Thursday September 3, 2015  UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

 

I have absolutely no idea what my title means today.  It just kept coming into my mind as I sat down to write my blog so I thought I would go ahead and write it and see where God wants me to take this blog. 

This day could best be described as “a dog day of summer”.  I heard that once in a movie years and years ago and always connoted it to being a long, hot, humid, summer day.  And so it is today.  Last week was fall weather.  This week (the week school starts) is hot and humid and windless.  Thank goodness for air conditioning.  We are a spoiled people.  Remember these blessed days, enough food to buy, electricity, air conditioning, stores stocked with necessities, medicines available (exorbitant, but available), and we can still walk down the street with enough confidence that that you won’t be shot in the back unaware, (at least if you are not a police officer).

Our world as we know it is changing.  I see the changes and can remember a lot of them over the past half century of my life.  The longer I live it seems the changes just come quicker and quicker.  Whirlwind changes.  If we don’t change with the world we live in we will soon find that we are living in a world we do not know.  Take me for example, born before computers were an everyday word.  I have seen technology explode in so many areas.  I have seen how growing and harvesting food has changed and the changes in how we eat our food.  Food was once grown in the garden or slaughtered in the yard.  We ate the real food.  A few things came in a can or a wrapper, but very little came in boxes.   Now, most food is prepared ahead of time and packaged in boxes or sold in fast food lines.  Cars were big and and heavy and made out of real metal and chrome.  Today they are fiberglass and synthetic and collapse like an accordion.  Once upon a time when you went to see the doctor you were called by name and not asked your birth date a dozen times in one visit.  I saw man walk on the moon through the screen of a television.  As a matter of fact I remember when our first TV came into our home when I was about four years old. 

There have been so many firsts for me in my life that I cannot even recall them all.  Now it seems that when a child is born, brought home from the hospital the world is set in motion with all the conveniences, luxuries, and do-dads that you could ever need (or not need) or want.  And then as that child grows they will start seeing their firsts right along with the parent seeing it at the same time.  Home PC’s are a good example.  I remember going to my friend’s house in about 1979 and she had a computer in her home.  It was big and took up one side of a room sitting on a long 8 foot table.  There was a computer and printer.  I was just amazed.  My friend told me that she believed that one day every household in America would have a computer and it would be a normal thing.  I was astounded at her revelation.   I had worked for Cardiovascular Surgeons for many years in California and it was during that time when computers were being introduced into the workplace.  In one room was a word processor.  It stood from the floor to about 5 feet high.  There was an area designed for someone to sit and type on a machine while looking at a monitor and seeing what was being typed.  They could also go back and change things on the monitor without WHITEOUT!  Paper was not used.  What you typed was viewed on a screen.  It was really quite impressive. 

I remember the transition of going from a computer-less world to one that has been overtaken by nano technology.  What once took up an entire room in a doctor’s office can now fit in the palm of your hand and probably even smaller.  Was I excited about this?  Yes, of course I was.  I wanted to learn all I could learn, as quickly as I could learn.  We purchased our first home computer in 1985.  Both of our kids were young and it did not seem like a big deal to them.  Our daughter, 3 years older than our son was not introduced to the computer in grammar school.  She was the last wave of students to bypass the coming of the age of computers.  Our son was in second grade when he first touched a keyboard at school.  Now I think most children are already adept at using computers by the time they are out of diapers.  At least adept at being able to hit the right keys to make a video come on.

How many of you reading this remember pong?  Yes, we had one of those too.  And oh my, what many hours of entertainment we received from that little square screen hitting balls back and forth to each other.  Like I said, it is a changing world.  Not only is our world changing in regards to computers, but in regards to morals and morays.  Changes happening with movies so full of violence and pornography.  We live in an instant society and the generation living now do not remember it any other way.  So much violence is seen on TV shows and real news that it doesn’t even phase many anymore.  Even sadder still is how technology has allowed violence to escalate by sending out messages inviting gangs to come and wreak havoc on unsuspecting business owners.  And now there are those who cry out to kill police officers and so it is happening more and more.  Our world is changing.

I wish I could somehow convey to those who so despise and hate police officers to sit back and take a look at what our world, our society, would be like were there not men and women dedicated to putting themselves into dangerous situations to help others.  I wonder what it would be like if all the police across the United States decided to go on complete strike for one month.  What would it be like during that month.  It seems those who help us the most in time of need are the very ones that others want to kill. 

Lets sit back and calculate some of the situations where police are involved to make our world safer and how it would be if there were no police officers to call in time of need.

1. My child is missing. (Who would search?)
2. Roads and highways with no one to monitor speeders and drunk drivers. (There would be chaos and more road rage and more deaths.)
3. A car accident and traffic with need for traffic control. (There would be no first responders to administer aid or direct traffic.)
4. A wife calls for help because her husband is beating her. (She would be left to her own devices or possibly be beaten to death.)
5. Someone is breaking into my house. (The caller would need some way of defending their residence.)
6. Shootings out on the street. (No one to respond to help the victims or find the shooters.)
7. A dead body is found (No one to come and make it possible to find out what happened and to take the body away.)
8. Violence and drugs selling on street corners. (It would continue in mass because there is no one to stop the drug sellers.)
9. The president is coming to town. (There would be no city security or added protection for the president or any way to block off the streets for hours.)

 

And the list could on and on.  In other words, there would pretty much be rampant crime, chaos in the streets and no protection for the home owners or those in distress.  Police officers are sort of like the garbage collectors of the city they serve.  They go into extreme conditions, pick up the body parts from accidents, hunt for lost and sometimes mutilated children, put their lives on the line every time they stop someone to give a ticket, or answer a domestic call.  I think I would call that a pretty high stress job.  Now they do not even have to answer a call to be a target.  All they must do is put on their uniform and they are like a sitting duck.  It takes a lot of courage for someone to come up from behind a man and shoot him in the back just because he is a police officer and a white police officer to boot.

The world is changing.

And proudly, I am the mother of a police officer.  That police officer is the baby I birthed and prayed that he would survive.  I held him, and loved him, and cared for him, and nurtured him to be kind and loving, and to extend a helping hand toward others.  I raised him with his father who guided him and who became a role model for a little boy to grow up to emulate.  And my police officer son is a husband who has a wife that cares deeply for him.  And he is a father to two little boys who adore him.  And he too is raising his sons with the best intention of being loving and caring human beings toward all.  That means toward all ages, professions, colors, backgrounds.  It matters not from our personal perspective what color someone is or what profession they choose.  My son could no more choose his skin color than I could.  Should I choose not to have a baby because my skin is white and I will have a white baby?  Can we not all just accept who we are, accept those around us, lend a helping hand to our neighbor and brothers of this world and become one nation, not split because of race or  color or country we came from? 

It is time to stop teaching hate.  I really do believe that hate is not inborn, but rather is taught from one generation to the next.  The world is changing but can we not help change it to a society that comes together as one people, rather than divided by race or economics?  We need to look across the aisle and become up close and personal with those who are our neighbors.  Treat others how you would like to be treated.  Extend a helping hand to another, regardless their color or background.  BUT WHERE DOES THAT START?

 

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

By Kathleen Martens

September 3, 2015

 

Up close and personal is not just a term

But a relationship that is firm.

 

The world is changing and dividing,

Choose to be close by confiding.

 

Each has dreams and great desires

That we can help each other transpire.

 

Love your brother as your self.

Take your love off the shelf.

 

Use what you have and to people give,

Respect differences of how others live.

 

Each individual is created unique,

Get up close and take a peek.

 

Up close and personal make new friends

Because then, each one will win.

 

When we see the likeness of what is common

We’d have less need for the lawman.

 

We’d see each other as one of our own

And the differences no longer known.

 

Up close and personal paves the way

To transform what we say

 

When we see others with consideration

There is no more need for obliteration.

 

See each other for who they are,

Their difference is not so far.

 

Each man has need to be accepted,

And desire to be respected.

 

See not the color of the skin,

But rather see each man as kin.

 

Teach not hate to the next generation,

But rather example of love and exoneration.

 

Up close and personal is the key

That will open your eyes to see.

 

I guess God knew that this was the poem I’d take off the shelf today!

And…I had no before hand clue about the words that came through my fingertips on my keyboard.  I wonder if it is a little too controversial or personal for a blog such as I write.

These recent, unprovoked police killings, in cold blood, has pained me greatly.  My son does not wear his police uniform out on the streets unless he is on duty.  He changes at the police department each morning after arriving and each afternoon before leaving.  He is very mum about who knows his profession.  Many of his neighbors have no idea of what he does.  He has been this way for years and now I am seeing why he is so careful.  Please pray for our police officers around the country and include my son as well.  I once told him that I was glad he had flat feet so he would never be called to go to war.  He looked at me and said, “Mom, everyday when I go to work I am fighting a war”.  That’s not what you say to a mom!  So, I pray for him.  Sometimes I awaken in the night and I know the Holy Spirit is prompting me to pray for my son, only to find out the next day that his life was in peril the night before.  Please pray for protection for my son and all the other sons and daughters and husbands and dads and moms and brothers and sisters who are putting their life on the line daily and nightly so we can live in a safer world.  Let your local police officer know that you support them and even tell them that you are praying for their safety.  That might open their eyes a bit.

If you read to the end of this blog I thank you.

Good night.