Put On a Happy Tuesday Tidbit

So many things to be happy for this Tuesday morning.

I walked around the lake near our home this weekend, and absorbed some of the beauty of where we live.

I got cast in a good part in an upcoming play, acting opposite a talented actress whom I've always wanted to perform with.

A good friend in Michigan received a copy of my book yesterday.  Thanks to the sometimes heavily criticized Facebook, she and others are people  I've reconnected to, people whom I never would have otherwise.

Tax season is not over by any means, but it is starting to approach it's final stretch.  Accounting may  be something I don't want to do anymore, but my co-workers are pleasant to me, and the clients helpful and respectful.

I have good health, and the DASH diet has helped me lose at least twenty pounds, and has brought my blood pressure down to normal levels.

I have a loving family...a beautiful and wonderful soul-mate, three amazing sons, and pets who are always overjoyed to see me (well, maybe not the cat).

I have the best Christian home and family you can possibly have in Grace Episcopal Church.

I have all this and so much more.  I feel truly blessed.

And yet....

I have friends that are in serious pain.  Whether it be through losses of their own loved ones, or their own physical or mental conditions, or the unreasoning hatred and prejudice they experience from an unkind and intolerant world, they suffer.  And it causes me sadness and grief as well.

Some people think if your own world is in order, you shouldn't care about anything else.  I've never been that way, and I don't think I ever can be.  What happens to others I know, what happens to the community and world at large, matter deeply to me, and always will.

It pains me to know there are people who deny global warming is occurring, even as the signs of its destruction are everywhere.  Meanwhile, the very future of our children and grandchildren is melting away, as we elect people who think because it snowed  a lot in Boston, the whole thing is a hoax.

It hurts me to the core that so many here consider homosexuality a sin in and of itself.  Meanwhile, I've seen up close the pain and suffering this unreasoning intolerance has caused.  The culture is changing, but not fast enough.  Not fast enough.

We're turning our backs on science.  We're vilifying the poor.  We learn nothing from the past, and almost always turn to violence as the first answer to solve problems at home and abroad. We're dismantling the foundations of American democracy - our public schools, our voting rights, flooding the political stage with big money and powerful lobbyists to promote the interests of large corporations and the wealthy.

And yet....

I am taught by my faith that love is stronger than hate.  That, like Anne Frank says, “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”   She said that, and look at what she faced.

I just have to pray that people will see the light in the darkness, and that righteous anger will lead them to what is good and right and needed, and that the world will become a better place.

I love my life.  I love my family and friends.  But like Johnny Cash's Man in Black, there are some outfits that are hard to take off when there is so much suffering and pain in the world.

May we all care.  May we all find the light.  And do what we can to make this a better world for all.