The Real Beginning

Good morning everyone. This is the real beginning of our journey together. As you read this Blog please feel free to discuss it with any one you feel would be interested in working with us on this project. If they feel like it is something worth working on please ask if it is OK to pass their email address to me. I will then add them to the permissions list.
This is a nation with a feeling of entitlement. To fulfill our goal of making this a better community we not only have to work together on our current community service projects, but we also need to work together to find the source of all of the social, economic, and educational issues. To do this the Churches, Schools, Small Business Associations, and our local governments need to get together and research these issues. I believe that everyone, including the Veterans organizations have something to offer in this respect. We will need to find the right people within these organizations to help coordinate our efforts so that we are not working against each other or duplicating efforts. This is a small portion of what I feel is needed to make this community self sufficient in the event of a breakdown in either the global economy, or our central government. I believe that if we Start in our local economy we can work our way out to neighboring communities and eventually out into the rest of the state. Have a good day.

The following is the last of my previous writings. It was written in May of 2007 and is the core of what this blog is about. Please feel free to comment and critique my writings.

I haven’t opened the Bible for serious study in almost 25 years. I am sitting here wondering why. I think it started in Spain while I was attending a Church outside the base where I was assigned. I remember the fellowship and closeness that I felt, but I also can see where it was sucking me dry. I was giving more than I should have to missions and not planning for the future. Even now, if I were to attend a local Church regularly, I might give the 10% tithe so that the Church can survive and the minister can afford to support his family while doing God’s work, but more than that would be irresponsible. I would end up neglecting my family. I was giving over and above that amount because I had it, but I wasn’t investing in my own education or the future family that I might have. I think at some point I realized that I was losing myself, not in God, but in an ideal that I thought was what a Christian should be. I started to turn away from this after one of the new members of the Church was made to feel that she wasn’t welcome because of the way she dressed.

After returning to the United States I then attended a Church that would not provide for the minister to live, but expected him to spend his whole time doing work for the Ministry. This did not leave him time to get a job outside of the Church to pay for food or rent, or any of the other necessities of raising a family.

Since the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, I have been questioning my spirituality and my beliefs. I am beginning to realize that I have been as judgmental of organized religion and as such I have closed myself to God and the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Over the years I have sat down at my computer writing about what I see wrong with the world, specifically the wrongs committed by the people who claim to be Christians. I am glad that I have never published any of this, as I would have been judgmental. The very thing I was accusing the leaders of organized religion and the far right of our political leadership. Instead of writing in judgment of the leadership of my country I need to get active in my community and try to influence what I see as wrongs by actively setting an example for the better.

How am I going to do that? I am not sure yet. As I feel a spiritual need, I think I need to look to spiritual leaders who live the life that I feel I should be living for support. I know that even though my first impulse after 9/11 was to go back in the military and be patriotic, that would not help solve any of the world’s problems. All that would happen is that I would be risking my life at my family’s expense. I think that the only way to make a real difference is to start in my own neighborhood and let the changes work their way out in a spiral.

Why haven’t I started doing anything yet? Well the first reason I know of is fear. Not fear of failure, but the fear that I might come across as a know it all or egotistical. Maybe it is even the fear of change. I really haven’t figured it out.

I read a lot of books, and watch the news regularly, and I see patterns between the fiction and the real world and realize that mankind can both, see the consequences of our actions and can also be blind to those same consequences. Where am I going with this paragraph? Well I think that what I am trying to say is that sometimes I can see something that I can do to make a difference in the way things are going, but I am unable to follow through. Sometimes it is from lack of knowledge about the procedures involved, and sometimes it is because I don’t know how to get my idea across in a way that someone that has the knowledge can do something with it.

An example is the fact that I think that a way to make the company I work for a more stable company is to come up with a plan to work with local companies and come up with a product that will sell locally. Not only would this help the company, but also it would stimulate the local economy. We need to first find out who in the area is either a customer of ours, or could use either a product or a service that we provide. I am thinking that to accomplish this we need to breakdown, not only the specific products that we sell, but the processes that we use to manufacture these products. We should than do an online survey working with the local chambers of commerce to see which of the services and products we provide the local businesses will use and what they are willing to pay for those products and services. As a division of a larger company, all plans will have to be approved before being acted on, but I can see where it could go somewhere.

Another thing that I have been thinking about is the fact that with the way things are going in the global economy the local governments and businesses need to get together and figure out what services and products that we purchase from out of the state or country, we can start making locally, We will need to do some serious selling so that bigger companies can’t force a smaller company out. We also need ways to persuade bigger stores to carry the products being produced in the area. To do this every one in the area will have to work together. How do we offset corporate greed, which pushes the global economy? It is short sighted and does not make plans for the day when that global economy collapses. If and when that day comes the future shown in the CBS show “Jericho” could be the fate of a once proud nation.

I need to do more than write my thoughts down for others to read. I need to get involved, both in the business where I work, and in the local organizations.