I was working in adapting a post I wrote for my foundation site for here because, well, because I think it’s really good and would make a great lead up to Thanksgiving blog post. I thought after what we as country just went through having to experience the childishness that accompanied s years general election, that a word from someone who worked so successfully with children is just what the doctor ordered. So I ordered it.
And then Colorado Springs happened. You’ve heard of that incident. Five dead. Nineteen wounded. One nut case up with a f-ing assault rifle destroys the dreams of 24 People because he has a “right” to carry an assault weapon into a crowd and start firing. Of course you know that same day in Philadelphia, Mississippi nut case or nut cases unknown shot seven people, killing one, over a dice game.
If you’re keeping score, those are mass shootings #26 and 27 in the US for the month of November. Not the year – for November’s, which still has 10 days to go. One of them is Thanksgiving. Are you still thankful we have the “right” to carry guns at will? Maybe this will help. How are 602 mass shootings for this year.
It’s time to stop this madness.
The post that I was going to rework, you can read it here. And actually if I were you I would. It’s a whole lot happier and more positive than this dreck.
The theme running through that post is based in an idea voiced by Fred Rogers in his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed to him at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997, “All of us have special ones who loved us into being.” What a wonderful way of thinking of how we have become who we are, that there are people who have loved us into being. Gratitude is not, and should not, be an exercise is saying thanks for what we have, for in truth we will not always have. We should be expressing thanks because we are, because even when we do not have, we always will be.
Maybe the nut cases of the world didn’t have anybody to love them into being. We did. Be grateful. Be grateful you have people who have loved you into being. Say thank you to them, because without them, you are not the who you are.
Seriously, do yourself a favor, go read it. It will take you less time to read than you’ve spent reading this junk that I’ve written here. Go find out about this idea of being loved into being. And then go out and love somebody that much.
Used with permission
The Real Reality Show Blog 
Somber and sad, Michael. 602 shootings? I stopped paying attention to the tally because it’s too painful but your post points out the importance of doing what we can…in our immediate circle of influence: …”don’t only say thank you for your friends and family, say thank you *to* your friends and family.” Thank you for that. ❤ As you said, time to stop the madness? Yes, yes, yes.
Our immediate circles overlap with other circles and if we can just stay kind within them we as a whole could be so much better off. Yes, saying thank you is great first step to saying I love you and isn’t that what we should be able to say to everyone.
Thank you so much for being you!
Right back to you, my friend, right back to you…thanks much! 😊
So much pain and loss–and yet you express the real hope that exists from being loved. Sincerely loved, if by no one else other than God, then by Him. Being thankful is a choice–and we can choose to make the most of it or be neglectful and selfish. I love your attitude, my friend.
Thank you Dayle! Being thankful is a choice. And I think being loved is a choice too. We have to let ourselves be loved – by God and by others. Sometimes we find the people who love us back enough to shape our worlds and get to experience being loved into being. (I “love” that phrase. It says so much.)