Lessons I have learned - Happy Birthday Sis

In 1949 there was a musical written. South Pacific. I just watched it on PBS and I was emotional all through it. Reba McIntyre starred in this concert performance of this great musical. It was made into a movie in 1958 and I must have seen it that year.

Over the years I have grown to appreciate the message of this show more and more. The song "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" was controversial then. It is still has a message for today when racism and hate are still a part of out society and the religion which is supposed to be one of Love.

Cable sings:
You've got to be taught To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught From year to year,
It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

I still see it happening. And I see it done in the name of religion. "God Hates" - "Love the Sinner Hate the Sin" are just two of the things that are used today to teach hate. And lets face it folks that is what it is. Hate. Pure and Simple. And that is not the message that was brought to us. By any of the great teachers of any of the great religions.

I know from personal experience that the voice of God is still and small and it comes to us in the quietness of the night or when we are down and need uplifting. All we need to do is listen. I know I have said this before but I learned about this when I was coming back from a trip to Boston. I had heard that my beautiful loving sister had tried, once again, to kill herself. After a horrible car accident she wound up in a wheelchair and really did not want to live. So she tried this way out a couple of times. Thankfully it didn't work. She is still here and she is still enriching the lives of those who know her.

As I drove back those thousand miles in the rain and storms (yeah, fun it wasn't) I did a lot of thinking. I thought of people who had told me that she should be put in a mental hospital or her ability to drive her car should be taken away from her. People who were supposed to love her were saying these things and I was upset. But as I drove home, thinking about this little girl who had brought so much joy (and yes heartache - but then who doesn't) into our lives. How absolutely incredibly joyous it was that she came into my life when I was 10 years old. How she used to follow me around and what fun we all had growing up.

How she was able, when she found herself pregnant and unmarried, to keep that a secret from Mother and me until we returned from a trip to Texas. And how she had gone to Birthright and found out the steps she had to take to have her baby. How difficult it was to watch her go through this and how much she hated the idea of having a baby without a father. And then I witnessed that wonderful bonding moment which happens between a mother and a son. I saw Love born. And she changed.

She is my sister and her accident changed her and my life tremendously. She was flown to Des Moines to the hospital where those miracles called doctors saved her life and enabled her to go on living. There was a rehabilitation time and the help she got from the caring medical staff at Mercy Capitol was incredible. And then she was able to come home to the house I had gotten and had remodeled thanks to Brandon Zanger and live with me. I thought about how she had decided to volunteer and to help others, how she got back into school and begin to work towards a degree.

I thought about all of those things and when I got home I took the keys to her car and gave them to her. You see, I believe that God had spoken to me that week on the trip home. He said, "All you can do is love her." That is all any of us can do. LOVE. I refuse to be "taught to hate." And I won't listen to anyone who tells me that "God hates" or even that "God says" cause if they tell me anything other than" God loves" they are wrong.

Ginny doesn't live with me any more. She met a guy while in school. His name is Bruce and he loves her also. I have seen them together and it is fun to watch them. He calls her Honey and takes great care of her. He took her to Missouri and that is kind of hard for her because she has so many friends up here. But they are good together and she keeps in contact with people on the Internets. She is still in a wheelchair but she has learned to function with it and she does very well.

So this post is about two things. My sister who will celebrate her 56th birthday on Tuesday and about how grateful I am for every instance where God's message of love has come to me. I just wish everyone would listen to that message.

I was having an e-mail conversation with my friend and Brother Timothy Bonney and I wrote:

I guess my ... standards are not to hurt others on purpose and to live my life as I understand the Christ in the stories that Jesus told us and to see God in everyone (even those who don't recognize Him in themselves). That is probably enough.

Not always an easy thing to do and I fall far short of my own standards a lot of the time.

Someone once said to me, "You do a good job of preaching Masonic stuff, not sure how much you really live it." Well, I guess I am not sure either. All I know for sure is that if I have done something to hurt someone I am sorry for it and I try to do better in the future. And every once in awhile I think about it and vow to try to do better. I guess that is all any of us can do. Try!

I think this from the KJV of the Bible says it all:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

I didn't start out to write all of this. In fact, I didn't start out to write any of it. What I started out to do was put some pictures on the Blog which I took today. But here it is. Happy Birthday Ginny, I love you and am happy for you. I put your card and present in the mail today. If it doesn't get there by Tuesday it should by Wednesday. As for the rest of it just find some quiet time and listen also. That is all anyone has to do. ARTYAL, Giant Hugs, j