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Category Archives: Family

The World Flipping . .

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Cheryl Ries in aging, Attitude, Change, Character, Choices, Commitment, Discipline, Ethics, Family, God, Lessons, Life, Self-Control, Self-Respect, Wisdom

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The world is officially flipping. As my grandmother said way back in the mid-nineties, aliens have taken over the bodies and minds of many average citizens. I cannot imagine how she would surmise current events and the spectacles which fill the daily news feeds all these years later. People in the asylum now have hold of the keys and are in charge of the daily management of the facility! In all good humor, I present her thesis and my amendment; but with all seriousness, I relent in this appraisal. It saddens me how far we have strayed from the moral and character-driven culture we once were for the most part. America is now a nation flipped and upside down with immorality, deceit and implausible considerations.

LetMeOGod
We were never perfect, there was always evil and sin; but now more and more of us believe in less and less. We strive it seems to be more outlandish and to live more on the fringes of what so many deem boring and mundane. Marriage, family, faith and good character are no longer in vogue; those values and beliefs have been replaced with cultural norms which shock many of the middle of America to their core. My grandmother was ahead of her time in seeing the results of years of turning from God, of replacing family orientation with its opposite; and with vulgarity and with lewdness as a means of changing the rut of boring and common-place middle-American values and beliefs. Those traditional core beliefs were deemed oppressive and confining by a new generation of people who rebel against such structure and confines upon their own behavior. Many have given up controlling themselves in favor of instantaneous gratification and immediate pleasure. Self-control is now freely ceded for governmental constraint, too much is not enough when it comes to laws and regulations to form and shape our behaviors because we seem unable and unwilling to self-control and self-regulate; and furthermore, to accept responsibility for our own actions! And therein we find the  source of the dilemma!BetterIsPoor

So few want to be constrained and confined to the standards which living moral and character-driven lives entails. Faith, God and family are now passé! Instead we have foul, unfamiliar and upside-down/backwards as our new reality! The counter-culture now runs our schools, our media, our government and our lives; much to the chagrin of middle-America, which still clings to their family, faith and moral traditions. Fortunately, God is still in charge of the world, regardless who chooses to believe it might be so! It is. I await His correction of this upside-down/backwards and side-stepping, ego-driven society. I’m sure He is growing tired of our childish insistence that we know best, when surely the resulting chaos and instability in our world proves Him right.


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Counter-Culture Becomes the Norm . .

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Character, Choices, Ethics, Family, God, Integrity, Life

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beatnikpartySomehow a few years ago, being seen as counter-culture became the equivalent of being cool, hip or just desirable. So many of our society’s malcontents and some actual convicted criminals were all of a sudden thrust into the spotlight of applause and hero-status, when in fact they’re just malcontents and criminals. Many now have celebrity status in our culture, or at least hold honorable positions as instructors to our children, professors to our emerging citizenry, esteemed office-holders within our cities and nation . .  even though they once were just ignoble – and often convicted criminals – bombers, murderers or thieves. It is one thing to see the truly oppressed rise up, conquering their oppressors heroically; it’s entirely something else to take an ignoble and deceitful history, turning it into something it is not. And that is what has happened in our nation in many instances.

We’ve seen the rise of the counter-culture, revolutionary in not the best regards; grow up and become the educators, politicians and revered in our nation. Change is not always negative, and that is not why I’m trying to confer. And people who once were one thing can and do grow up and become better.  But this change which has Rebels-With-a-Cause-8brought to a lauded staged, those who felt so strongly in their own immoral beliefs so as to kill, mutilate, bomb and destroy through deceitful pursuits other innocent people is negative! How sad! I wish we as a society recognized the attributes of those who were just normal and boring for their virtue, character and belief in justice, civility and conventional perspectives. But we relegate them to the new criminal status of our culture by vilifying that in which we should be giving praise and thanks! Suddenly, those with conservative or moral beliefs are the culprits for all of our societal wrongs. All too often those who act in accord with their civil and sworn duty are painted as terrorists. And now even, the very structure of our national fabric, faith, family and stability is cursed and loathed rather than just given its space to “co-exist”. Hmm. I’d say those counter-culture criminals and malcontents are truly smart, for they managed by virtue of their celebrity status and positions of honor to change a nation’s view of itself, based Truthon nothing more than a series of endeavors to undermine what held it together in the first place. We’ve flipped our perspective as a nation, a culture and as people . . what was counter now seems cool and what is conventional is now portrayed as evil. So now, without the very glue which once held us together, we slowly and steadily erode. I am now, and will always remain, firmly and perhaps boringly affixed to my conventional belief in God and follow His rules for my life. I’m of the belief that humans might not have it all figured out in their own best interests, and my nation these days is proof . . usually humans, when left to their own ego-centered pursuits, just do whatever they want without any fear of repercussion. And so chaos and mayhem ensue.

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Thankful for My Normal . . .

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Character, Choices, Commitment, Family, God, Gratitude, Integrity, Lessons, Life, Love, Strength

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Tags

Love, thankful, Thankfulness

RedLoves - 50

When I see the normal to which others ascribe, I want to drop to my knees and am thankful to God for my sense of normal! My life has been far from perfect, idyllic or even one of privilege, but my life has been perfectly idyllic in what blessings I have had! I have been richly blessed for instance with parents who did their best, never turned from or shirked their responsibilities regarding home & family, especially their children. In fact, they worked hard & diligently to provide what we needed whenever we needed it. They were not from wealthy families, in fact, my father was the first member of his immigrant blue-collar family to go to college! He deliberately took the time to consider all of life’s options, choosing quite wisely for his family when moving us as his job demanded . . which we did many times as kids.
He took great care when picking houses he could afford in the best areas he could find, he checked out the school & the districts, even when accepting his new positions he weighed the impact of all its benefits upon us, his family. When laid off, he never quit looking for work even though it would sometimes be a lengthy process of hundreds of interviews & rejections, with him flying around the country to look for what might work. He never considered his failing to provide as even being an option. He just did what he had to do & always held his confident demeanor with us.  My parents both never bought more than they could afford, qualified for every home & lived on a wing & prayer when they had to move us during one of my father’s relocations or promotions, hoping the current one would sell so that they could buy one in the new location.
My mom actually lived without a car, with three kids all of school age, for over six months back east, in snowy weather, as my father had to take the only one we had to drive out west for his new job. She relied upon my grandparents to come down to her house from a state nearby each weekend to take us all out for groceries & to do errands. That was just what had to be done, & we were all a willing part, no one gave up, left or got bitter or resentful about it. We never considered it anyone else’s problem, just a part of our family’s life of sometimes struggling but definitely loving!
Life isn’t always easy & without struggle, sometimes it requires cooperation among family members, it might require getting by with less for a while or compromising on having all the toys because we have kids. We have to learn to do what we need to do for each other, instead of expecting others to do for us or just taking what isn’t rightfully ours. This retrospective look keeps me earnestly aware of how impatient we’ve all become, expecting things right away, not knowing how to wait upon or work as hard for things which we might have. I see the normal of some people & although my normal was not always perfect, I will take it & be thankful for it, as it taught me that love doesn’t quit on hard times, it doesn’t walk away from duty & responsibilities, it doesn’t stop feeding, clothing & housing or expect things when it’s just not the right time.
Love is patient . . love endures . . love is what remains when everything else material & thus inconsequential passes. I might not have always had the dream life, my family might not have lived in a castle, but we surely had enough of anything that mattered . . & still do! This is what family means, love without cost & worth any price!
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