Yeah but..........

I had to go to Walmart yesterday.  Yesterday--the afternoon of the 14th--Valentine's Day.  They had one small area of Valentine's cards--the entire rest of the display was fast becoming the Easter cove.  Seems like they could have waited at least until the 15th to start changing their display.

Oh--I am so critical of stuff lately.  It's like I commented on Jean's blog this morning: "Why do I think I am the teacher of the world?"

Lately I feel I am disagreeable, just to be disagreeable.  When told something, it seems I have to take the Devil's Advocate and espouse on the other side of the story.  I am finding there's a lot of "yeah, but...." in my sentences.  

In my opinion (here I go again), this world of ours is in such upheaval, I can't quite cope with it.  People are still arguing about the stupid election.  Democrats are still going nutz about it, without realizing it was their own party that got comfortable and blase and didn't realize how much unrest there was with their President's policies.  Republicans are still going nutz and trying to justify every idiotic thing the now President is doing.  I find myself yelling at the TV when the nightly news is on.

Stop the immigrants!  No, let them in.  Yeah but, Clinton stopped immigration.  Yeah but, Obama stopped immigration.  Yeah but, Roosevelt stopped immigration.  Why isn't Trump allowed to stop immigration?  You want to come to my country?  Fine, get in line like my Great Great Grandpa did!

Liberals are supposed to be tolerant of other's beliefs.  Yeah but, they aren't, not if you don't agree with them.  They will argue and try and wear you down to their side.  I have been called ignorant on Face Book because I didn't agree.

Ain't happening here.  Their rants and arguments just make me want to set my feet even firmer and I quit listening to their reasons.  All the Face Book shared links, aren't going to change any one's mind to your side of the coin.  So give it a rest and let's go back to being kind to each other--no matter which side we are on.

Abortion?  Back in the day, people didn't talk about their beliefs so much, but if they did, you allowed them whatever way they wanted to think and live.  Oh sure, you might have shaken your head, not visibly of course, but they went along with their life and you went along with yours.  As a genealogist, I often think, "What if that child had been aborted?  After all, they had 10 kids as it was.  They could barely afford to feed the ones they had."  Yeah but.....if it had been aborted, there would be one less branch on that family tree, and oh look--that 11th child is the one that I am descended from.  

Planned Parenthood?  Back in the day, it was THE place to go to be taught about birth control, family planning, how to care for a newborn.  You could get fitted for a diaphragm for free, if you didn't have insurance.  In the '60's, if you didn't have insurance, you could get your free birth control pills there.  Now people want to portray it as a killing field?  Yeah but......I'll bet you can still go there for birth control and lessons taught and NOT just to have an abortion.

It seems most of life now is all based on politics.  People living on Welfare generation after generation.  When did they stop wanting to build a life for themselves?  Something they and their family could be proud of?  Yeah but........there are still a lot of people that really need the help.  Old people like me.  A young couple that aren't educated enough to find decent jobs to support their babies.

Liberals calling Trump Republicans rebels and radicals.  Yeah but....back a couple hundred years ago, there were Rebels and people radical in their thinking and nowadays we call them Patriots.  They were the ones that built this country.

Back in the day, religion wasn't talked about much.  You met and conversed with Agnostics and you didn't try and sway them over to the Christian way of thinking.  If you were a Christian, you believed in God and that Jesus was Him sent to earth in human form, that Jesus died and was raised up alive and lives in Heaven and if you believe all that, you will go there when you die.  Pretty simple.  

Now we have Evangelical Christians and Westboro Baptist Christians.  We have Catholic Christians who still hold to the old rules of the church and ones who want to bring in all new stuff with their weird thinking.  We have people that think you can't be a Christian if you judge the way others live.  Yeah but....Jesus judged.  God judges.  We have to be able to judge a person's lifestyle to know if we want to be part of that crowd or not.  We don't judge them to their face, but in our minds.  Love the sinner, hate the sin?  

Christians have gotten a bad name and it's too bad.  We used to be thought of as nice, calm, upstanding people, who would help anyone that needed it, work with the poor, take a refugee into our home, visit the prisons, give anonymous gifts to people in need and not say a word of what we had done.  We still do that, most of us aren't radicals on the far, far Right.

Now we have Christians for Trump.  What?  Yes, there are Christians who supported Trump.  There are Christians who supported Obama.  There are Christian Liberals and Christian Conservatives and one Christian Moderate who lives in this house.  What is a poor old-time Methodist to do?  and Yeah but...how can Trump be thought of as a Christian with his language and his ways?  Maybe a christian with a small "c", a "baby" christian?    


See?  There I go again.  And---why does any of it matter?  In our own lives...does any of this really matter?  I never used to be critical of anyone or anything.  I never used to use the word "stupid" about anything or anyone.  Years ago, if I had noticed the Easter collection going up way too early in a store, I would have laughed about it and been glad I could grab a box of Peeps early.  

It is what it is!!!  I only have to take care of this small part of the world.  So I am going to try real hard and breathe, and live as calmly and as nicely as I can and instead of Yeah but....coming into the conversations, just a gently nodding of the head.  A nodding of the head doesn't necessarily mean I agree, it just means, I understand where you are coming from.  

My stomach will ache less.  My nerves will be better for it.  My whole life will be better for it.  I will continue to pray every morning and night and thank God for all I have, because I know that I know that I know---I would not be in as good a state as I am in, without some sort of divine intervention.

I will do this, because it is my way of life.  You will continue to believe in whatever way you believe, because it is your way of life.  We will be non-critical of each other-----PLEASE----and maybe, just maybe, we can still be friends and love each other?