Monday September 7 2015  COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE! COMMUNICATE!

Take a look sometime when you are in public and observe just how many people are on their telephone, either talking, face booking, texting, or looking up information.  It seems that personal communication doesn’t exist much anymore.  I have a hunch that the people of the present generation believe they are communicating even more so than the previous generation.  I would beg to differ.  They might know more about a person’s comings and goings or their plans for the weekend or who they are dating and on and on about facts of their lives without ever talking personally.  And that is where the breach begins.

Synonyms for breach:  break, hole, crack, fissure, rupture, gap, obstacle

I sometimes wonder if it is not all the electronic communication that has caused the fragmentation of communicating in person.  The synonyms for “breach” really does seem to best describe the current communication situation with the younger generation.

I see “friends” in congregations, each with their cell phones, heads bowed, texting or facebooking.  When I was at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas earlier this year, there were six or seven young men all sitting on a long bench texting or on the phone talking.  I walked down to the end of the row and there was one young man that did not have a phone in his hand.  I had my camera with me so I acted like I was going to take a picture of something and slowly turned toward this group and took a “candid shot”.  I let the camera drop around my neck and walked nonchalantly by the group.  When I walked past the last young man without the phone I was about 15 feet in front of him and he called out to me “How did we turn out in the picture?”  Gulp, I was caught!  I thought I had been so incognito.  He was the only one that noticed.  I just thought it was such an interesting photo with so many on the same bench using their phones and one lone figure without one.  They were a group that came to participate in a shooting competition and were all friends.

I was called out for snapping a photo of the group on the bench when I hadn’t intended anyone to know I had taken it.  I decided I couldn’t ignore the young man’s direct question without really looking bad, so I picked up my camera as I said, “well let me take a look and see.  Hey, you guys turned out really good”, and a conversation ensued.  At the end of the conversation I asked the phoneless young man what wisdom he would offer for his generation (he was 23) and he said without hesitation:  “Get rid of the phones”.  I was impressed that those words came from someone so young.  And I agreed with him!  I see that scenario more and more frequently.

Today I gave scrutiny to myself.  At the dinner table tonight, mine and Dave’s conversation drifted to this topic.  I do have a Facebook page but only go there about once a year (literally) due to time constraints.  I have a cell phone but I am not much of a phone user, again due to time constraints.  I do carry it with me and take pictures when the right opportunity presents itself to me, mostly for my blog.  I began analyzing the time I take writing my blog and wondering if this media is robbing me of communicating with those I love.  I think while I was traveling on my trip it did cause me to lose some valuable time I could have visited personally.  I have learned since then to write at times when I would not normally be around others so as not to let it intrude on our time together.  And here I am, at home, no trip to write about and I’m still writing it.  So I pondered that question for a bit.  Would I be more productive with my time by interacting with others personally, or does my writing have a purpose?  I’m sure some probably think the purpose is finished if it was designed specifically for my travels.  So I thought about that for a few moments and come up with the following conclusion.

I have figured out that my writing is done because I need to do it.  When I look back and think of all the emails I have received that have given testimony to me about how my words have helped them, it is then, I know that my time is more valuable writing the blog than going to bed on time. I am touching lives I would never be able to touch in such a way as I do with my words.   I too discovered, that when I write I am leaving behind a legacy of who I am, how I think, and how I love.  I suppose it is that deep need in so many of us to have our voices heard.  As I’ve said before, even if no one reads this blog I will continue to write because it is something I want to leave behind for my children.  I know they don’t read the blog now that I am not traveling due to their busy schedule.  I hope someday they will read these words, and others I’ve written, and they will realize that I wrote so that the voice of my generation would be heard.  Values change over the years and I want my values to be heard in the future when perhaps they are no longer present in the current population.  The  world is going to hell in a hand basket, so to speak, and I want them to remember a time when it wasn’t always like that.  Yes, there have been wars and disasters and tyrants all throughout history, in every generation.  However, I desire my children and other’s children to realize that love and joy and peace really was possible, and actually existed in some lives.  And it exists in mine and I want to share it with the world.  If my blog will make a difference in even one life, all the writing I do will have been worth it.  Someday, I hope my children will read between the lines and see me for who I am today.  I am a child of God, a woman, a wife, a sister, and not see me as just their mother.  Remember, sometimes mothers really don’t know all that much.  But that is okay.  And just because I write a blog doesn’t mean I know all the more, but the thoughts of my heart will be shared in print to those who may find them encouraging, a comfort, or even occasionally wise, and I will faithfully print off a copy so they will be available to be read at a later date, if they choose to. 

The world is changing.  I’m hanging on to the important parts that existed in my past and I just want to share them through my words to any who will be interested in hearing what life was like in mid-century 1900 to however long I shall live.  If you want to see the changes going back even further, just pick up a book written around the turn of the 1800 to 1900’s and read the simple, beautiful, elegant prose of along ago writers.  It may bore you to tears, but at least you’ll definitely be more aware of the more gentle tones of the past in comparison to the harshness of the present.  Every day the world changes just a little bit more, kind of like looking in the mirror every day of your life and always looking like you did the day before.  So if that is true, what has happened, and when did it happen, that I look like I do now?  It is so subtle that the changes sneak up on you and you except it as your present reality.

IN YOUR HEART ALWAYS BELIEVE

By Kathleen Martens

September 7, 2015

Speak words that need spoken,

Give comfort when comfort needed.

Touch a heart that is broken

Do what must be heeded.

Learn to live a life you love

Become the best you, you can be.

Allow God in heaven above

Teach you how to be free.

Look deep inside to find your heart

Give your soul wings to fly

That joy and peace will not depart,

And that your love will never die.

Love yourself as God says to do,

Then your love with others share.

And every day love will renew

Because you really know how to care.

As you give, more you receive,

So practice every day.

In your heart always believe

That more love will come your way.

I leave you with this thought.  Take time today to TALK with someone, even if it is a stranger.  You’ll find that people are truly starving for conversation.  And be prepared to listen to what they have to say.

Good night and God bless you!