I loved Governor Sarah Palin’s speech today. This woman knows her stuff. She’s funny and I love her! She broght it home for me. I was uncertain about who to vote for after Clinton was knocked out of the race.
Clinton stood on issues I cared about. McCain stood on issues I cared about. I didn’t buy the “Message of hope to launch a career” hype from Obama. Palin shows America that she is a regular American - making a change in this country just like McCain.
My Choice is McCain/Palin 08!
Nothing pisses me off more than the number of annoying (& stupid) people out there worried about the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter. All I can think of when reading comments from naysayers is a bold IDIOT!
The way the Palin’s have handled the situation shows grace and true support for family, morals, values, and life. There are so many people out there that just don’t have that.
They way I see it, is they could have just lectured her to death; stoned her to death; kicked her out of their home; forced her to have an abortion; or showed full non-support for the decision this young girl made.
This type of rejection would have no doubt defined a questionable trait in Sarah Palin’s character – instead she chose to support her daughter. Imagine what kind of change that would invoke on society if others did the same.
The pregnancy at 17 is no doubt rough but the circumstances that you are in make it bearable.
We also need to stop looking down on women (or about to be women) in these situations. Why is her pregnancy a big deal? Many of us grew up with grandparents who begin having children at 15, 16, 17, etc. Many of us turned out just fine. Society has out casted the creation of life – by a female. Boys and men are never questioned for having a child out of wedlock. Why is that? What makes a man so much better in the situation? What gives him the right to be forgiven and forgotten for his decision?
In our society, the race to the finish line is defined by how much you have accomplished in the means of power and possessions. Much of society is drowning in debt – racing to that fabulous 6 figure income. However, women are given detour signs and letters to hang around their necks for getting pregnant. (Ask how many women earning a 6 figure income what its like to start having babies or trying to when they have reached that finish line and find an empty feeling….)
I would rather count the blessings of having people who love me in my life.
As a parent, despite everything you teach your children- including how society defines acceptable behavior- you can never compete with human nature. You can only hope that they have truly defined who they are, where they are going, and that those intentions are stronger than human nature.
A couple of notes over the past days:
Hillary’s speech – perfect speech to show she understands the issues that matter to most Americans. The “insert here” support for Obama was not believable. She is one smart, tough, and inspirational woman. I have would have loved to see the final result of the conventional roll call. I didn’t see it but I hear not every delegate voted for Obama and stayed true to the wishes of their constituents. An Obama/Clinton ticket would have been a slam dunk…..
Biden – is still a whom and who cares.
McCain picking Sarah Palin was a bold and probably a very smart move. The first thing out of the gate about her is the “change” that she has made in Alaska. She stands firmly and I will need to study more about her. But she definitely stirs the curiosity pot for me.
I still don’t agree with the Republicans need to stand on a very personal issue of abortion. As I have pointed out before, in previous posts, God gives us life by giving us the breath of life. Adam was not alive until he breathed his first breath. It’s very symbolic. It doesn’t talk about womb, woman, being a living being inside of another, etc. It clearly symbolizes that life begins when that being takes their first breath. God made this world and nothing happens outside of God….think about that.
If someone is pro-life, does that mean you are only for life, when it suits you? You have to be conscious about what you do to affect life and does it better humanity or impede humanity. Is life, life? Who has a right to life?
Anyways for the next couple of months, I will be researching the candidates and basing my decision on who best exemplifies the issues that are important to me. I will post my findings here for you to follow along, if you like.
Since I work for a big company that has to comply with lots of rules – I have to follow legislation very closely. I know how it works and how bills get submitted and why they don’t. I know how special interests work and how much money they have to pay to get a Congress person to sit and listen to them for 10 minutes.
Side note – someone sent me a link to a woman who had looked at Clinton’s and Obama’s Congressional Record and tried to compare them. What she failed to do was include Clinton’s actual experience while President Clinton was in service. She also failed to see that Obama takes care of his own – lots of specific types of bills.
….but since the internet is hot and buzzing with extreme stupid reasons on why I should vote for one person over another…I will see what their records state.
M Obama Speech Grade F - Completely full of cliches.
Jackson guy - BORING!
Othe dude - what’s his name - ummm, so what.
oh…and wasn’t she bragging about raising her kids right - but they were correcting their father on national TV or interrupting him when he tried to speak….
Not watching tonight…..
Waiting for Hillary to speak! I think most of the country is too. It’s an exciting event this year. Hate or love her, people are waiting to see what she says or what she does. Blogs are hot and they can’t stop writing about her or her supporters…why? Secretly they also hope she will somehow be President..just admit it!
She’s the type of President I want - a mover or shaker. Not someone you mention and say “what did he do again?”
Next 4 years will be very interesting. I can’t wait until 2012. We may be living on the moon at that time….
Hate or love her - Hillary Clinton is my choice for President.
(*Note to posters - give yourself something better to do than try to tell me how to vote. You can surely express an educated opinion but you cross the line when you try to tell me how to think, how to vote or what to do - Nazies!)
I just read this article on CNN about Wedding Traditions. It is hilarious.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/06/27/wedding.traditions/index.html
It is no secret that as we grow-up, girls start to visualize that fateful wedding day. Thanks to fairytale stories, we have dreamed up demanding expectations for our wedding day. It is not clear until the first boy breaks our heart –that our knight in shining armor will not be riding up in a black stallion or christen our heads with jewels. Yet, when that day is to arrive, we continue with our mission to re-create that one time childhood dream. I am very familiar with planning weddings; it took two engagements to make me run for the mountains and ride off into the sunset solo or the next dumbass….
Fast-forward to college, I was done with males. I had let every “dick” of all shapes and sizes dominate my life; and the last one ripped up every ounce of self-confidence I had. Slowly that dream of ever finding Mr. Right was vanishing into thin air and I was contemplating a life dedicated to serving God. I had given up and decided to take my developing career serious and stop finding the “person” who would make my life worth living…at the time I had no idea I was just searching for love – accepted love.
My senior year in college, I met Jimmy- a completely different person than I had ever met. I was lost, broken, and confused but moving along with the motions. I still had a telephone connection to the previous “ass” in my life and I could not sever the tie. I don’t know what it was about Jimmy that made me awaken a bit and contemplate that there was hope in my life. But he did. My heart bloomed and my ego smiled.
Fast-forward again to a year later…the wedding. I married Jimmy in 2001. I never thought this moment in my life would happen – I was destined to be a bachelorette for a very long time. I guess those green eyes captured my heart and mind…okay, okay, his intellect was the real turn-on.
What I find so hilarious about this article is that it touches on every ‘tradition” that we had at our wedding. It was a traditional Catholic wedding – some new traditions, El Paso style. We made sure that every one of these traditions was part of our wedding. I find the mention of saving the top tier of our cake for our first year anniversary extremely hilarious – I got pregnant in 2002, three months shy of our first year anniversary…
I could only imagine if our entire wedding party had to watch as we consummated our marriage….
Friday, June 27, 2008
Being able to write snippets of my experiences, thoughts, cares, and loves is hard when I feel my words will be twisted and used against me. Since I won’t be running for President anytime soon, I really should be able to express myself. However, it comes back to the fact that I have never really let anyone know what I was feeling or thinking. If you were a lucky one – in the time of my life of the experience – then you got front row tickets.
Lately, I have been contemplating all the “moments” I missed or misunderstood. Many moments passed me by or I’m playing catch-up now. I had a great conversation last week with my hubby – about the past. His past and my past. Given my state of “being” when we first met, I never could have had this conversation with him. This time my being was calm and collected and didn’t care what his “past” experiences included.
I wonder if it is a sign that I am growing up. I’m not sure why I’m afraid of growing up – maybe because I associate growing old with being useless. There’s significant evidence in our society today that shows that when people get older, everyone looks down on them – as if all of sudden they lost all their marbles and are now just plain dumb.
I also fear looking older. Will the wrinkles I eventually get be a sign that my life is now ending and will start to deteriorate? I always wonder at what point you realize you have joined the old crowd. You are a “them” and no longer an “us”.
Mentally, I can see my mind expanding and really looking at the world. I think and contemplate just a little more – instead of holding my nose and diving in feet first. Sometimes the anger I harbor inside gets to see the day of light but I’m learning to understand how the anger monster gets triggered. I have been clearer about my feelings but I still worry about what others may think.
It amazes me that Jimmy and I have been together 8 years. We will be married for 7 in December. This is my greatest accomplishment. But I can guesstimate that I wonder how he has put up with me for so long….Father’s Day was this past weekend and I can see that Jimmy knows he’s loved by both Mason and I. He doesn’t have that “remember me” expectation from us. Mason unconditionally loves her father. It’s something I have strived for – possibly because I lacked my father in my life. I want her to know him and him to know her and so it’s important that I stress their communication with each other.
Of course, Mason is daddy’s little girl and she loves Jimmy with all her might. She shadows him, speaks like him, acts like him, and so it’s easy to help that bond along. I can’t help to giggle when I notice Mason has some my traits.
My husband uttered these words to me today. I was explaining to him a situation in which a discussion based on finding our purpose in life and understanding ourselves ended with the ego emerging within the very beings trying to disidentify with the ego. It just blew my mind…
I had this epiphany. Many of us have experiences and choose the journies to which we will explore and grow. Today, I realized that many people who have been down particular journies find it an annoyance to see other’s walking down that same journey. The annoyance comes in that been there and done that attitude. You know it very well - “I did that already” - when those of us new to the journey annoy others. But why do we annoy others with our journies? I really don’t know and you would think that they would be a source of knowledge and example. Instead I saw grown ladies react from their ego.
This quote my husband said, says it all. Just because the river constantly flows down the same path, does it mean it gets tired of flowing. I would have hoped that this enlightment would help me to facilitate or take away with me the very essense of what it means to find my purpose..just as Tolle’s journey has inspired millions.
“I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through - listen to this music.” -Hafiz
I read these beautiful words from Hafiz last week and since then these words have provided the mind with nothing but contemplation. Just the words alone resonated within my Being and captured my imagination. I find myself pondering and consumed by my thoughts about this very quote. It surely was not the intention to draw me back into the ego and a clouded mind - but I find myself just constantly inundated by thoughts.
Painstakingly, the need to write down feelings, thoughts, rants, raves, or plain words drives the insanity of this busy mind. The need to write is an outlet and freedom from enslaving thoughts. So here I am.
Lately, my journey to find myself has almost come full circle. Reading “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle has definitely changed who I am. I am calmer if you can believe that. I have had others tell me so as well.
There must be a need to pen on paper that offers insight to me. When I read the words, I can imagine a flute and Christ’s spirit moving through each hole – producing beautiful, calming, and moving music. Each note played results from the marriage of our very being and Christ. While not just Christ in the physical sense of form but the very spirit for which He is – God.
In the beginning when God created man, he gave life to “man” by breathing into his nostrils.
GEN 2:7 the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.
Christ – the human form of God – lived to show us how to live. I truly believe this and I believe that God continues to show himself to us today – but constantly miss him. It’s very easy to get lost in the “beware of the wolf in sheep clothing” stigma. Think about the last time you used this very same quote – truly trust in these words will help you miss God.
I trust that the answers lie within me and this embarks me on a journey of trust. I am the very spirit that God breathed into me and Christ became that spirit to show me how to accept suffering and how to live. To recognize my being and learning to be still, I can listen more closely to very breath that lives within me.
I cannot believe that the Lake is on fire! I graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Commerce. I had a great time and learned so much about myself and life in general while at the Lake. I also started my journey for continuing to receive my Sacraments and met my future husband, Jimmy. Jimmy graduated in 2003. Holding back tears at the moment, I am watching as this historic time in my life burns.
While the building (hopefully) can be rebuilt, the emotional ties to the Lake cannot be relived. The beauty and love in this building can never be replaced. I remember walking through the halls and feeling a great Presence - filled with comfort, love, and happiness. I have fond memories of spending many sleepness nights on the 3rd floor in the computer lab working on homework or cramming for last minute tests. The fire that threatens the very building is right above, if not by now, the 3rd floor.
I pray that God helps the Lake community and gives us the avenue to rebuild this school. While we were the Armadillos when we were there, we are now the Saints! Behind you Saints!
Well, I can’t seem to get into the groove lately of writing about what’s going on with me these days. Really these are for me. To look back and see how far I have grown. Still trying to be meat free - Asian Chicken Salad didn’t help last night - but I am still continuing the journey.
So my journey has led me to a new book called A New Earth: Awakening Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. This book is amazing. I have never read a book with such interest and need to understand more about the subject matter. I have seen some changes in my life, but the ultimate lesson being is that change happens within me. I wish I would have had this book when I was younger, but like Eckhart Tolle says, the book is either for you at the present moment or it will be meaningless. I am understanding more of myself and understanding how my life has been influenced to create particular behaviors and expectations. I love -exceptionally - how he uses one of the greatest spiritual teachers -Jesus- to explain what his words meant and how to live a Christ centered life.
This is not a Spiritual book, or a belief book, or a religion. It’s understanding the human consciousness to understanding ones own life. I am on Chapter 6 now. Oprah has a 10 week on-line course dedicated to the book. I download the courses to my pod-cast and watch them when I can. This whole journey has been amazing. I have found a book for life and hope to really apply the principles to my life and teach my daughter to be more conscious in her life.
So with that….until next time!
