Hello, bloggers.

With the recent uproar over the freeing of the man who participated in the bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, everyone has been voicing strong opinions on one side and the other.

Many of our debates today—abortion, gay marriage, the environment—seem to polarize people against one another.  Common ground is hard to find.

I believe we all have our concerns and our danger points.

I personally am probably more forgiving than condemning.  My great point of sanity is, “It is what it is.”

Thereore, I can do whatever I can, in my own process, to alleviate whatever harm comes out of talking or thinking badly about people, or condemning things I don’t know a damn thing about, or eating, drinking, and polluting, or whatever.

I don’t seem to get too excited about the things I cannot change.  One of the axioms of A.A. is to “change the things I can.”

When I pick up particular paints and other materials that I’m going to use, do I weigh all the good and the bad of what they’re made of, the composition, the potential good or impact on the environment?

I’d have to confess the answer is “No.”  I don’t because I am constantly exploring every aspect of the human condition.  Therefore, I probably am not as selective as someone who has very definite boundaries and maybe wouldn’t put as much ketchup on their potatoes.

I have an internal distrust of thought police, of making judgments about what other people are doing, unless it is written in some book or is detrimental to what I think is out of place.

I looked and listened very carefully with the developments surrounding the swine flu.  One of the things that was tragic and surprising to me is that when the authorities counted up the statistics, at one point more people had died from taking the vaccine than from having the flu itself.

So it seems to me that in the rush to judgment and condemning and praising, many things aren’t as bad as we thought they were.  Or they might be worse than we thought they were.

We all have to drink water, but we don’t all drown.

I put myself in the camp of, “A little pinch of something makes the world go ’round.”

That might not make me the sterling sun in the sky, but instead the lost, wandering one who’s clueless about what the hell’s going on here...

It’s an attitude that, like everything in the world, some will love and some will hate.  I’m oblivious to it either way.

Maybe that makes me someone who’s living with one eye closed.  On the other hand, maybe I depend too much on the eyes in the back of my head!  Maybe that’s why I don’t have people hit me on the head with a 2x4...  I see it coming!

Matt