Saturday nights these days, it seems to be a very popular show on TV that poses the question, “What Would You Do”? Oddly enough in the same land in a time not so, so distant, even though many days, weeks, months, years, decades and centuries have passed the original question wash “What Would JESUS Do”?
When we take a moment to think about it, it’s not long until we realize that question is one in the same. For no matter how the sands of time and the influences of evil or political correctness have tried to manipulate the answer, the Truth remains in the Question Itself.
In the beginning for us all the first phase we go through is the time of innocence in which one of the first things we learn, even if by default, is difference between right and wrong. After all it it the “Golden Rule” of life granted to all of us by the Creator himself. The knowledge to recognize and understand the difference and the GOD given gift of choice.
Thing about it for a second. For the answer to the question, “What would you do?” for every GOD fearing person on this earth is the same as it would be for the question of “What Would JESUS Do?”.
No mater how simple or complex the question may be the right answer always has it’s litmus test y these standards and if we really stop and think about it, over the man years, we have drifted way in to the land of Gomorrah with our answers.
Well, let’s see? Thou Shalt Not Steal, really, how did that end up? Thanks to something called creative accounting to which some how we believe theft has be sanitized and it’s now not sealing at all rather appropriating things legally now. Really?
The verse says; “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” Really?
So is the the issue that we think we have found away around the Truth? Around GOD?
The Holy Season is Coming. Be Blessed, GOD Speed.
Just another Point of View.

Ran across an old acquaintance a few days ago and felt so bad for him. Like me, he had always been a chunky person but in the past years had ballooned to a dangerous weight. We’re talking 400 pounds plus. His legs were busting open from, I can only guess, Congestive Hear Failure and or Diabetes. He seemed to be in excruciating pain and not in a good mood at all.
This man has been associated with a civic organization for 10 plus years. In fact he has been the head of the organization once or twice but then again so has his better half. I joined and quickly found out that the civic organization’s board had adopted an all for one and one for all policy. Better known as the you scratch my back or wallet and I’ll scratch yours. After realizing they’re control of the organization was autonomous and they just kept voting for themselves over and over again I decided to Get Out while the getting was good.
First let me clarify, I would never wish any harm or ill being upon anyone no matter they may have tone to me but, when you see someone like this years later you have to wonder if any of that is Karma.
Not necessarily for anything they did to you specifically just for stuff they’ve done overall.
I know I’ve been through some heavy Karma at times before until I cleaned up my act. So I wonder if at any time this man gives any thought to the fact that he may be experiencing PayBack.
You would have to think by know he would got himself some Geriatric Surgery to stop the weight gaining insanity. You may say, wait a minute, how do we know there is some medical condition keeping him from doing that. To that I say, Bull Hockey. There are so many types of procedures that can be done now that can help this poor man.
But wait. This guy smokes too, on top of all that. Come on, why do you punish yourself like that?
Are you trying to kill yourself? Stop the Insanity. Get out of that organization and apply all that time to your health now before it’s too late.
If this story applies to you in any sort of way or fashion take heed. Stop the lunacy and put yourself before any other power trip that’s ruining your life. Power only serves to corrupt. Break that bond of power and greed and save your self before there is no turning back.
GOD Bless and GOD Speed.

  ​No matter how much we may think our lives are not as great as they should be, it seems we always tend to forget those folks who are way less fortunate than us. Just because our day is going badly and we may not be able to afford that new car or Flat screen TV we for get that there are those out there who can’t even afford to eat.
  Here is a perfect example from a friend of mine on Facebook.
  “As I sat in my car eating some tacos I had gotten from the Taqueria, i see this lady staring at me while i sat in my car. While she walked closer and closer to my car, I was finishing up on one of my tacos. I knew she was trying to get my attention. As two younger girls came out of the store, they handed her some change. As she turned her body I notice she had her catheter bag underneath her arm. As she started to walk away, I ran down my window and asked her if she was hungry and she said yes but She wanted to get an ice cream from inside because her throat was hurting but the man wouldn’t let her in w the catheter exposed. I ended up helping this sweet lady w food, a black bag to put her catheter bag in and bought her a frozen fruit ice cream for her throat. Poor thing has cancer and says all shelters she’s been at are full in this area.”
  I remember those days when I had a few cents to my name and walking by the Hamburger Place on the corner smelling the great aroma of the food cooking on the grill. Peering in and watching the happy faces of everyone inside enjoying their double cheese burger with a large order of fries and a large drink and thinking how great that must be when had only a few cents in my pocket.
  Then I thought about those people less fortunate than I, YES, they exist. People who had NO Pennies in their pockets. Some didn’t have pockets at all because the clothes they wear are so tattered and old that the pockets have worn through. Those folks who haven’t eaten in days because they just don’t have the money or may be ill and can not work, much less afford a decent meal. Then my situation just didn’t seem as dire at all.
  No matter what situation this story finds you in today remember, work through it as best you can to find a solution that will get you by to the next day. If your the person without the funds, Pray.
  If your the person with funds then think twice about those less fortunate that yourself and do what ever you can to assist those who have less or none.
  The message has always been for us to help each other. For those of us who have to help those who have not, not matter what the reason. Love is the answer.
  Just another Point of View.

​So, five months into a new President and as a senior citizen, I have to say that I am concerned about our future when it comes to healthcare, the economy and benefits for older citizens.
I’m concerned about our Social Security which is already much to low for anyone to survive on much less live on. My friend John just turned 62 and filed for early retirement and he has started receiving a monthly check of $1000 dollars. May sound like in nice, tidy sum but lets break it down.
John pays $650 for a small, one bedroom apartment. He has to pay utilities in the amount of $100.
Since John has doctor appointments he must keep up with he has to have a cell phone so that’s another
$50 a month. So if your keeping up, John has already spend $800 out of his $1000 check leaving him a huge sum of $200 to live on for 4 weeks. $200 to survive on for four weeks. That’s CRIMINAL.
How can anyone expect somebody to live on $200 a month? LUDICROUS. Then we wonder how so many senior citizens are living in poverty. $200 a month isn’t enough to buy food on for a month, much less pay for gas or medical care or medicine, etc, etc and forget about going to the movies or anything like that.
So then, as a senior citizen your forced to get back to work, not because you want to but because you have to in order to be able to survive. How fair is that? You’ve worked 62 years and paid into your Federal Savings Account know as Social Security only to find out that the only thing your going to get back is $1000 a month to live on? That alone is enough to drive you crazy.
I remember when I first started working. As a naive adolescent I asked why the Government took that money out of my check every week. They said it’s your Federal Savings Account. When you turn 55 you’ll get a monthly payment back so you can retire. NOT.
Sixty Two years later, my government has mismanaged my savings account, taken money out of it for something entirely different and Never replaced it. But wait, that’s not all. My Government has changed the age at witch I could start reviving my retirement money from Fifty Five (55) to Sixty Two (62) and they are thinking about raising that to 68 or 72 in hopes you’ll die before you collect yours.
What chaps my hide even greater is the fact that some people have the gumption to say “well why should the government give you anything for free?”, WHAT? Social Security was supposed to have been our Federal Retirement Savings Account. It’s our money that we have be faithfully putting in for over 60 years. OUR MONEY ! I don’t want the government to give me anything for free I just want what they promised me. We are are entitled to that.
Enough for now. Just another Point of View.

​ So do you have at least one? Or maybe you have just a handful or maybe you have many?
​
I'm talking about friends with benefits. Of course you know just what I'm talking about. Friends with benefits.
The kind of friends that are ready to give you the benefit of of doubt when a question comes up about you or something you did. Those kind of friends with benefits. The kind of person that stumbles upon you and even though they may think your strange they don't judge you strictly on that, but rather give you the benefit of the doubt.

Those types of friends and people much less are few and far between these days. Most folks are quick to judge and quick to pass you by or cast you aside because that's the kind of society we've become. I've caught myself doing it once or twice and can't say that I'm very proud of it but then I thought about it long and hard and blamed it on some training I once had.

After all there are times we have to make quick assessments of people in order to keep ourselves safe. In this case we're talking about people in general that we encounter and pass along the way every day. Regular people even if not so normal because then we have to define normal itself. We have to ask normal by who's standards? Yours, mine, someone else?

In this case lets say it's just your plain old kind of normal that in some cases can seen a bit strange but what's wrong with that? People that can be kind or educated enough to postpone their judgment of you until they've hard you out and found out what your really all about. Then after that they decide to be your friends. Those my friends are the type of friends with benefits I'm talking about.

Friends that can overlook the fact that you may have different views about things than they do
and are still willing to listen to you. Friends that can move beyond the fact that you may live in a different social environment than they do and still associate with you. Friends that can get past the fact that they may have more money than you and don't make that a factor in being your friend.

See there are many types of people in this world but not all of them can be our friends. Too many of them are caught up in selfishness and greed and socioeconomic stature to be able to befriend us. It has certainly become a real problem in our world today. One which keeps us from being a better man kind.
One that gets in the way of us being closer to GOD. Think about it and you will see for yourself.

Then the next time you come across a person that's a little different than you, maybe you'll think twice about how you see them and about how you'll determine on whether to befriend them or not.
Just another Point of View ! GOD Speed.

Just read about what happen to this homeless man I befriended at a Homeless Shelter in San Antonio.
   Several months ago I ran into this older man named Morris at a Homeless Shelter where I hang out and do a little work. He had been in the service at one time and was wounded so when he got out of the military he moved to west Texas and became a firefighter for some years until age, his old wound and a couple of heart attacks sidelined him before he ended up homeless in this shelter.
   When I met Morris he had already been at the shelter for several years waiting for them to assist to to try to find his own apartment and get on with his life with the help of veteran programs.
   Morris was in rough shape, he was having problems with his legs and at the same kept slobbering from a medical condition but in spite of all that he was and extremely nice older gentleman who had made many friends over his past two years at the shelter. They were his community, his family if you will.
  Last weekend the shelter had finaly put together a deal for Morris to have his own apartment and finally get on with his life away from the homeless shelter. When he first told me, on a Friday that he had got an apartment he seemed happy and overjoyed.
   I did not see him on the following Monday but I ran into him again on Wednesday and I saw a much different man. After all the next day was his day to move to his new apartment. But Morris seemed distant and very lonely. Distracted from his jovial self.
   The next morning Morris gut up to head on out to his new life by himself in a new apartment complex and his own apartment. As he headed down he hall to start moving GOD stepped in and moved Morris to Heaven instead. Morris took a couple of steps into the hall and fell dead from his final heart attack.
   It’s my belief that the stress of thinking about being all by himself in a new place away from the only friends he knew and away from this community that he had bonded with over the past two year was to much for his poor heart.
   R.I.P. Morris. GOD Speed our friend. We are certain you are in a much better place now.
   Just another Point of View.

​As a young man I asked a lot of questions. As most kids are, I was a sponge for knowledge from any and everywhere. In my quest of such one day someone asked me if I was familiar with a book called the Peter Principle.
  No this book was about a principle that was derived from the fact that if you were a mediocre employee, showed up for work on time on a constant basis, didn’t cause a whole lot of problems or asked to many of the wrong questions, that you would one day keep getting into a position that you would just not be qualified for. 
  That, my friends or something like that is what the Peter Principle is all about.
Then I started to wonder if by some chance The Peter Principle had not been derived, perhaps, from the Bible and if in fact it had have we not already Peter Principled ourselves to hell?
  Nowadays I find there are more and more people willing to engage in a conversation about God and religion. It seems more and more people are seeking GOD out but let us not confuse that GOD and religion are two totally separate things. I find so many people confused about GOD, religion and the Bible and what each is. 
  Some people rely on other people’s word of mouth about what the Bible actually says. Others go to the Bible and read for themselves and then take things literally instead in the spirit of which they were meant to be understood. Then some people learn about GOD thru religion but, organized religions too, have their way for taking liberties with scripture as well.
   I overheard a man telling a group of people the other day that GOD wanted us to be afraid of him. I quickly said that’s not the case at all. Then he pointed out it was in the Bible and he was right.  “Fear of the Lord brings with it many blessings and benefits. It is the beginning of wisdom and leads to good understanding (Psalm 111:10). Only fools despise wisdom and discipline (Proverbs 1:7). Furthermore, fear of the Lord leads to life, rest, peace, and contentment (Proverbs 19:23). It is the fountain and life (Proverbs 14:27) and provides a security and a place of safety for us (Proverbs 14:26). 
  However, even though the fear of GOD is real in extreme cases. In general GOD wants us to respect him as as any parent demands respect from a child which we are, his children. If your living the life of a good person, honoring GOD, helping those less fortunate and making the world a better place you should not Fear GOD. Just A Point of View.

​It would appear that with our new president just having been sworn in we are in for the long haul and it should be interesting to see just what President Trump, personal friend of Russian President Putin has in store for us the American People.
   What will happen to Obamacare as we know it, will President Trump go ahead and kill it with a swipe of his mighty Presidential Pen and leave Millions of us out of health insurance? What about welfare programs and Social Security, will the go by the wayside or become privatized with the help of our new president?
   So many things we have to mull over and ponder. With President Trump having appointed a man that doesn’t believe in Global warming as head of the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency) what help happen to our National Forests and Woodlands and all the protected wild animals that the E.P.A. was set up to protect.
  What about President Trump’s choice for Attorney General of the United State, Judge Sessions who once tried three black folk trying to get them sentenced to 250 years a piece in what later was found to be a racial motivated trial?  Has Judge Sessions changed his stripes or is that Hyena still running amuck?
   I can still see why Bernie Sanders supporters are still so upset at the whole election. The majority believe that if Russia hadn’t hacked into the D.N.C. and the D.N.C. leader hadn’t put up so many hurdles for Sanders that he would have walked away with the Democratic Nomination and then he would have easily beat Trump, No Question. But, Oh Well, that didn’t happen, Sanders road to the president got caught up in Political fowl play and the rest is history.
   It’s also easy to see why so many Democrats who though Hilary had it in the bag just didn’t show up to vote for her and that would have most certainly changed the outcome of the election.
 Ho Hum,..... Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, sis boom bah. That will serve to teach us all a lesson for the next time. That adage, it’s not over till the fat lady sings, still reads true to the end. For all of you who screwed up this time, don’t let it happen again and for all of you who voted President Trump in, now lets wait and see if he truly has any idea of what he’s going to do and how to do it in four extremely short years.
Just another, Point of View.

​A New Year is on the horizon and have you thought about what your goals will be for the months to come. If your thinking about what went wrong last year STOP. Why waste any time and energy in worrying about that. We must look to the future instead of the past.
We must look to motivating ourselves to accomplishing bigger and better things. Motivate ourselves to work on our health, our stamina and our future. Push ourselves to attain things that we never thought we could do before because we only live once.
We have to keep believing that we can not only reach for the stars but if we work hard enough we can be one ourselves. Lets not forget that GOD gives us all the ability to excel. One must after all have a plan. We must set goals to accomplish. We must set them attainable and then make them a little less attainable because remember, we all have that hail Mary pass inside us.
Life has a way of beating us at times but remember, Life is cyclical. What goes round comes back around and what we sew is what we are bound to reap. So as we go along day by day also remember that our Creator made it clear that Love must rule. That our willingness to help others in greater need that ourselves is how we are judged.
It’s not not about how many things you have or how much money or land you have amassed. In the very end it’s all about how much you’ve cared for your fellow man.
So many times a day , a week, a month yes even year after year, we are give the opportunity to help others less fortunate that us. How many times have you or will you seize that opportunity this coming year.
If you can’t stop to help someone along they way then don’t even get in their way. If you wont help them, don’t hinder them.
Then there is that thing called Love. We are reminded every time someone passes that life is way to short for us to not Love to our very fullest. Love life itself, Love our parents, Love our brothers and sisters, Love strangers, Love food, Love travel, Love the ability to be healthy. Life is way to short, Love to the very fullest because we never know when our ability to Love will be cut short.
This Holiday Season, show everyone around you a little love and let that Love shine brightly through out the brand New Year. Be Safe, Be Blessed, GOD Speed.

   Now, it’s that time of year again and this year more than others it’s time to give extra thanks now that the crazy Presidential Champagnes are over and the your candidate is now president, or Not.
  But seriously, Christmas is rapidly approaching and have you given any thought about what that means?
Have taken a moment to reflect over the past year and figure out how you’ll give thanks and who to?
   Will you thank GOD and thank him first for keeping you around another year to enjoy those loved ones still around you? Will you thank him for your ability to still live under a roof and have food on your table every day? Will you thank him for the ability to still get around to go to places you either need to go or want to go? Will you thank him for what he does for others everyday? Well, will you?
   Who will you have around you on Christmas day? Will it just be immediate family ? Will you have some extended family around, like aunts and uncles or friends and coworkers? On that special day will you make sure that someone who doesn’t have the blessings as you get an opportunity to eat? Will you walk around all day and show a smile to strangers while wishing then a Happy Holiday or is it something that you’ll take for granted?
   It’s truly amazing how may of our blessings we take for granted everyday. That there are so many people out in this world that for one reason or another don’t and may never know what its like to be as blessed as many of are. Yes, some more than others but we are still far from others who may not even have the simplest necessities of life.
   I’m sitting here and writing this on my laptop while eating some peanuts and when I start to think about it it makes me sad to think there are people on this earth that don’t even have clean water to drink or peanuts to eat. I think about the fact that at night I sleep on a nice mattress while many around the world have only a dirt floor to sleep on.
   It also makes me sad and a bit angry when I think there are so many filthy rich people around that won’t even entertain the possibility of giving a good deal of the money they’ll never be able to spend to others who truly need it. The first thing they say is “Hell no, I worked hard for that money. Let them work hard themselves.” Where is the Christianity in that? Where is GOD in that.
   In the end, Rich or Poor the only thing we take with us is who we were. Were we kind? Were we humble? Were we benevolent? Did me make it a point every day to go out and help someone else?
Those are the riches and the resume we take with us when we die.
   So here we are back where we started. Time to mull it all over and think about all our blessings and who will thank this Christmas Day. Then go out and make someone’s day even better than it is. I know that’s what I’ll be doing.
Be Safe, GOD Bless and GOD Speed.