What a World

There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him; haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man that stirs up dissension among brothers. 

Proverbs 6:16-19

I've been in kind of a weird head space lately, and I'm not quite sure how it can be described. I'm trying to carry on and live my "normal" life, all the while balancing moments of joy and despair within my own personal world with those of the world around me. It's a lot like trying to be happy about a new life being born into a war situation. My heart is in a constant tug-of-war between trying to find the good in every day, and seeing the evil in every day, wondering when the other shoe will drop and which will finally win. I think this is what it feels like not when hope runs out but when circumstances truly are beyond our control. It's not that I don't believe God is in control or that something evil is coming for me. It's just that the world is looking more and more tattered every day and that in itself is so disheartening. It's hard to keep your joy when there is so much pain everywhere and so little you can do to help or foster a change.

I've found myself getting quieter and quieter, which is my classic move when I am beyond overwhelmed. I've been doing a lot of listening and observing and maybe too much in some areas. I've gotten very annoyed with the temperatures of others and I wish they would become quieter too. Today I heard Pastor Rick Warren's podcast titled, "A Faith that Shows Respect to Everyone", and I picked up on why that might be true. Rick says, "when people are under stress for a long time,it tends to bring out the worst in us. We become more irritable, more impatient,more self-centered. We become more protective of ourselves. We look for scapegoats to blame. They become more wary and fearful of people not like themselves. When you're under stress, your natural biases tend to rise." 

 In this divided world we seem to be living in right now, people seem to have taken very clear sides. Whether it is the side of "Covid-19 is a hoax/Covid-19 is real", "Republican/Democrat", or more recently and sadly, "Black/white". None of this is okay with God. Okay, I know His Son personally, and I know He's not okay with all this division! He's not okay with those creating discord among his people at all! God doesn't think any partiality is okay. All partiality is a sin to God. Partiality is what has led to many of the sins in our headlines today. It's why people go around thinking they are better than others. What are some examples of partiality? I'm glad you asked. Rick gave just a few examples:

-are you quick to judge people with hairstyles you consider "weird"?

-how about people with piercings in different parts of their bodies?

-what about people who are fat or skinny?

-people that dress differently than you?

-people with a different religion?

-what if they're an immigrant?

-what about people younger than you? older?

-what about others who make more money? others who make less?

You and I both know this is just a partial list. I can think of many others and I know you can too. Let's not find ourselves on this list. 

Deuteronomy 10:17 

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and takes no bribes. 

Chronicles 19:7

Now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery. 

Rick pressed his point by adding, "God doesn't tolerate such things and we shouldn't either. Why? Because all three are unfair, dishonest, and unloving and the opposite of integrity, generosity and humility."

My friends, I will not tolerate bigotry, injustice, or blind following of anyone who participates in this kind of thinking or life-leading. If God doesn't tolerate it, I won't tolerate it either. If I invite you to a dinner at my home and there is seated at the table an immigrant, a homosexual, a pierced individual, a person with a different religion than yours, and a homeless individual, and you can't be kind and loving at my table, YOU are the one who won't be welcome. That is my position on that. 

Part of what has been bothering me so much lately is all the discord being spread around everywhere I look. All the scapegoating. All the blaming. All the judging. All the hating. All the "it's her fault", "it's his fault", "it's their fault", and it's insane. Do I expect better? I guess I do from certain people, and I am flabbergasted and done listening to the gibberish and the smack talk and the nonsense and the garbage mouth all over social media. None of it is based on actual facts or intelligence and trying to find a news media with a talking head with a non-biased brain is impossible today. They are all showing partiality of some kind and therefore have nothing important or newsworthy to say. 

Thus, my quiet head space. By being quiet, I humble myself to what God wants me to hear and what he wants me to say. Right now the world is noisy and people are hearing what they want to hear and saying what they want to say. It is hard to be heard among those who don't want to hear anything different. As I am reminded daily, "People hear what they want as long as it fits their narrative of beliefs and opinions." I equated at least part of what is going on in the world with a child experiencing a divorce between parents. Mom is pulling on the child, dad is pulling on the child, and in the middle, the child is saying, "you're both ridiculous and I don't want to live with either one of you!" And the therapist says, "He's right, and he shouldn't have to make a choice.You're both idiots. Figure it out and grow up." 

Please grow up, America. Work together and figure it out. For a country based on choices, lately it seems we don't have any worth making. Our leaders are confused and emotional and refusing to comply, leading to people who respond in kind. Until we start using our own brains, minds, and hearts to see what God is asking us to see, we will remain blinded by what we want to see and how it fits our own agendas. The thing is, it's not about us and it never has been. When we all figure that out, what a world it could be. 

Blessed Freedoms

In this country, we are blessed with many freedoms. I think it is wise to remember those freedoms before we complain about what we have and don’t have, can and can’t do, or who is or isn’t in charge. Freedom isn’t dependent on whether or not you’re content with the way things are. I think those concepts get a little confused sometimes.

When my youngest daughter was studying abroad in Peru back in early March, the coronavirus was just making its way across the U.S. I was very nervous about her being in another country anyway, but with an uncontrolled virus situation unfolding quickly I unraveled quickly too. My instincts told me the group should get a flight home a week early, but the university’s travel director assured us they were not in any imminent danger. I didn’t agree, but there was nothing I could do. My daughter would stay. Thankfully she was in a group with her professor, another professor, and a group of students. Thank God she wasn’t alone, or I may be telling a whole different story here.

Just a week after this, a pandemic situation was declared in America. Travel bans were being put in place. I became even more concerned. To make a long and complicated story shorter, the day she was to fly home came and went. More days of scheduled flights out would come and go. The president of Peru decided last minute, while the group was at the airport to ban all travel in and out of the country at midnight. Again, they were not able to leave due to this decision. There was no warning, no backup plan, no help, and chaos at the airport.

They suddenly had to find another hotel, and by this time, their country was in lockdown. This is much different than the “lockdown” my fellow Michiganders we’re describing on their social media. In actual lockdown in Peru, they were confined to their hotel. They could only leave for essentials, and as they left they were stopped sternly by police officers who yelled at them, and if they chose to, would send them back to their hotels, no explanation necessary. My daughter and a friend attempted to get some food at a store nearby and were forced out and into the street by an officer pointing and yelling at them. They were allowed in the store only after they were given permission. Can you imagine this happening in America? Cue the angry Facebook posts now. THIS is what it’s like to be in a country that is not a democracy. The fact that we have been asked and it has been suggested to distance and wear masks and stay home is still a great mark of freedom. People do not understand this unless they’ve never lost their freedoms or they simply don’t think about how other countries are run.

On the day my daughter and her group were finally able to leave, which was two weeks after her intended departure date, things got hairy. Our group and the university’s international  travel director had spent countless hours and money trying to figure out ways to get the group safely home. When efforts seeking help from our own government became fruitless, they found ways to get the kids out and together, which was no easy task. My daughter described that whole experience as exhausting, scary, and confusing. Walking miles with all of her luggage in the rain, sitting on a hot, crowded bus for hours, waiting in a crowded airport, listening for their names to be called out and hoping they all got called or none would fly, waiting under a tarp-covered area in metal chairs while soldiers with big guns and drug-sniffing dogs surrounded and intimidated them for 2 hours as they sat completely still. All of this just to get Americans home from Peru. At one point her big light pink suitcase fell over, and she sat there wondering if she should pick it up. She decided just to leave it. She wondered if the dogs would hit on some beef jerky she had in her carry-on bag. She entertained herself with that for awhile, but truly hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble.

We appreciated the efforts of their Spanish military that traded our Americans for their Peruvians. We appreciated the diligence of her professor and the international travel director at her university who kept us in constant communication and provided all of the extra expenses for the additional time they were there. We appreciated the contact from the few representatives of our state who returned the desperate calls to our group. Most of all, grateful to God who kept them all safe and brought them home healthy and without incident. But no credit will be given to our president who simply said, “they missed their flight. They were late.” Then claimed the military was helping, but in fact they were not called to at that time.

When she finally arrived safely, she was a stronger version of her former self and I was too. She had nothing but wonderful things to say about the people of Peru and the beautiful country. Her experience humbled her to the rights and freedoms she has appreciated as an American. I was proud of her the entire time she was there. She emerged as a leader who kept herself calm and under control, bringing peace to the rest of the group.

Being able to see the differences between where you grew up and how others live is how you expand your thinking and your growth. We can’t continue to grow if our minds stay small and limited to only what we know. Maybe we can’t travel, but we can read and we can learn from others. We can open our minds and accept that maybe we don’t have it so bad after all. Or maybe in some ways we do, so we look and see where we can make a difference.

The world gives us opportunities every day to be a change-maker. We’ve been watching a lot of protests, some rioting, some looting, a lot of political battles. What can we take from all of that? What can we learn? Where can we help? Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves. And always check ourselves at the door. What am I grateful for? Am I being open-minded here? Am I listening more than I’m talking? Do I appreciate where I am and understand that not everyone feels the same as I do? Can I accept others who think differently than me? How can I be a peacemaker right where I am, even when it seems the world is on fire around me?  How can I, just one person, be a positive influence on everyone I meet? Maybe it sounds trite and cliche, but change does begin with us.

It begins at home with your kids, teaching them to appreciate their families, homes, belongings, and extending love and acceptance to ALL people, not just people who look like them, talk like them, worship like them, live like them. It starts when they are small. Because as we’ve been watching, there are some really messed up adults with some really skewed values, morals, and beliefs out there hurting people and in turn, our world.
True freedom starts with us, realizing that we are trapped by our own shortcomings, hate, and refusal to expand our hearts and horizons to include others.

My current “mailbox heart” says it all right now, and the construction barrels are still out there forcing people to slow down so they have to read my signs!

Chronic Illness, The Teacher

When this pandemic arrived and we were somewhat confined to our homes, people were inconvenienced beyond their own imaginations. Suddenly schools were closed and the children were home. Offices shut down and some were forced to work from home with said children underfoot. Some continued to work, while figuring out many complicated details. Some found themselves suddenly unemployed.

While I can’t speak for everyone, of course, I can say that I was probably more prepared than most for a “shelter-in-place”. I didn’t panic or become frustrated over not being able to go where I wanted to go when I wanted to go, or complain that I was feeling imprisoned. I didn’t lose my mind every time the governor extended the stay-at-home order, and not being able to get my hair cut for a few months was no big deal.

The biggest inconvenience was finding that people were panic-buying the one item that all of us need-especially those of us with chronic bladder disease-toilet paper. Sigh...oh people.
See, those of us who have a chronic illness already know what it’s like to “shelter-in-place” and “stay at home”. We know what it feels like to not see friends or family for months at a time, or even go out for many weeks at a time. After spending 22 days on the couch in January, in horrible pain, prison may have been an improvement!

To hear people complaining that they were on “lockdown” after really knowing what chronic illness does to your previously free, unencumbered life was pretty frustrating.
There were times I wanted to ask them how it felt to be able to go for those walks at sunset every day.
How it felt to be able to exercise in their homes without pain. Go to work. Do the things they’ve been taking for granted for years. And still were.

I know what it’s like to give up my mobility, my choices, my flexibility, my activities, my social life, my time, my body, my freedom to be myself or have a job at all. I was prepared for this crisis because my body betrayed me, not coronavirus. Not a governor. Not any dictator with two legs.

And because of my auto-immune and immune-compromised, opposing though apparent things in my body, a deadly virus would affect me differently than it might in an otherwise healthy individual. Maybe. We actually DO NOT have all the science on this yet. Nor do we know if we can build immunity yet. But we sure have a lot of junior and senior braniac experts emerging on Twitter that can save the world! Not. Oh, people, sit down.

Chronic illness, the teacher. The one with the eraser who says, turn around and sit back down. Wait your turn. Stay in your seat. Don’t talk to your neighbor. Stay in line. No talking. I’m in control, not you.

More people ought to know what it really feels like to be under a dictator. Then they might actually appreciate those long walks at sunset.