Today, I was looking through Statistics as we traveled to Dallas. What I found surprising, how changing opinions are happening so fast. Uncertainty.
The Best Statistic was from young people saying they believed in Change would eventually work for the good of us all. The belief in the people of the United States are basically good.
This week we heard from the CDC, new agencies and some states how well the Pandemic is receding, then 24 hours later, the opposite. I think Harris County has it right.
Airlines are trying to deal with violent people. It's supposedly about masks. Maybe the deeper, more profound, issue is people being confronted by death. Did you live?
My small High School Class in Emporium, PA found the need to list our classmates. 58 years old, Reading Names because we had a higher than average mortality rate. 12%. I found Stan Beer had died. And several others I sat beside every day. I know they went to Heaven. Heaven is a better place for them. Yet, I'm sad for the brightness of Stan Beer to have left the earth. He was so very bright and very witty. Stan made me laugh many times every day. I was Anderson, he was Beer. Stan told me someday you will explain that and people will think - you picnic with alcohol. As a child. We laughed, we were Freshmen. One day, Stan was serious, and he asked me what was something about myself I hadn't told him. A Secret. I turned around. I felt angry. And then I thought about it a few minutes and I turned back around. Yes... I said I've been in private schools, but never had I been surrounded by people who were just so much brighter than I was. Stan said, like what people. And I began to list my lunch friends and some boys and I said, mostly you, Stan. I embarrassed Stan. I said people here say such interesting things, and you have to think about what you talked about.
Stan talked about not going to college. I told him, you have to, you are too bright. Stan said, why do you say this area is intelligent. Emporium made most of the television sets in the 1950s. Sylvania made great television sets, and there were so many Engineers and their children. The next day, Stan set me up. He had the idiots jump out at me and ask me if they were smart. Stan and I didn't speak for a week. Stan apologized. And the idiots kept jumping in my face. I finally said Stan told me it was his job to decide who was intelligent and who was the idiot. Gotcha, Pal. Then Stan fumed.
I told Stan, we did picnic with alcohol, and we still do. Stan decided he'd speak to me again. I told him about traveling to Florence and the drinking age hasn't happened. He was shocked. And we talked about hills, coast lands of the Mediterranean. Stan got quiet and said he hoped he'd see that.
That sounds pretty deep, but mostly we laughed. And the people around us, laughed, too.
One of the women, who passed on, was someone I sat with in music appreciation. One day, the band came to the door and played, and I realized everyone I adored in Emporium played in the Band, and I'm about as musical as doorstop. And music appreciation didn't have the people I knew. Brenda had died. She is the first person I remember having to make conversation, lead the conversation and try. Why should someone, who saw others in passing, try? I guess this worked out well for us both. When Facebook came around, suddenly Brenda was my Facebook friend 30 something years later. One day, Brenda wasn't on Facebook anymore. I tried to think about anything offending her. And I missed Brenda, who had moved to Texas. She was quiet on Facebook because she was dying, she left Facebook. Brenda died in her forties. We don't know what it is like to be someone else. We just don't know.
This brings the total number of people I know who passed on, due to Covid related circumstances on the earth, to 10 souls. An unusual number of these people were not 60 years old. 8 were under 60 years old.
One of my friends, wasn't always nice. In fact, her forte was enjoying making someone squirm badly in front of others. I learned this in my 30s about her, first hand. And, again, in our 50s. She didn't share this trait in common with her mother. This is when she knew, years earlier, she was different. I knew her from college. And we spent an afternoon visiting her mother's grave site. She told me she never wanted to battle old age. At the time, she was in her late 30s. And as she told me why, I realized she had a plan. It wasn't given entirely clearly, but it was a suicidal plan. I spoke up and told her why this is a bad option. Suicide had happened in my family, and in Dallas, I'd taken a class for people who survived having family, or friend, die from suicide. The Class was called Survivors of Suicide. We were blunt. She was quietly. Gathered herself and said that was very fascinating, but it wasn't her plan. Denial. Evasion. Something bad. Armor in place. When she had her first family crisis, she sat on my sofa, we hadn't really seen each other in about 7 years. One day, she arrived. Told me everything and, again, ignored anything and all I said.
The next family crisis, I didn't get even an email.
I learned something from her, and another person, bullies can be very unwell. They can present a very credible mask of bravely decimating someone else. We all contribute to each other, hopefully this is building each other up. But God will have someone else come forward and explains another facet of this person to you. If you feel you blend in well, and you present yourself well. You want the prizes in life. Life isn't worth anything without the Prizes. But something feels empty, something is missing. And you make sort of a plan for exit. Even saying what weekend this will happen. Briefly.
But won't come when invited, won't answer a call unless it's about something they placed, calling you. Refuse this. Refuse that. Refuses others. Until a decade later, no one asks regularly. Even if you spoke 30 times in the years before Pandemic. No plan to meet or go with the mutual friends. Suddenly, one day, you have a suicide call. And Pandemic has overwhelmed a soul with a tentative plan.
Before the one day, I had dreams of my friend. Was she my friend? Yes, I wished well for her. Cared for her. Tried. But the dream was she was with another person, unnamed in my life, who also felt without Prizes, Life isn't worthwhile. In my two dreams, these two people had become friends and were moving across a bridge together. I'd never considered these two friends were so similar. I prayed. And two weeks later found this friend was gone.
Build on the Firm Foundation of Jesus Christ.
Not a platform of shame and pretense. The path is made by Jesus as the Way, Truth and Life.
Then: Did you live? Yes.
We need a plan. To Live. To Live, with faith. Try. When we build up others, we set ourselves free. To speak freely, to be who we are. To like who we are. And as we make a path for ourselves, we make a path for others. We care for others. And to the people who know us best, we are totally trustworthy and make a better path for them as well. We help lift the burdens of life, instead of being baggage to carry uphill.
To make others stronger, is to be stronger.
Salvation is what God is capable to do. When we ask for the ability to help one another and nothing budges, we have to believe God is the One Capable.
John 8:36
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
If The Son therefore will set you free, you will truly be the children of liberty.
John 3:8
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