My newest blog

http://findingsmith.blogspot.com/

Truth in poetry

Some thoughts from an amazing friend of mine

The World Will Be A Better Place

By:

MacT©

When people stop caring about the Kardashians,

And how much money they spend.

When we care about the family down the street,

And how much food they have to eat.

When people stop fretting about who won Survivor,

And who was unfairly voted off.

Instead we worry for the cold and hungry,

And if they survive at all.

When we stop focusing on Dancing With The Stars,

And whose costume was the prettiest of the pretty.

Instead, we wonder about who has no shoes at all,

And if they have coats to keep them warm.

If people stop listening to the lies that they want to hear,

From Politicians and Businessmen.

If we can listen instead to the truth in everything,

No matter how painful it may be.

If we can learn to see what is important in the world,

Not just for us but for everyone.

We can make the world a better place to live,

and keep it so for years to come.

Down With Hate

by MacT©

I see it in the news almost every single day,

People screaming at the top of their lungs,

“Down with Muslims! Down with Gays!”

Everyone seems mad at everyone else.

My Teacher told me that I was going to Hell,

Because I have two mothers raising me.

She said that the love they share is a Sin!

I don't understand how Love can be wrong.

My Friend's Mom told her she can't come over any more.

She claims that my Moms might make her daughter gay.

The only thing that my Moms might make her is cookies,

Course Mom2's might make her stay away.

I don't pretend to know what God thinks or how he feels.

Maybe one day he might judge Mom1 and Mom2 as bad.

All I can know is what I see every single day.

Two people who love each other and me.

Hate is a powerful emotion that can hurt everyone.

It never builds or creates anything but more hatred.

Can we please stop all the hate from hurting people?

Maybe try a little understanding instead.

I have Two Moms and I love them both very much.

I will never believe that what they feel is wrong.

I have two Moms who love me more than anything.

Everyone should be so lucky.

Patience comes to those who wait.

(With apologies if this post is less cohyerent than others since I am blogging from my Kindle Keyboard.  No spell or grammar check here.  Anyhoo. onward and upward)
    For those who follow my blogs, you know that my family recently began a seven hundred move from GA to our nations capital and that the move has been anything but easy.  I have lost track of how many 1400+ round trips we have made trying to get everything moved and sorted out.  The exact details are more suited to my Ass Blog but suffice it to say that it has been one disaster after another.
     Most of you dont know but I have recently started a new spiritual journey.  Church, prayer and the whole lot though hopeful my city will not be consumed in flames or my wife turned to a pillar of salt.  (Little bible humor there)  It hasnt been easy since I have never been big on going with faith.  But I think it as taught me a few lessons in patience along the way.
     So because of the many lessons, this latest and God willing last moving trip has produced practically no stress at all.  I did have one brief grumpy moment when the packers refused to pack my fish tanks but it faded fast.  So when the movers did not show up exactly at eight this morning there was a brief moment of paranoia and anger but it quickly faded.  I realizec the was nothing to be stressed about.
     Basically either one of two scerariosd would play out.  #1:  The movers would show up eventually anhd move our stuff or #2:  we would have to rent a truck and grab some frieds and move it ourselves.  The packers came yesterday and di the hard part so moving wouldnt be hard or moving in to the new house wouldnt be hard.  We have already been blessed with a wealth of offers to help.  My wifes best friend volunteered her entire family and two churchy congregations and myBrothers Ben and Shag offered to help.
     So I quickly realized there was absolutely no reason to worry or stress about the movers, moving or getting moved.  So apparently I am learning the values of patience. Only took me five decades but at least I am Learning.

Brew Long and Prosper

Hope for the future.

So I have this friend. She is young, energetic and extremely active. She plays two different types of sports very well and can play three musical instruments. She loves to write poetry and she reads almost as much as I do and believe me when I say that is an impressive statement. She is also one of the most insightful, intelligent and wise young...Hells any age person I have ever met. She consistently asks questions that make old Geezers like me shake their heads and go, “Whhhaaa?” She is completely unafraid to ask questions and always does her best to comprehend the answers she gets. We lovingly call her MacT© because her parents don't want her real name bandied about the Interwebz.

Today she posted a link to an article Governor Chris Christie's signing on of a ban on “Gay Conversion” Therapy. My buddy Ben gave her a well written response which she partially misunderstood. Once Ben explained himself, she shook her virtual head and said, “Sorry I misunderstood. See I am not nearly as smart as all you say I am. “ I read this and it made me shake my own not so virtual head.

If my friend can be said to have any sort of failing, it is that she seems incapable of seeing just how amazing young people like her are. She sees herself as nothing exceptional and truly doesn't grok why we find her so incredible. So I am going to try to explainate some of the reasons we should be amazed by her and young people like her. (Waves at Susan.)

Let us start with the incredible need to question pretty much every thing around them. Geezers like me and Ben still question things. We look at the world around us and try to grasp WTH has happened. However, we are old and even though we hate to admit it, kind of set in our ways. Some days we can be just as guilty as everyone else of just saying, “Well that is just the way things are and the way they have always been.” That's not pretty (Especially Ben in the altogether. Yikes!), but it happens.

Now along comes the wily MacT© who will innocently ask a question that immediately hits us over the head with a frying pan, steals our wallets and runs off with our cookies. We sit there in stunned silence wondering exactly what just happened. Then we pick up our pants from the floor and try to answer the questions put to us. Way to many people today are afraid to ask questions or speak out when they disagree with something. MacT© and others like her seem to delight in doing it.

More importantly than asking questions, MacT© really wants to know the answers to those questions, even if she doesn't really like them. A lot of people ask questions, but only listen to the answers that fit their world view. Anything else gets circular filed and deleted at the first available opportunity. Young people like my friend listen to the answers they get and if they don't like them, they try to change them.

Being smart doesn't mean that you know everything. Being smart doesn't mean you have all the answers. Being smart and being wise means trying to find the answers and fit them into the world around you. Way to many people just accept and move on, never wondering why things are the way they are or where the whole thing is going. They listen to Faux News or the Communist News Network to all the pretty sound bites and believe that is all there is to the story. The truly smart and wise study all the aspects of everything and then form their own opinions.

Our country, hells our world is truly messed up. We have wars all over the globe where hundreds die everyday. We have people starving to death just hundreds of miles away from cities where there is plenty for all. We have people dying of diseases that can be treated with a simple injection because the vaccines cost far more than they can pay. We need to change, not just on a national level but on a global level and the only way we are going to change is if people step up and start making those changes happen.

I see news articles all the time of the brilliance and wisdom of the current young generation and it gives me hope. Hope that maybe some of the problems confronting us can be solved. It is not fair to put the job of fixing this disaster on the shoulders of our kids, but at least I see proof that some of them might be up to the job. Most of the older generations, even the ones who truly want to change things, are to complacent and fearful of the changes needed to do anything. The answers have to lie in MacT© and her fellows. I see them and I have hope.

Brew Long and Prosper

Making a leap (Okay Drive) of faith.

Turn left at the fork in the road.

You know how so many times you do something or plan something and you silently (or not so silently) pray to whatever powers that may be for a sign that what you are doing is the right thing to do? You fret over whether you are making the right decision and look every where around you for some indication that you are on the right path? More often then not, we don't ever see that sign and blunder on ahead doing the best we can.

Well, my wife and I recently made a massive leap of faith by moving 800 miles from our previous home to our new one. We did it not knowing if I would be able to find a job here. We did it without being able to sell our old home even though we had to buy a new one once we got here. (Just so you get it, that's two house notes on one salary.) We did something that all logic told us was a very bad idea, but we went ahead and did it anyway.

I like foxes, he is leaping.  Deal with it.

The reasons why we decided to make this leap aren't really important. Suffice it to say we hoped that our situations would improve even with the risks and move on. So we made the move and immediately so many things started trying to tell me this was a bad idea. On the day we were to close on the new house, we drove overnight to get here, but were told we couldn't close because the paperwork wasn't ready. The company that was supposed to move our furniture decided that they couldn't move us, but no one informed us of this until I was halfway back to our old home to meet the movers. The garbage disposal in the new house broke the day we moved in. I could go on, but you get the idea.

So you can understand our trepidation over the past two weeks. So many things seemed to be telling us that we had made the worst mistake of our lives. (and folks, believe me when I say that is saying a lot when speaking about me personally.) We are still worried, but several signs have popped up that tell me that we made the right decision. Not huge signs, but positive indications all the same.

I am a Diabetic and before we moved, my Blood Sugar levels were all over the place and were often to high for good health. In the two weeks since we have been firmly moved in, except for one or two days, my sugar levels have been solidly in the normal range no matter what I eat. I haven't changed my eating habits or my exercise habits, but I believe the lack of stress I am experiencing is helping me be a healthier person.

Okay so from the sublime to the somewhat silly. Another sign I have seen is a potty issue. Our oldest cat, Willow has had severe litter box avoidance issues for a decade. For a very long time, she would poo and pee everywhere but the litter boxes. It didn't matter if they were clean or dirty, she would avoid them. We were jubilant when we finally managed to coax her into peeing in the boxes. Still pooed on the floor but the pee went inside.

(As a humorous aside here, we did for a very brief time, find a cat litter that she liked so much that she would use the litter box for everything, but of course the company went out of business. Go figure.)

Since we moved to the new house, she has actually been pooing as well as peeing in the litter boxes. There was a period of backsliding, but she seems to be working through it. She has essentially broken a decade long pattern of behavior since we moved up here and the only thing we have changed is her location. Like I said, it is a silly sign, but I see it as a positive sign anyway.

Things could still go horribly wrong with all of this, but I guess you can say that about any huge decision. I still have my doubts and my fears, but I think that we made the right choice. My Daddy always said, “Bobby, if doing the right thing was easy, everyone would do it.” Making this decision wasn't easy, but we did it and I think everything is going to work out fine.

Brew Long and Prosper

Dizzying thoughtifying or maybe just the dizzy part.

Ohh, I don't feel so good!

So for those who don't know, I am a Diabetic. For the most part my condition is under complete control and I am in great health. Well for a Middle Aged Geezer with Arthritis in pretty much every single joint in my body and who is legally blind that is. I say for the most part because sometimes, my condition goes completely Wonky (That is a medical term btw from the Latin Wonkinous I think.) and interesting things occur that really screw with my day.

So this morning, I woke up to drive my wife to the Bus Stop so I could have the car for the day and I spend a moment or three going potty. Bout half way through my morning worship at the porcelain altar, I realize that I am feeling VERY Lightheaded. I stumble back to our bed (Okay currently a really good air mattress and lie down. The moment I lie down, it feels like the top half of my body is trying to spin one direction and the other half is trying to spin the other. In short, from my perspective, it feels like the planet underneath me is trying to rotate in two separate directions at once.

And the world go roundy roundy!

At this point I begin to suspect that I am Hypoglycemic which is very bad. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypoglycemic if you are actually interested in the definition as opposed to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperglycemic?s=t which is equally as bad btw.) My wife, being the wonderful but somewhat snarky person she is goes downstairs and brings me a piece of chocolate to help make me feel better. I say snarky because she is muttering to herself the entire time about how she doesn't understand why I don't keep something close by for cases like this. I have no clear answer to that question besides general Male stupidty.

To give you a clear idea how low my blood sugar levels were, a few hours later after eating half an apple and having had the massive sugar content of rich chocolate, my blood sugar levels had only climbed back to a normal level of 85. (Normal blood sugar levels six hours after eating range from 80-110.) So my levels had been so low that a massive influx of sugar only boosted a Diabetic's sugar levels to normal. I suspect my levels were somewhere around 40-50 when I woke up.

Hey it is how we stay alive.

 

Now I know what you are all thinking. (And YOU, yes you! The third guy from the right on the second row! You should be ashamed of yourself!) What does this rather long winded story have to do with the price of crimson walnuts in Baghdad? Easy, this blog is all about philosophy. It talks about how we see the world around us and interact with the people scrambling through the world with us. Unless you are a career drunkard, nothing can make you ponder life the universe and everything like having low Blood Sugar levels.

Ponder this, with extreme Hypoglycemia, you are absolutely helpless. You literally cannot move out of an insane feeling that you are going to literally fall off the world. Your brain feels clear as a bell, but it is actually confuzzled and lost. If you don't receive help, there is a very good chance that something very bad will happen to you. In short, it is some very scary Shift!

The things that I experience (Hypoglycemia and Hyperglycemia) are incredibly frightening experiences that I would not wish on my worst enemy. (Well okay maybe my worst enemy) but it gives me a unique perspective and makes me truly grateful for all the things that help keep me going. Modern science has allowed me to regulate my diabetes and lead a normal life. (Okay maybe Normal is a strong term?) My amazing wife has stuck with me through some insanely rough times and never let me down no matter how big a jerk I was. My extended family (Hey Mom! Waves at Benjy!) are always there for me. I am a very lucky man and I think that the really scary moments help me understand that even better.

Ordinary Joe is all about seeing the amazing things that go on all around us every day and appreciating them. Sometimes the messages can be blatant and other times they can be subtle. The trick is understanding them when you see them. As scary as this morning was, it helped me see clearer.

Smile, it makes people wonder what you are up to.

Brew Long and Prosper

Helping those who need us.

https://www.facebook.com/HelpingEl

     This is El.  He isn't rich and he isn't famous.  I am almost certain that 99.99999% of you have never even heard of him.  He is a good gentle man who has worked hard his entire life and never asked for much from anyone.  He has always gone out of his way to be friendly and helpful to everyone around him especially his friends and family.

     Now El has suffered a major stroke and is in desperate need of help from others.  He is unable to work and has no insurance to pay for his medical expenses.  The man who has never asked for any kind of help is reaching out to his friends and family for help.  In turn, I am using the power of Social Media to reach out even further for help.

     My blogs are read by a large number of people in many different countries.  I am reaching out to my readers to help a man they have never met before and to pass that request on to their own friends.  I want to turn this into a multi-national movement where people reach out to help from everywhere.  Please, help El in any way you can.  You won't get rich from it or become famous for it, but it might make you feel a little bit better at the end of the day.

    El's contact information is included on his Facebook page, but I am including it here for those who might not have access to Facebook.  Who knows, it this goes well, we can use this to help others who need help.  Thanks again.

     Checks can be sent directly to El at EL Blocton. 1691 London Town Lane, Montgomery, Al. 36117 or donators can send checks in El Blockton's name to Stratford Village Apts. or Alabama Power, WOW cable, & Verizon all of which are in Montgomery, Al.