Sometimes We Forget How Blessed We Are

While testing my vocabulary on Free Rice, I came by this contest. If you go to HungerBytes, you can vote to decide on the best video about world hunger. This is the one that I thought was most powerful.



The contest instructs you the viewer to choose between the 5 finalists and then post or email your choice out so that others will view it. The video with the most viewers by October 16th will be deemed the winner. I hope you will join me in viewing this one and sending it around for other to view (note: I have connection to any of the people in the contest or the contest itself). If nothing else, we can spread the message of world hunger.

Treat Me Well - I expect nothing less

I am currently reading Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. As I am reading, I have come across the following passage:

“Then she used her weapons against him and she would not let him into her room that night and she complained and said,” You do not love me for if you did you would wish me to be happy.”
Then Wang Lung was humbled and anxious and he was submissive and he was sorry and he said,
“Let it be only as you wish and forever.”
The she forgave him royally and he was afraid to rebuke her in any way . . ." (pg 206)

This passage made me think of relationships in general. This was not just a formative time in the relationship between Lotus and Wang Lung, but a key component to all relationships no matter what their nature. We teach people how to treat us. From the moment we first meet there are exchanges between two people that decide who takes the upper hand, who is the dominated, or if you will be equals. People wonder why women stay in abusive relationships; I think the clearest answer is that one does not start in an abusive relationship. One relents and releases control in the tiniest steps such that the movement toward abuse is almost imperceptible until it explodes and you realize that you have brought the slap to your own face – not in that moment, not in that day, but it little steps over weeks, months, years. How can we scream against it, when we have allowed it. We almost asked for it, by serving when asked; letting comments slide by. The guilt stings. If I had stood up that first day. If when we were introduced, I had shook his hand with strength and confidence and not batted my eyes low. Certainly this is no excuse for his behavior, but . . .

Then she used her weapons against him and she would not let him into her room that night and she complained and said, “You do not love me for if you did you would wish me to be happy.”
Then Wang Lung realized her ruse and retorted, “Why should a man with my wealth and power want to be in the bed of a whore?”
Lotus trying to beguile him with his own passion said, “It is not I who came to your bed, but you to mine. I will be your perfect Lotus flower and let you smell my perfume, if you will but give me a moment of happiness.”
“I will give you everyday of pleasure, but of what you ask, I will deny you. This woman is of evil spirit and will curse our love. Relent your position and let us come together as it was meant to be.” (pg 206 rewritten)

How might you rewrite your relationships? No one higher ; No one lower. Equals among equals. Partners.

Squirrels

Squirrels may seem like a strange place to begin a blog, but for anyone that is, knows, or have ever dealt with a “Woman”, you know that we must follow our inner callings. Today, mine is the squirrel (Kingdom- Animalia; Phylum-Chordata; Class- Mammalia; Order – Rodentia; Family – Sciuridae). Today, I have been convinced by the common squirrel that Charles Darwin’s theory on natural selection, “Survival of the Fittest” is flawed. For an animal, that evolved 60,000 years ago, it defies logic and Darwin’s theory that they have not learned to avoid roads or at the very least that when a car comes by to turn and run in the OPPOSITE direction. I am very sure that in my many, many hours of shuttling kids here and there that I have been responsible for the murder of multiple squirrels. While these murders have not been premeditated, they would still be considered vehicular manslaughter and there are countless others that may fall under attempted murder. While in my defense, I have done everything in my power to try to avoid the damn rodents, short of driving my family into a tree, I am still definitively guilty of Squirrelacide. My question is - where is the evolution here? According to the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology, squirrels can live from 8 -18 years but on average only live to 7 months – probably due to the multiple car accidents that befall them. One would think that these darn animals would evolve. Shouldn’t the dumb ones be killed off and the ones that understand “DANGER” survive, passing on their developed senses onto their offspring? Darwin, Oh Darwin, the squirrel may be your downfall.