My Thoughts on This and That

I've had a few thoughts here and there lately, but nothing earth-shattering or probably of any real interest to most people.
But, my husband is complaining again that I haven't blogged in awhile so I'll share some of what's been running through my head:

Alma 28:13 "... we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and transgression..."
We're all equal in the eyes of God, until we sin. Sin is the only thing that can distance us from God and create an inequality with our fellow brothers and sisters. In reality, sin is the only thing we have to fear. There should be no fear of criticism, rejection, losses, or even death. I was watching a show recently where the man was saying that he doesn't know how to "love the sinner and hate the sin" and he thought it would be far better to say "love the sinner and hate your own sin." I couldn't agree more. If we were all focused on avoiding and repenting of our own sins, we wouldn't spend so much time worrying about everything else. Sin is the only thing that can destroy us, and it's the one thing that is entirely within our own control.

From the book "The Churching of America" (Roger Finke and Rodney Stark):
"What is one person's reward... may be of little or no value to someone else, which is what makes human culture so rich and varied."
This is so true! What matters to me is quite probably of very little interest to many other people, and vice versa. If we all wanted and did the same things, life would be terribly boring! But, being the humans we are, instead of looking at our differences in the light of what we can learn from each other and how much we each contribute, we focus instead upon how weird, stupid, or vain someone else's "reward" seems to us. There are definitely some higher rewards and purposes in this life, but in general I think we're all striving for the same things: love and happiness. The only thing that sets us apart in this quest are the roads we take to find them.

From "The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson":
"Abuse is proof you are felt."
In other words, if what you are doing is causing opposition, you can be sure that your efforts are not in vain! You are creating waves and causing feelings that are probably uncomfortable to someone else and their natural reaction will be to "abuse" you through criticism, anger, hatred, etc. Let's just hope that we're fighting for the right cause!

Now to a different direction...

Watching the news last night I saw a story about how Haiti is being hit with a cholera epidemic. In the same half hour we were told that politicians are raising and spending money for their campaigns at record levels. It seems to me that there's something wrong with this picture. How sad to see so many millions of dollars wasted on hateful ads for the sole purpose of gaining power while there are so many of our brothers and sisters who don't even have clean drinking water. Do I really care which is the lesser of two evils in this election? Not as much as I care about someone contracting cholera just because they don't have access to what is a staple of life: clean water.

Speaking of politicians and government: Whose idea was it to install cable barriers along I-275? In the six years I've lived here, I've heard of very few accidents where someone has crossed the median on I-275 and ended up in the opposite direction's lane. So what is the purpose of this costly endeavor? Whose pockets are being lined? It sure doesn't make sense to me to put up miles and miles of unnecessary cables for our "safety and protection" when there wasn't really a need in the first place. (I can see where the cables could be beneficial on some high-risk stretches of highway, but not along most of I-275.)
Why couldn't they use that money to repair some of our roads that are in deplorable condition? Or maybe send some of that money to our fire and police stations? Would it kill them to not spend money they don't have? If I ran my family budget the way our politicians are running the national budget, I'd have lost everthing (and probably be in jail) for non-payment of debts. It doesn't make any more sense for the government to be living on credit than it does for an individual or family.