justbarelymadeit

Sept 2007

Sometimes I see red.

Sometimes I seethe and sweat, righteously angry with it. Nothing seems to really get under my skin sometimes than ignorance and stupidity. These two things fuel such concepts as racial prejudice, discrimination, fear of what is different. Ignorance, a force to be reckoned with, can be brought to bear fully and in its manifestation can destroy so much. It can affect so many people on so many layers. It can get people killed, fired or just hurt, physically and all too often, emotionally. It can hurt people you don’t even know or might never see, but more significantly it can hurt people who know and love, and care about you.

Call me callous, call me insensitive, but right now I don’t care two shakes of a rattlers tail about the first group. I don’t really mind a whole lot that is hurts people who are unknown. I know I should, but now all that consumes me is how much we can hurt and damage the people close to us, the people who would give their right arms for us. THAT is what really gets my goat! I guess that is what really makes ignorance and bad decisions so significantly horrifying. It is when you stop to make that bad decision. You chose to sleep with her. You choose not to pay a bill. You choose to keep at that addiction, or to cheat on your taxes, or to overdraft your account, or to say that ignorant statement that will scar a heart, or a myriad of other ways we can royally screw things ups. It isn’t just you that you hurt. You get the STD, you get sent to collections, you throw your life or love away, you are arrested or bankrupt…these are all such horrible things that can happen to us, but they pale next to what you do to your parents, siblings, spouse, and friends. It is those that have to stand by in anguish and watch it happen. Those have to pick up your pieces when it is all done, because you know they will. They love you, and that is exactly why it hurts them the most.

So what, you ask? Why this maddened rant? This is why…

So I can plead. My rant of fury leads steadily into my pitiful plea. Please learn. Educate yourself from any source you can. Your friends, your school, your Bible, whatever God places in your path, just learn! It is only through some form of education that you can overcome this. Sin is the root of all conflict and suffering…and sin has a heyday with ignorance. Proverbs spends itself on the subject of wisdom and what can be considered educated living. I am not just talking about going to school, or college, but any form of education that elevates you out of your own cesspool of ignorance. Cleave to this, pursue it, and educate yourself if only for the simple reason of saving those poor souls around you that happen to care about you!

So sit down, pick up a book and start reading. Shut your mouth and start listening to your elders, friends, siblings. Wake up and pay attention in class. Try to puzzle out what the preacher man is talking about. Read your Bible, and learn. Trust me, you will not regret it.