Tuesday

Rain is gone.
Bummmmmmer!!!!
It was fun while it lasted.
I am at work - before signing in of course - reading the news online.
Chavez is an entertaining person to read, if nothing else. He's sort of a
circus-type mad-man who also happens to be president of his country.
I had wondered at first, when seeing him with Aminehmad or however that Iranian
president's name is spelled - that the connection was.
The connection is simply that these are 2 people that act like charlatons and make
wild, bold and outrageous threats on the world-stage, mostly, I am assuming, for publicity's sake.

When it comes to war, history always repeats itself. If I am not seeing the foundation for the next World War being put into place - if ever so slowly - then I don't know WHAT it is I am seeing. Russians are helping Venezuela by giving them a 2 billion dollar line of credit for - what else - weapons. Iran is defying the entire world, not just the U.S., in it's alleged quest of nuclear armament. Japanese have started a rift about U.S. bases on the island - whatever the name of it is - over there and a "pact" that is now threatened to be ignored. The Russians have always been a wild card, they're game for a show-down if anyone wants to engage in such. Then there's North Korea - all that garbage and the always effervescent Chinese.

The world simply cannot peacefully co-exist with such radically different views and takes on how life should be lived - or more importantly - how religion should be treated. It always seems to boil down to radical religious views that start major uprisings. Certainly Iran is no newcomer to that arena, now their president is saying that the U.S. is plotting to "block the return of mankind's Saviour" - and no, they are not naming the name of Jesus Christ as such, but some - entity I guess - that I have never heard of.

These are, however, just my musings and look at things political, religious and global. I have never espoused the idea of living in constant fear of something that might happen. Instead, I simply espouse the idea of being ready for your death on a daily basis. I don't necessarily even invoke the name of fear into that - but there is some validity to the idea of living each day as though it were your last. If you could pinpoint the day and hour of your death, I suppose you could therefore adjust your life accordingly near the end - if you were so inclined.

But you can't. I could get into the semi this morning, get on one of the freeways and be killed in some gruesome, horrific accident. This isn't way out there, either. I am coming to terms with things in my life as Christmas approaches and I ponder the meaning of Christmas, a thing that I can say with a certain amount of authority that most people are NOT doing. Of course, that statement is purely anecdotal, but still. Although the term "God" is still relevant in America, the exact definition of who God is has become quite muddied, and the name of my Lord and Savior - Jesus Christ - certainly is frowned upon by more than not.

Having lived the life of a missionary for half a decade and further ministry related activities after that, however, has me used to the idea that to profess Christ as your Savior somehow also paints you as a yellow-bellied, lemonade-bleeding, effiminate piece of human waste that is absorbing and using valuable resources - your, or my, life, therefore should simply end and discontinue the practice of breathing and wasting air.

I can most definitely assure you that I am no wimp. The things that I engaged in in my teen years are mostly held in disbelief by the people of whom push me about such stories as I am not apt to discuss them very much. It was a hideous, evil time of my life and I take no pride in the things that I did, especially to other people. I have had a life-long battle in dealing with the emotions that arise when I am faced with certain of life's perplexities - emotions that were born and nurtured during those teen years and such that I acted out on frequently.

Basically, when someone confronts me in anger, stupidity, whatever - someone is attempting to threaten me in some way, my natural tendency - the thing that arises within me - is to simply beat the s*** out of them, break their ribs, nose, jaw and a few other bones, send them to the hospital and let them have some time to think about their choices in life.

That was what life was about in my teen years. I do not, of course, allow those feelings and emotions to take over and actually act them out in my adult life, but I admit those things still occasionally raise their ugly heads and dealing with it can be internally torturous.

The point is that many men and women that profess Christ - lived a life of hell before they came to profess such. Murderers/brawlers/thieves - a huge list of things. It is conceivable that a person could push the wrong button on one of those people and then, the button-pushing person would find out just what a wimp that individual really - is NOT. Again, I take no pride in such feelings, in fact, it's an embarassment to me if I do happen to let some emotion take over.

So, my reflection upon the season. It's Christmas, not a holiday. Or, it's a holiday BECAUSE it's Christmas. And really, it takes much more inside of a person to just let another person's vile remarks wash over you like so much water on a duck's feathers than it does to get angry. It's easy to get angry, just let your emotion take over, it's a much more intricate and harder thing to NOT get angry, face the demons within you, confront them and back them down - and hopefully OUT.

I have learned quite alot in my adult portion of life in dealing with such emotion, but admittedly, I haven't "arrived" yet, and may never actually reach the pinnacle where I can say "I don't get angry anymore". The anger is almost always contained within me and rarely is it ever let out. Even if it is, it is pretty tame stuff. Fortunately, I rarely get angry anymore. Injustices heaped upon me are far better dealt with in a civilized, professional manner than to simply let loose. You get far better results and you don't feel stupid after you have acquired those results. Getting angry - doesn't really make a person look very good unless, of course, it's a "righteous" anger, such a thing that a person SHOULD get angry about. Even then, there is no purpose to violence excepting in very limited circumstances. I can see getting extremely angry about a person breaking into my home and hurting the occupants thereof - that's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

Just expressing some views here, I must be about the business of work at this point.

G'day.
ben