Food, Education, and Income

What we eat is perhaps affected by both education and income.  This illuminating graphic from Bloomberg Business is based on statistics and information from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.  It suggests that that poverty is unhealthy; what a surprise.

The impact of economic distress persists across generations.

A fellow I met recently laughed about working two jobs and sometimes three in order to meet the needs of his baby boy.  The child's mother had left him with custody and impossible debt.  As he wrapped up one job around 7 PM, he was off to another after a stop for supper at the gas station, a couple of burritos.  His own upbringing hadn't been easy; his father had been out of the picture for most of twenty-seven years.  Despite the difficulties, he was enthusiastic about moving forward career-wise as a worker on major construction projects, but employment opportunities have been scarce.  Walmart turned him away because he was 'overqualified'.

The difficulties some face are greater than for others.  Opportunity isn't truly equal and advanced education is difficult to tackle financially.  Those who attempt it are often left in debt for years whether they finish or not.

In the recent debate among presidential contenders, much was said about business and tax cuts and national strength, but not a word about our decades of accelerating inequality.  I'd hoped they would notice.

For the record, neither party is addressing the issue.

No one has an easy path.  Both success and meaningful life require great effort and perseverance.  None of us has any chance of doing it on our own alone.

Ascend

There's a general impression among us that the country is losing its' moral footing.  Got an opinion?

With a variety of hot-button issues in the public forum, Americans are perhaps concerned.  Is this public opinion valid?  (Gallup is among the more objective of poll takers.)

We have indeed seen changes over time.

• The reputation of our nation has declined among the peoples of the world.
• Western cultural influence on the rest of the world is seen as harmful.  MTV tops their list of detrimental social elements.
• Our financial marketplace, seen as greed unleashed, now affects the entire world.
• Meanwhile, the rich get rapidly richer while everyone else loses.
• Our legal definition of marriage now includes same-sex couples.
• Corporations have the same rights as individuals in the political realm.
• Our legal definition of 'person' excludes a child in the womb.  We kill 20% of our children before they're born.
• About 30% of all internet traffic goes to adult sites.
• More than half of all births are now to unmarried parents, and a third of all children live in a home without a father.

None of these were true just one lifetime ago.  Doom-and-gloom-cryers claim it's the death of the nation's soul, the end of all that was noble and good.

• On the other side of the story, crime numbers are down, homicides are down, teen pregnancies are down, abortion rates are down, and so on.  Does that balance the equation?

If there are moral concerns today, (and there are, or course), can things improve from here?

There's a long history of tension between secular and spiritual perspectives.  The secular mind sees the list above and is unconcerned.  The spiritual response is otherwise.

There's no doubt that individuals and families can defend themselves against an immoral culture, but it's combat, not a minor divergence.  Our nation was born in the midst of such conflict.


As the colonies coalesced into a nation, history tells us of the first Great Awakening, a period of spiritual revolution and turning to godly ways. Persisting for more than a decade, the tumultuous time shaped much of what became the American Revolution and foundation of the new nation.

Narratives from the time tell of churches and even civil governments calling for days of prayer and fasting for the nation.  Evangelists like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield spoke to crowds of thousands in a time when such a number required significant travel for most.

Benjamin Franklin hosted Whitefield when he was in Philadelphia.  Franklin records for us, "From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street."

Entire towns turned out to be in the presence of God's spirit and be changed, refocused.  Evangelical preachers "sought to include every person in conversion, regardless of gender, race, and status."  The awakening brought heart-change instead of just intellectual instruction, and the result changed the nation's mindset.  It was a time of changed priorities and moral clarity.  Just to be clear, that's clarity, not religion.

An adult mind cannot help but appreciate the tremendous difficulty faced by leaders in the national forum.  Similar difficulty is faced by pastors and teachers, by caregivers, and parents.  Perhaps the critical need in each case is a similar moral clarity.

There have been perhaps five such 'great awakenings' in our nation's history.  If we are to ascend as a nation above what today appears to be a moral cesspool, perhaps another such awakening might turn the corner.  Or split the nation even further.


As a youngster, I was told with a smile ...

 Things are not as they seem.
    You were born into a world at war.

       Everything you do counts. 

I'd rather ...

Decadence?

dec·a·dence

/ˈdekədəns/noun

• luxurious self-indulgence.

• moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.

e.g., "he denounced the decadence of the elite"

synonyms: dissipation, degeneracy, corruption, moral decay, immorality

The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, or skill in governance, most seen among members of the elite.

The greatest risk faced by a successful civilization is perhaps visible when great progress turns inward to luxury, purposeless wealth, and a self-centrality that is blind to the world of others.  ... with ten or a hundred times more than enough, they don't even notice that they're blind.  They say they can see clearly.

On a storytelling day, he talked about sorting two kinds of people like a shepherd sorting out sheep and goats, these to the right and the others to the left. (I doubt he had anything against either one; it was probably just an easy visual for his hearers.)  

To the people on the right, he commended them for their good hearted service and welcomed them into his home, but they were dumfounded.  "When ever did we serve so well as to be rewarded like this?"  "When you served the least among you, it's me you've served," was the answer, or words to that effect.

To those on the left, he commanded them to leave, reminding them that they had served only themselves and had habitually neglected the needs of others, they had turned a blind eye. Something like that, anyway.  The poor and hungry, the sick and those in prison, the widows and orphans, all pretty much ignored, I suppose, while the goats just ate and got fat.  Decadence.

Favorite friends -- five kids in the family; dad lost his arm in an accident.

After recovering, a stateside friend of mine sponsored them for a couple 

of years.  Roberta (NGO Coordinator) coached them through rebuilding 

their house, adding floors and bed pads, getting the kids back in school.  

They took off from there; ran pipes for a water spigot in their front yard, 

bought some breeding pigs and ducks, and they cultivate a 500x500 foot 

garden that adds a lot to their survival.  Last time I visited, they were 

bursting with pride at the progress they'd made.  They have electricity 

now, too.  They did all the hard work themselves with just a little help.
for materials and stuff.
2016 Update: after four years, dad is working again, and the family has
some regular income; mom and the kids tend the home business; things 
are going pretty well.

For a look at the difference one might make, remember there were many who helped slaves flee to the North, and there were many who hid Jews and fed them during the war years.  Today there are many who help those trapped in poverty, deprived in a world that's rich and blind.  

Did you know that you can put a kid through regular school and then trade school for the price of a nice television?  You can sponsor a family's progress building a home, planting crops, and putting their kids through school for less than it takes to insure your car.  Change makers and help bringers are among us; be one of them.

Would you rather live in luxury or in making a difference in the lives of others?   Easy choice.  :)

The Tested

A furiously competitive soul lives in some of us but perhaps not in all.

For the competitors, a challenge must be faced perhaps as a test of worth, of fortitude; the challenge is there to confront and overcome. A competitor will have goals like 'winning' and 'coming out ahead'.

There are good and not good results of competition.  Cooperation, perseverance, courage, and camaraderie; those are all good. Self-esteem based on superiority, losers as less worthy, humiliation, arrogance, and hubris; each is destructive to character in the competitor and will affect their life to the end.

Challenges for the individual span both physical and intellectual tasks.  Even test taking.

IQ scores vary by motivation as much as by education.  Some folks care less what the results of a test might be or what others might think of the results.  Others care more.

Often in the social and political world, the challenge is to outmaneuver your opponent, to persuade or manipulate, to forcefully justify for the sake of the win.

Understanding this about the competitive nature is essential when it comes to our goals. Competing to win is natural, but it can be counter-productive.

The position-seekers compete with the solution-seekers
The conservatives compete with the liberals.
The same-ers compete with the change-ers.
The result is polarization and impediment to improvement.

The rich compete with the non-rich.
The result is inequality, oppression, and deprivation.

The 'natural' process of the biosphere is competition for resources and survival.  We hope for better in ourselves.  We hope that the human realm might display a measure of nobility, of understanding, and of common good for all.  There's room for gentleness, objectivity, openness, and compassion, is there not?

Meaningful life is not a competition, but it is a noble goal.  Competition will not take us there.

Competition -- do my goals (and actions) include the good of others, or is staying on top enough in itself?  Do the kids understand?

Update 15AUG; Donald Trump, "We will always come out on top."  That's his forecast for international relations if he is elected president.  It's not a new plan.

fighting in front of the children ... ?

You should probably fight in front of your kids, at least I think so. 

Fighting in front of the kids can be instructive or destructive, depending.

My generation never saw mom and dad fight.  We might have heard them sometimes, but they were behind closed doors. That was their generation's rule; don't fight in front of the kids.

We went the other way when our kid was growing up, and we did it deliberately.  We figured she'd not know how to argue reasonably unless we showed her how, so that's what we decided.

Interestingly, having her there in the room when contentious issues came up was a great throttle on our verbal and emotional content. We were trying to let her see how grown people could have different ideas and priorities and work them out, and having her within earshot was a continual reminder to get it right.

No escalation, no raised voices, no threats or insults, no outbursts of anger.  Mostly, it was reasonable negotiation of what's important to you and to me and to us.  So, she did us a favor as the unknowing referee.  Years later, she complimented us on how well we'd done demonstrating that stuff for her and how she now does the same with her husband.

If she only knew.  :)



FYI: Kids routinely exposed to high-intensity conflict between their parents can suffer brain injury similar to PTSD. As long as the arguing is constructive and respectful, however, kids can learn a lot about relationships and conflict resolution from watching parents sort out issues. 

A small part of the truth

Well said. ~ Humans of New York - Pakistan

From the far side of the world: 

"There's only so much space in the newspapers and there's so much news in the world.  Only the most jarring stories make the cut."

She's right, of course.

The media provides little insight into the real world, something worth remembering before we get spun up about the latest headlines.

We have the resources to do our own inquiry and research, see all sides, and perhaps understand. Tedious as that may be, it is probably better than being a sheep.