People fear people

People are interesting. This week I have encountered several different types of people. Big deal, we meet people every day. True, but I found a few gems. First off, let’s talk about men and women. This gender thing is silly. Men and women are different and the same. Duh! I know a woman who is more like a man than female. She wears men like clothes in a way. She can swear far better than any man ever could. Her pronouncement of the F... word is amazing. Yet, this mom rocks as a female. Women notice things men don’t. Women are annoyed at things men could not care less about. My friend is all of those things rolled into one.

            Then there is my other male friend. He has a hillbilly rough side to him. I bet it did not start out that way. His heart got hurt about twenty years ago. Since then I bet we have seen a slow transformation from the living to the dead. It’s sad really. His views on race, women, work, and life are far more depressing than Eeyore could have ever imagined. The F… word is part of who he has become. This is the walking dead. I am so sad for him. People are good people in the beginning. I believe that. Yet, though life’s experiences we turn different ways. My male friend lost his way.

            Recently, I read about a couple that had 13 kids. They chained them to chairs their whole lives. The rest of the story is even worse than that. It’s beyond sick. Someone asked why 13? Isn’t one or two enough to torture? The authorities wondered how they got away with it for so long? I could not even read the article. People are nuts!

            A certain section of the American population has made it their mission to bury Trump. Week after week they come up with new lies to get him in trouble. It’s not about fake news to me. It’s not about if these stories are real or not. To me it comes down to making America great. How do you do that? I don’t think it’s by ruining another person. I don’t think it’s by focusing on the negative. People spend their days digging up dirt. We work with these fine folks. Something is terribly wrong in America when the victim is all we have to play. What happened to striving for the American dream? Seems more like a nightmare now.

            What does God have to say? I will go to Matthew 21. Jesus is said to be the savior the people had been waiting for. He entered the city and the crowds were going crazy. Yet, on the side of the road Jesus withers a fig tree. Big deal. So, what. Israel was considered two things. One is a fig tree. The one thing that survives in the desert and blossoms. They were the vine keepers. The people that overcame. The ones that blossom in the mist of trouble. The second is God’s people. They were the keepers of the religion. In both instances, these things had withered away. Religion became a burden on the people. The enduring Israelites were reduced to victims in the Roman empire. Just 400 years earlier they were opposed by Egypt. Yet, the Egyptians feared the prospering Israelites. Rome did not fear the Jews.

            North America is an interesting story. Why did not Hitler take out the big America first. The rest of the world would have been easy. It’s because they feared America. America could do anything they wanted because they endured. Today we have been reduced to individuals. Interesting people and character types, but just lonely islands. We are not a great nation. We are a bunch of nuts in the bowl called a country. The country has been reduced to the individual.

            Who is America? Who is Canada? Foreign countries knew what they feared. Now they take shots like 9/11 because they can. America is looking towards itself these days. My rights matter. Bashing others matters. We are looking the wrong way. The for-fathers of old looked to the heavens for answers. They looking into the microscope for answers. Today we look at flaws, sex, words, and actions. All the things that people are. We don’t look to the future anymore. It’s all about smashing the here and now.

            Franklin D. Roosevelt (former president) said “All we have to fear is fear itself.” That was the North America of the past. Today we fear being less than another. We fear our rights are being trampled. We fear being called a girl. We fear being ignored. We fear the word police. There is a ton that we fear including fear itself. I never thought we would go backwards. I thought we were people of progress. I fear that is missing these days.

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