America, Christianity, and Marriage

John Meunier’s blog in this article, makes a case for the distinction of traditional Christian marriage, and other forms of union or marriage. You may read his thoughts here, “Forsaking All Others [is] Necessary For Marriage”.

As adults in America we have the right to choose how to live our life. We are the proverbial butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers – and everything else under the sun, moon, and stars. We all have differing interests and passions in the living of our lives. Sometimes our beliefs, passions, and endeavors merge, and at other times we and our interests are tangential.

Some people view marriage differently than those holding a traditional view. Unless one lives in isolation, I find it hard for anyone to imagine alternative relationships, whether one chooses to call them marriages, unions, or shacking up, were invented in the last few years.

A few facts and thoughts:

According to Divorcereate.org , the divorce rate for first time marriages in America is a fifty percent.

From what I read at ReligiousTolerance.org, the percentage of population in America that can be classified as Christian was 76% in 2008.

I think it is safe to assume that a majority of first time divorce claims are filed by Christian couples.

The divorce rate does not concern itself with those people who stay in failed marriages because for whatever reason they do not feel they can not end the Marriage.

Unfortunately this does not leave a lot of wiggle room for the Christian community unless one allows that while Christianity tries to take the moral high ground, the moral high ground is a slippery slope wholly attainable and sustainable by very few. Most of us are mere fallible mortals doing the best we can with what we have to work with.

People do marry or form unions for reasons other than love and fidelity. Some people marry or form unions for money, some for companionship, others for as many varied reasons as there are hobbies. Not all people need or want traditional marriages, and all the encumbrances that comes with it. Nor do all people want the stigma and isolation attached when a formal marriage fails.

It has not recently been openly acknowledged, or close to obvious in the recent past, but these types of relationships have been happening as long as there have been formal communions between men and women.

My hope is our thinking and tolerance is maturing. We in America have matured our opinions about women’s rights, children’s rights, animal rights,  and skin color.

We are maturing our opinions in other areas of life, such as caring about where our food  comes from, how it is treated, where our fuels come from and how they effect the environment, sustaining the earth for a few more generations, and trying to help the worlds poorest people without making their plight worse than it is now.

Is it really important how two reasonable adults choose how to form a relationship as long as they are not harming each other or those around them? Whose business is it how coupled adults spend their private time? Are we immature enough to believe same sex relationships were confined to the Mediterranean a few thousand years ago then recently, some deviants became activists and went public with their life style, contaminating a percentage of our population?

I have yet to meet any balanced, moral, ethical person who controls who they like, love, and what they believe when they have enjoyed exposure to the real world, and know why they think what they do. How wonderful it must be to be a real Christian, and know of no one who is not ‘normal’ like themselves,  their family and their friends.

I can not guess what God really prefers, but there does seem to be a prevalent thread that God does want us to be happy. God also demands we intentionally cause no undo harm to others. The Christian world, or parts of it, want God in all adult relationships as long as the same Christian world controls both the participants and the confines of those relationships.

Miss Those Soft Holdem Games?

If you read about poker these days, sooner or later you will read the same story only with different words. The games are getting tougher. The games are harder. The games are  impossible to beat any more. Depending on how badly you want to play, this may or may not be true. There are beatable games around, and they are as soft at times as they were when the poker boom was starting.

I can’t speak for online games, because I am not an online player, but I imagine the same general problems are online as they in Brick and Mortar (real cards and table) poker. Those softer games are there, you just need to change what you are doing.

First and foremost is game selection. Everyone who has read more than one article about beginning poker knows game selection is one of the key points. Let me say that again, GAME SELECTION is critical to poker success. Many players with a year or more of play B & M time under their belts are already wondering if they should quit reading right here. I hope they do.

We don’t like change. We like things to stay the same. Even if we are miserable we usually do not change what we are doing. It is no secret and every poker shark after your money knows this.

What is your normal poker playing routine? You work all week, go out on a Friday or Saturday night and play some poker? If this is you, you are probably doing this because you started playing poker this way. The best games were on the weekend nights.

The bad news is the best games are no longer happening at the times you decide you want to play. If the best games were when you normally play, you would not be reading this. You would be out spending your winnings on something more fun than this article. Think about it. It’s Friday or Saturday night and the poker tables are full, and hopefully there is a waiting list of people ready to give you there money once you get on a table.

Maybe you get there a little early to ensure you are there when the crowd arrives. maybe you get there in the middle of the surge. Perhaps you are one of the players who like to show up when the crowd starts thinning, as part of the clean up crew, waiting to feast on tired players and fat stacks.

The fallacy in this thinking is for the most part, with few exceptions, almost every player at the tables is there for the same reason you are. When was the last Friday or Saturday night game, or whenever your favorite to play, you showed up and were seated at a table full of beginning players? It rarely happens any longer.

When the poker boom started, there were a few books out there and very little on the net for beginners to actually learn from. What was there to read was some pretty heady stuff and a lot of disagreement on whether it was true or not. Today when with a few dollars for software and a local library, and a few months of serious poker study time, almost anyone can learn to play well enough to make it difficult for you to take their money.

Almost everyone at the table you usually play at, is at least close to your level of play. This makes for a pretty hard game.  Everyone (almost) makes  a few fundamental mistakes per hour as they play. It may not be noticeable by you or I, but they are making them. So are we making those same mistakes.

It is a hard game to actually make a profit in because those few mistakes are actually made that are exploitable for any real gain. They are mistakes such as calling a small bet when really the starting hand is not correct for the situation. Calling or making a small bet will cost a fraction of that bet over time. Nothing really noticeable except when you notice your stacks are shrinking.

If you are not happy with poker as it is, it is you that has to change. Try playing at different times, maybe early Saturday, or Sunday mornings. Another morning when the other weekend Sharks are sleeping off their feeding sessions. Learn to play better short handed. Learn a different game. Perhaps the best changes may be to play at stakes that have a better possibility of showing a profit for the same amount of play time.

Nobody Told Me!

I didn’t know. Nobody told me. Do you ever hear these phrases? Ever hear yourself using them? Almost every time I hear them, they are used as a defensive response or a way to avoid responsibility. Nobody told me, I didn’t know.

When phrases like these are uttered, someone is generally given a free one time use pass. They are forgiven or excused for not knowing. Used more than once in a while, the utterer is not well thought of.

For a few people, these phrases and others like them, are over used excuses. While exceptions occur, exceptions should be the exception and not the rule.

What is your common response when asked why you are or are not doing something? Are you one of the few, guilty of uttering not being told, or not knowing? Do you find yourself uttering these phrases a little too often?

Not knowing, is a sign or symptom of more going in the background than the few words each phrase contains. No one told me, for example, has hidden meanings other than the obvious one. No matter where you work, no one has a job to make sure you know what you need to know after you are trained.

When something changes in your workplace, some form of communication is used telling you what has changed. If you hear yourself using these phrases more than once in a long while, below are some ideas you can use to ensure you rarely utter them again, if ever.

The key to knowing is to be proactive. Being proactive is a very effective tool you can use in your work and personal life. Being proactive, you always learn or know about changes that are important to you.

One of the best ways to be proactive is to pay attention. Some way, somehow in your place of work, there is a system in place of how information is passed on. Learn how important information is passed on.

Find out if  your company uses email, a bulletin board, a formal shift meeting, or the person you relieve is supposed to tell you. Make your first job of the day reading, listening,or asking about: “What is going on, anything new today?”

Asking a simple question like this and actively listening to the answer will save you from ever uttering a hollow excuse again. Once you get used to reading, and asking questions, you will know what you need to know. You will know about any changes, and you will look sharp, and become more valuable at work.

Occasionally something changes and you really had no way of knowing. Instead of reaching for a new way of saying you did not know, or were not told, you can use a much more powerful tool.

You can say: I read, listened to, or checked for changes, and there was nothing posted, sent, or mentioned. I asked ‘somebody’ who I took over from, and they did not mention any changes.

If the power of response escapes you, go back and read the first paragraph of this post and compare the two responses. Which reply would you rather give, and which reply would you rather hear? There is a lot of power in words used correctly.

If you are new on the job, and you truly did not know, be honest about it. Follow up honestly with a good question. “I was not aware of this, how and where do I find out about these changes?” Phrasing your reply like this, you will be way ahead of others, who automatically fall back on those old, worn out, ‘I didn’t know’ type phrases.

Now you know how to be on top of your job and your life, you can identify how important information is not being passed on to you. If you find that there is no formal way information is passed on, suggest a way! Using your new proactive way of being, suggest a new or better way of passing on information or changes. Think of a method that is easy and everyone see, hear, or read and let someone know in a professional manner, who can make it happen. It may get you a raise!

Reflections On My (Occasional) Day

There are moments when I am going through my day and I think I am merely a bit player in my own life, following a script that was written long ago. I find that thought interesting, especially when involved in a painful conversation, or receiving advice from someone about something.

Occasionally I find myself wondering, if the whole situation whatever it is, was contrived for the sole benefit of the other person and I am cameo in the scene? Have they lived all these years and lived through untold trials and tribulations waiting for this moment to enter my life, and tell me in a few seconds, something that I need to hear, but keep choosing not to hear?

In other circumstances when life becomes difficult, I wonder if I spent my life and went through all my life experiences to enter someone else’s life with a different way of approaching a problem? Perhaps, my ‘different way of approaching a problem’ contributes to more frustration on their part. Maybe the interaction was contrived to make this one day even worse than it would be had I not appeared in their day?

Before I learned, or perhaps understood that the type of people I would normally have problems with will keep showing up over and over again until I see myself in them and accept them; that without fail, these same types of people showed up over and over with nothing better to do than frustrate and make me miserable.

Now that I am (mostly) beyond that way of thinking about why they were always in my life, maybe it is now my life responsibility to enter into the life of others and frustrate them with the way I act. Maybe myself and others like me are constant problem in their lives, bouncing from one situation and conflict to another, causing stress in the lives of others without realizing it.

If I know the answer to that question, I am am not aware at the moment that I do know it. I do know that knowing that life is a long series of challenges and conflict since I was born is enough to know at the moment. Whether I would become bored, or not with my life if I was not challenged on all fronts, is not really that important any more.

It is much more fun to take each day as it is, and know that some days are better than others. In the end of my life there is no prize given out, or listing of where I finished in comparison to whatever imaginary group I was being compared to. Often, we tend to forget that thought.

At the end of my life, if I am fortunate not lose my life in a split second accident, there is no prize given out at that moment for how I lived my life. There is no one standing by with a scale measuring how I handled each life event, good or bad, and rating it against an imaginary group.

What is real is the knowing that life is not stagnant. Because I have worked towards a goal for an hour, week, month, or lifetime, does not mean I am entitled to always see the fruit of my labor. What I am entitled to is knowing what I did or did not do.

Knowing that I accepted change, struggle,  and adversity for what it is. Change, struggle, and adversity are benchmarks in any life. Because of them I know I am alive, and taking responsibility for my life and how I live it.

It is not hard to live life going which ever way I am moved by the winds of those around me. Though that is not living life, that is going through the motions of waiting to die. I prefer to live my life as best as I can, and take responsibility for myself and my actions.

It is knowing that I did the best I could with what I had to work with that is important. Living my life the best I know how, like my future death is not a team event.

I share my life with you and those around me, but I am the only person living my life. In those instances I may wish to live someone else’s life if only for an instant, it is up to me to do the best I can with what I have to work with. Unfortunately what I have to work with is not always what I would prefer. That’s life.

Invisible People Everywhere

I was listening to music today and this song played. Whenever I hear this song, I always feel so sad for Janis when she sings it. Whether the song is about Janis looking back, or she was tapping into some very deep feelings of someone around her, I do not know. What I do know is as I listened to it again I thought about how we treat people who are not as pretty as we are.

A very successful and famous singer, and songwriter named Janis Ian wrote a song that swept the nation in 1975. If any other songs, except for a few Country and Western broken heart songs ever came from so deep down in the heart and expressed such raw emotion, I have not heard it. The emotion and desperation, and the ugly truth of life as it is, is captured in the words of Janis’ song.

Here is a short excerpt from Janis Ian’s song, ‘At Seventeen’

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone

I remember in my young and single years, I would be strolling along a sidewalk, or walking in a store, and I would be attracted by some woman’s hair. I would stroll behind her at some distance thinking about how beautiful her hair was. While doing that I would usually be working up the courage to tap her on the shoulder and speak to her. After all she had to beautiful, who else would have hair that shimmers and tumbles across her shoulders?

Most of the time, probably because I was shy, with no effort on my part, the young woman would turn to look at something that caught her eye. Maybe she sensed someone was looking at her, and wanted to see who it was. Faster than the urge hit me to talk to her, the urge would leave me. She would have bad acne scars, or something else detracting from her perfect self that I had built up in my mind.

It was one of those things in my life I did not like in myself. I worked on this flaw deep inside of me. It is quite hard to see some people as real people, and not see them as most people, which is completely ignore them. This time, after Janis Ian finished her song, and before I started typing, I wondered in the space of a few moments how many opportunities I passed up before I changed myself.

I am not sure where the behavior comes from. Almost without exception we all share this same behavior flaw. We don’t see people who are too fat, skinny, crippled, or otherwise not normal by common standards. For many of those people we choose not to see, invisibility has been their life.

Some of these people have put up barriers of their own for protection. Perhaps due to years of pain from thinking someone really wanted to talk to them they build walls. I know one person who I see almost daily, and they rarely turn around when I call their name. I usually have to tap them on the shoulder to get their attention if they are not facing me. Who would be interested in them after all?

I find that like anyone else, they are only people trying to live their life as best they can. Occasionally someone may mistake interest in them for something more, especially if it is someone of the opposite sex having the interest. Someone is paying them some attention, maybe the first and only attention in months. What would you think if after months of invisibility someone showed an interest in you? It may be awkward to define the relationship as friendship, or as an acquaintance, but that awkwardness lasts only a few moments for you. For the other person, it lasts a lifetime.

One more snippet from, ‘At Seventeen’

And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.

We have enough isolation in our lives without building more barriers and pretending one or two people we see every day are invisible. By making certain people invisible to us, we make ourselves invisible too. I don’t know how you feel, but I prefer not be invisible to prevent a moment of my attentions being misunderstood.

One Story Two Perspectives

Does a story have two versions? Does a story have one version with two viewpoints? I have a story to share of a recent turn of events. A story with two perspectives, and I am not sure at the moment which view, if either, is the real one. They both may be true and they are both may be false. Depending on how you look.

This story is told two ways, is one way is a string of coincidences, and the other way is an intended series of events. Is this story a chain of random events, or is this story an intended course of coincidences which are too disparate not to have divine intervention manipulating events to a desired outcome?

I will start with the version which started some weeks ago.

I have a family member who works at a school which happens to have an apartment complex across and some distance down the street. This apartment complex of has many children which go to the school, a Vista Worker who is working to improve the lives of people in the neighborhood, an elderly woman.

The Vista worker somehow meets my relative. They are at least, two professionals with a similar dream for the neighborhood. A third person is already present in the story. The third person is the retired individual who has put in a request to the Vista volunteer worker for a computer tutoring class.

However the conversation came up, the family member mentioned I did computer tutoring as a volunteer in the past. The Vista worker asked the family member if I would volunteer to hold computer classes for the apartment complex families. The request was passed on to me, and I agreed to volunteer a few hours a week for computer tutoring sessions.

My first volunteer session brings one person to class. The retired person, who also owns a computer, but does not know how to use it. Unknown to me, they have a burning desire to accomplish a singular task, and they need my help. The retired person is a licensed Minister who has something very important to share with the world beyond everyday ministry. They want to share their vision using a computer, as that is the easiest way to reach the most people.

Here is the second version which is a little different.

A retired person who is a licensed Minister, who is also is a self proclaimed Prophet of God, receives direct albeit sporadic communications from God, was once given a visit to  heaven. Afterward, acting on direction from God, they wrote down their experience, and some additional things they were shown or told. It was rewritten a few times, and sent off to one or more publishers for publication. The result to date is poor at best with very few copies sold.

Seeing this dismal result, God sets into play a string of events which brings the retired person cum Prophet and myself together via a computer tutoring session. In the course of the first session the Prophet sends their first ever email to a Christian broadcasting network. A strongly worded expectation, the network needs to read the Prophet’s book.

The second computing class hour with the Prophet, and the rest becomes clear. This Prophet of God in the clothing of a computer illiterate retired person, wishes to get their story into the hands of as many people as possible via the internet having only the vaguest  idea of what the internet is and how the internet works.

It appears to be my duty in the process to assist the Prophet to help get their story out.

End of chapter one. Seen from one perspective there is this string of joined coincidences that benefits a retired person cum Gods Prophet.

From a second perspective, God arranged a number of seemingly unrelated life events so the possibility of a certain outcome could occur. God rolled the dice. My bit part is, I have a blog, some understanding of the internet, and how it works, and have some time to spare each week to help an aging Prophet complete their God given directive.

So now, I am unsettled about this situation. Was there indeed divine intervention, and is this the result? Or is this only a string of unrelated events, and the outcome is simply a coincidence, and no more?

I wish to know, what do you think? What in your opinion is real. What you would do if you were me?