Category: Uncategorized

People have gone completely bonkers. Well, not all, but very many folks.

Case in point – in order to demonstrate their disdain for people who hate, a large group of our fellows are practicing all-out hatred against those who they decree to be purveyors of hate.

What?

They hate you because they hate haters and your hate is worse than their hate.

That makes sense exactly how?

Has the whole world gone back to kindergarten?

“When you have finished chopping this row, you can come in and have some lunch”

It was grandmother speaking and the row was that of cotton.

Chopping cotton involved moving through the rows with a hoe and chopping down the non-cotton plants that are competing for water, nutrients and sunlight. Experienced workers can chop a row in little time at all, leaving only happy cotton plants in their wake. We children, on the other hand, took a very long time to chop a row.

Removing unwanted plants was not the purpose for having us little ones work in the fields. Working the earth along with the “help” was just something grandmother insisted on, just has her parents insisted of her and their parents insisted of them. The idea was to be reared with an appreciation for work and to learn to lead from the front. Did you ever notice how many of our military heroes hailed from the agrarian element of our society? There may be a good reason for that.

Hearing her words, the little boy looked up the row, the end of which could not be seen from his tiny height. Knowing grandmother to be a woman of her word, he fell into despair, tears mixing with dust and burning his eyes as he thought to himself “this will take all day, I am doomed!”

The hot Texas sun was unrelenting, but the boy pressed on, re-focused on the task, forgetting about lunch, forgetting about the certain starvation that would be his demise. Accepting his fate, he soldiered on. Defending the noble cotton from the enemy plants, he removed one interloper after another. On and on he fought heroically for what seemed to have been the better part of the day.

Then it happened – the end of the row. No more enemy plants, no more row to hoe.

Wiping the sweat from his little forehead, just like the grownups, he took a moment to lean on his hoe and admire his work. Tossing the hoe over his shoulder he marched triumphantly back up the row, between the cotton plants as they waved appreciation to their champion.

Cleaning the hoe and placing it back in the tool shed, he washed up and arrived in the kitchen for lunch.

It was 11:30 am, still morning.

It is likely that your experience growing up was very different in many ways from that of Niyomugaba Jean Labert.

Niyo grew up in the village of Sunzu in the north of Rwanda, born just a few years after that terror which is all too often associated with Rwanda. Since that event, and all during Niyo’s years, Rwandans have been heroically rebuilding their society and country, moving past fear and hate, embracing forgiveness and reconciliation.

Such things were not on the top of the mind of Niyo as a young boy. Growing up on the high bluff between two valleys and overlooking beautiful lake Burera his concerns were fetching clean water for the family, working the fields and school. With a quick wit, agile mind and acumen for English he made friends of visitors from faraway lands. One of those visitors gave him a tee shirt from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, and the seed of a dream began to sprout.

Years of diligent effort led to Niyo arrival in Fort Worth, now a student at that very school. His first year he entered the intensive English program and this coming school year is looking forward to being a Freshman. Ever desirous of helping others, Niyo has started a blog site to help those who are traveling from far away countries to study in the United States.

Give his web site https://niyomugaba.com/ a look.  And leave him a message to let him know what you think.

Please dear reader, for just a minute this Memorial Day, wear the boots of another.

You’re a good young man, not perfect, but caring, for your family, your neighbors, your country. You have plans and aspirations, to develop skills, form a career, start a family of your own.

One day, those dreams are put on hold, not entirely against your will, but you don’t really have a choice either. Evil threatens, your country calls. You have friends who have already answered that call and now you join them. Your country needs you, your neighbors, your family. You are fully convinced it is the right thing to do and you commit.

You are trained to inflict harm on others, to destroy and break, but you have always been a fixer of things, a builder of things. No matter, you are committed. So you go forth, harming, destroying, breaking. To protect your family, your neighbors, your country.

Then, one day you are driving down a road in a strange land when all of your senses are overloaded in an instant. Light, sound, smell, pain, all overwhelmed beyond comprehension.
You awake in a strange place, in a strange bed, pain, confusion, lament.

Brothers lost – and with them a part of you.

Some of your injuries will never fully heal but what can be are stitched and you continue, harming, destroying, breaking, for your brothers, your family, your neighbors, your country. You must continue, you must fight.

Evil is a reality of the world we inhabit and, as a result, so is war. You didn’t seek glory or have romanticized images of becoming a hero. You were driven by a desire to do what is right, what is honorable, what is good. But now, you have seen it. You have smelled it, lived it. You know the face of anger, terror, and loss at a level that most of us will, very fortunately, never know. And that is now part of you.

But you did it brother. You kept us safe, your family, your neighbor, your country. You did it.

Thank you.

“Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”  the older woman asked the young lady at the grocery store.  Puzzled what to say the young lady said nothing.  That’s ok, no answer was expected, and it is doubtful that anything other than an apology would have been received.

Sometimes questions are not questions, Sometimes they are a method used to trigger thought on the part of the recipient. The inquisitor is self-confident of superior understanding or behavior and is using the question to demonstrate that superiority.

At times that demonstration is warranted.  God asked the earthling “Where are you?”.  No answer was required.  Upon hearing the question, the earthling immediately knew he had erred.  An apology might have been appropriate but instead the earthling went straight to shifting the blame for his failure to God, “that woman you gave me”.

At other times such questions are a method of lording over others.  A trait that is all too pervasive in our society.  Driven by a belief that one’s own conclusions are the only right conclusions, people will venture forth inflicting torment upon those whose conclusions are deemed inferior.

The rules of re-engagement from lock-down are many and vary widely across our society.  Various sundry groups of people are abiding by one or more of the many sets of guidelines whose details are diverse to the extreme.  Some have returned to shaking hands and hugging, others are abiding by extensive strict protocols.  Each group having a sense of superior understanding over the others.

Given this diversity of thought you are very likely to become the target of such an inquisitor as you venture forth into the post-lock-down world. But remember, you are not being questioned by God, you are being questioned by a fellow traveler trying to make their way through troubled and unsure waters.  Seems best to overlook any smugness or air of superiority that often accompanies such inquiries.  Be polite, apologies, and move on, you will have avoided a worthless conversation.

Remember the movie Office Space? Well this has nothing to do with that movie, except to trigger a desire to watch it again.

If, during the lock-down, you have shifted from working in a traditional office space to working from home, how has that worked out?
Most likely there are elements of your job that are better and some that are not so much. On the whole, is your life better or worse working from home?
In what ways are you more productive?
In what ways are you less productive?

Answers to these questions come up in conversation, especially now, has the specter of returning to the office is in view. Some can’t wait to get back. Some express that they will never do so, swearing that they are more productive and satisfied with life. Some, maybe the majority, hope for a hybrid – in the office some portion of the week and away the rest.

Commercial real estate folks have expressed concerns about the later two sets of people, what happens to office rents if portions of the workforce settle into non-traditional approaches. Some business owners, on the other side of the rent payments, see the potential for reducing a considerable expense.

One wonders if a model does not emerge whereby employees are given an office allowance. The employee is responsible for establishing working space conducive to maximum effectiveness, whether that be at home, in a co-working space, in common office space or some combination. Company offices might then be composed of mostly meeting rooms and collaboration spaces.

Sometimes a radical event will force us to reexamine old practices to see if there is a better way. Maybe more than Swingline staplers.

If you have never, with calmed mind, walked on a gravel drive in the country, please do try it sometime.

Hear the crunch beneath your feet, watch the killdeer as he runs before you, laughing when he finally takes flight. See the orange above his tail feather, only really visible as he wings away. Feel the warm sun on your face and the wind in your hair.

Breathe, listen, see, hear, smell

The experience is like coming home, like where you belong.

Boots are highly recommended for this experience, lest a twisting ankle or stone between the bottom of your foot and the inside sole of your shoe revert your calmed mind into a raging torrent.

You do things everyday that benefit others more than yourself. And, not because it makes you feel better, that would reverse the benefit roles, no, it’s because something inside of you guides you to understand that it is the right thing to do.

The more you do such things the stronger the guiding voice becomes and the more you do them, it’s a feedback loop and a good one. One that deserves to be nurtured and cared for and allowed to flourish.

It defies logic and reason.

That’s the way love is.

If you are old enough you may remember the lowly handkerchief. Little squares of cloth that were carried by men and women and used to protect the health of others.

Along with the handkerchief were protocols, one of which involved excusing yourself, finding a place where others were not down range and giving a solid blow of the nose. Coughs were similarly dealt with. Clean handkerchiefs were used to dry eyes and clear away sniffles.

All practices which slowed the spread.

Does anyone else find it bazaar that studies of first hundreds and now thousands of Covid-19 patients showing the benefits of treatment with an old, inexpensive, readily available, well know drug is met with skepticism by the media, while early results of 8 healthy young people for a new, expensive, not yet in production, untried drug is met with positive accolades by the very same media?