Random Thoughts

I want to thank all of you who follow my blog. As you can see my posting is falling off in frequency. I could make ’excuses’, but the fact of the matter is that my ambition and time slip away very quickly. Due to the minor detail that I have lost almost a month of productive work in the woodshop, I am now way behind where I should be on projects. That however, is not really an excuse since I barely have the energy to work 5 hours or so each day and this only by forcing one foot in front of the other. For the most part I save my energy for the one day a week that I grade lumber, when I have no choice but to exert all my strength to get that job done.

I have also been spending some time thinking about the direction I want to take this blog in. One thing seems clear to me; if I don’t write about subjects that really interest me, then having a blog called “Ernie’s World” is rather misleading. It might seem that a common working person’s world would be rather dull, but the truth is, for every individual, their world is very important to “them”. In school they taught us, that when writing an essay or such, one should never use “I”, supposedly this was taboo to proper writing. But to borrow a thought from Henry Thoreau, he said, he would not use the personal pronoun “I” so often, except it was the only way he knew to express that it was “him” making the statement or opinion. (Or something to that effect, that is not a direct quote.)

There are many subjects and opinions that I am bound to touch upon while expressing myself on matters that are important to me. I find a couple of themes that constantly come to the forefront of my mind when I sit down to make a post. One, since we are in an election year, I can’t help but express my very strong feelings about how this should go. It is unavoidable that those opinions are going to offend “someone”, which is not my wish at all, however, how can it be avoided? Everyone has heard the old saying, that the two subjects that should be avoided to “remain polite” is religion and politics. I heard a “Dr. of Theology” one time that made the statement that people avoid religious discussions because the don’t care about it. In my experience, that is not the case. The only reason people avoid politics and religion is because they don’t want the “heated emotions” that come from the discussion. “Heated emotions” do not come from a passive subject, but rather from a subject that we take very seriously and hold dearly. This is why religion and politics are prone to get the “blood pressure” raising.

The fact of the matter is that religion and politics are going to affect everything we do, believe and practice. So it does not seem unreasonable to me that I express my opinions on either subject. There can be no mistake that the state of the U.S. economy and our foreign affairs will have something to do with the welfare of each and everyone of us. We might not acknowledge that in an attempt to ignore all the controversy and conflict, but don’t make the mistake in thinking that it has nothing to do with “you”.

It might be true that there is not much, if anything, we can do to influence the outcome of elections, but at least we can inform ourselves as best we can concerning the politicians involved and make some kind of decision and vote for who we think will be the best person for the job. Setting aside the fact that most of us will have little or no ’vote’, in who our particular political party puts on the ballot in November. My thinking is that I can vote for the lesser of “evils” and hope for the best, realizing the ultimately God is in control of nations and knows what he is doing, whether I understand it or like what I am seeing taking place.

The other subject that is constantly in my mind, as it has become a ‘way of life’ for my family, is the ideal of “Simple Living” and how best to live in a manner that attempts to avoid a lot of the “stress” associated with modern life. These two subjects, politics and simple living will be the things I find most interesting to write on. I could easily get started on religion and faith, but if I go there I think it will be necessary to start another blog just for that subject. I have mostly avoided doing that for several reasons, mainly I don’t get the time to faithfully post on this blog, how could I keep two blogs going with very limited writing time? In addition to that, there is a lot of blogs dedicated to Christianity and faith already and I am not sure that I could add a great deal of useful thoughts to the subject.

As I am writing this, the morning is slipping away and the shop is almost warm enough to begin work. By the time I finish up my day there I will not have the energy left to think straight, so I write this before getting my day started and will post it this evening.

I see it is also snowing outside my window, but I don’t think it will amount to anything that will require my snowplow, that is my hope anyway.