Living in the real world.
It may be a great world out there for me, as I have previously announced "I love it..." but when I re-think that perspective, it may indeed appear to be a great world for me but in fact that selfish way of looking at things. I live in a most beautiful part of the world, I have a fairly secure job, I eat well every day, I'm healthy, I have an incredibly beautiful and hardworking wife, I have great kids, I drive a car, I have great friends and neighbours, I love God and try to serve my fellow man (I think) - things are good for me - man! There are lots of people out there though who don't find this world a particularly pleasing place to be for all sorts of reasons. If I have a look around, stepping for a moment out of my selfish, self absorbed default setting, I can see that its not such a great world out there for lots of people. Since our current western culture is steadily focused on money and image and status, even power it becomes hard to see the real issues as they scream out at us - kinda like a child asking mum for something as a train or a large articulated truck hammers past. The noise of their plea is absorbed and prevented from reaching the appropriate recipient by the overwhelming rush of a louder and more powerful sound. Maybe you would think I am thinking of the poor in particular?, well! certainly they have a lot to be aggrieved about but they will keep for a moment while I mention a few others of us. What about the hungry then? Yes them as well but 'hold your horses cowboy', I mean there are those out there who are miserable for all the wrong reasons. There's the rich and miserable, the healthy and miserable, the intelligent and miserable and of course the downright miserable.
Maybe it's because.....
I suppose it might be easy to set about explaining all of this with a contrived personal philosophy which could be stretched and manipulated to cover all scenarios. I will try to refrain because I think I could be very much out of my depth - but hey! its my blog - I can say what i think cant I?
In my more gracious moments I suppose I can almost see how easy it is to be ungrateful for one's lot. I came from a loving family, I was never abused (although I could think of a few school teachers who I might want to have a word with regarding the less than encouraging words they used as a parting shot as I left school without a qualification). I was well fed and looked after and remain so as my waistline can easily communicate. There are those who have not been so fortunate, whose life is blighted by one or more dreadful or unfortunate event. I suppose such folks have a reason to be less than enamoured by their lot and have a comment to make to my 'easy rider' life to date. Of course their comments might be a bit different if they knew the whole truth about me. Tragedy, redundancy, ill health in the family, family estrangements and breakups, alcoholism, etc. All of which take their toll on one's life and circumstances. Never-the-less it seems to me to be a waste of more lives if we get stuck in the 'slough of despond' as a result of events which we cannot change or reverse. Now, I do accept that there are times when we might need a bit of support or even counselling to be able to emotionally get some closure on the most damaging of events. I think however one of the most helpful and potentially theraputic options open to all of us is forgiveness. Of course to be able to forgive may not initially be available to us. How do we forgive someone who has spoiled our live and our future? That's not an easy question to answer, but it is possible. Perhaps we will have time to discuss it in more detail as time goes by, but be aware of this that forgiveness will begin the process of healing and open the door to seeing the world in a different and more positive light. Forgive me if I have made this sound a bit easy, it's not easy but it is possible.
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