Daily Archives: April 14, 2013

Daily Prompt; The Satisfaction of a List

Posted on by
20

Fireworks

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/ DP, Daily Prompt, Daily Post

Who doesn’t love a list? So write one! Top five slices of pizza
in your town, ten reasons disco will never die, the three secrets to
happiness — go silly or go deep, just go list-y.

I can think of two things that will never die and never grow old. I am sure there are many lists but you know me, write the first thing that pops up in my head.

Greed will never go out of style.

Why should it? The more that God is taken out of the public, the stronger Satan becomes. He has such sneaky ways of making us believe that we need. Do you ever go to the store and purchase something that wasn’t on the list? Did you buy something and then when you arrived home you asked yourself why did I do that?

Satan works behind the scenes. He works through the speaker systems at the stores. The music is calming and it helps you to relax. Maybe you dream a little while walking down the aisles. Maybe the bills sitting at home get tossed temporarily from your mind.

Look at the colors around us when we shop. Bright, starry, sparkly all new. Makes us feel like a new person, reborn from poor to riches. As I posted last week, stores are organized so you see the most expensive items at eye level.

What about the fancy cars on TV? Sex and speed and popularity are wrapped around the car. Try turning the volume down one time and see how you feel about that same car being advertised.

Look at the weight loss gimics. We all know the only true way under normal conditions is to eat according to our activity and get all the basic foods in each day. But you can spend $300.00 to have pre-made foods sent to your home. Or you can spend hundreds on personal trainers to look like you did 30 years ago.

I’m not saying it is bad to look your best, but at what price are we willing to get there? Don’t think for one moment that Satan isn’t messing with you on those thoughts. Weigh want and need in each hand, which comes out the heaviest?

The second thing that will never go out is sex.

Sex has been around since Adam and Eve. I believe that we were created to spread God’s word and to populate the earth. Where has it gone from that day?  I can’t talk too much about times I haven’t  lived in but I can talk about what my  family has said about sex.

Pregnancy before marriage was a big no-no. We would have been shamed and even sent a way until the baby was born. Now in young as elementary schools pregnancy occurs. What happened to the family value. One husband, one wife, til death do us part. Having children and raising them together. The father was the head of the house. Children were taught from right and wrong at an early age.

Teens knew that if they wanted something they had to work for it. Women never gave themselves on the first or second date. For one they knew their parents would be so upset and two young ladies respected themselves.

Today it is gone. Respect has been tossed out the window. Sex now is considered a way of getting to know the partner better. I have even been asked to sleep with someone so that he knew for sure if we were compatible in the relationship.

How dare he? Sex is the icing on the cake. Do we spend more time in bed having sex or do we spend more time working? Sex takes little time. Working on a relationship takes years. Children are born today without two parents many times. Some don’t even know who the fathers are.

It is sad today but when I look at what I wrote, I think I could combine greed and sex together and place Satan at the top.

These are my thoughts only for this prompt. I am not pointing fingers at anyone. I do not know your personal lives. Please do not take offense.

Related articles

My Brother’s Life Journey Chapter 3

Posted on by
38

A woman from Tajikistan with a baby stroller i...

A woman from Tajikistan with a baby stroller in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Al and I were lucky for a few years while our Grandparents lived in the big white house. We had cousins who lived very near. Parents would take us trick or treating. Al would never wear a mask. He would scream bloody murder. I never knew what he remembered in his mind but something had made him deathly afraid of so many things.

Mom would dress him up with old clothes from home and would leave his head and face untouched and we would go out and trick or treat. Al didn’t want to go up to the doors so I would always get a couple of extra pieces and put some in his sack too.

I can remember Al and I used to sit for what seemed hours staring at the silver tinsel Christmas Tree. It had one of those moving lights under it and the tree changed colors. All the ornaments would sparkle and I can see Al still smiling so much with those big blue eyes.

When school started we went to the same school. But by the end of Kindergarten Mom and Dad knew that the school we attended could not help Al. He was switched in first grade to a school about three blocks from my school. I walked to school and a special bus came and picked up Al.

He went to the Special Education classes all through elementary grades. These years seem blank to me. He and I were separated for the first time. Different teachers and different programs. I do remember Al going with Mom and Dad to my school activities and me doing the same at Al’s school.

One thing that comes back in my memory is the big fan. In Grandma’s house my Granddaddy hung a big motor fan over  the screen door. I used to love to sleep on the couch in the summers and I was lulled to sleep by the noise of the fan. I still use a fan today and so does Al.

One night although it was a school night Al and I got to stay all night at our Grandparents. We were woke up early in the morning while it was still dark. Granddaddy told me that we had a new baby sister.

I don’t remember being thrilled over this. By now I was ten years old and it had always been Al and me. Now we had a sister. I knew that everyone was excited but Al and me. Of course he didn’t understand what that meant that we had another sister. He already had one, me. I felt a little bad inside because I wasn’t sharing in the excitement.

Changes happened then with our family. We moved a way from the happy block. We moved a few miles a way. I wasn’t able to see my Grandparents near as much, which made me sad. Al played more and more on the floor being very quiet and lining up all his hot wheel cars.

I turned to my baby dolls and pretended I was the mommy. I didn’t realize it then but somehow now reading back what I am writing I see that something bad had happened and I needed to be told I love you. I in turn told my baby dolls I loved them. I fed them and changed their diapers and clothes. I pushed them in the baby stroller. I couldn’t fit Al in the baby stroller so I pulled him in the wagon and continued letting him to ride on the back of the big red trike.

An old lady  started  watching our new baby sister, and eventually we slipped into that group also. Al became more into himself and I started to change too. I would cause problems. I would eat so much junk and then blame it on others. I went so far that I raced in from the garage when we got home and I would open drawers and flip over chairs and then when Mom saw it, I stood back and snickered as she questioned the neighborhood Moms about where had there kids been while we were gone.

I must have been really messed up over the baby sister. It seemed that this is when I began to look at Al as my brother and Dad as my hero and the baby sister as the unwanted.

Al and I were never really involved with the new sister. Al started doing worse at school and he started stuttering. Mom used to have to go into the school that he went to for meetings. She always yelled at Al on how she worked full-time and he needed to straighten up so she didn’t have to be a way from home so much.

I doubt that Al and I knew what really was happening back then , but I do know that Al and I stuck together more and more. It was us against the others. Al didn’t only start his stuttering. He had started getting something called impetigo. It would start on his lip and sometimes it would grow all over his chin.

I can remember Mom picking at the scabs and me yelling at her in my 10-year-old voice to quit hurting him. He was crying and I would run into the bathroom to see why he was crying. She made him cry. She was always picking at his face. I am sure she thought she was helping to get those ugly scabs off. But what about his tears? Didn’t it matter that he was crying? Please leave him alone Mom. Don’t make him cry.

 

Related articles

Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue

Posted on by
33

little animals

Something new

Something borrowed

Something blue

Today when I visited Al

He had something new

To say, something

Borrowed from a

Scary movie I once watched

And something that

Made me blue

For the first time

I knew without thinking

That Al is beginning

Another part of the

Nasty Parkinson’s Disease

I took him lunch

Which I try to do

On Sunday noons

As our families

Used to do

Right in the middle

Of eating his fries

He looked at the floor

And then rubbed his eyes

He asked me if I saw

What he had seen

I looked at the floor

And said no it is clean

He said little animals

Were all over the floor

But when he rubbed his eyes

And looked again they were never more………….

Terry Shepherd

04/14/2014

Related articles