THE INTRINSIC AND REAL VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL!

Let´s start with the arduous task of the reconciliation with us and our opening towards the future by facing circumstances with optimism and courage.

As an indispensable requisite and without wanting to appear, in the eyes of so many despairing people, as another one of those Christians who, by force of straining themselves to keep their eyes looking upward to the heaven, they envision themselves as living in an utopian and privileged existence.

I do not want to appear as another one who by attempting to force the hand of God so He pours His blessings visualize Him as He were our own property or an slave bought at the ridiculous low price of our hypothetical conversions, supplications, prayers and invocations, oriented, solely, towards our human conveniences.

But, this for sure, I want to emphasize that we are His children, and that He as a loving father, it is true that He protects and blesses but He also corrects and straighten us up.

And even more, with due respect to our too often egotistical decisions, He allows us to deviate from the right paths so we learn, even it at the cost of pain and failures, from our foolishness and mistakes when we try to take the reins of our lives in our hands.

Despite all our misbehavior, or precisely because we are His children, He is always making us remember we were created at His image, and we keep it well inside, even if soiled and mistreated, while we are submerged in the darkest darkness.

He wants us to be aware, intimately, and over and through any misfortune and vicissitude that we have this image pressed upon ourselves as the intrinsic and real value as an individual, because of the immensity and greatness of His divine presence and being.

Because we are valuable! Not in the material sense when we define what it is a valuable asset! But in the sense of a human living being created by God!

And He reinforces this through all the positive and generous thoughts and feelings He infuses in us!

And He reinforces this through the messages of so many other individuals who take seriously the real and integral search of the reasons and meaning of the individual and life.

Let´s meditate and make our own the concepts that define this immensurable value, especially those referred to in the following video. Let´s meditate on its wording as follows:

¡Observe yourself immersed in your inner darkness! And then look around and observe the beauty of your God´s creation. Observe, think and meditate!

Don´t you think it would be good to make an inventory of your life? To be able to live with a greater joy and optimism!

Why do you cry because your shoes are tight when others walk with broken ones? And even more others just dream about them, even if broken and not mended, and many more even if without feet or legs, still face life with a smile?

Why do you live worrying about the ten per cent of the things that inflict pain and do not remember the ninety per cent of the things that went well and make our life joyful?

The millions cells in your body continually working in perfect harmony! Your brain and its neurons! Irreplaceable by none of the most sophisticated computers!

Your heart beating year after year, without caring if you are awake or sleeping! Your lungs! Always purifying the received air! Your eyes allowing you to enjoy the magic of the colors, the light, the sympathy of the people and the majesty of Nature!

You are a human being, the only being capable of talking, reasoning and calming the angered, encouraging the beaten down, stimulating the coward, and saying… I love you!

In your ears vibrate the wind, the children laughter, the soft music of the orchestras, the trepidation of the foaming waters, the kind words of the people you appreciate.

You can move around. You are not a tree tied up to a little piece of land. You can stroll around, run, dance, play sports or migrate to better places.

Your blood is a wondrous treasure. There are molecules in every cell and an atom in each molecule oscillating faster than ten million times per second.

Now, ask yourself: Don´t you believe your life is worthy to be lived?

It is so sad that we dedicate so much time to think about what we lack! And we almost never stop to remember and be grateful for the abundant and good things that Life offers.

For all this, do not see only what you are missing. Be grateful for what you already have!

Not only in what relates to your body, but also to your family, and the friendships that form the inner circle of your living, and to the comfort you enjoy and even the opportunities presented to you that probably you have wasted without caring for at all.

Count your blessings and your joyful circumstances. Do not waste your time recalling your misfortunes. Collect your happy and optimistic moments, and do not forget to chase away those crows that bear the name of “sad thoughts and memories”.

Do you know why? Because you are EXTREMELY VALUABLE!

EXTREMELY VALUABLE! EXTREMELY VALUABLE!

EXTREMELY VALUABLE!

YES! YES!

VALUABLE!

HARD WORK? THE UNAVOIDABLE REQUISITE FOR SUCCESS!

BUT NO HUNDRED PER CENT PROOF ASSURANDCE OF LACK OF DISTURBANCES, TRIALS, DISCRIMINATION, FAILURES, MISHAPS OR MISTEPS,

The present President of the United States in response to the diatribes and harangues from the limelight seeking people, placed in positions of societal directions, because I would strongly doubt they hold real positions of power, said. It is imperative to learn from history but not to remain trapped by it.

It is laughable that every one of these interlocutors, at the same time that embark in such, at least wanting to offend and pressuring want to keep on receiving gifts, privileged, free access to the so offended markets and people, disguised as international cooperation without any corresponding commitment or compromise toward the givers and the intended given people.

They insist in historical debts and abuses, to justify their pretended right to be always on the free receiving end that usually end up lining their pockets.

We should accept the hard fact and reality of having to be a corresponding partner, or no partner at all. There is no such equation of only one ended transaction.

There is no logical, rightful or practical rationale in wanting to trade the natural resources for the money of the people these pretended leaders want and send our connationals to live, work and send back the monies that will support the people our own governments should be supporting by providing the opportunities that the forced migrants find in the so vilipended country.

But images are stronger than words. Let´s review the background of the also stated words that all countries have been initially exploited by the abusers of their time.

All countries, but especially our countries, need to find the way to get ahead and prosper, through moral stamina and resolve to start walking, without complaining, the hard road to the future., instead of offending and at the same time extending our hands as beggars with sticks instead of willful cooperation and enthusiasm to find our own way to progress.

let´s analize what this country, we want to bleed, did, to do the same and maybe someday return the gifts they gave us in the first place. HARD WORK IS THE UNAVOIDABLE REQUISITE FOR SUCCESS.

to relentlesly seek it through patient dedication to the adquisition

of the necessary educational and training skills.

To not despair when facing hard and uncomfortable circumstances.

To preserve at all cost our dignity and personal respect.

To see as a positive one any potential activity, that could foster

our personal seeking of self support, and satisfaction of our material needs.

To expect without any irrational outburst of pretended abuses, debts,

offenses or whatever else,

the natural breakdowns of our means and ways.

To not despise any productive activity despite its humblessness

or strong requirements for untiring and not well paid labor.

Having always in our minds that if we do not presently see

the nicer end products of our efforts, some of our descendant

not only will see them but enjoy them.

Emphasizing at all times that what we cannot lose for any reason or excuse

is the optimism and resolve to keep on racing, and kicking ourselves up

while striving and runing the marathons

of the adverse or challenging circumstances.

Without refusing to engage in works and projects just because

they seem difficult, dangerous

or not intended for our personal gain or profit.

Without dispairing if we see ourselve broken down on the roads,

time after time.

Because hard labor and sweatshops are not

the invention of the present days.

Hard labor and sweatshops were the craddle

where the resolve of the valiants was born

and the furnace where their emotional strenght

was hardened to become

the steel structures of their descendant´s future.

And love did flourished always despite the harder

or the dire circumstances of the times where individuals had to migrate,

to find their future, their mates and their new forming family nucleus that,

on time, made the chosen country powerful,

strong, dependable, and worth to live in.

THIS IS THE ONLY RECIPE, VALID AT ALL TIMES,

WITH NO CANCELATION DATE,

AVAILABLE FOR ANY INDIVIDUAL,

COMMUNITY OR NATION,

ESPECIALLY NOWADAYS

LET´S CALL THINGS AS THEY ARE. BREAD IS BREAD AND WINE IS WINE!

Just a few days ago I received, through friends, two messages almost at the same time.

The first one labeled “I pass judgment on you, world!” served me as the base for my last posting in my blog titled “the last flipping of the coin…” in reference to the basis of the negative and frustrating universal reality we are actually facing.

The title given to the posting reflects, in my mind, the need to definitely stop on our tracks in order to define where we stand in relation to the future.

It reflects the need to get a final referential point that could be turn into the initial step in a new and positive phase of our individual and collective lives and make our own.

It reflects the need to stop the senseless crawling over the pebbles and thorns filled present paths so we can stand up, proudly even if painfully and limping, and start walking towards a future holding hopes and dreams instead of despair and drugged drowsiness.

We cannot keep on walking as widowed criers, less of all as the hired ones to pull their hair and shout the beatitudes of the dead ones in the villages of stagnant rural areas.

We must call things as they are. In other words, let´s call the bread, bread, and the wine, wine. Let´s call hard work, hard work, and not exploitation as is so easily said when we see other societies get ahead and leaving us behind.

Let´s call laziness, laziness, and shortsightedness, shortsightedness, and start being logical and honest, because we cannot keep on pointing fingers on what we want to be part of it, but without the slightest intention to sweat and labor as they had done to get what they got and we envy.

Let´s stop callously and cynically inventing justifications in order to force others to give us whatever we want without having to show any gratitude or reciprocal exchange in terms of cooperation and good usage of the gifts received.

In other words, let´s recognize that the real causes and origins of our deficiencies and vicissitudes are we, the men, the individuals, the persons, and the human beings, the homos sapiens who have no discernment and wisdom at all.

We should not beat the bushes knowing well that the fox is nowhere around. We should not beat the bushes searching where there is nothing we have put or left in there in the first place.

In other words, we, every one of us, should openly and honestly declare ourselves guilty for commission, omission or indifference, without disguising this fact or hiding behind generalizing but empty wording such as “the world”, “the abusers” “the power of the people” “the debts of the exploiters” and so many similar ones.

We should decide, for God´s sake, to stop talking and start putting our hands on the plow to open the dried out, because of our own inertial laziness, but otherwise fertile soils of the future.

We should start working instead of being the passive escapists of the “I accuse you, I judge you, I condemn you”. On the contrary, we should courageously declare “let´s accuse, judge, condemn all of us, the lazy and the pusillanimous.

Let´s stop opening ourselves to the intolerance, complacency, indifference and escapism. Let´s stop looking for scapegoats when we definitely know that the real culprits inhabit the innerest and darkest corners of our own beings.

The natural world, this magnificent creation of God given to us to care for it, to enjoy it, to protect it, to inherit it, is there, showing its natural beauty and the created one by the laborious hands of the minds and hands of the resolute caretakers that anteceded us.

It is our utmost responsibility to keep and advance what has been done before, correcting the mistakes or deficiencies, but not destroying everything while trying to do it or accommodate it to our whims or irresponsibility. It is already over the time to keep on throwing the baby away with the soiled water.

But it is not too late. We can stop and close our ears to the deafening stridencies who keep us jumping on our feet and preventing our progress in peace, through hard and honest, conscientious and productive labor.

Because the world is beautiful but its beauty lies not only in the exterior magnificence but in the inner strength of its inhabitants! Enjoy it and let enjoy it! Remember it will still be there when we depart from it!

THE LAST FLIPPING AND FALLING OF THE COIN ON ITS NEGATIVE FACE!

The present universal crisis that has affected, firstly and mainly, all the fundamental values that are the foundation of society, had not yet taken a definite form, in the collective conscience, until now, when, materializing in the hysterical financial and labor fields reactions and losses, have become the most cynical expression of greed and human speculation.

Every perverse, wicked and aberrant manifestation of the un-conscience and wrong manners and behavior has been staunchingly defended, with a daring, un-shameful, arrogant attitude, worthy of better and rightful causes, proclaiming the right to self-destruction disguised as freedom of choice and decision over our own destiny.

Libertinism has been proclaimed as the best accomplished expression of the human rights progress. There is not even the smallest reckoning of history´s examples of the cyclical decadence, decline and fall of every distorted generational behavior. There is not the slightest attention to them as we willingly refuse to become aware of our own stupidity that we show when we do not want to learn to recognize the unequivocal symptoms of such cyclical occurrences.

At the same time and even with an increasing pace the injustice, the oppression and the ruthlessness brutality of the powerful over the defenseless, proliferate.

And these proliferating actions are not only inflicted by the traditional oppressor, who in the vernacular leftist and incendiary verbiage has been labeled as the unmerciful and greed-full capitalism.

It is also the acting way of the manipulators, self-proclaimed as the defenders of the oppressed and of the nations that has not found the way to the cornucopia of the so vilipended progress and welfare of the wealthier nations.

But, this for sure, both, the traditional and the ladder climbing self-proclaimed defenders, and virulent accusers of all the real, perceived, or fabricated abuses, until the placing of themselves in the power throne of the accused, know extremely well how to enjoy and how to hoard for themselves the riches and commodities that never flow down to the lesser.

And this becomes an even more flagrant and shameful occurrence when the social and power climbers take over the societies that have the most potential possibilities for progress and wealth production and sharing.

Usually, when they fade into the oblivion pages of history leave behind the nations bankrupted, materially and morally speaking!

The tragic-comical reality is that both power pushers use the same base and foundation to support their greed and ambition. The only difference lies in the fact that the so called “unmerciful capitalist” prefers to work in the shadow and the silence of the inner circles to plot their actions.

On the contrary, the populist manipulator works double shifts, openly and in day light vociferating his incendiary harangues, and at the same time copies his adversaries tactics, as he works in silence the most cynical but not less effective shenanigans for his wealth accumulation, in prevision of the leaner days when he will be replaced by a more daring and a more resolute manipulator.

All this on plain sight and confidently counting with the unbelievable patience of the masses and their unconscious applaud while standing on the side of the dusty paths of their wretched lives, keep on cheering the manipulators, despite receiving only the clouding dust that they leave behind, after their deluxe cars and entourage pass by.

It is unbelievable to confirm that they visualize themselves in the place of their manipulators, rejoicing, masochistally, as they imagine that someday it will be a reality the promised distribution of the wealth.

It is unbelievable to confirm that the masses refuse to understand that this wealth, divested from its former owners, is not really done on their behalf, and will never rebound and be placed on their hands or on their tables.

It is unbelievable to confirm that the masses refuse to understand that their manipulators are even more deceitful and wicked than the ones they pretend to oppose and just rejoice with the crumbles that fall from the tables of the New Leftist capitalists of this world.

Logically, these stubbornly refusals only lead to an unending confrontational attitude, necessary by all means, for the continuance of the tragicomic and mocking acts of the international scenario.

And I say tragic because of the unforeseeable but always painful consequences for the same applauding masses.

And I say comic because that is what these relentlessly cynical actors look like. As itinerants clowns that travel from one impoverished little village to the next one that lies just around the corner.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what the masses seem to prefer. To be entertained, even if this is done in the most gross and vulgar ways! It seems it does not matter to them as long as the ongoing clown make them laugh and feel as they are not just the jeering spectators but the ones who know best, even if at their own pitiful fate and disgrace.

Many will probably say that these are just another bucket of useless tears and jeremiads. But as our elders used to say, the beginning of healing and rehabilitation lies in the awareness and the analysis of what really afflicts us and lead us to our emotional and intellectual death.

Slowly or fast, it does not matter. Both ways are just a matter of rhythm and timing. The end result, anyway, if we stay passive, deceived or resigned to our fate, is that the temporary affliction will become not just an epidemic but a total and universal pandemic and incurable disease.

For this reason, and for the last time, I will allow myself to expose the negative and pessimistic situation of our material world and societies.

So, starting from the initial point of the necessary generalization, to stop hiding our heads under the sand of the circumstances!

So, then, we can pour our efforts into the positive influencing of our closest relationship and behavioral circles.

So, then, in an expanding spiraling, be able to reach our neighbors, communities, and in an elliptic whirlpool our societies as a whole.

Meditate on the video content that I present you at the end of these comments. It was thought of by others!

I only enhance its format! Because I consider more its concepts, inevitable more than fundamental in the scenario where we can be, or the concurrent factors of the problem, the frustration, the controversy and the whole and integral individual and collective bankruptcy. The material, intellectual and moral bankruptcy that looms, menacingly, over the dark clouds of the future!

My future comments and reflections, I hope, and ask God for it, will be part of the flipping of the human will coin, gyrating in search of the positive concepts and situations that will allows to escape and overcome, slowly and one step at a time, this solemn, ridiculous, but at the same time insidious and malefic, universal entanglement.

IN TIME OF CRISIS, ASK ME, LORD!

It is extremely interesting to analyze our own life experiences and the biological rhythm of our living.

One of my early mentors, a retired teacher, who introduced me to the absorbing fields of mathematics and the harmonies that reside in the symmetries, concordances, dissonances, and the rest of the manifestations, of the orderly structure of the universe, the sciences, and our emotional lives, used to tell me that it was necessary, and as often as required, to interrogate ourselves.

With his logic and overwhelming conviction, he used to tell me that the incoming times, and we were at that time in the early fifties, were to be characterized by the complicated, not the complex, evolution and apparent technological progress, that would silence the progressive loss of the absolute values, so indispensable for an harmonious coexistence with nature and ourselves.

Wisely he insisted on telling me: SIT BACK AND RELAX! Let your thinking flow, and subtract yourself from the noisy and overwhelming vociferations, and if you feel your interlocutor tries to carry you away, and manipulate your emotions with confusing parlay, shut out the sound, observe the eyes and analyze the gestures.

This will allow you to reach your inner freedom, so you never submit to the pressure of the masses. So you can be you, and if still remain and bother you some remnants of uneasiness within you, or if you cannot recover the logical and fundamental symmetry, and inner harmony inside of you, recur without hesitation to your God, your Creator.

So He can pacify the stormy waves, and allow you, your hand in His hand, to walk over the tumultuous waters, even if the storm rages on, and the darkness is only briefly illuminated by the clouds electrifying lightning, that ravishes everything that dares to lift up its head above the earth or the waters.

For these reasons, and as a preamble to many of my future comments, born out of the need to communicate to our surrounding ones what we see, menacingly approaching to crash the walls of our convictions and beliefs, I ask you, all, to enjoy and meditate on the content of the video that closes for this time these reflections.

Ask your Lord, when tempted to fall into the temptation of giving up and isolating yourself, or of longing for an early departure to submerge in the nihilism of oblivion or the eternal resting.

Do it while you meditate on the concepts of the message sent to us by the messengers of peace, of exhortation and harmony that God places along the long and tortuous paths of our lives.

My Lord, if some day I were suffocated, in jail, “fed up with life“......desiring to dissapear, longing to die, unsatisfied with myself and with my surrounding world; Ask me, If I want To change my light Into darkness;

Ask me, if I want to change the food on my table, for the left overs so many look for in the garbage; Ask me, If I want to exchange my feet for a wheelchair; Ask me if I want to change my voice for signs and gestures; Ask me if I want to change the world of sound with the silence of those who do not hear;

Ask me if I want to exchange the newspaper I read and then throw into the garbage can, for the misery of those who take it from it to use it as a blanket; Ask me, if I want to exchange my health for the sicknesses of so many hurting people;

Ask me, until when I will recognize your blessings, so I make my life become a hymn of praise and gratitude, and testify every day from the bottom of my heart: SAYING THANKS, MY LORD, FOR THIS NEW DAY.

But, if someday, Lord, what you have given me or what I do not want you to take away, separates me from you, because of comfort or egotism, Take everything away, Lord, but give me the spiritual strenght and resolve to keep on following you and saying THANKS, THANKS, LORD, FOR ALWAYS BEING AT MY SIDE.

About beacons, lighthouses and bridges! About Forgiveness and Love!

Years ago, back in the eighties, while undergoing missionary training with “Youth with a Mission”, we were told about how, sometimes, we must die to ourselves, as a wheat seed, so we can revive again, or other times, serve as the breeding ground for something bigger than what we could, in our own, be.

We also read how a rural pastor, who never traveled far enough, sometimes wondered why he never had audiences to listen to his preaching, with the exception of just a few. Among these few he barely noticed a young boy who seemed to pay attention but it also seemed not a very bright candidate for limelight or success.

Years later, this rural boy became one of the main revival preachers of his time. How could have the pastor have visualized that he was going to be such a humble but fundamental factor, by default, of these revivals?

He was just a light in the reigning darkness of a rural spiritual environment!

A light, that in worldly eyes just faded and flickered!

These remembrances brought the additional ones about the teachings on finding who you are in God and what is your place in The Kingdom.

This time I will refer myself to the concept of determining what your place is, and what role you have been chosen to play, in the expansion of the Kingdom. Having in mind that the Kingdom of God is God´s business, not ours!

Some of the most prominent teachings were those about the piers that send people on their journey over unknown waters. About how God decides the shapes and natures of every one of them, and which one He wants us to be.

Just some planks or pilots in an unfinished pier that apparently leads to nowhere!

Or a precariously holding bridge forcedly used by people without any other recourse to cross over the gaps of life.

Or rural bridges, or a hanging one over forested abysses.

As human beings we naturally nurture a desire to stamp our presence in monumental works to serve as magnificent even if silent witness to our personal grandeur.

Bridges and lighthouses are prime examples of this. Bridges have been present from the most remote times

Many of them are monuments to the daring and audacity of mankind

But without regard to the magnificence or humbleness that could become the signature of our presence on this earth, let us never forget that human history has been, and more ominously than any time before, plagued by injury and pain, by abuse or lack of love.

Let´s remember that besides loving and forgiving, there, remains the harder task of restoring, more than retribution, and healing, more, much more, than just appeasement or revenge.

Let us decide to be the beacon lights on this world of darkness!

And the bridges even if they seem to disappear into the vastness of misunderstanding and despair!

Let´s start loving and forgiving! So can we make ourselves ready for restoration and healing! And may God strengthen our hearts and spirits to undertake what it takes to do it!