....when you set your timer for 5 minutes, and WRITE, without judgment or overthinking. Today's word is "listen."
Once a week, I fill up my ipod with my favorite podcasts, grab my super-duper ear protective headgear and crack up my lawnmower. It takes me 2+ hours to mow with our 72 inch deck which goes FAST. If it isn't too hot, this can be one of the most enjoyable parts of my week.
I'm outside, I'm accomplishing something that will stay done for a few days, and I'm listening to something intellectually stimulating.
This week, I caught up on a couple of podcasts of This American Life on NPR.
I'm not a fan of the editorial opinions of the station, but some of the shows I do enjoy, and This American Life is one of them.
The show was all about Harper High school in Chicago. According to the commentators, this school is in one of the most violent sections of Chicago, a city which has been riddled with violence for the last couple of years. Which makes me so sad, because we love to visit the city.
They interviewed students and staff of the school, and people, it was enough to make you sit down and bawl your eyes out. Some of the kids have witnessed multiple shootings and deaths, and they all have different methods of trying to stay out of the line of gunfire.
My word.
The trauma. The ruined lives. The sadness.
I can't imagine it.
I feel so sorry for those kids and the teachers and counselors trying to educate them.
The whole time the show was being aired, I was getting more and more aggravated. The "cool, smarty-pants people" with all their worldly "wisdom" are the ones that ruined the family structure.
Our country has an enormous mess on its hands trying to solve the problems created by the breakdown in the family. We have so many kids-boys especially-who are ANGRY. Their basic emotional needs have never been met.
Now, the "cool, smarty-pants" people are trying to tell the rest of us how to fix the problem that THEY created.
This is one of the enemies most dangerous schemes. I believe that our earthly fathers are supposed to be just a taste of who our Heavenly father is.
Many kids do not have a good impression of "dad". That opens a huge can of worms.
Ok. Now I have that out of my system.
I'm going to return to Philippians 4:8 thinking:
Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
