Big Al’s Christmas Day Message
Here we are at 1:50 p.m. on Christmas day. My twin grandsons and my daughter and son in law have left for Seattle and I am starting to be able to hear again. God bless each of them as their lives are full of goodness and not only do I have a lot of love for both of them, but I also envy them for their goodness and unwavering trust for those around them. Wouldn’t life be wonderful if that was the way that it way for all of us?
Let’s think about that just a little bit: Imagine our leaders working together and really having the goal of making America an example of “goodness and Light” as the Lord was portrayed in the Christmas Carol “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
In our current society that seems to be an impossibility because of our secular and selfish nature. Impossibility is one word and is contrasted by “attainability” I happen to believe strongly in the word “attainable”
If you surround yourself today with the contemporary press you are sure to go into a terrible funk and try to change your reality with booze (seems to work very well in the short term); other types of escape; or, simply denial. Most of the folks today seem to go with “escape” or “denial” rather that provide alternative actions that logic says would work. When I say “alternative actions” I am not including those that are part of the “blame game. “It is all so and so’s fault and if it wasn’t for those evil people, the Middle East would be just fine” ; “if it wasn’t for the racist police, our inner cities would turn into vacation destinations; or, ” who does that overpaid football player think he is taking a knee instead of standing during the national anthem.”
What do any of those thoughts accomplish other than perhaps making a person falsely feel better than those at whom his fingers are pointing?
Okay, I just took a 90 minute break to clear my head and and walked 7600 steps with the Studio Dog; my daughter and her ferocious five pound little pooch named Cadence who she named after my grandfather. I have seen Cade, as we call him take on Labs if he thinks they pose a threat to his family. Absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever seen is when we all were sitting on the beach on Whidbey Island one great sunny afternoon and a large Golden came sniffing around, probably to make friends. Cade took it a bit differently and charged the Lab and literally threw all of his five pounds right into the other pooches right side. The look on the Labs face was absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever seen other than the looks on all of my family’s faces.
Before I make my point let me tell you a bit about the man who Cadence was named after. My gradfather’s last name in Polish was Kfasnetski changed when he got to America to Kay de Netzki. Hence the name Cadence
Dedushka, as I called him was an officer in the Czar’s navy, who happened to be with his family in London when the Revolution broke out in Russia. He found himself there with his wife and two children and very little money. Rather than blame someone else for his misfortune, he made his way to Seattle via New York and then Vancouver, British Columbia. He ended up working as an engineer for almost the rest of his life for the telephone company in Seattle. He also ended up being the only person in our family, other than myself, who had his own house along with a couple of dollars to spend. And, when I say a couple of dollars, I mean not much more than that!
It took him a good ten years to put himself into the position where he could completely reverse the position he was in back in 1917. He had a choice to get back to where he was around 1917 and he worked like hell and made the right one. No escapism; no denial; and, certainly no blame thrown at others!
What choices do we have to make? Well, we are all fed up with the way that things are going politically and, in many cases, socially in our country. We have, as a group, a voice and we have, as a group, an audience.
The choice that we have to make is, “How can we be the most effective in articulating our cause?
Pretty simple: Show your intelligence by commenting on issues without emotion and providing sensible alternatives. Our President did a lot of complaining and blaming today (Christmas). Rather than showing intelligent and feasible alternatives to his “wall” he simply said, “do it my way or I will simply shut down the government.” Rather than discuss the U.S. withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan, he simply said to our allies, more or less, we’re out of there and I don’t even want your opinions on this because it is all about my position!
Please, please, let’s use this forum to provide well thought out and informed ideas.
If we do that as a group, we could very well accomplish something and not be stuck in London!