Good Leaders, Good Communities, People Live to Improve

 Good Leaders, Good Communities, People Live to Improve

China has problems. Legitimate freedom is not available (2019). Sure, the average Chinese person now eats better than in generations past, and has more money to afford things. China contributes to the world economy, true, while all the while generating awful pollution, providing the citizenry that steals or pirates other international trademarks and licenses. Chinese businesses are dynamic worldwide, doing a lot of positive growth in developing nations, despite the lack of enforcement of basic human rights, considerations for a more decent humanity.

And, the lack of freedom combined with the coerced living forced upon many Chinese and immigrants internally, like Muslims, Christians, and others is unacceptable. Shame on them! We cannot force people to believe or worship the way we want them to. Even though some might assert that the West does this upon others... We cannot accept this for humans. Freedom of belief and free expression and practice of worship is fundamental. Thought cannot be deprived.

Besides the Chinese government aspirations to rule over the neighboring seas that conflict with the Koreas, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, China has its own churling domestic problems that bespeak serious issues that need to be resolved.

The second most populated place on earth, India, is getting better. There are serious problems of resources, and dire poverty, and religious and ethnic conflicts, but they seem to progress faster than much of the world, compared to where they have come from.

 The United States, the world superpower but humbled in the last two decades of military struggles, comes in at number three. There are issues here, as elsewhere in the developed world, but people are progressing. There is poverty and injustice, but the economic and democratic engines are constantly pumping, we hope for the better. Those in office that we disagree with can be voted out relatively quickly.

Number four in the world is Indonesia. They are doing okay, their economy is moving robustly and their democracy seems to work. Natural disasters are as bad there as anywhere, but the people seem to progress.

Brazil has its corruption and troubles, but it is progressing as its national flag assuages.

After the fifth biggest nation in population, Nigeria is quickly becoming that. Number 5.  To round out the top ten in world population totals is Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and newly member-gaining Mexico surpassing Japan! ! Viva Mexico!

Add Japan to the top ten countries in 2019 and this accounts for some almost 5 billion folks, the rest of the 190 or so nations and territories giving us a healthy 2 plus billion remainder.

Nevertheless, many people think us 7 billion plus human life forms (will we hit 8 billion pretty soon? Most assuredly...) are superfluous to the efficacy of the truest state of the planet, that is, that the Earth should be treated before and above its inhabitants. Flora and fauna of the non-humanoid variety is the highest aim for some.

Fine.

Things in those realms have their struggles: there are parts that are favored economically for commercial gain, blessed and propitiated as it were, by the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith. This is good for exotic products of the Amazon or other extinct-threatened areas. Some powers and politicians and their constituents (including the elite scientists and their rational followers and acolytes) are upping the ante on the fight for green environmental issues. Saving our planet from doom. There is debate as to whether this is true or not, Al Gore Inconvenient Truth or not.

Notwithstanding, the oceans are rising, the arctic zones are warming. It appears.

Weather is getting more extreme? Apparently.

Meanwhile, (as Steven Colbert most pompously lampoons), there are:

 Good Leaders, Good Communities, People Live to Improve

-- our beat goes on.

God knows, joked Joseph Heller.

Heller, the man who modernly defined or coined the paradox term or concept of wishing to be deemed crazy in order to escape the fate of an awful situation where one could only be certifiably insane to stand being there.

That was a large taste of World War II.

Currently we are staving off the Third, while perhaps it is climate or resource Armageddon that awaits.

We need Good leaders, (not you Chairman Mao or Comrade Stalin, despite the hordes of idiots (today's 2019 countrymen who extol them, who think highly of them. Ugh, partisanship.

Yes,  Mao helped save China from the Japanese, and Stalin did rescue Russia, or the Soviet Union, from the Deutchen. The Bundeswhr. The Wermacht. A complete machine of war, that one was.

There are those, including our own U.S. compatriots, that accuse us of being this type of War Machine, an ongoing juggernaut that continues relentlessly to churn out killer soldiers, weapons, systems of domination.

Nay, George Washington and his dozens of successors have been truly benevolent, after all, despite the blame games from Native American genocide to the apology of African-American slavery to a hundred other militaristic and inhumanistic atrocities ensconced in official and covert policies.

The USA is the best force on the planet, of that I am assured.  

Flawed yes, imperfect, always, improving and expanding for good?

Indeed. We support internal and external good leaders, their communities, and the progression of improvement.

We thank those that support us in these goals and efforts.

Amen. 

The Kingdom of Chile

The Kingdom of Chile

Different poets and authors have immortalized it, making it part of our literature and world knowledge. German, the Germans, must have a term for that. World knowledge. Sounds like a Teutonic thing.

Every place and land is its own invention, combined with those who dwell in it.

Thus is Chile. A long strip of blessed land, far off from its neighbors and separated by oceans and sands. Divided from its immediate next-door vecinos by mammoth mountains and snows.

All these things separate it physically from the rest of us.

Socially and psychologically, we are tied to it in different ways.

It's famous authors and poets have taken us there through their pages and verses: Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende.

Is it enchanted? Of course it is, like the rest of the earth. Any fool can see that, as observing our emerald planet from pictures shot back from the moon, or the images floating above in the orbits of our astronauts.

Chile is all of the above.

There is a Kingdom of bounty that is there, inhabited by princes, dukes, duchesses and minstrels. And plenty of common folk who run things. They cook, they clean, they work the fields. Like any fiefdom of yore. Even later in the 21st century, with buses and taxis and computer programs and web sites, the people become who they always have been. The peons and the nobles, the farmers and the knights, with their vassals and pages.

Strong willed powerful men and women are visible, with the accompanying henchmen who at times have their ways of the torturer, like the medieval castles and their notorious dungeons and pits of despair, hidden from the noble halls and chambers of the elite. Part of the fortress all the same.

Chile is this, has been this.

A realm unto itself, with us interlopers coming and going.

We go down there, usually flying into the airport of Pudahuel on the west side of the Great Santiago, and we start sniffing and poking about. What did she say? How did he say that?

Who are these people? They smile, they laugh, they show courtesies. They offer good things like food and vistas and tours and stories.

They offer their hospitality and service, and more food and tea.

They are all accommodating, both rich and poor.

Chileans are nice, and show good manners, or at least they show kindness.

I went there the first time with some of my compatriots, all fellow proselytizers like me, of my faith. Paul, one of us seven having been preparing for this two year voyage, was half Chilean, raised by his Chilean mother in Arizona; we met his aunt and cousin, this being the first time in their lives because of economy of distance.

Family of the castle were there to greet us, me so privileged from the start.

I spoke to another native Chilean before these guests on the ground, Juana or Norma or Julia or Cecilia, no... Another common name, but uncommon in her wealth on the long flight down from Miami. She had money, unlike so many others. Last name Castro.

She questioned me as to why I did not drink alcohol.

Alcohol is a big thing to many Chileans, like much of the rest of the world.

I found that gossip was its own drink of choice among many in Chile.

The people were familial in many ways, they were a united society in many ways that perhaps we are not as Americans.

This kingdom was in some ways more palpable in that sense.

I walked the streets with young Chilean vassals, these young elders who had incorporated the faith of my family and my country into their lives. They were smart, bright, motivated, fun, caring, patient with me. We had good times roaming the neighborhoods and by-ways, entering homes and into the lives of the people, sharing laughs and songs and bread and marmalades. 

We ate and drank meals together, swatted flies and mosqitos together. They taught me that a moth is a "polilla", a light bulb is an "ampolleta", and so many other things, including key Bible verses that made our faith become so much more real and alive. There was no official Church Bible with Index back then, and certainly no Internet or smart phones. Few phones at all, even in the homes.

We ran about the Kingdom and smiled and prayed, sang and worship, traversing the countryside with youth and packed sandwiches.

Looking at the Andes across the lush valleys from the hill of the cemetery in Mulchen, visiting the great Pacific Ocean for the first time, climbing the verdant foliage of the hills of Concepcion, observing the brilliant but humbly beautiful Copihue flower, both in its red and white hues.

This Kingdom was exceptional, and we spoke and shared with its kinsfolk.

Some would end up leaving, some by choice or circumstance.

Some died over time, as I returned to take some account.

Some never went far from their homes, as money and its dearth made this difficult.

I met some powerful ones over the years, some more notable, some of import or fame. I studied others, like the Neruda, with his friend Gonzalo Rojas.

I keep up with this Kingdom in magazines and books, television and Internet reports.

I occasionally speak with some by email or message on my phone.

Now I receive reports from other missionaries who go there, live there, experience the magic of this down-under realm.

This Kingdom unto itself, a place set apart, non-contiguous with the massive Brazil, a people unto themselves while newcomers come from Haiti and Venezuela and elswhere, to share in the bounty.

 The Kingdom of Chile is there.

It exists, not only in my memories and the literature, but you can see it for yourself.

You can feel it, even from here, across the world.

Bring Them to God, Give them the World

Bring Them to God, Give them the World 

Being a dad is great and not easy. But it is great; (I) wouldn't trade it. 

Having a super mother at your side (which ends up being many sides) is a huge help.

I do the best that I know how. Well, I try. But there are times that I am not the super dad. I struggle to give all the attention as I should.

I can definitely have my selfish moments, and that is tricky.

But I stay the course and I continue to work to be a good father.

Good enough. Well, there's room for improvement.

I know what I was raised with and I feel I know what works.

That involves dedicated religion, worship, belief in Jesus Christ and prophets.

It could seem preposterous. But that is what I know. Family time, dad time is key. I know I can improve.

Work and make money, but render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's.

That involves tithing and a commitment of time.

Time.

Being a good dad is spending time and caring.

More of that.

Talking, sharing. Giving, supporting.

Listening.

Laughing, joking, crying ...

I know I cannot do it by myself or with my wife alone.

We have a faith community, we have a God above and an Appointed Savior and a plan to bring eternal happiness.

Work hard, save, give back to those who do the same.

Be a dad and co-citizen with the people who pay it forward and back.

Bring them, and you, to God, to obey His laws. There are many rules, and subsequent blessings.

I cannot give them everything.

I will give them a lot. This is my world.

This will be their future and the world.

I am trying to give it to them.