Translating a World on the Edge

By HenriqBastos, 2014, MorgueFile.com

For the lady involved, one of the first rules of Ballroom dancing is:  Let your partner lead.

Oh, is that hard to do for me! I like to be in control. I like to be in charge. I think it comes from having been the mother of five, as well as a business owner for a good portion of my life.

But I’ve come to see that always being in control does not always work.

A few years back, I was in charge of driving one of my daughters to college at Belmont Abbey in North Carolina.  I had to drive through Atlanta, always a fearful drive to me.  In addition, two of my younger children were with me, making noise, causing so much confusion that I had trouble following the signs. I ordered them to behave. I ordered them to be quiet. Oh yes, I yelled out all the consequences they would face!

Then, in the busy traffic, I approached an overhead aqueduct with a scrawl of words in black paint: JESUS IS IN CONTROL.  How happy I was for that reminder!

Because Jesus is in control.

We don’t need to lead.  He will do it.

All we need to do is relax in His arms.

With no more yelling, I made it through Atlanta. I made it to the college.

I’ve made it through much more difficult situations over the years.

I’ve made it with the help of Jesus, the controlling partner in the dance of my life..

I spent my childhood summers on Panama City Beach, Florida at a cottage my grandfather built for my grandmother , a surprise for their twenty-fifth anniversary. The beach was something very familiar, the Easter Basket colors of its water–lime green, purple, cobalt blue. Its sand white as sugar, its dunes barely able to be climbed by a young child, and challenging to the point of necessity for a pre-teen. But the most impressive characteristic of the beach were the waves.

A wave can startle. A wave can hit you in the face. And unless you’re careful, a wave can bring you down.

Isn’t life like that, too?

Don’t we often have wave after wave of surprises, disappointments, and even devastations in life?

But when we make the right judgments, the same waves that bring these things also bring delight, laughter, and that refreshing past-time–fun.

There are scientific principals that effect the waves on a beach, make them less or more.

There are principled and unprincipled people who effect the waves in our life as well, making it more or less.

Who are those people in our lives ?

On a beach, there are some wonderful waves we’d play in, and some violent waves we wouldn’t go near for fear of danger.

In life there are some wonderful people who care deeply for us, and there are some whose lies we fall for time after time. Shouldn’t we discriminate between the two? Shouldn’t we consider the dangers, or benefits of each?

All this concerns what we’re actually after, what we’re really looking for in our lives. We can pretend we’re seeking Truth, but unless we really try to discover and accept what Truth actually is, we’re hypocrites.

The Truth is that there are some people who can help us along, who will walk with us if we let them–people who mirror the image of God in which we are made. And there are people who pretend to be our best friend, but who actually who mirror the Father of Lies.

Which of these should we turn to? Which of these should we walk with? Which of these should we trust during our journey toward eternal life?

By quicksandala, 2015, MOrgueFile.com

Science tells us that humans appeared on Earth over 200,000 years ago. Can you imagine how many human beings have come and gone in that time?

The older we get, the more we hear it: Life is Short.
And of course, it is. So, why do we think we’re so important when we’re ‘here today and gone tomorrow?’

Who are we anyway?? And why should anyone care whether we’re here or not?

Karl Rahner  (March 5, 1904 – March 30, 1984), was a  German Jesuit priest and theologian, is considered one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century.  According to Rahner, all things in the world come from the one same origin, God; so there is  “an inner similarity and commonality,” most clearly disclosed in a human being. A person is the unity of spirit and matter, and only in a human person can spirit and matter can be experienced in their real essence and in their unity. That spirit represents the unique mode of existence of a single person–when a person makes himself accessible to it. And it is always oriented towards the incomprehensible Mystery called God.

In other words, we are here because of God–and for God.

And what would he have us do?

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Matthew 22:36-40

By TheBrassGlass, 2014, MorgueFile.com

A couple of years ago, I posted a blog about war in the Middle East. Since then, our government may have brought soldiers home, but in the process lost the country/countries that many of our soldiers died to free. A big, short-sighted mistake.

And now, looking at cities in civil unrest like St. Louis, Baltimore, and others, it looks as if we are at war in our own country, with our own countrymen. Americans are killing other Americans.

Are we paying attention??

The danger of not paying attention, or caring about what happens enough to put a stop to it, is HUGE.

We need to see, and remember.

I recently saw a video where a large percentage of Pennsylvania college students couldn’t even answer questions about The Holocaust of World War II. Some didn’t even know who Adolf Hitler was, or what country he led in the War. They’d never even heard of Concentration Camps, and certainly couldn’t name one! Some students in another questionnaire thought George Washington was president during the Civil War. And if you can believe it, another thought the American Revolution was fought against Spain!

What’s happened to once-required American History classes? If they are taught at all, they are sometimes revised to favor the politically correct. These are things that should be remembered, and remembered correctly.

If we don’t study our past, and the generation involved in a particular war dies off, so do the memories and the lessons learned. The past should have been considered in the wars and holocausts that are happening today. Yes, today!

Today, we ought to be considering the courage, of our American soldiers who fought in past wars, as well as the loss and grief of their families. But how many really do that?

However, there is one past war that is, at least, remembered by many Southerners. No matter the side your ancestors may have fought on in the tragic Civil War, Americans actually killed other Americans on their own soil. They suffered the same feelings of fear, and sorrow as soldiers experience today. But the devastation left in the South in order to bring it to its knees was abominable. Think of the burning of Atlanta, and Sherman’s march to the sea, destroying all in his path–including the farms and homes and livestock and possessions of my own relatives. Oh, did they have stories to pass down to us!!

I think this video is a good example of what war really is, an intensely personal tragedy. This goes for past wars, and war in the Middle East today.

By pedroiperez, 2013, MorgueFile.com

At some time or another, each of us will lose our focus and be mean to another person. And often it’s intentional. Why do we do this?

Are we mean to people because our own needs have not been met and so we lash out, “getting back at the world” for having treated us badly?

This is silly, because the world gives back to us the same as we put out. Meanness will always rebound on us.

I think one of the reasons we are sometimes mean is because we see something in the other person that reminds us of what we don’t like in ourselves. If we find ourselves bullying someone else, or insulting them, or plotting against them, we need to take a good look inside our own hearts. What is bothering us? And then, try to be honest enough with ourselves to change it.

Another reason for meanness is jealously of another person. We may feel the world has treated them better than us, given them more friends, or provided them with a better lifestyle.

To get over it, we should first think about exactly what it is that they have that we want. Secondly, will that thing make us happy? if we believe that it will, then we can actually learn from the person we are jealous of. We can compliment them to their face on an accomplishment, rather than spitefully tearing them down behind their backs. And then in the nicest way we can, simply ask them how they developed in themselves the thing that we want.

Meanness can also come from fear–maybe even the fear of abandonment by someone we love. To guard against it we put that person down as often as we can. We denigrate them in an attempt to devalue them in the off-balanced thinking that this will keep them dependent on us…i.e. “Who else would have you anyway?”

When meanness gets this out of hand, we need spiritual help, because we’re destroying our selves as well as the one we pretend to love.

We should remember that meanness cannot make us happy, only more unhappy.

Malice drinks one half of its own poison.
—-Seneca