COMMON MATTERS

I Told You So...

I wrote last week that if we don't do something about the government forcing us to do what it has NO business telling us to do, that they'd soon be taking away our Oatmeal Pies.  Remember?  Little did I know that about a month ago in North Carolina, a mother packed her four-year-old daughter a lunch with a turkey and cheese sandwich, a bag of potato chips, a banana and apple juice.  The food-police were in the lunchroom and took her lunch away from her because it wasn't what they deemed "healthy" enough.  They marched that little girl up to the cafeteria line, gave her a school lunch of chicken nuggets.  Excuse me...fat-fried, reheated frozen chicken nuggets made from ground-up chicken parts, are better than a turkey and cheese sandwich?????  Then they sent the mom a bill for 1.25 along with a note-of-admonishment telling her mother that the lunch she packed was not "healthy" enough.  Say what?

Even if Momma omitted a government-approved appropriate veggie, say, a bag of carrots, the food-police overstepped its authority.  It's intrusive.  It's ridiculous.  It's absolutely insane.  It's totalitarianism in every aspect of the definition of the word.  The Puritans who left the dictates of tyranical English government did not risk life and limb, give up their homeland and families, to come to America and found a country that forces mothers to add a bag of spinach to her child's lunchbag or pay a fee to replace the lunch she gave her child.  Our "founding fathers" did not write a Constitution that prohibits the freedom of parents to feed their own children.

Nor did the signers of the Declaration of Independence intend to infringe on citizens' economic freedom and force them to purchase insurance that doesn't meet their needs. I ask you...Why should I, a 63 year-old pro-life Christian woman be forced to purchase insurance that includes birth-control, abortive medicine, and procedures?

If they wanna fix health insurance problems in this country, why not offer medical/age-specific insurance choices?  We don't have car insurance that includes a boat or motorcycle, do we?  We don't insure Mustangs like we do 18-wheelers.  Car insurance is based on the vehicle.  Why isn't medical insurance?  I'm an aging lady with age-specific ailments.  I need insurance that deals with that fact.  I'd be interested in bone-degeneration insurance.  I'd be interested in accident/style insurance based on how many old folks my age have "fallen and can't get up". I don't go to the doctor every time I get the sniffles.

I don't particularly like my tax dollars going to fund the food-police in elementary schools.  Come on.  This is absurb.  A reporter asked the expert what recourse the mother had with the school system for "outing" her child and over-ruling her mother's care (Imagine how that trusting 4-year-old will question her mother's future decisions on her behalf).  What is this mother recourse?  To take her child out of that stupid school and enroll her in private school?  To homeschool her child?  But why should she be forced to pay taxes for public education (operative word: education), and not benefit from it?  Why should that mother be forced to do anything beyond what is expediently injurious to her child? 

Why should anyone in a free society, be forced to cow-tow to a totalitarian?  do we want a form of government that uses its political authority to exercise absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life? do we really want to be subordinated to the state in which opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed and we all have to eat chicken nuggets?  If so, four more years of Obama's fundamental changes to America may just give it to us.

 

Totally Out of Sync

Ever felt out of sync?  I can't seem to get in a groove.  I feel like everything is out of whack.  My sleep patterns, my eating habits, my social activity, and most noticable is my writing regimen.  It's almost non-existent. As a contributor to Devotional Christian (an online devotional site), I am completely remiss in fulfilling obligations to my editor.  I put my devotional book on the back burner because I just couldn't keep up with the rigors of writing it and editing.  I use to be a multi-tasker.  I could do several things at once and never miss a beat.  But lately, I've lost that smooth control of managing myself and the fundamentals of everyday routine.  It's flat-out annoying, friends.  I think I will feel more like me when I've cleared out the old house and gotten myself totally settled.  I'm not sure.

Sometimes my granddaughters get out of sync.  Their daily routines are interrupted by holidays, weekends, illness, or weather.  It's hard to get their little minds to settle down and settle in to the normal routine. Is there really a normal? Can we ever really be settled? Isn't there something that inevitably comes along and throws us into a tailspin?  I think so. Think about it.  

Our economy is out of sync.  Our government is out of sync.  Our world is out of sync. Our politicians are out of sync.  In fact, the President of the United States is "totally out of sync".  With businesses, with Christians, with conservatives, with the U.S. Constitution.  For a man who supposedly studied constitutional law in college, he seems oblivious to the notion that we have the First Amendment protecting religious freedom.  America voted in a president, not a dictator.  Where does he get off forcing religious institutions to provide people they insure and employ with something against their moral convictions?  Who does he really think he is? Hugo Chavez? Castro? This is America, not Cuba. In 2008, when then candidate Barack Obama rallied his supporters in a stump speech and said, "We are just 4 days away from fundamentally changing America", he wasn't just blowing smoke, friends.  He meant it.  The changes he has implemented have doubled our gas prices. At this point we can see a fundamental change in everything that gasoline entails.  Inflation of prices at the grocery.  Less money in our pockets to purchase these things because getting to work costs more. (We won't mention the trillions he's added to our national debt.)

His insane unconstitutional mandate for employers to provide specific insurance coverage and citizens to obtain it, has disrupted the entire economy.  People don't hire because they know they cannot possibly adhere to Obamacare's demands.  So businesses are out of sync and many are out of business.  However, Obama waves his magic wand and gives waivers to his voting blocks...the unions, his political cronies.  But not religious institutions.  Oh no.  That's where he draws the line.  They are fair game for his assaults to "fundamentally change America" and destroy religious liberty.

Make no mistake, my friends. Just as Obama's pen has swept across several executive orders to do whatever he pleases, he is a man of his word.  He is fundamentally changing our country and the Constitution.  Syllable by syllable.  Letter by letter.  If the President of the United States can "force" religious entities to do anything against their will and faith, then we won't have long to wait before the government enters our homes, cleanses our cupboards of Little Debbie Snacks, and force-feeds broccoli and spinach down our throats.

 

Love Is More Than Valentines

Don't get me wrong.  I love the "love" produced by February 14th each year.  I "love" the flowers that fade within a week after we receive them.  I love them so much that a humongous bouquet of dried roses and hydrangeas gracing an antique basket I've "loved" for over 20 years.  At one time, I really "loved" the heart-shaped boxes filled with Russell Stover's surprise confections, too.  I treasure the "love" cards so much that I saved them in boxes to read and re-read through the years.  I can't help it.  I was taught to save, keep, and hoard.  I could blame my my step-mother for my pack-rat penchant.  Actually, I have no one to blame but myself for the items I cling to and store.  I can't tell you how relieved I am that I got rid of nearly 90% of the thousands of items I considered "worthy" of collecting during my 63-plus year lifetime. In my stash, I found multiple childhood trinkets and doo-dads...a set of tiny silver guns once tucked inside the holster's of cow-girl boots I wore as a five-year-old child. In my mind, these are cloaked in "love" memories. Many folks are attached to "things"-- because of memories the "thing" invokes.  I will still store things my son gave his two little girls before he died so they can have them when they are older.  Things they are free to keep or give away.

But, let me tell you of the "love" I discovered as I did let go of things during my estate sale.  A little boy (about 7), came and gathered a bunch of girly toys from our garage as my husband was preparing for the sale. He was visiting his grampa across the street.  He asked how much we wanted.  I told him "free", and he was thrilled.  It turned out, he was getting them for his little three-year-old "cousin" who was also visiting his grampa.  Love.  While I had lots of items he could have found for himself, he was looking for his cousin.

One lady found a painting of two little girls holding hands on a bridge.  I'd painted the picture years ago in remembrance of a friend I had.  I'd priced it far above the paint and canvas value because I toyed with sending it to the friend who had inspired my painting.  I considered not dropping the price, then she said, "It speaks to me.  It reminds me of my sister and me."  Immediately I knew she would appreciate that painting for years upon years, because of the love she had in her heart for her sister.  I reduced the price and she took it home with her. When that lady asked what I'd take for the painting, I was surprised to see it in her hands.  I really didn't expect to sell it.  We never think our renderings are valuable to anyone, at least I don't.   

I could tell you more stories, but my word-count is running out and I want to share a special thankyou to Mildred King and her sweet dear husband.  You see, Mildred's hubby came by my sale because I'd told ya'll to drop by and see me.  That was his sole purpose for coming.  He told me how much he enjoyed my column.  He told me his dear wife had once written for The County Times, but she could no longer keep up due to her health.  It meant so much to me to know that not only did she like my column, but her hubby was kind enough to come by and say hello.  Another nameless lady, told me the same thing as she was leaving the sale. These encouragements came at a time, I was considering letting go of this writing commitment.  May the love you give and receive, far exceed the Valentines you give this week. May your words encourage someone as much as these have encouraged me.  Happy Valentine's Day!  

When God Sustains

I am able.  That is about all I can tell you at the moment.  I am in the midst (well, actually, on the downhill), of having my living estate sale.  Downsizing has been a powerful lesson in letting go of life's earthly treasures.  Letting go of emotional attachments has been challenging at times, but I find it easier with each release.  I advise all of you to not store up treasures on earth.  They are not worth it--the energy, emotion, or time it takes to disperse them.

I laugh at myself when I consider that so much of my current stash of things were originally purchased because of the value they'd hold for our future.  We believed (and in any other economy), the value would have held and even gone up.  We thought we'd have been able to sell them and help supplement our income as we sold them a few at a time.  It's kinda how millions of folks felt when they purchased their homes fifteen or more years ago.  BEFORE the housing market exploded.  They truly believed they'd have what they needed to sustain them in their golden years.

Many young people hoped to resell to purchase larger homes, better homes, more things.  They bought into the idea of refinancing their house equity to pay off credit cards and purchase the backyard swimming pool. And some were told their property appraised out at more than it really was worth-- just to flim-flam them into getting higher loans.  Then those mortgagees sold their mortgages to Countrywide and others in a block of mortgages.  Then the market went bust and all those mortgages left people underwater on the value of their homes.  The economy tanked and folks lost their jobs and went bankrupt.  Only the wise folks in America came out unscathed.  Yet, even they have been hit with items that are not worth as much today as they were years ago.

Folks could make a killing today buying property and antiques that others sell far below value, if they want to take a risk that the economy is going to improve.  And if they had the time to wait for the items to increase in value.  But no one knows.  No one.  Speculators can speculate.  Politicians can make promises. But who is to say what the world is going to be like in another few years.  All across the world we see countries, like Greece, clamoring for ways to keep afloat.  We are told in America that our nearly 16 trillion dollars in debt is increasing at such astronomical rates that our children's children will owe 150,000 the day they are born.  Gloom and doom.  Despair greets young people on graduation day.  The promise of change and hope is waning for thousands upon thousands of young people. So little in life is secure for them.  

I suppose that is why, for me, my faith in God sustains me.  My family is my joy and mainstay.  My church family is an anchor.  Friends are my comfort.  As I think about it all, I wonder if folks really know how rich they are apart from material things.  This whole downsizing thing has been such a blessing to me.  From my tiny 562 square feet, I get to see the Okahoma sunrise each morning from my kitchen window.  It is amazing.  The pinks, and aqua blues.  I want to take pictures each morning.  But nothing could possibly capture the majesty and glory of the moments as the sun slowly comes up.  It is breathtaking.  Each scene gives way to thoughts of how great a God we have.  My cup overflows.  I pray yours does too.