My anger

We are now 17 months into the global pandemic.  The 'Delta' variant is causing COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations to spike.  People are getting sick almost everywhere.  Several of my co-workers have gotten ill.  The government is now encouraging those of us who got shots earlier in the year to get a booster 8 months after our first dosage because it appears that the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes over time.  This pandemic shows no sign of finishing.  

And I'm pissed.  So angry at the lies people have been willing to hear.  

About masks.  

About social distancing.  

About the vaccine.  

We could have been over this a long time ago, if not for a dimwit President who said this would magically disappear, and when it did not completely screwed up the response because he was afraid he would lose his election (which he did anyway) if he told the truth.  

We could have been over this earlier this year, if not for people who decided it was better to believe lies about vaccines.  Now generally 90+% of those who are getting seriously ill or who are dying are those who are not vaccinated.  And now because of their stubborn refusal to accept reality the virus has mutated and we might be dealing with this for years to come. 

We could have been over this during the summer, if not for craven Republican governors who decided to act as if no lessons had been learned last summer, that letting people think they are 'free' because they are irresponsible will win them elections.  The virus doesn't care about your ideology.  It doesn't care about your 'liberty'.  It doesn't care about how tired you are of being careful.   

As a Christian I know I need to be sympathetic to people who get sick.  And I am sympathetic to those who are vaccinated but yet have had a breakthrough positive test.  I have compassion on children who are not old enough to be vaccinated or whose parents will not let them be vaccinated and who get the disease. 

But these people who refuse to get vaccinated, who refuse to mask up, who refuse to stay home...I have nothing anymore.  My patience with these people is finished.  I stay away from them.  I have a hard time praying for them.  And I am so very, very angry at them all.  They choose to believe lies.  And all of us are going to suffer as a result of their stupidity.  

Forgive me, Lord, for my anger.  

I am writing this because perhaps in expressing this I can get it out of my mind.  The narrative that has been building in my head over the past few weeks won't leave on its own.  Only God can take it away, and perhaps this will allow him to do so.  

Forgive me, Lord, for my arrogance.  

Thick Skin

One of my fellow bus drivers the other day came close to walking off the job.  The kids on his bus were giving him such fits that he had to switch with another driver and they drove each other's routes.  He's a nice guy, but I wonder if he is going to be doing this job much longer. 

Do any kind of job with kids, and you have to be thick skinned.  Kids of a certain age can be sweet, exhausting, cruel, kind, mean, annoying, helpful, and hilarious all in the amount of time that it takes you to tie your shoes.  They're kids.  They have brains that are not fully formed as of yet, and since many in this day and age are coming from homes in which they are not being nurtured or disciplined or parented with any kind of consistency it's not suprising that many of them are jerks. 

I'd like to think that I've developed a bit more tolerance in the 2+ years that I've been driving.  This isn't to say that I don't dream at times of taking certain kids and throwing them off of the river bridge that we cross over every day.  But I believe that most of us who deal with kids are in some small way enduring karma for the way that we acted when we were kids. 

I was not a terrible kid, I guess, but I could be a bit of a bully and truly obnixious if I thought it deserved my obnoxion.  When my two children today act up I don't like it but I see a lot of myself in them, and I see how I act with a lot of the same frustrations that my parents existed with me and my siblings.  And so, maybe this makes me more charitable as I get a bit older.  At least that's what I'd like to think about myself. 

Angry White Male Studies

Story of the day: the University of Kansas has decided to offer a course called 'Angry White Male Studies'.  And predictably, people are ticked off.  My dear congressman Ron Estes, a stuffed shirt white male if ever there was one, took to twitter to complain about how this is divisive. 

On the one hand, I get the point...change the title of this class to 'Angry Black Female Studies' and the thought police would go nuts.  Change the title of this class to 'Angry Gay Latino Studies' and there would be a riot on the campus.  But angry white males?  Yeah, let's go after them and laugh at them.  So I get it...white male privilege is low-hanging fruit, the last bastion of outrage for many of a certain ideological persuasion. 

But isn't the fact that old white guys like Ron Estes get ticked off about this the point of the class?  These are the people who have lived in power and privilege for, I suppose, forever.  These are the people who had a solid 200 year run being president of this fine nation and then for eight years screamed how they were going to 'TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK'.  And these make up much of the 38% of people today who continue to accept without question the unacceptable from our nimrod president and his nimrod advisors.  They live in power and feel powerless.  They have much of the wealth (often built on the backs of others) and scream how unfair life is.  They moan about 'entitlements' that the government provides but are the most entitled of all. 

My guess is that the University of Kansas is eventually going to back down, but it's going to eventually be a good story for the professor (a white male, BTW) who proposed this class.  I suspect a book deal and a few segments on MSNBC and a new job at an eastern university is on the horizon. 

Civility at the Krispy Kreme

Yesterday was a cold, grey day, much like the many other cold, grey days we have endured recently.  So last night my wife and I fed the kids and ventured out for a dinner for just the two of us.  Afterwards we walked over to the nearby Krispy Kreme to get donuts for this morning. 

There was a family at the counter when we arrived, and not long after we arrived at least another half dozen people walked in.  The family at the counter was a bit slow in deciding what they wanted, and at this point an older man (who might have been slightly drunk) came up to the counter and said something along the lines of, "Come on ladies, figure it out."  The man of the family (likely in his 50s and not a pleasant looking man) turned to the older man and immediately screamed, "Shut the f___ up!" and just glared at him.  A few more comments passed and I was standing almost between then and wondering if I needed to get involved, but I just kept looking at the donuts.  Finally the family with the angry man paid for their donuts and left and the angry man walked up to the older man who was still standing at the counter and got up in his face before finally walking away. 

As I tell this story I realize it's not all that impressive of a story; we didn't come back and tell the kids how we suffered a pitched battle for their donuts, nor can I come up with a good joke that begins "A drunk man, an angry man, and a Mormon missionary" (the person in the back of the line we noticed as we walked out) "walk into a Krispy Kreme".  But it does highlight the world we live in 2019.  Civility has been dying for a long time, I suppose, but whether it's those who accept the unacceptable from our president or those who think themselves so woke that all they can do is scream and rage at others, our nation and culture seems to be in an especially bad place at this time. 

I am currently reading a book about the fight over 'Bloody Kansas' between pro-slavery forces and abolitionists in the 1850s and 1860s and I suppose that things may even be better now, as at least today people don't go killing their neighbors because of political views...no, they just do this now because of a dispute over a video game or a barking dog.  Civility has never been an especially American quality, I guess...we think ourselves so free that we cannot fathom that others are also trying to live within that freedom. 

I don't know all the answers except for a life in Jesus Christ, a life in which people genuinely seek to live out his words to 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.' (Luke 6:27-28)  And, I might add, "Stop screaming at people at the Krispy Kreme." 

Little Things, Big Emotions

I have recently come into contact recently with a woman in our community who will occasionally attend church here and who rabidly and vocally despises Mr. Trump.  Her Christmas letter (which I could not get all the way through) was basically a long rant about his evils, and I don't know that I have ever had a conversation that lasted more than 30 seconds where he or his evils were not quickly brought to the forefront. 

Now, I don't have any sympathies for Mr. Trump.  In starting to blog daily I have had to repeatedly resist writing my own long diatribe on here about how terrible he is on many levels (he's a con artist, a bully, a 12-year old child, an ignorant fool, likely an agent of the Russians, a symptom of distorted conservatism, and a figure who has deluded many people who for years were screaming that 'WE NEED A GODLY MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE' to think that he's the answer to all our prayers, etc.). He is truly a horrible president. 

But over lunch I dropped by the post office to pick up some mail and there she was...and sure enough, the second sentence out of her mouth dealt with some atrocity that his administration was committing.  I extricated myself from that conversation as quickly as I could; I just didn't want to go there today, though I am fearing that she may become one of those people that I cannot avoid forever. 

Because here's the thing...I really can't do anything about Mr. Trump.  I can become educated about what he's doing, and I can prepare myself to figure out how to remove him by the ballot box as quickly as possible, and I can pray for him and hope that God will move his heart to do better.  Yet beyond that?  What good is an obsession over him going to do me?  Or anybody?  I don't want to think about someone that awful every hour and every minute.  I don't want to become the counterpart to the many people who for eight years had their heads explode every time they thought of Obama.  I don't want my conversations poisoned by him. 

Yet for all my frustrations about this, I find that far too often I find myself getting irritated by so many other things that are my own Trump.  I hate the layout of the parking lot at the post office.  I despise the metro newspaper tossing advertising sections into my driveway twice a week.  I am frustrated that many people I know keep on making the same mistakes but will do nothing to change their behaviors.  I get angry about little things that may matter somewhat, but in the end are things that I can't really do anything about...and so life becomes ruined. 

In truth I don't think that my petty little frustrations are nearly as bad as some people I know.  My happiness level is high, and I work hard to intentionally put things into m life that will bring joy rather than frustration.  Maybe I'm pointing out their specks while my eyes are filled with logs, but I do see people who live their lives who are almost happy to be worried and angry about all the little things, and they are emotionally shot.  I don't want that, because that's no way to live.  I have worried about Donald Trump, garbage in my driveways, and parking lot layouts enough.  Time to hear again what a much wiser man had to say: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  (Phil. 4:8)  If he could say such things while wondering whether or not he would live or die in a jail cell, surely I can do this in the good life that I have.