Evaluating through the lens
of emotion can be insane!
Your misguided fear could kill you!
(Look carefully. The weapon is pointed backwards)
With all of the fear and dread floating so thick in the air today, a person's sense of well being, and even their mental health can feel compromised, even unstable.
Do you know what to do when this happens? Did you know that you have options? That things can improve?
Do you know what to do when this happens? Did you know that you have options? That things can improve?
We all have choices in our behavior. Choices, that if habitually practiced will improve and strengthen our very souls.
Do you know what these choices are, and where to begin?
To begin, we can choose to be deliberate. To deliberately embrace truth and health and growth and actively reject the temptation of destructive habits and influences.
We can become intentional and choose to lessen loss and grow to increase in personal strength and depth of character.
Instead of being swept away by the emotions of the moment. Be it personal hardship or the distraction of social activism, or recoiling in fearful opposition to cultural change. We can choose sanity and become intentionally focused and purposeful in living out our own internal values.
There is a saying that, “talk is cheap.” But in reality obsessive talk devoid of understanding can become painfully confusing and costly in the long run. Especially on the emotional level.
What do you see going on in the world around you? Is it beckoning you toward reactionary fear? What is the fruit of the perspective you have been feeding? Is it toward personal growth? Or creating a growing sense of emptiness and looming personal chaos?
Gaining and maintaining accurate perspective can be immensely helpful! And providing help to others, and receiving help from others in a helping community can be life altering! We can find personal accountability and even recovery in support groups, churches and structured community involvement. Even personal interest groups and shared hobbies can replace the loneliness of self absorption with experiences of connection, accomplishment, strength and gratitude.
What do you see going on in the world around you? Is it beckoning you toward reactionary fear? What is the fruit of the perspective you have been feeding? Is it toward personal growth? Or creating a growing sense of emptiness and looming personal chaos?
Gaining and maintaining accurate perspective can be immensely helpful! And providing help to others, and receiving help from others in a helping community can be life altering! We can find personal accountability and even recovery in support groups, churches and structured community involvement. Even personal interest groups and shared hobbies can replace the loneliness of self absorption with experiences of connection, accomplishment, strength and gratitude.
But consider carefully, the paragraph above describes activities and gatherings that are committed to, "Creativity and Order."
Not ones prone to emotional reaction, social agitation or displays of intimidating power. Not aggressive activism and not, gatherings centered around, celebrating intoxication or careless licentiousness in any form.
Today, the variety and options for using intoxicants has exploded!
Today, the variety and options for using intoxicants has exploded!
And these have become the first choice of relief from many suffering from anxiety and stress and boredom. Stress often maintained and accentuated by an echoing deluge of fearful narratives from associates and media sources.
Today, even a sporadic or casual use of intoxicants can be fatal as accidental overdose is the leading cause of death among those under 35. And the chaos of intoxication has become the lifestyle norm for an ever-growing portion of our culture.
Today, we are quick to celebrate, "Change." Even as we ignore the realities of, "Loss." We even celebrate our blindness, as we embrace what is revolutionary in the, "Destructive," sense. Ideas that bring both personal and societal destruction!
In the past revolutionary ideas of, "Peace," were celebrated. But today these Revolutionary Ideas are catapulted forward through Social Influencers, Agitators and Activists to the status of modern Sainthood.
Today, being agitated or agitating others is considered desirable, even heroic! But we must remember that being agitated is very unpredictable at it's core, and there is often very little difference between an Activist led gathering and a Destructive Angry Mob. They may even be one and the same.
Historically social breakdown and even anarchy occur as these groups, disregard civil discourse and throw off legal restraint to intimidate and manipulate the the greater population. They coerce submission through destructive violence. This is what we saw in Seattle as the police station was burned and the murders took place.
The most famous and most effective protest of this type was, Kristallnacht, on November 9th of 1938. It virtually silenced public opposition to Hitler's abuses.
These gatherings and events of this type must be shunned. Don't be fooled, if nonviolent protest was the goal, than why didn't the leaders and crowds leave when the violence and destruction erupted.
If eliminating the destructive effect of chaos in your life is your goal, these type of events must be shunned.
The destruction of our inner cities in much of America today, shows the terrible cost of our failure to understand this. It may be a shock to our senses, but this isn't new. The history of this last century repeatedly bears this out. Consider the chaos, and the subsequent “Inspirational Stories,” that are compiled in this playlist. I compiled it about ten years ago. It is titled:
"For Freedom's Sake, Displaying Sanity in the Face of Opposition"
On a more personal level, did you know that there are other positive ways to escape from internal chaos and negative emotions. But it usually requires more focused help and encouragement from others. Isolated we are vulnerable and captive to our own habits. But with real help we can find real escape, just like the Jews in Denmark did in the story above.
Have you ever wished you could exchange your fears and compulsions for genuine strength and courage?
Details for this option are presented in the Faith, Mental Health and Recovery messages below. Click the Helicopter (Picture) to hear the stories and testimonies. To see the corresponding written text you will have to click the link below the picture, Then on that page, click the text in the description, or (more) below the video to read it. This did work on my phone.
Consider BOTH the TALK and TEXT. Both were prepared to encourage you to take the deliberate steps that will strengthen you in your sense of wellbeing and personal integrity, as well as navigating in the mental health system. If you are having a crisis read the text and follow the instructions.
Testimonies of Help, Hope and Appropriate Trust
during a Mental Health Crisis.
And finally consider this much more recent lesson from the past. Just a few months ago Israel celebrated their 75th National Anniversary. The video below highlights portions of their 2023 Yom HaShoah observances that occurred at the same time.
In it, Israel's President Herzog reviews past Academic and Social Anti-Semitic Propaganda. He shares how it was used to reshape public education, social institutions to create ridicule, apathy and hatred across much of Europe toward the Jewish populations. He explains how it separated them from past traditions and the values. And talks about many who displayed noble strength and courage in resisting.
He talks about how it was propagated through misapplied, "Science," to align the culture from early childhood with the, "Evolutionary Assumptions," held by Hitler.
President Herzog called for greater social accountability among Israel's political leadership and elites.
To me it displayed how our poorly examined thoughts and attitudes, and our failure to educate can allow seemingly good people to accept and promote unjust and evil policies. Policies leading to actions far worse than anything they ever would have imagined. But it ends with expressions of support and commitment to our fellow man, similar to the inspirational stories above.
(click picture to view video)
Yom HaShoah 2023 Observance, Confronting False Science, Rejecting Propaganda and Acknowledging True Strength!
And finally how accepting the concept of, "being created in the image of God," has shaped our morality into a "Sanity," of grace, accountability and individual challenge, and quells the chaotic confusions that comes with self absorption.
Imago Dei: The Image of God
Thanks for reading this through and may God bless you as you seek to live a sane and disciplined life.
