Keeping Up With the Times

I am old now.  I’ll be seventy-four years old tomorrow—that’s three-score ten plus 4—nearly three-quarters of a century old! I still try to keep up.  With the help of my grandchildren I am managing the new technology.  I read new books  (though I prefer old books tested by the passage of time) and I pay attention to what is going on around me.  I am trying to keep up in this ever changing world.  I think I’m still sound of mind, though that issue has been debated since the time I began to express myself, and is probably still being debated by many of my friends today.   My social media friends probably no longer even debate the issue.  They think I’m crazy and over the past two years or so they have considered “unfriending” me or at least “unfollowing” my rantings and ravings.  I don’t blame them a bit! 

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” I read a book called “I’m OK—You’re OK” (A Practical Guide to Transactional Analysis) written by Thomas Harris. The book distinguished three active elements in each person’s makeup and operative in our relationships:  the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.  The Parent personifies the “don’ts” and the “do’s” implanted in each of us in our earliest years.  The Child represents spontaneous emotion.  Both Parent and Child must be kept in proper relation to the Adult, whose function is that of dealing with reality—“to make possible freedom of choice and the creation of new options.”  We all have the Parent, the Child, and the Adult in us—creating unconscious behavior in our relationships:  “I’M NOT OK—YOU’RE OK”  (the anxious dependency of the immature); “I’M NOT OK—YOU’RE NOT OK” (the  “give up” or despair” position); “I’M OK—YOU’RE NOT OK” (the criminal position) and finally,  “I’M OK—YOU’RE OKAY” (the response of a mature adult, who is at peace with self and others).   

Keeping up with the times—I just read the following post on Facebook:  “Their words back to back…”

“I pray that our leaders will always act with humility and generosity.  I pray that my failings are forgiven .   I pray that we will uphold our obligation to be good stewards of God’s creation—this beautiful planet.  I pray that we will see every single child as our own, each worthy of our love and of our compassion.  And I pray we answer Scripture’s call to lift up the vulnerable, and to stand up for justice, and ensure that every human being lives in dignity.” (Barack Obama, Nat’l Prayer Breakfast, 2016)

“We had tremendous success on The Apprentice.  And when I ran for president, I had to leave the show.  That’s when I knew for sure that I was doing it.  And they hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place.  And we know how that turned out.  The ratings went down the tubes.  It’s been a total disaster and Mark will never, ever bet against Trump again.  And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can, for those ratings, OK?” (Donald Trump, Nat’l Prayer Breakfast, 2017)

Yosemite National Park, 2016