Quick Post After Long Absence

This is what has been going on in my life: 1) one of my dogs had an operation for a torn ligament and it got badly infected. As a result she didn't walk at all for 3 weeks and she's 103 pounds. Needless to say, as a total mama's girl, I had to be at her side all the time, which meant I had no chance to go to my computer. However, my computer gave up the ghost, which I might have mentioned in a previous post and I have a spanking new laptop, which is the only good news that I have.

My dog's leg problem led in turn to a cold or the flu, probably as a result of me falling with her down the four stairs to the outside of the house at 3 in the morning when it was 30 below, and no one to rescue her or me until the pain subsided enough for me to get my voice back.

Which in turn resulted in a return visit to the vet for her and a visit to the hospital for me with a badly sprained leg and bruised ribs and some sort of body whiplash from bracing myself (apparently) before I hit the ground. I never knew you could get whiplash-like symptoms from falling.

And eventually, possibly, as the result of lying in the snow in my bathrobe, my present cold or flu. I should go to the doctor but I think I'm far too sick for that, haha.

And in the meantime, at the same time, my horse barn flooded and the guy who did the trenching for me this fall was being an asshole (excuse the language, I was trying to think of a euphemism for asshole but there doesn't seem to be one) about it so I had to call Guy Number Two who discovered that an artesian well had been broken by Guy Number One.

Then my fridge went on the blink just before Christmas. Trenching Guy Number Two and the Fridge Repair Guy both showed up at the same time on the same day. Both got fixed and then the pressure pump inside the house went, which meant we had no water inside the house, drawing water as we do from an artesian well. And it is the holiday season, boo hoo hoo. Whose holiday do I spoil? I hate to bother people at times like these.

And last but not least, my brother wants a divorce from his wife. It is only a surprise in the sense that it has taken him a long time to work up to it. I won't go into details. I would appreciate prayers but in my opinion the marriage was a disaster from the start, ten years ago. Yes, God can work miracles but they are called miracles because they are rare. There are children involved and for that I am very, very sad but the marriage as it has been for so long, isn't sustainable. It would take a very big miracle along the level of the Red Sea parting to put Humpty together again, if I can mix my metaphors.

I don't know if I should be grateful the year is coming to an end or fear it. If I seem a little snippy and my humor a little black, it is because it is either laugh or cry.

I will make one comment vis a vis your post at this time, which is that you make a difference between a Christian living life as an individual and the state. However, you don't do that when it comes to issues like prayer in schools, or abortion or....?

In any event, I think capitalism is evil but will expound on that at some future date when I feel better. And yes, I do trust my government. I've noticed that Americans have a peculiar faith in their governments as evidenced by the fact that they so often refer to the US as the greatest country on earth, defender of free speech and all that democratic stuff, and yet at the same time are great believers that governments are not to be trusted in matters like gun control, health care, etc.

It seems contradictory to believe that one is living in the land of the free and home of the brave and at the same time say one does not trust one's government in terms of doing what is best for all citizens. It's like on the one hand Americans are proclaiming they live in the best country in the world, yet on the other hand they are prone to see black helicopters hovering over head, as though people run for elections in the US for primarily nefarious purposes, not altruistic ones.

See, I know there will always be a level of corruption in government, the same way I know there will always be poor people in the world. But I trust absolutely that my government wants what is best for all its citizens. It may not always be right but its aims are to provide good government and all that it means, including liberty and human rights, for all of its citizens, not just a few rich ones. The disagreements are mostly honest ones, as to how exactly one would achieve those goals.

PS. I think your definitions of communism and socialism got a little turned around. May I ask how you came by them?

Layla