I shouldn't have to

 I shouldn't have to remind you of what you witnessed
Nor to give you sordid details of what hurts in every aspect
I shouldn't have to keep asking for your attention
Nor to be important enough for your consideration
I shouldn't have to scream out my pain to be heard
Nor should I be told I am crazy when it happens 
I shouldn't have to accuse you or excuse me
Nor should I feel left unheard as a lifelong pain
I shouldn't have to be mean to you 
Nor mean to myself, just to get you to see me
I've told you some of what has occured, who I am
This was an invitation to a conversation, for you
Because, you claim your occupation is to love even me. 

I was too broken November 3, 2022

 It's not that I didn't value you
I saw your worth, but couldn't find any value in me
It's not that I didn't listen to you
Your words reached me through filters of self-loathing
It's not that I wanted to lose you
I didn't know how to find myself to hold onto you
I wanted to be in love with you
It is that I was too broken to believe in love for me
It really was never, ever you
I was trying to reach you, through the maze of being me
It is not that I don't miss you
I know that I was the constant lie in our relationship
It's that we never knew each other
Because, not once in that past life was I ever really me. 
I was too broken to put myself together, even for you
If I could have done so, I would have, all for you. 

Thank God

 my flesh is a terrororist, intruding upon my thoughts

keeping me half-blinded, physically, mentally, spiritually
taking away my voice, my thoughts, my intentioned deeds

thank God for the holy spirit

I am bound up in flesh, but not he- not God or his power
I am bound up in poverty, but rich in knowledge and time

at world's end, flesh will remain, but no longer mine enemy
interrupting my prayers with its demands for attention
"Feel my pain!  Feel my pain!" 

thank God for the holy spirit

moving me past, up and over, all these obstacles
pain of head, pain of heart, pain of past, pain of present

even numbness is pain, attached to pain, malignant
sucking color from eye, cheek, hair, life 

thank God for the holy spirit 

Simple.

 Be aware that what I wrote below is not how my life is. It's my thoughts on how my life should be. So, read it like a goal, an affirmation, a dream that may be realized. Thank you for understanding.

I begin not with eating, but in learning to think of eating as that necessity- potentially, a joyous necessity- between all the hours of doing else.

“What will I eat?” is actually something we were told not to ask. Now, let us be reasonable. Does that mean we can't say “What should we buy from the store?” or “Where should we have lunch?” or “Am I more in the mood for … or …?” No. It means, in one sense, that if you serve God, He will make provision for you so put faith in Him that your needs will not be forgotten. Yet, in a lesser sense, it also means that eating is not what life is about.

A method by which to make a firm beginning to living a life of greater simplicity is to get one's eating, and all things associated with it, in order.

What sort of order?

Here is my order:

I choose to primarily eat a combination of fresh raw or cooked fruits and vegetables, with possibly some frozen cooked vegetables and fruits included, along with rice, beans (fresh, frozen or canned) and, if desired, occasional meat, fish, fowl or eggs. Anything outside of these things and the spices to steer them by is not verboten, but it is rarely taken in.

Which is to say, I might, on occasion, get a loaf of bread, a tin of tea, a box of crackers, a deli sandwich, a soda, etc. But, in the majority I eat in such a way that I need to visit only a small section or two of the store, at all, and most of the time just the one section, where the produce is.

This cuts out so much thinking about food and time in obtaining and preparing it, and the time lost in suffering over wrong choices. It also makes wash up so much quicker and easier.

Food storage is easier and less costly. How? Most of it – beans, grains, spices- goes in one small cupboard. I buy them in bulk. Fruit that is packed in its own juices or just sugar and water are also part of the mix. The rest are obtained every few days, which means I go to the grocery store more often, but I need to store much less and can have a small refrigerator or an ice chest for those few things, if needed.

How is it simpler to go to the store more often? First of all, because, I utilize less of the store and each trip takes so much less time that going to the store two or three times in a week would be less time consuming than going the once and eating processed foods.

Second of all, when I go to the store, I walk. So, this is my exercise, possibly Vitamin D gathering along the way, and I walk with others when I can, so it is also socialization. If I were going to a gym, it would take at least as much time, then I'd have to go to the store after and spend more time. This way, I am receiving exercise and input and achieving my end goal.

Third of all, we return to the top: eating is what is done, primarily for fuel I should hasten to add, in between all the hours of doing else. When I say I shop every few days, that means at maximum.

I eat when I am hungry. I drink when I am thirsty. When I am hungry, if it is needed, I go to the store to get food to prepare a meal. I cook what I have purchased, or have on hand (perhaps in combination) and then it is an enjoyable experience that is over, except for the washing up.

I might share this meal with someone else, which makes it easier not to have leftover. Or, I might cook for them at their place and share a meal with them and not even have a trip to the store. If I know a like-minded person I might even make them a deal that they go one trip and we share a meal and the next time I am ready to go, we share another meal. At least the next time we are both in sync on wanting to eat.

So, less space, less waste, more energy, more time, more social connection. All by looking at eating in its proper place: an aside, pleasant as it can be to indulge in, to a much fuller life.

-30-

Family

 The surprise of this article is that there was a Chinese woman named Daisy Joe. Well, that's what is most surprising to me.

Honestly, reading this article makes me feel like an American would be hard put trying not to have Chinese ancestry. Not that I am suggesting they should make the attempt.

My grandmother told me that some female in our family (whose bloodline affected mine) went to Chicago, got on a bus and met a Chinese man. She said she married him. I asked "And are we blood-related?" and she barked, "Why do you think I'm telling you this?"

She said more or less the same thing about another female, but she went elsewhere and met a Jew, instead. Grandma drew the line at explaining our French connection, but she made it clear there is one.

She also, of course, mentioned Irish people and Native Americans, though I assure you she blamed the latter all on Dad's family.

We had several long discussions about family heritage, at different points. Most of the discussion was about how much of it was hidden and why and how it wouldn't be wise to be digging it up. And, how I better not go to Chinese Grove, Texas while she is still alive.

Which was after I had started singing that song and gave her quite a start, one day while we were cleaning. She asked me how I knew that information. I told her its a song on the radio and sang it to her (let's call it singing, thank you kindly). Quite a while later, it came on the radio and I rushed into the room and played it at her and several of her friends. They were all astounded.

Every single person in the room - that was not me - knew about the information in the song, agreed that it was quite accurate and said some version of how surprised they were that anyone outside of Texas knew when "they" workedso hard to not have it talked about. There was no specification of who "they" were.

But, that day I sang the song to Grandma we had the discussion wherein she told me about the meeting on the bus and tried to impress upon me the importance of not telling people of our ancestry. To which I replied, "It's not like they will ever believe me, anyhow."

I don't remember at which point she told me that we had relatives - Chinese relatives -in China Grove, Texas. She told me that she would not tell me their names or addresses or anything about them and made me promise that as long as she was alive I would not go there and look for them.

Well, I have not. I mean, if I happened to run into a Chinese person and we happened to learn we were related, that's one thing. But, I am not in a desperate quandry over my roots or anything. It's just interesting to know a bit about one's family history. So, I am more concerned with who the woman was that met the man on the bus, why she was in Chicago and what made them interested in each other. That sort of thing.

I hope whatever happened it would make for a great love story.

Anyway, yeah ... The Chinese are related to a good whack of white and black people, probably hispanics and Native Americans, too. So, it's very likely that you are part Chinese and therefore related to everyone else in the country. Especially if you know you are Irish at all.

I hope you will read and enjoy the information on the site I am sharing. I certainly have, though I am not done. One of the things I enjoyed was finding out that it was not that unusual for a woman of Irish descent to meet a Chinese man on a bus in Chicago and for them to wind up married.

https://www.cinarc.org/Intermarriage.html

Thoughts on imminent destruction and cookies.

 In 1st Samuel 2:10 Hannah prayed that Jehovah would "give power to his king". The Israelites had no king when she prayed this. So, what was she talking about? 

In Deuteronomy 17, Jehovah made it clear that the israelites would begin to desire to have a king. Further, he told them that when they did, they should appoint one but that it must never be a foreigner. 

In John 19:15, the chief priests announce that Caesar is their king, while demanding the death of Jesus the Christ, who is to be their king and who was in the chronic state of fulfiling messianic prophecy thrhoughout his lifetime, in a way that was so painfully obvious that work-a-day types, like Peter, noticed it and took up responsibilities associated with serving he who would be king. 

Jesus gave fair warning to the Israelites, aka: Hebrews, aka: Jewish people or "the Jews", regarding death and destruction that was coming to them a while after his own death. Some of them listened to him because they knew what he was  and wanted it that way. Others did not listen to him as they either refused to take in knowledge and see what he was or they did see, but preferred to live their life without him. Either way, the former survived and the latter perished. 

When the small form of God's kingdom, as it was on an imperfect earth surrounded by a world ruled by Satan, was destroyed in 607 B.C.E., the Gentiles were raised up in power while the Jews were brought low for failure to listen to God, his prphets, or his Christ and their future king. However, not all Jews failed in this way and, in fact, many Jews and Gentiles worked together for the Christ as first century Christians. Perhaps, further down into history than that. For there has always been a small number of persons devoted to Jehovah God and his kingdom throughout all of our history. 

A small number that, despite being outnumbered, thrived and lived and loved in a big way, protected by their relationship with Jehovah God, for as long as they maintained it and ddi not openly defy him. 

This, then, is the key to survival: working at taking in accurate knowledge and then acting upon it, regarding both the king Christ Jesus and his father, the Grand Creator Jehovah God.  It does not demand perfection, but it does demand effort and a proper heart condition of faith, love, patience and endurance - all of which they will give you, free for the asking (and the use of). 

The path is straight, but narrow and cramped. So, it is easy to see  the ight at the end and to have companions walking with you, but still a path that you are responsible for trodding upon alone, while listening to those who went before you and teaching those who are learning as they follow in your footsteps. 

We have been warned of how to recognize when the descrutcion of Satan's world is near and what to do about it, the same as the Jews were warned about the destruction of their small, now corrupt slice of this system after they failed to keep it as being "no part of this world" . 

According to the signs given by the Christ, it is very near. According to Bible principles the world is in more of a corrupt state than ever before, on a grand scale and with corruption running through every aspect of human existence which one must fight against daily.  The end is almost here. 

Will you listen and live? Or, stay in the corrupt city ruled by Satan and perish with him? The choice is yours. That's what your free will is all about. 

I know the dark side tells you it has cookies. But, it doesn't tell you that so does the light side, and the cookies that are made with the uncorrupted real produce of God are both tastier and better for your body.  

Think about it. 

JW.ORG 

Here's where you can look up the scriptures I gave, the destruction of Judah and more: 

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101971012?q=destruction+of+Judah&p=par