Jesus was in each of those blank stares and that starving child. You were too full of yourself and your material world to see. Can you feel the coldness in my words?

“Walk around with your nose stuck up to the sky to ignore the real world around you and you will drown when God starts crying.”

Look at today as a turnstile we go through on the way to catch the next train in our lives. Know which is your next stop and enjoy the company of others going your way. Don’t sit here and watch life go by along with your dreams lost. Bless.

This is from the reflections I enjoy with my dear friends in our mini-prayer group here on FB. No pressures as we make our own path and set our own pace with the same goal at the end. Seemed we need simple lessons for what we make so hard to understand at times.

Pain unlike love can not be shared. No one is willing to accept pain as a form of affection.

We have our own brand of evil that takes advantage of the down trodden. If people are lucky enough to get any sort of work, it is at a level that makes minimum wage seem like manna from heaven. These people are exploited not only on the job but in housing by individuals that charge above the norm and deliver minimal housing. Not being able to drive in this country because a drivers license is for citizens forces these people to either walk or drive without a license or insurance. Both problems because of the load to the US taxpayer in case of accidents or illness. They fall into another trap where they are part of an invisible society and the haves treat these have not’s with disdain. Yet even having to live in these conditions is most times better than what they are trying to escape from.

I hear the tired song of “If they would stay in their own country and make changes there, they would not have to be a burden to us.” Hard to do when you face starvation on a daily basis. “If they would get an education and be productive citizens in their own country, we would not have these illiterates coming here.” Education is not totally free in most countries south of us. A lot easier said then done. Even I, lucky to have been born in this country by less than 100 yards and by the grace of God, had family that never made it out of high school in the late 1950′s. They had to drop out to make ends meet. Some of the persons that are friends in these forums know first hand what it was like. The young ones going to school today are doing so because of their parents and grand parents sacrifice. Don’t blow your chance. Lots of sweat and some blood was shed for you to be in college today. Don’t squander the opportunities you are getting right now. Others die for the chance.

All of you born with a silver spoon in your mouth, ask around and find out what I am talking about. It might be closer than you think.

There are NO vampires that will bite you and you live forever.

Movies are NOT real. Don’t try to become like the characters .

Love LOST is something you can NEVER recover once it is lost.

Stop pretending that trying to please others by giving up YOUR self respect will make you more loved.

Try to look good for YOURSELF and not what Hollywood or magazines want for you.

By the time you hit 25 years of age you’d better know what life is about. No pity parties allowed after that.

Find God today not when cancer finds you.

If you do not look like Angelina don’t expect your spouse to look like Brad. Not real.

Reminds me, STOP with the ugly tats and fake body parts. It confuses the grim ripper.

Today become real and lets stop the hate.

From a young age I have felt that when we are born into this world, all that we will ever be, our future our loves and our pain. our destiny is given to us in what else, a brown paper bag. Growing up I would reach into my bag and search for the words, the expressions or the key to use to help me in the question in front of me that need an answer. In it I found the courage to ask for help or guidance from my parents , close friend or member of the clergy. My first step was always to reach into my paper bag and seek the answer.

As the years have come and gone, I have added much more into my paper bag than I took out. Lessons of life were added into my bag for use at another time or to be used in combination with other bits of life stored there. My window looking out from inside of me through eyes dimming by time has caused me to write this piece. I want to share from my bag some of the hardships that I have had to endure by the simple act of being the color of a brown paper bag.

Very early in life I made a habit of not taking everything a face value until I thought the lesson worthy of going into my little bag of life lessons. As I got got knocked around a bit by a society that in fact “does” judge by the color of ones skin my bag had to grow larger to accommodate lessons learned.

You humans reading this, limited by having to think of every motion you make, every word your speak and analyze each view that comes to you via the one way vision your eyes, have little time left to look at the big picture. One way vision makes you have mirrors on your face instead of windows like I do. You use these mirrors to reflect visions that you fail to recognize or don’t want to bother with. You use it as part of the mask that hides your soul. My eyes are windows. Windows that not only look out but allow the universe to look into my soul.

I will try to t have you catch a glimpse of what rolls under, onto or over my lily pad. What I sense and thus see on the web of life that has been hidden from you. Each and every heartbeat in you, day and night, is the Gift to allow you to open your heart to His wonder. When you a shooting star going across the sky, I see a Guardian Angel rushing to cradle a child in need. They reside out there in the openness of what to humans is empty but to us in touch know is a very chaotic place. The pace set by the Master pulling on the fragile web of life keeps us all on edge all the time. If you could look into me eyes and see what I see. Feel the tug on the fabric calling for action, you would slow down and hands clasped together to offer thanks for that last heartbeat. And the next one coming now.

Words put down for you as they drift onto my field of senses. The vision, the smell the soft breeze on my skin. All link together to give reason to live and an call to let you know what you miss by having misplaced priorities.

The population of this country is under attack from crime. Arizona is not alone in being a victim of crime. Where they have gone wrong is making it seem by this misguided law that the crimes of kidnapping, home invasion and gun running is the exclusive domain of the illegal Mexican. They have pointed the finger at the easy target that will stir the emotions of their fellow citizens. ( I feel it is for political gain, nothing to do with protecting the populace). What they fail to stop and think about is that the above mentioned crimes are for the most part Mexican against Mexican. Not Mexican against US citizen. The crimes highlighted are nothing more than predators chasing their prey across the border. These people are after money and power. Nothing else. The people they themselves bring here as coyotes and for large sums of money are nothing more than modern day slaves and very lucrative business. So far the crime has not touched a US citizen. Along with the human element. is the pursuit of the exploding market to feed this countries drug habit. Again the people that buy the drugs are asking for the best deal to feed their need and the Mexican cartels provide them what they need. Again. no law abiding US citizen is affected. The users have the money. The drug cartels have the product. If these same people were to bring Mexican gasoline in to sell for $.25 a gallon would the same uproar be going on?

When crime first comes into the picture it is not from the day workers and the dish washers. It is from our home grown drug users that once hooked on drugs have to commit crimes against US citizens to pay for their habit. What they steal goes to their neighborhood fence (read you and I that buy stolen goods) or the local pawn shop. The money then winds up in the hands of the drug pusher and on back through the hands of the citizens here that make their living from the drug trade.The gun dealers. Do you really think that a junkie would make the trip here from Mexico so they could become drug users to support their habit? They could just stay home and get drugs right from their local suppliers. The Mexicans coming here come here to work. The ones that are here for crime are working for the cartels and their business contacts here in the states. They do their business in the shadows. For the most part unseen. They do not want to come here for the simple reason that they would have to work. The easy money is in drugs and the drugs are in Mexico. The ones that come here on a regular basis are working their market. The US drug user.

Since law enforcement goes after easy targets at the local level, that leaves the dish washer, day worker and maid as targets. The laws are written so that you can not put up sheet rock if you are not a US citizen. Or clean the toilets in a building unless you have a social security card. We have US workers that want these jobs and we as a country have the social security system to provide for legal roofers and lawn workers. Why not make laws that you have to have a social security card to become a drug user and criminal? Since people need an easy target to pick on, we the Mexican, legal or not, US citizen or not, have been grouped into the same group as human traffickers, home invaders, gun runners and what ever criminal element is on the menu today. The line has blurred between the criminals and the workers trying to survive but the target is one and the same.

In Arizona it looks like Mexican is on the menu.