Growing Spasms

 

Grow up! Grow up! I warn you now, dear Reader, to stop reading if you're easily offended.   If criticism riles you up, even if you rarely are flustered, aggravated, or aggrieved, these words are not for you to read.  

Here goes: We've become a poached egg, pampered, and a pompous population that has grown used to being handed any and everything on a silver (or at least silver-plated) platter.  Further, we expect it to be served by mute or robotic-like waiters.  Not only do we want our cake and to eat too; we long for sympathy when stomaches come as a consequence. 

Back to us "typical" citizens, who for decades have been encouraged to take offense at the slightest (or minimal) affront that (once tough) denizens would shake off.  Like a duck shrugs water from its back!  So many of us cry "foul!" over any and everything.  We know who we are!  We've become so accustomed to diets of pablum, of being coddled from discomfort or a smidgen of uncomfortably true history. that facts feel like we're being dashed in the face with ice-cold water.  Whatever happened to women and men who faced adversities bare-knuckled and unblinking?

No, I'm not "dumping" on anyone, neither "helicopter parents" nor feisty adversaries, since they're not the only two.  The blame game serves no righteous purpose,  Grievance-carriers proliferate like uncontrolled dandruff.  It seems that anger has become a new, national pastime.  Name-calling has morphed into a sport with virulent outbursts of  "I-will-maim-you-and-your-team-before-you-can-attack-my-associates-and-me.

Have we really deteriorated into one-issue factions or even no-issue, ragtag groups that form and re-form like the amoeba? My goodness! Have we stopped talking with or even at each other,? Do we only rail against those who disagree with what we dub "sacred" or "untouchable"? I fear many of us stopped reading books when "texting" substituted for knowledge and information.  When it became easier to swallow a tablespoon of pureed peaches than to chew on ideas that carried substance, a little gristle?

My journey to truth and trust has become difficult at times.  Fortunately, I've learned to turn to the Holy Bible for nurturing and listen to sermons not always preached by ministers, elders, or pastors.  The Book of Proverbs offers wisdom that isn't always easy to understand or accept.  Yet, knowledge and understanding, wisdom's consorts, form an impregnable barrier to ignorance and sophistry. Can we at least agree that ignorance spawns personal and communal rot? Get my drift? No? That's fine.

I've said enough for now about the nation's underbelly.  Believe it or not, this blog fits into my ongoing exploration of grief and loss.  Prayerfully, the next one will deal with a more palatable aspect of how we mourn aspirations, hopes, and dreams. 

"What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or does it fester like a sore
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load?"