16 DEC 2014 :: Keeping up with things and finding our values

Another day of trying to catch up with my various tasks on a to-do list.   Mundane things like doing the dishes become "critical" when the pile is almost a foot high in my little dish pan.  :-)   I started the day trying to get one Christmas message in the mail and wound up writing to almost everyone I thought I should, and sending off one more gift letter.  I think I did nine letters... this is a big deal because I haven't had stamps to write anyone for a long time.  :-)

That was enough for my body... I rested on the computer, checking everything, and now getting my blog post done.  The news was on the TV since 5:30, and I just turned it to a PBS music channel with a jazz emphasis (but I know I have heard non-jazz on it when I keep it on for the whole night). I like the mostly slow tempo... it is soothing for me... and takes care of background noise when I want it.

I don't want to think about the news I heard today... I can't imagine how it happened...all those children killed for political reasons.  It was on Facebook, too.

I think we are all on overload emotionally. It is hard to deal with all this tragedy 24-hours a day. It numbs the mind and heart and soul.  It may be why violence has no sense of wrong attached to it anymore...

Time slips away from us...

I watched an old Christmas movie I happened on last night [Christmas Without Snow]. It was from 1980, with Michael Learned as the main star, and John Houseman as an elderly church choir director, and John Cromwell as the third main star (I think). I remember faces better than names. I watched a lot of the Walton's on TV, so I knew Michael Learned from there.  John Houseman looked different, but I can't remember which show I remember him from.

The main thing I am trying to say is that the movie was over 30 years old.  the subjects and their presentation were different than what you would see in a movie today. Old movies are more about the characters I think.  Today it's all about sex and skin.

It's funny what we remember.  Sometimes I try to remember the things I have read, seen on a video, on TV, or heard on the radio. It all seems to blend together because there is so much coming into the brain and only the really interesting things rise above the rest. It takes some time to get through the haze, searching for something that will push my memory.

When I can't remember these things, I think about the time I used up watching them. I wonder if it was worth it.  There is a need to rest, to balance work and other activities, and there is the situation we live in...  we create the values we put on things.

I am searching my life for what my values are and how to honor them in my choices. I don't have much time left, and my situation is limiting, but how do we as individuals, cities, schools, businesses, governments, etc., honor the differences between us? 

America was founded because Christians were forced to worship something they didn't believe in. A new kind of government was formed because of it.  But do we build America on that same foundation of individual freedoms, or change it into a pureed soup of social regulation?

The difference between the Bible as our foundation and Man as his own master is like the difference between Leave It To Beaver and Married With Children, Archie Bunker and the Cosby Show, Roseanne and the Waltons. We are becoming the land of media values (maybe the world governed by media values), and they affect our concepts about all different kinds of values.

As Christians, we need to think about how fast things are changing, too.  We don't know how long the End Times will last, only what some of its characteristics will be.  The loss of godly perspectives is one of those signs.  Values matter.