Letter to the Editor

Life lessons, gleaned from years of experience

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

To the editor:

One thing you have when you get older is that once you have retired, you can spend more time thinking about life and what you have learned. Then, of course, comes the urge to pass that knowledge on to others. So, sit back and read and find out what time has taught one person. Space is limited, so at best I can only give you food for thought.

1. There is no such thing as an atheist. If there was, the self-proclaimed atheists would not be so afraid of Christians putting up nativity scenes, the Ten Commandments, praying in school (which will happen as long as there are tests) and other signs of faith. Did you ever see or hear of an "atheist" refusing to take Christmas, Easter or Good Friday off if given by their employer? Back when companies had larger profit margins, I never heard of an "atheist" refusing a Christmas bonus.

2. In sports, we used to say, "Some you win, some you lose and some are rained out." There are no rainouts in your relationship with God. You either accept Jesus to wash away your sins and win, or you don't and lose. It's black and white; there is no gray. If you want to know how it works, visit your local church. If you don't have one and still want to know, come visit North Tenth Street across from the high school. We would be glad to have you. There is sin. It goes on the side called "lose." Abortion (murder of unborn babies -- call it like it is) and homosexuality are sins. It doesn't mean we shouldn't love the people, but we can hate the sin. The two are not the same. Another facet of this lesson is that this modern notion that everyone has to be a winner and everyone gets a prize does more harm than good. I have won a lot of times and I have lost my share. I have learned something from each win or loss. I haven't learned a thing from being in an event where the everyone gets a prize concept was used other than the prize I got was worthless.

3. The United States was established as a Christian nation. You can find that to be true by looking in the writings of Founding Fathers like Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, or Google the first sentence of this section. In addition, look up documents like King James I charter to establish the Jamestown Colony (does the word Pilgrims ring a bell?), the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence among others.

4. The science of things like evolution, global warming, for two, is not proven. Back when I was in junior high (middle school for you kids), scientists said it was an absolute fact that all the oil would be gone by 1974 (yeah, I'm old) and the earth was cooling and we were heading into another ice age (not old enough that I remember the last one though). These are the scientists that were the fathers and grandfathers of those who make other claims of fact today. There are at least 5 million kinds of plants and animals not counting things like algae and bacteria. Do you really believe that they each came about randomly, starting with some pinpoint of matter (which contained all the stuff in the universe: stars, planets, asteroids) that for some unknown reason decided to explode 13 billion years ago after existing forever before that? Much easier to believe God created them! Jesus was a historical figure; he is mentioned by many first century historians. The people in the Bible like David, Saul, Paul, Peter, John, Timothy and the other disciples existed. There is proof; look it up. Life is hard, it won't get easier because you trust God and have Jesus as your savior, but it will seem like it is. You will always have a best friend who listens to you and if you learn to talk to Him you will start hearing him whispering to you. You hear it now when you start to do something wrong you just may ignore it. You pray and you always get an answer: yes, no or maybe not yet. The yes answers will always be good. Sometimes you get things you don't even know you received. Ever gone to the store and gotten almost to the car and remembered you didn't have your list and went back to get it and was 5 or 10 minutes late in starting? Ever think that if you had left on time you might have been going through an intersection when a speeding truck ran the light and would have crushed your car? Maybe you missed being in the way of a drunk driver by being later on the road. You want to call it a random event? Think about how many times this could have happened in your life. The time to get right with God is now. You don't know how much time you have left; hopefully it's a long time, but people do die young and living is a terminal disease. Choose wisely, the best can be yet to come if the right choice is made.

5. There are no such things as black Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, white Americans, native Americans (actually came from Asia), Mexican-Americans or any thing else but Americans. The whole point of America is that immigrants would come here and blend together into this new creature called an American. They would work, learn a common language (English) and become part of an exceptional group of people called Americans. The reason why the groups I named are recognized is that they are supported by politicians to keep us divided so that the politicians can have more power. That's why they support laws to benefit one of the groups, so that group will become more dependent on politics and less on themselves and the strength they gain by being united with other Americans. We can disagree on many things, but in the end, we are all Americans.

6. People unfortunately judge you by how you look. First impressions are extremely important. Guys, if you walk around with your pants hanging halfway to your knee, an ill-fitting shirt which is dirty, flip-flops and a baseball cap worn cattywompus (an old term for askew); people (like employers or prospective employers) will think you look like a homeless person that had to take any size clothes they could find or that you don't care how sloppy and silly you look. Believe it or not, the vast majority of the world doesn't care what color underwear you have on. The pants also affect how you walk as you either have to use one hand to hold them up or you walk with a gait like a super bow-legged person to also hold them up. I'm surprised no one has named a bone/tendon/joint disorder after this habit as I'm sure there are conditions caused by this habit. Girls, if you know it or not, you help control a lot of male behavior, partly by how you dress. How dumb is it to wear tops that you are continually on the verge of having a wardrobe mishap and then making a complaint to every male you see that "Hey, my eyes are up here"? If you want to be treated like a lady, dress like one and then set the standard that you only want to be seen with males that dress like a gentleman. Not that it will ever happen, but I wonder how much more polite society would be if all men wore suits and ties and all women wore conservative dresses that came to the knee.

Hopefully, you learned something today, and when you get older, you can write something like this for a newspaper to pass it on to others.

Gary Conley
Blytheville