X is…

Another e-mail.  May have been an advertisement for Thomas Kincade paintings.  There was representations of about four of them in animated form.

One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets
of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the
roads are wet and slick.

Suddenly, my daughter, Aspen,
spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. “Dad, I’m
thinking of something.”

This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some
fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all
that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“The rain!” she began, “is like sin, and the windshield
wipers are like God wiping our sins away.”

After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond.
“That’s really good, Aspen.”

Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take
this revelation? So I asked… “Do you notice how the rain
keeps on coming? What does that tell you?”

Aspen didn’t hesitate one moment with her answer:
“We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us.”

I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.

Isn’t it distressing to know that when you forward this message
you will not send it to many on your address list because
you’re not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it to them.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think
of us than what God thinks of us.

In order to see the Rainbow, you must first endure some Rain.

My first response was simply “wtf”.  Basically, why are you sending me this garbage.  Then I thought about it for a few days and replied with the rest of the story.

As they pull up to their cookie-cutter suburban house, the car takes its place in front of the house on the street.  Aspen was feeling pretty good about herself as she reached for the door handle when her sister, Jessica, pipes up.

“You don’t have an umbrella.”
“So?, ” replies Aspen.
“Do you really want to run around out there with all that sin falling all over you?  Don’t you need protection from here to the house?  If the windshield wipers are like god, then your umbrella is like a church- giving you shelter and cover from all the oncoming sin.”

Well this stopped Aspen cold.  She couldn’t move and only stared out the window as their father has already made it up the house steps and stood in the doorway waiting.  She could only think about stepping out of the car and becoming soaked in sin without protection.

Then Jessica feeling pleased, as would any good sister, starts again.

“It’s not sin dummy.  Rain just happens.  Nobody puts it here and tells it to rain today.  That’s just the way the world works.  Nobody made it sunny last week and nobody is going to make it snow or not snow this winter.  It’s just how the world works.”

Still Aspen couldn’t move as she stared at the sin running down the window.

“Look,”  Jessica continued, “life happens around us constantly.  We don’t know who we’re going to meet or what events are going to happen to us; the events just come this way.  It’s not that rain is bad.  It’s more that we have to accept the rain and be able to handle it.  If we view the world as good and bad all the time, then we never get over that point.  If we view the world as events, then we must merely prepare ourselves to get over it.”

Still Aspen couldn’t quite get her years of Sunday School out of her head as she watched two little drops of sin race down as if the first one to bottom of the window owned her soul.  Jessica decided she had to take one last try as their dad had begun to look worried in the doorway.

“Here,” she said as she opened the door and stuck her hand out collecting a couple raindrops and pulling them back in to the car.  “Nobody placed these raindrops in my hand.  There is no guiding hand that said these two raindrops should be here.  I simply reached out and pulled in two raindrops that came across my hand.”  Aspen looked at her instead of the running sin for the first time.

“It’s not sin,”  as Jessica continued since she had her sister’s undivided attention for the first time.  “It’s rain.  Sometimes we come across a little rain.  We can be worried about it or we can understand that rain will fall.  So we’re going to go in, get a little wet, ask Mom to make us some hot chocolate to warm up, and we’ll be fine.  Tomorrow, we’ll put on our boots and go stomp in some sin puddles.”

As Jessica saw the little light go off in Aspen’s head, Jessica got out of the car and laughed as the rain fell down on her.  She opened the door for Aspen and said one last thing, “Think for yourself.”  With that, the two girls ran toward the house taking a moment to enjoy the random rain that fell upon them knowing that they had nothing to be afraid of as long as they took responsibility for themselves.

And some hot chocolate.

It’s always perspective.  Thomas Kincade paintings don’t bring miracles and convincing your six year old that life is good and evil or black and white gives me chills more than it should you.

Popularity: 9% [?]

My wife gets together with her childhood friend every few years. I suppose if only to create a good measuring stick of just how far separated they have become.

I suppose there was a time 20+ years ago that they were in the same spot in life. Poor relationshipos and ties to close too Christianity to allow them to stand up for themselves in a realistic and rational way. Then one of them met me and was allowed to be herself, express opinions, and discover a world away from guilt.

As they sat down to eat lunch, my wife’s friend discussed how she would never let her children become friends with anybody who does not accept her god. While my wife and I encourage our children to meet as many different people as possible. To explore the world and its options.

Her children have become separated from her so much. My wife has too.

I doubt some will ever learn their lessons. I suppose some will always be restrictive.

Just another reason to enjoy freedom of thought.

Popularity: 29% [?]

I really don’t care for pop culture and try to avoid all the hoopla as often as possible.  People whore themselves our for publicity constantly and it’s not anything that interests me.

This becomes tougher for me as my daughters get older.  At 12 and 10, I have to be ready to discuss and approach most topics that catch their eye or that their friends are discussing.

Such is the case with Miley’s back.  Yes, the 15 year-old daughter of a country music singer and Disney’s most cherished possession recently took off her shirt and they took a picture of her back.  I’m indifferent.  She didn’t show anything that would truly upset people.  It’s more what she didn’t show.  The public has become worked up over what is not seen in a picture and that seems poor.

My oldest daughter said that she thinks it’s wrong.  The picture.  I asked her why and what ensued was a rather lengthy discussion about when others determine what is wrong and right for us- the public.

We covered language and who determines what is proper for us to say and what isn’t.  How the trouble she can get in at school is based on some crazy meeting held years ago.  I asked her to tell me the difference in meaning for the following four statements.

• God Damn It
• Holy Fuck
• Holy Crap
• Wow

Based on when they are used- nothing.  Two of those, though, will get her in trouble.

We discussed television and how it’s perfectly fine to show murder, dead bodies, and violent acts against people.  Yet, it’s not fine to show any ounce of nudity… or Miley’s back.

We discussed the fine line that is created by society regarding art vs. pornography.  This discussion began with Renaissance era artwork.  Michelangelo was a great artist, yet much of his work involved unclothed people.

We even discussed prohibition briefly.

It was a great springboard into a discussion of socialized norms.  Of course with cautionary words regarding the consequences of breaking those accepted norms- no matter how conservative the rules we break seem.

I would like to thank our conservative Christian nation for have such terrible norms.  For making a ridiculously unappealing picture such as that one become such a great controversy that I was able to have a discussion of such great magnitude with my daughters.  That I was able to discuss with her how we are seemingly unable to make up our own minds and that we are often expected to accept that society’s judgement regarding most issues.

It was also a perfect opportunity to remind her to think for herself and ask questions.

Popularity: 42% [?]

I’ve talked about this before. It’s likely one of my favorite justifications in the world. The idea that everything happens for a reason and that were are merely actors who are fed lines through cue cards. Not quite puppets due to the whole “free will” thing, but rather like being dragged along to make free will meaningless afterall.

An employee and I were talking about a year and a half ago. She was discussing how some bad things were happening in her life and she wasn’t sure why. She believes that everything happens for a reason and she really wanted to know for what reason these bad things were happening.

I’m going to get into an area that is easy to write off with a different philosophy or idea: Karma. I don’t believe in karma. It’s a fun and fascinating idea and I do believe that there is enough to correlation with human interaction toward certain people that it would be easy to think karma is actually a force.

The woman I was discussing in the beginning is a bitch. She treats everybody with disrespect and, in the long run, that has to come back and bite people in certain ways. Nobody wants to be treated poorly. They eventually fight back, well, at least some do.

Some things do happen for a reason. As response to the way you treat the world and others. Some people get away with being poor citizens. Us in the lower caste of life, we must deal with consequences.

Bad thing eventually happen to everybody. The randomness of the world suggests that bad things can happen in groups. That’s life. Bounce back or be miserable. There’s no plan.

This woman no longer works for me. I was thinking about how miserable of a person she is. How ugly she is from the inside. How she takes her ugliness out on others.

There’s no fixing how fucked up people become when they are young, and I wouldn’t want a god who fucks children up and gives them so many issues that they grow up to take it out on others.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Three years ago I couldn’t speak any Spanish.

Here’s the deal.  I still can’t.  I supplement my work force with people through the temp agency.  There’s very little long term planning in the business I am in, so I plan on lower levels.  I plan on month to month, week to week, and, on occasion, day to day.

My company has a rule that no associate from the agency can work for more than 90 days.  This is based on a lawsuit with Microsoft years ago in which employees through the agencies worked for years and wanted a benefits package.  My company doesn’t understand the difference between years and months.

What that does mean for me is the ultimate in random luck.  Over four years, with a 90 day turnaround, I have had hundreds of people work for me.  I average 8-12 temporary associates per day and have no problem getting people to put in their 90 days with me.  I truly try to run a relaxed environment.

So I get a lot of people seeking employment who were originally from Mexico.  This is insignificant to me other than a little language barrier.  Certainly I assume that they have to be able to communicate with me.  I also decided to try and meet them in the middle a little bit.  I have tried to learn whatever Spanish my little brain will take in.

So I ask Maria, “ ¿Cómo estás?”  She replies with, “My bien.  ¿Usted?”

My reply of “Bien” doesn’t satisfy her.

She something that is really relevant.  I think people lose track of this, but Maria has yet to.  She says, “Why?  You have your health and work.  You should be muy bien.”

I agree.

Here’s the deal.  The more people have, the more upset they get at the things that are not as important.  If one feels secure in the job, then the person is more likely to complain about issues that are less important.

For example, those that are actually company employees complain about working even a minute of overtime.  Those that are happy to simply have a job are happy to even have one minute of work (pay).

My point?  Everything is relative.  Seems my job as a boss is completely wasted on those who feel that simply having a job is not enough, but are not willing to go the extra mile.  Those who wish to learn… well, they really enjoy working for me.  I love teaching.  Those who simply love the idea of having work again love working for me.

Is life that simple?  The more you have the more that life disappoints?  The less you have the more likely you are to be happy with the simplest things?  Is there any going back?

Do we screw over our brains with each and every promotion or pay raise or thought that we have just advanced ourselves in the socio-economic world?

I want to keep many of the temporary employees I get through my workplace forever, but I know that will only spoil them and make them complain about the petty things.

The world can often be consumed with the petty things.

Popularity: 31% [?]