politics is like winning the lottery. Where else in the world can you take an ordinary citizen, supposedly an ordinary “Joe”, no reference to current administration, but a person, put them in office for some unspecified amount of time and they become a multimillionaire , while supposedly conducting the people’s business, yeah right!!☺️☺️. Self serving and corrupt, regardless of “R” or the “D”, meaning both sides of the isle. Personally, I don’t find much use for government. I think the two things that they could do for me, is to pick up my trash and maintain a military, and guess what, they have managed to mess up the basics there as well. Ok, anyway I digress, I don’t believe that the things that haunt and plague our culture, or any culture will be resolved by government intervention, but the opposite is completely true. They make many things much worse with their intervention. The point is, we need to stay informed best we can, which means a little homework and research, not just taking anyone’s word for it. Exercise your civic duty and vote, instead of letting other people making decisions that will possibly impact your world somewhere down the road. Ok, here is one of my biggies on taking risk, and it’s in not protecting your marriage and your home, and your children, if you have them. Someone told me many years ago, that we don’t play defense when it comes to our strengths and that is basically true. If you have a strong marriage and if it’s a lasting one, then it’s probably something that you have made sacrifices for and invested in heavily. If you haven’t done those things, then it’s a strong possibility that things are on shaky ground or you are divorced, like myself. If you don’t put safe guards in place , something that was good and strong, can become something, not so much !. You need alone time together and hopefully a regular date night. When ever possible, you should try to do something with the kids and if you have more than one, take them out individually, whenever possible to enhance the special Ness added to the time. You should always be aware of your surroundings and never discuss your mates short comings with someone of the opposite sex, and don’t be grumbling to your boys , or to your girls. Perhaps one trusted friend, remember that your spouse should be your number one friend. Don’t let outside forces impact your marriage, you need to protect against negative influences , even if it is someone who you think that you can trust, but they just wants to play, ” Go tell it on the mountain “, when it comes to your personal affairs.☺️☺️ There is a reason that they call it dirty laundry ☺️☺️. Don’t be a gunslinger when it comes to your marriage and family. So , it’s time for the finally, what you all have so patiently waiting for. There have been places and times in my life, that I’ve been brought to, kicking and screaming all the way. This isn’t the best example, but being a parent, before I got the understanding of what an awesome privilege that was, I had a great deal of resistance to someone being totally dependent on me. It’s one of the hardest jobs you will ever do. It goes mostly without recognition and or praise. Often unappreciated, the pay is horrible and often you get to pay them to unappreciated you ☺️☺️. It’s a job that they will fire you from again and again, and they will occasionally say mean and hurtful things, such as they hate you! , and that may be on the mild side of things. Sometimes it reduces you to an ATM machine and while you may contemplate your impact and what your legacy will be, it is many times not known until you are no longer around. At the end of the day, despite all of the upheaval, it was totally worth it. The biggest place that many of us like to play gunslinger is with our eternal future and security. See, most of us or many of us are so heavily invested here, that we don’t ever give that much thought to when we won’t be here any longer. If you think that this is a pitch for burial insurance, then you would be some place that I’m not☺️. I know that people have all kinds of belief systems when it comes to death, probably as many of those as there are different rituals for burying someone. There is this saying about ignorance being blissful, so for all of you who think that it’s just about the here and now, and then the dirt nap, I’m going to eagerly allow you to have your blissful time with the worms☺️☺️. I would love to take the time with you guys who are in the reincarnation camp . If you want to believe that You can come back as a squirrel and dodge cars in traffic, good luck with that as well ☺️☺️. There are a lot of other possibilities and possible outcomes to explore that I just don’t have time for, but we are talking about being a gunslinger and taking risk, so along with the whole insurance thing, let’s talk about fire insurance. No!, I’m not talking about your home, but for your soul. I know that most of us have at some point have seen the bumper stickers which state “Coexist “. I believe that the basic premise is that all religions are the same and not that fundamentally different from one another . I have a dear friend who tells me it’s all the same thing, we just call it by different names for the same God, boy, do I wish that was true, then , I would be the class clown ☺️☺️. You know the one on the outside looking in trying to distract the other kids from learning to mask my own deficiencies. ☺️☺️. Fire insurance is for those who are covering the bases, just incase there is something to this carpenter rising from the grave stuff . I have met people who have such a smorgasbord of samplings of different faith’s all smashed together that I couldn’t see one that would be a dominant prevailing force in their lives. I mean like ,I admire their creativity to be able to merge together things that are often diametrically opposed to one another, that is definitely a gift or some kind of a talent. ☺️☺️. I think that , fire insurance is just that , it’s something that will ensure that you will end up some place very warm☺️☺️, and I’m not talking about the tropics. I have stated on numerous occasions that I’m one of the furthest people away from being any kind of a theologian or Bible scholar, but I did get past the eight grade, not sure how I did☺️☺️, but I can read. So for me one of the scariest things for me in all of scripture is Matthew 7: 22-23. Now to put that into context, the Bible is full of brutal things , wars, famine, genocide, rape and pillaging, and the crucifixion by far the worst, because innocence was traded for guilty and shame. I say all of that and yet that verse in Matthew just quakes me to my core, nope, not gonna, if you want to know, look it up. As usual a bit long, yes Christianity is technically a religion, but at its core,, it’s about a relationship with a real life person. It stands alone in that arena and it’s the only faith that instead of saying do this or do that, its says that it is done! It has been done for you and all you have to do is receive it. So what good does it do to gain the whole world and then loose your soul, how much is your soul worth and how do you put a price on your eternal future? So , ask yourself, what are you putting your trust in? and ask yourself does it satisfy,? or does it after while leave you feeling emptier than showing up for a black Friday sale, some where around St. Patty’s days ☺️☺️. I want you to think of this as food for thought, but at the end of the day, you need to know when to holster that gun.
Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
Sandy The Southerner

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