Larger Thumbs, Smaller Lives?

Katherine Jackson is missing, or I think she is. I saw that just a little while ago clicking through web sites. It appears to be true because Paris Jackson tweeted that it had been a week since she had seen her grandmother and she wanted her home now. Of course if Katherine Jackson is missing I hope she is found (if she wants to be) and missing grannies are usual not a good thing. But what struck me in reading this is the method of communication used for a personal issue.

Human beings were created to connect with each other. We were designed to need each other and to interact together. That is why Facebook is so popular, in my opinion. We have created a fast-paced society and in the western world it takes a lot of resources to pay for the society we created so we are working, working working and scurrying around accomplishing tasks and we use social media as a means of connecting. I wonder what this is doing to us as a society?

When I was in Japan some years ago I watched people on the streets of Tokyo walking and texting - there were enough of them that it caught my attention and I joked to my husband that in 100 years peoples thumbs would be much larger. But seriously, we are being short changed with a web based social interaction as our primary method of communication. When you meet with someone face to face it is much harder to conceal. Your entire self usually has to show up but on the web you can pick and choose - as really you should anyway because who really wants to know that you are mad at hubby for this and that - but you get the point. Personal connections involve body language and eye contact and the power of touch. Obviously we can't wait to communicate every time until we see someone and the Internet is a powerful and useful tool for communication. I guess what I'm getting at is the question of what are we doing to our society when we don't make time for human interaction and abuse the power of the Internet by neglecting the other? As I joked about larger thumbs in 100 years, I wonder what will be smaller in our society in 100 years by our inability to personally connect?
Just a thought of mine.

Views from the Deck

Heron and wildflowers

Storm rolling in over Portofino Towers, Pensacola Beach

Lightening strike early morning storm

Low tide, seagulls, Portofino and Hurricane Ivan victim

Blue Angels over Pensacola Beach

Some of the Blue Angels 7/13/2012

Sunset

Silent Moss

A large, 

gnarled, 

growing presence as I sat ,

in the southern swamps.

Gray dripping sameness

of

my soul

sinking in muck.

Why cry to me, you hurricane...

or tropical storm of thoughts.

It’s not ok,

.. the oaks cried -  hush!

...but I couldn’t stop screaming
that I was sinking.

The Spanish moss

swayed ever so slightly

in the wind,

and never said a word.

Draino Mountain

The mountain

…did…not…move

although I wanted it to.

The force of 

my face and heart,

couldn’t do the deed.

To vanquish the soil,

as a clog,

in life’s drain:

I was weak with no Draino,

just had Wanto - for you to go.

Father, the Verb

It's Father's Day and I have not made a post this week. Thought I'd give it a shot. I am really not a fan of holiday sermons - Father's Day, Mother's Day, even Christmas as it seems as if you've heard most of it before. I'll try to be creative! ...and not make it a sermon...

Father, as a noun, means a person who has begotten a child or it means the first person of the Trinity - God. As a verb it means to be the founder of and to accept responsibility for. A father acted out is a person who accepts responsibility for that which he has produced.

Today I am thankful for my father, Joseph Hector Bosse - the eldest of six children born to Hector and Beatrice (Lamothe) Bosse in Fall River, Massachusetts. My father produced 8 children, of which I am the 3rd from oldest. My father is 84 and has lived a long, productive life. I am grateful he is still here and healthy and still very productive in our lives and God's kingdom. My father was always responsible to care for his family. My father cared for his own father for the last 11 years of his father's life, my Pepere Bosse who sat next to either me or my sister Cathi at the table of 11, depending on who won the fight. (My grandfather liked to mix all his food together and for some reason we found that highly offensive as teenagers). I was blessed to have not suffered from an absent or irresponsible father. But what about other people who did not have that, or even men who have produced offspring and have not taken responsibility for them? I am a firm believer that each and every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending for our lives, for the victim and for those who may have victimized others. This new beginning starts by simply asking God for help to change; change the bitterness and to change the regret which will start a new journey towards peace. I could preach on that but who wants to hear it? The work of a changed heart is very special and individual between the person and God - and it is a beautiful thing.

Happy Father's Day!

Who Is Speaking?

It's a rainy day in Gulf Breeze, Fl. I am sitting at the counter in the kitchen, next to the old guy. Looking through some of my previous posts in this blog I read Distracting Internet again. In Distracting Internet I wrote: "I went away from the experience pondering this issue; there are a lot of people who write a lot of things about God and what they think He seems to be saying and doing and wanting. I think too many"...and another mental portal cracked opened in my "gerbil wheel brain" (a phrase borrowed from barely-older big sister) and I'm off and running. So here goes, or goodbye, if you're moving on.


My thought(s) that were generated from the re-reading of that portion of my earlier blog entry go something like this:
MB's Question #1:Do too many people try to tell you about God? Answer: yes.
MB's Question #2:Can God speak through people? Answer: yes.
MB's Question #3:How can you tell which ones really are God's messengers? Answer: not sure.
MB's Question #4:Why does MB even care? Answer:...............................................?

Since Question #1 and #2 are answered I'll muddle around in #3 and #4 using my personal experience and from reading the Bible, both Old and New Testament. If you have a problem with those points of reference, turn back! If not and it's raining at you're house too and you have some time, please read on.

I have read the bible on a very regular basis since I was 16 years old, on my own and in groups. I can testify to anyone that wants to learn more about God, sincerely, that they will find that this book will speak to them and continue to in ways that are beyond human reasoning. That has been my experience. I have also had the experience of hearing God speak to me through individuals in the most profound way of having a single note sound in a stream of ordinary words. I'll give you two examples. The first was years ago when my husband and myself were involved in a church split - not that we caused it but that we were very involved in a church that split apart from disagreements. As we stood in our kitchen talking endlessly with another couple in a stream of endless  conversations on the subject, my youngest son, in a rare break in the conversation, looked up at us all and asked, "But Mommy, what does the wise man build his house on?" (Matthew 7:24-27). That was God speaking through a human. The second instance came when a friend that I saw socially in regards to a non-profit we were both involved in were having an ordinary conversation. We were discussing a new business venture that my husband and I were right in the middle of and she asked a very innocent question, "How is your house coming along?". Both these times were times that God was trying to reach me. I heard the sound, the note of something calling deep within, but I brushed it aside. Both instances where challenges to the direction I was going in my life and where I was putting my efforts and assets. So yes, God can speak through people but why we don't recognize it or accept it at the time, I don't really know. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with self-will, but that is another subject.

So why do I care? Why even write about this? Obviously there is some personal need of mine more complex than I recognize to do this, I get that. But I also care because I think that many times when people write about "a lot of things about God and what they think He seems to be saying and doing and wanting"  and they are really not speaking for God, they do very little good on this earth. And we need a lot more good done.

So listen to the little children and in the casual conversations you have as you go through your day. You might be surprised by who is really speaking to you!

Who Opened the Portal AND...Too Late for the Frog?

I hardly know how to get started with this blog. Do I start with the portal, the frog, or the guy who ate someone's face in Miami? (I didn't know how to get the face-eater in the title). I have a feeling that this entry will be somewhat disconnected in connecting the thoughts. I'll probably tweak it after I post because I know it will take time to properly write this - and I am impatient...feel free to comment on where it misses the mark on being clear. So here goes.

The face-eater - I really didn't want to read about the face-eater but it was one of those things that gets the better of your curiosity - and maybe common sense, so I read about it in the Miami Herald after hearing about it over and over in news stories. What I read horrified me as I am sure it did everyone else, but I also had to think about how could this and did this happen? The news reports talk about "bath salts", some kind of chemical that is being used to get high. The reports are about how when you use this chemical it makes you feel like you are burning up inside, which could explain the removing of clothes, according to the reports. But I think what happened may be far worse than that. The police report also says that the face-eater had super human strength, and that he growled. I have read about this kind of thing before, minus the face eating: super human strength; extreme aggression; vocal abnormalities. In the New Testament, in the gospel of Mark, Chapter 5, verses 1-9 there was a man that Jesus set free from demon possession. I thank God for the power of Jesus Christ that can set such a person free. Too bad that did not happen to this man, or that whatever portals that he kept open in his life to allow for this were not closed by him prior...I could expound about the passage of scripture in Mark, but you can read it for yourself and really I'm writing about the frog...(I have a link to Wikipedia below about the frog story)

There is a frog in a pan and the temperature of the water  in the pan increases so slowly that the frog doesn't notice until it's too late. In many ways I think that we in the USA are in that situation. I'm starting to feel well done. I'm not a historian so I can't point to the signs that existed in other countries and cultures and civilizations as they entered into the red-hot danger zone of boiling to death, but I bet we have seen a few here. And the indoctrination to our society that has allowed for the slow boil began long ago - promotion of personal ambition over the common good, independence at the expense of the family unit, the idea that wealth brings happiness, new is always better - and God forbid you should ever be sad...

Ok so what's the point? It's to get out of the water while you still can. I don't mean leave USA but I do mean GET OUT OF THE WATER - however that applies. I'm trying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Haiti On My Mind

It's Sunday morning and I don't feel like going to church. The why of that is complicated but I think it generally boils down to this part of me that wants to know more than I seem to right now, and I'm not so sure that attending church will do that for me. I'm looking for something else - not that church isn't good or necessary, it just seems too ordinary today. It just feels so redundant and a bit stifling. You know - it seems like the trickling of water after it goes through the dam, without ever experiencing the energy generated.

I just read some emails from a friend of mine who is a missionary in India. Currently she is in Nepal due to requirements to leave India each year for a period of time. I was thinking about the people she is meeting and the experiences she has in her service to God and I had a sudden, completely unrealistic desire to run a race through countries and cultures and experiences. The world is so large and to have the privilege to breath the fresh air of experience is a bit overwhelming... and cooking one more breakfast or washing one more load of clothes in the daily routine of my life seems somehow very, very futile.

I don't normally write this type of post as I'm not a fan of whining. Sometimes life can be sort of...boring. I get that. But I have been thinking about the life we live here in the USA lately. The suffocating shallowness of personal ambition that is modeled everywhere you look, on television and down the streets of subdivisions - car lots and shopping centers - billboards and advertisements. You would think that the only result to a successful life would be that you were a healthy, skinny, young, beautiful and popular rich person. You can't even have imperfect teeth in this country any more without feeling like a loser.

My trip to Haiti recently most likely is the real instigator for this train of thought. I went to Haiti alone, but not really because you are never alone with God. And He set up all the circumstances where I was welcomed into Haiti by a wonderful couple who had never met me but opened their lives to me and they took care of me. And I met others there that helped me along the way. I am so very grateful. But the experience in Haiti has changed me. You see, going to a country like that alters your point of view. It is a beautiful country, with scars. There is beauty from the Haitians themselves and the beautiful mountains and sea. There are foreigners with hearts full of desire to help and to build who live and work in that country for the sake of the Haitians. But there are the scars made by the Haitian people themselves, and a lot of them are from the wounds and interference of others; other countries and churches. And it is complicated. Very complicated. Even so, and in even the middle of all the mixed motives and efforts, a plan is in the works, a good one - and I want to be a part.

And so, I will get on with my day and wonder how this is working out in my life. I have grand girls to pick up for a visit and there is actually clothes in the washer and the dryer as I write this. But if you think about Haiti, please pray for them. And if you have a few dollars to spare, I can give you a link to a ministry run by a very dedicated couple, below. They do make a difference.
http://www.haitiforchrist.net/

Haiti

Port de Paix, Haiti

On March 27, 2012 I flew into Port au Prince, Haiti to visit Hope Vision Children's Home on the north coast of Haiti in Port de Paix. Here are a few photographs from the trip. I would like to make another post later of some of the more heartfelt photos and experiences from the trip, but that's for another day. Hope you enjoy these!

Leaving Fort Lauderdale

Into Port au Prince

My view for a few days, with new friends.

Driving to airport for trip to Port de Paix

Papa Doc Duvalier - I guess not everyone hated him.

Port de Paix sunrise

Net fisherman outside Hope Vision compound

Praying on mountain, early morning in Port de Paix

Guarding the door

Ready for departure

Leaving Port de Paix

Village on mountain - flight from Port de Paix to Port au Prince

Leaving Port au Prince April 3, 2012

Tug and Barge - Santa Rosa Sound