Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Why I consider 'Stupid' a curse word




Recently on Facebook I came across the following post:

" Must read.... I borrowed this from a friends post..

 One

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.

I asked for a half dozen nuggets.

'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the

teenager at the counter.

'You don't?' I replied.

'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply.

'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?'

'That's right.'

So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

(Unbelievable but sadly true...)

(Must have been the same one I asked for sweetener,

and she said they didn't have any, only Splenda and sugar.)

 

TWO

I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those 'dividers' that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed.

After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the

'divider', looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it.

Not finding the bar code, she said to me, 'Do you know how much this is?'

I said to her 'I've changed my mind; I don't think I'll buy that today.'

She said 'OK,' and I paid her for the things and left.

She had no clue to what had just happened.

 

( But the lady behind me had a big smirk on her face as I left)

 

THREE

A woman at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly.

When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM 'thingy.'

 

(Keep shuddering!!)

 

FOUR

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. 'Do you need some help?' I asked. She replied, 'I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?'

'Hmmm, I don't know. Do you have an alarm, too?' I asked.

'No, just this remote thingy,' she answered,

handing it and the car keys to me. As I

took the key and manually unlocked the door, I

replied, 'Why don't you drive over there and

check about the batteries. It's a long walk....'

 

PLEASE just lay down before you hurt yourself !!!

 

FIVE

Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, 'I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?' 'Just use paper from the photocopier', the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five 'blank' copies.

Brunette, by the way!!

 

SIX

A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid had eaten ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and he should be fine, the mother says, 'I just gave him some ant killer......'

Dispatcher: 'Rush him in to emergency right away'

 

Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're Stupid!!!!

Someone had to remind me, so I'm reminding you too.

Don't laugh....it is all true..."
 
What is it about our need to put people down so that they feel less than the human being they are. When reading this I see no grace in people having a bad day or worse that I see this as a judgment on people for not being perfect. To call someone stupid is a classic example of arrogant pride.

Now you are probably saying, "Adele, it's just a post and these stories may not even be true." You are correct in that these stories may not be true but the intent is very clear, the writer's goal is for you to laugh at the women being depicted in these stories because they are seemingly not using their brain to their full capacity.

When have you lost something and it was right in front of you the whole time? When have you been unable to think mathematically? When have you had a cognitive interruption?

We all have these moments but it doesn't give someone the right to make fun of us and belittle us. Jesus said in Matthew that even to think of something evil was to have already sinned. We are all created in the image of God and if we call someone 'stupid' then we have called God stupid.

It always saddens me when I see post like this on Facebook come from friends that are professed Christians. Christians are called to love our neighbor and when we call them 'stupid' or another demeaning name we have failed to love our neighbor. My prayer is that we can see each person as a creation of God and extend grace to one another.

 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Worth Sharing

Sometimes in the face of great tragedy it can be hard for me to write down what is going on in my mind and that's when I find some one has done so in a very eloquent way. I share with you now a post by a blogger I follow weekly, Grace Biskie.

I share with you a post by her that was featured on Patheos

 
 

When is it coming to get me?
When is breast cancer coming for me?
When is someone coming to shoot up my son’s elementary school?
When is a tornado ripping my house from root to roof?
When is a bomb blowing up the next race I’m training for?
It has hit home for me, yes.  But I’m keenly aware that people all over the world are bombarded with these when-am-I-next questions every. single. day.
 

Monday, April 22, 2013

My Peace I give to you.....



 
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  John 14: 27
 
 
It was July of 1996 and I had spent almost 2 weeks in Ukraine on a Summer Mission Trip with 10 other people. We ended our trip with a stay in Amsterdam. We woke up on our last day their to pack our bags and drive to the airport to catch our plane back to the States. We turn on the TV and the first thing we here is, "Bomb explodes at Olympic City park in Atlanta, GA." The three of us look at each other , almost in unison, ask, "Do we really want to go back home?" I don't think it was because we were flying into Atlanta, at least it wasn't for me, but the idea of coming back to a violent and unknown situation. I all honesty, if I had a choice I really would have stayed. Most people who know me know I tried to have as little drama in my life as possible and a bomb exploding in my country means drama.
 
 
It was a Tuesday morning, the fall semester of my last year of graduate school. This was my long day at school, I had an 8:05 am class with the last class at 5:40 pm. I also had an exam in my last class of the day. My first class was over and I was sitting in the student lounge until chapel. A classmate came in and said, "Have you heard?" A few of us said, "Heard what?" That is when he preceded to tell us that two planes had been flown into the Twin Towers in NY, a plane had flown into the Pentagon and another crashed into a field. I couldn't breath or move. I was just frozen. At the beginning of chapel a fellow classmate and dear friend to this day stood at the lectern and said, "Our country has been attacked." I went thought the day in a daze, calling people just to connect and then leaving after my exam to go home. I don't know how I made it home safely because all the way home I looked at the sky and not the road. I was filled with so much fear. Fearful of losing everyone that matter to me and my life shattering into a million pieces. Not in 1996 or in 2001 did I feel any peace.
 
 
But peace is a promise of God. How, in our world today do we find peace in the midst of violence. I can't tell you what has changed since 2001 but something has. I can watch the news and still be troubled and saddened when I hear about shootings in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and of bombs going off in Boston. Last Monday when I heard the report I first called my parents and asked them if they had heard about it, they had not. I then said to my dad, "It still saddens me to hear about such violence but I am no longer surprised." I don't know what that says about me but I have come to expect to hear the worst of humanity on TV. I have also come to a place of peace. I know, without any doubt that when bad things befall us, God is still with us. That knowledge, that God is still with me, gives me peace.
 
I pray that if you have not found that peace that you will continue to lean on God and cone to a place of peace. Peace doesn't free us from feeling pain but it helps us to bear it and carry on.
 
 
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
and give you peace.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

How to be a hero in the fight to end Human Trafficking (It's not as hard as you might think)

Today, in my effort to raise awareness about Human Trafficking I am posting an article written by
Kelley J. Leigh, Freelance Writer

Entering the Bat Cave



One of my dearest friends is an anti-trafficking die hard by profession. Her Matt Damon-ish husband travels regularly to Southeast Asia and coordinates covert investigation operatives in brothels and bars. They run an international coalition to rescue children sold as sex slaves. After a Life Overseas, the Parkers’ unlikely central office for rescuing children is in a quirky little regular Joe kind of town. Having them around feels like working at the same office with Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, which all sounds very dramatic and enviable. But frankly, having social justice superheroes as friends comes with issues, like the constant nagging feeling that I am, in reality, a total social justice slacker—like Lois Lane standing outside the empty telephone booth wondering where Superman went. And that’s just lame.
 
The Bat Cave

I sip tea and lean on Laura Parker’s kitchen bar while she does dishes. I go first. My catch-up topics consist of sleepy American issues regularly seen on Lifetime or The Oprah Winfrey Network. I ramble about marriage, getting kids through college, and my internal struggles with church (don’t yawn). Then it’s her turn. She updates me on her three kids, moving pains, then details about The Exodus Road. My brain searches for the mental hard drive folder marked “Covert Operations.”

I need warm-up time before entering this Bat Cave. First, Alfred greets me politely at the front door of the Wayne mansion. Then we wait for the sliding library wall to open so we can descend the secret stairs. I must leave behind a world of wealthy subdivisions before I can reorient to the space where injustice is fought.

Laura and I situate ourselves on living room couches where she shares details of a locked brothel, virginity sold at a high price, an exposed ring of male pedophiles, and a little girl in a lineup of prostitutes who scribbled “Rescue Me” on a dollar bill. I forget to exhale and stir my tea unnecessarily. She waits. I set down my cup and remember to breathe. We sit in the absorbing silence where no words come.

 Slave in My Hand

 Different setting, same conversation. Flames spit sparks from a backyard fire pit. A cluster of my friends huddle in a lawn chair circle under a dark winter sky. We listen to Matt’s most recent update from the red-light district. He flips through his picture directory and passes around his cell phone. She looks like a fifth grader. Slick, beautiful Asian hair and the face of a grade-school niece or daughter. Situated on a happy western man’s lap, she wears the tentative smile of someone who knows how to avoid a beating, or worse.

 Burning logs fall in on each other with a thud. Flying embers mix with snowflakes.

 In my hand I hold an expensive American phone and the face of an enslaved girl. Both. Together in one place. Wealth and poverty, freedom and bondage, all coexisting in a palm of peace where war should rage. And the incongruity feels tight, uncomfortable, like skin that’s shrunk two sizes too small. Again we enter the pause that comes with the unreconciled gap between realities.

Seed of Justice

 I think an embryo of justice resides in the conversational chasm between slavery and the suburbs. I have found a grain of power in the reason-to-pause. In the long distance between the last word of one topic and the first word of the next is a critical moment of decision, a choice: Change the subject or stay in it. Ignore or engage.

Have you experienced it?

Those few moments after . . .

 
the heart-wrenching YouTube clip.

 

the unbearable story of a slavery survivor.

 

the unthinkable documentary.
 

A sharp seed of justice embeds where you’ve interacted with deep injustice and don’t know what to do. That moment of holy unrest is a seed culture of justice, the abrasive grain in the oyster where sand begins to turn to pearl . . . where thought germinates into action. There, we stand at the mouth of the Bat Cave and ask, “What now? What next?”


Goodbye, Bruce

 Here’s the deal: I started watering those seeds. And in the process, I decided it doesn’t matter who gets to be Batman or who is Alfred. We are all in this together.

 My former social justice slackitude stemmed from my belief in superheroes. Those people do this stuff, not me. “I’ll just leave them to their supernatural business and check in on them every once in a while.” However, I now see them simply as ordinary people who have followed God, one harrowing step at a time. They didn’t start out as superheroes. Back alley brothels and hidden cameras only entered the story after a long series of small choices stepped them toward the bat cave. It’s the same for all of us. After the smallest pause and question, “What now? What next?” is always an invitation. It’s a Jesus invitation. “Follow me.” Steps which we obediently follow inevitably lead us to love God or love people in powerful and unimaginable ways.

 And what does the LORD require of you?

 To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
 Micah 6:8

 
My friends’ journey to empower rescue started out as a tangled ball of wire, unwound one turn at a time, until it stretched around the globe.  I have been in a similar tangle, wondering what to do next. I don’t get to fly to the places where children are freed, but I do get to support people who unlock the prisons. And I can’t speak to US diplomats about prosecution and legislation, but I can write for change. I can redirect my weekly “skinny cinnamon dolce latte” money to the purchase of needed investigative equipment. It starts in the little things toward God’s heart.

 One turn at a time. One seed of holy unrest, watered. One humble step. One choice to say yes to the one true God who has a heart to rescue us all, one soul at a time.

 Start small. Water the seed. Let it grow.

 Be a hero in this larger story.

 Join the rescue.

 

Kelley J. Leigh, Freelance Writer
Kelley lives in a quirky little mountain town in Colorado. At mid-life, she decided to leave behind full-time marketing and consulting work to focus on writing. The rest of her time goes to her husband, four sons, and the recovery of lost car keys. Someday she hopes to own an old scooter and embarrass her sons by wearing the very dorky helmet around town.
__________________________________________________

Looking for ways to participate?

The Exodus Road is empowering rescue through people like you.

Three Ways to Engage:

1. Take a simple step: Skip a couple trips to Starbucks or a dinner out. Jump in and help fund specific investigative equipment like undercover cameras or GPS tracking devices.

2. Write for change: Become an Exodus Road Blogger. Join a team of writers who have chosen to use a part of their space on the web to promote justice. Sign up for details. Blog for rescue.

3. Subscribe to the blog/newsletter HERE.

 

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Monday, April 8, 2013

Common Good Part 6 - Equality

 
 
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28
 
 
Dictionary.com defines Equal as - as great as, the same as. For One it says - existing, acting, or considered as a single unit, entity or unit.
 
Besides the Declaration of Independence there is a phrase that is woven into the identity of our country. It is a phrase that is inscribed just under the Lady of Freedom that sits atop the dome of the Capital, E Pluribus Unum; The Many, One.
 
 
If we are to look at Equality through the idea of The Common Good and through the scriptures it is overwhelmingly evident that "one" is a common thread between verse 28 of Galatians chapter 3 and the Great Seal of the United States.
 
 
If we strive as a country to resemble the Great seal can we be one when all are not equal? The reality is that all have not yet reached equality in the United States and thus we still have work to do, but not impossible. Now what about us who identity as Christian. What is our role in helping our country to achieve that place of equality for all? In Matthew chapter 28 we are given a mandate by Jesus,  
 
 
"All power in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. You, then, are to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you and, remember, I am with you always, even until the end of the world." - Modern English translation by Phillips
 
 
If we follow this command then the result of baptism is equality. For Paul says in Galatians that those who are in Christ Jesus are one. A lot of things are said to us in the Bible But I think two things cover them all:


1 - Love our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
2 - Make disciples of all nations and baptize them.


For equality to occur love is necessary. For when we love our neighbor we see them as our equal. Currently our country is embroiled in discussion on what equality looks like and for myself it is hard to not get caught up in all the arguing. As I challenge myself I also challenge you, as brothers and sisters in Christ, let us simply love our neighbor and make disciples. Then oneness will occur.
 
 
You can find the previous post in this series Part 1here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.