Prayer, a different priority

It is clear to all minus the upper echelons of society that most families in the United States are struggling to make ends meet and even to keep roofs over their heads.  Millions of people have lost both jobs and homes, and nearly 50 million Americans are on food assistance.  It is estimated that a minimum of three million Americans have lost jobs since 2001, which economists say is a profoundly underestimated number.  Please do not just read on.  Remember that one million is inconceivable for human beings to perceive much less three or more million.  The losses and struggles are staggering, and all due to the decisions of “representatives” who chose not to represent.  Sadly, it is what it is.  We are living the results of choices, de-educations and addictions to every make and measure of foolishness; technological, chemical and otherwise. We gave away the right to freedom by opting for comforts, ignorance and laziness.  Equally, we have become near expert at bitching, though nary a finger is lifted to remedy the fall of unalienable rights.  We have chosen to sit back and complain as Washington D.C. continues to make short work of the national economy, the Constitution and the God-given rights of human beings.  It is what it is. 

Many Americans gave up looking for work.  Many gave into technological addictions as a means to avoid the reality of laziness and the guilt of losing God’s gifts.  Many just choose to bitch and moan, our new luxuries, but all this, too, will come to an end.  We are living on borrowed time.  As such, we have several options.  We can enjoy what time we have left to play with our devices and continue in other ways to streamline our lives.  We can try, one more time, to live large and buy whatever we want to feel we get what we deserve.  We can pretend all is well and that time will solve all escalating problems.  We can continue to pretend to believe in business as usual.  That is, in fact, what most people will do, but other options exist as well.

We can reconsider prayer as a different priority.  We can rethink our lifestyles and give up our addictions to brain numbing devices.  We can choose to communicate with people, most of which needing help, friendship and groceries. We can ask for God’s help and blessing, not as rapid-fire, mindless prayers of habit, but as hearts and souls connected to a God; a God one is willing to kneel before as a saving King.  In essence, we need to take seriously the evil in which we fully participate and equally support, and, with that we need God’s help right now. The time has come to stop being purposefully mean, cruel and self-centered liars; to stop taking, sneaking, blaming, dodging and covering our sins by pointing fingers at the sins of others.  We need self-accountability, which can only be accomplished through real prayer and by focusing the reflective truth on ourselves even though we cannot bear the ugliness.  In all daily pretenses, we are incapable of facing that knowledge even though it is wisdom.  We need God’s help, right now, because the country and the world are falling down around us, directly at the feet of our personally denied guilt.  

It is time to change ourselves, to focus on the desperation of others, and stop lying to ourselves about ourselves, because the internal angers are growing from the conscious awareness of individual guilt.  We lost what God gave us due to the individuals in the mirrors, each and every one.  Let us take our ugliness and our guilt to God and ask for His forgiveness, guidance and blessing, all undeserved, but profoundly needed.  Pray that we can walk from our brain-numbing habits, all of them, in order to seek God because nothing else is going to work.  The point of no return, ignored decades ago, leaves only God as a means to a future.    Nancy

The Ongoing Joke-Judgments of Women

One of the most disturbing aspects of contemporary American culture is that no matter what a woman desires for her life, insults exist in the form of canned and pat criticism.  I have witnessed on Facebook and other social media the condemnation of women who desire marriage, who desire higher educations, who desire careers, and who desire children.  Sadly, it is almost exclusively men who take such common stabs as “she’s after her MRS degree”,  “our school is a ‘bridal institute’,” and even “you don’t need to get a master’s degree or a Ph.D.”  Equally, as marriage is now discouraged, pregnancy is discouraged, and even teenage sterilization is condoned,  the social and cultural degradation of women continues as jokes, blatant criticism, and is publicized.  In fact, a woman’s opinions–even her biological desires–continue to be overtly, publicly, and negatively judged. 

It is interesting that single women who serial date are condemned in most cultures and  equally in societies that encourage single women to use birth control pharmaceuticals, become implanted with devices, and to dress provocatively even in childhood.  Schools encourage sexual activity and non-pregnancy tactics, all mostly targeting teen and pre-teen aged girls.  However, once these girls use these lessons learned, they are universally labeled as “sluts.”  The “good” girls who avoid sex and admit to waiting for marriage are equally persecuted, particularly by college/university men.  The common cut of “a ring by spring”  and the “MRS degree” are similarly publicized insults and judgments by many men.  It seems that the proverbial “kitchen” jokes have now evolved into the larger arena of what women hope for in their lives.  Perhaps, gentlemen, women should just shut up.

It is certainly no surprise that women who adhere to biblical principles and mandates are criticized.  Everything biblical is criticized, but for young men, particularly Christian men, to make fun of young women who desire marriage is, frankly, unchristian.  They, too, have been equally guilty with secular men of persecuting single sexual women, but to castigate sisters in Christ for their Christian and biological desires for family, nest, and children is disturbing and sinful.

There is something very wrong with men who feel compelled to judge the female gender with jokes, much less telling them how they should look, act, and dress, while at the same time criticizing their biological instincts and desires of their hearts.  For Christian men to publicly belittle women for desires for marriage and children, careers and education, or for any other personal desire has consequences, which have direct results upon men.  Men needed help, according to God, and they were given help in the form of women who had the God-given capacity to love them.  A spiritual problem exists when men make jokes of this gift.  The question is, is there any form of judgment that is off-limits when it comes to women?  Must women always be the butt of jokes, even the Godly women who, as God intended, were to solve the loneliness of men?  Have women become an object of hatred even to Christian men and, if so, for what reasons?  Have women become too free for comfort?  Do their opinions and desires, which are often not those of men, offend?

As the criticism of women continues unabated,  I ask you, gentlemen:  Was Eve forgiven?    I also ask how you will feel when your daughters are criticized and made fun of for the desires of their hearts?  Realizing it is hard for men to feel judged by women on any level, I guess you should just go play another video game or, for that matter, reread your Bibles.   Nancy