Author: Bev

I think we all have words we don’t like.  Many people don’t like swear words or crass words.  It’s understandable that people don’t like these messy words.

But other words bug us for specific reasons.  My friend and I were impressionable teenagers working in the big city.  Our bosses were older, more sophisticated and worldly and they taught us stuff.

My friend’s boss didn’t like the word, hot.  He said to never use the word, instead say something like, “it’s exceptionally warm today.”  I still avoid the word hot to describe very warm weather.

My father-in-law didn’t like the word, nice.  “What’s nice?” he used to say.

A friend used to hate the word crap; she thought it was ugly.  Some people don’t like the general use of the word hate, thinking it’s too harsh a word to be bantered about so freely.

The children’s book, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” written in 1972 by Judith Viorst must have affected my husband.  He doesn’t love the words terrible, horrible and awful, thinking they’re exaggerations of a milder reality.  This is a man always willing to offer the benefit of the doubt, even to the context of a day.

By now, you’re probably rattling around in your head, the word(s) that you don’t like.  You’re welcome.

Okay, I’m sure you’re hankering to hear the word I don’t like, right?  Well, that word is deserve.  Honestly, I’m not alone.

According to the United States Declaration of Independence, every human being has a right to, or deserves “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  That’s it, nothing more detailed or nuanced than that.

I’m not sure that one can deserve any of the specifics as to how those rights are achieved: especially over and above anybody else in line.  We all deserve the same access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s no mistake that the Declaration of Independence is an historical document from a democracy – not really, more so a republic, and a capitalist society, probably more specifically a meritocracy.  It’s all about the pursuit.

To deserve is to claim reward, punishment, recompense because of one’s actions, situation, qualities.  It’s a determination of worth.

I wonder if I’m embarking upon a slippery slope from capitalism and democracy toward socialism with the concept of human worth, value, and recognition.  Can we all have the same worth in a meritocracy?

Is the Declaration of Independence a pipe dream?  Is it possible in a democracy to all have the same access to the pursuit of happiness, if that pursuit is based on attainment of wealth and recognition.  What’s fair about equality?

Deserved, today seems to be more random entitlement based on qualities given to you such as race and gender.  In the old days you deserved what you got through mainly hard work, achievement, studied accomplishment, diligence and persistence and a lot of waiting,

Surely, I’m worth more because I work harder.  I deserve more money, stuff, recognition because of my value to society.  I deserve to be seen, heard, known because I’ve earned it.

We don’t deserve everything we get, good or bad.  Not everything is cause and effect or even correlated/related.

Some stuff just happens randomly, and people clamor to find a cause, a reason or explanation for it.  Stop.  It didn’t happen for a reason, it just happened.  There is no because, about it.  It is what it is.  Full stop.

How does one deserve?  If it’s an exclusive right, only I deserve, only I’m worthy, then it isn’t what those rights from the Declaration of Independence speak to.

Am I owed something over and above another – why me and not them?  Deserve implies worth and value.

For me, worth and worthy are just as repugnant as equal versus equitable.  You just can’t put a price on a human life – as in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Trying to bring likeness to difference is an exercise in futility.

“I deserve to be rewarded for…”  Why?  “I deserve to get…”  What for?  “They deserve everything they got…”  Because?  “If anybody deserves it, they do…”

Does the janitor or housekeeper in the stadium deserve a million-dollar salary and the ball player or entertainer deserve minimum wage?  It seems an oxymoron that worth can’t be monetized.

A sports figure, actor or musician works no harder for their millions than a highway engineer or cafeteria cook, making an average wage.  You just can’t establish an equality of worth.  Nor is it equitable to try to bring equality to these vast disparities of financial or social value given to human beings.

Did you know that the Latin roots of the word deserve are to devote oneself to the service of, to serve.  The President of the United States is elected to serve the people of this country.  Their salary is well below even the annual bonus of most CEOs of major corporations.  Why?  Because they are servants.

On our ballots, we should ask ourselves, does this person deserve to be President of the United States?  Does he or she have the spirit and qualification to serve?  It’s a most subjective decision based upon a most subjective word, deserve.

Media influence in twenty-first century America is ubiquitous.  Everywhere you turn somebody’s opinion is blaring in your face.

People’s opinions are expressed through music and books, art and movies.  Opinions are certainly expressed in an internet news feed or any form of “talk” show on television, radio, print, or even from a lowly columnist.

Most of us don’t dig deeper than the sound bite that we’re spoon-fed.  We see a headline and run with it.  We form our opinions from someone else’s great sounding opinion.

The Apostle Paul said to his protégé, Timothy, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what they’re itching ears want to hear.”  Oh wowzah, has that time come?

Mark Twain said, “it’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.”  It seems that we should be careful believing what “they” say.  Because “they” can be wrong, lied to, misled, misinformed, manipulated, or all manner of cajoled, and pass that junk along to anyone who will listen.

I’ve been reading a book about extremism in religion and politics.  It’s sort of an exercise in torture for this political and social moderate.  When I grew up, there were about four topics which we were counseled never to bring up in polite conversation: religion, politics, money, and sex.

Why were  these topics taboo?  Because they’re divisive.  People tend to take up extreme views on these topics and attitudes become heightened.  Middle ground disappears into the abyss and people dig in their heels.

Our culture is effectively evenly divided in our social, religious, political, sexual, and fiscal opinions.  And the two groups who are so evenly divided, are influenced by a few, loud for their numbers, extremists on their side of the table.

It’s quite possible, I think, that many people rely on leaders and influencers to do the heavy lifting of discernment on their behalf.  The Word of God is said to “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

I don’t know if there has ever been a time when we’ve needed wisdom and discernment, more than now.  Personal “Enlightenment” is needed, please.  But how do you cultivate, or develop, or otherwise get discernment?

Discernment is the skill to make clear distinctions between such fine lines as truth, knowledge, understanding, facts, and similar information.  To sense what lies behind someone’s words and actions, as well as to see beyond the obvious, is a big part of the ability to discern.

There is truth and error; right and wrong, but discernment helps one to sift out all the stuff in between those polarities.  For example, many people lie from time to time, some people more often than others.  But a person of discernment, tries to discover where the lies are coming from; what’s hidden in the depths?

Like trying to acquire something valuable, it takes time and patience to cultivate discernment.  It’s no quick fix.

However, in a culture where immediacy is normative, waiting for a virtue to develop is anathema to the acquisition of it.  I’m reminded of a scene in a movie where a sassy female character is elicited to say “please” like you do with a young child in training, as in “what do you say,” but she didn’t say “please,” she said “now.”

You can’t get discernment without waiting for it.  Discernment is like stew; to get it right, you can’t hurry it.  It has to simmer.

Discernment comes, maybe not so much with age, but experience.  You have to go through some stuff to gain experience.

Discernment might be a gift, as it is mentioned in Scripture, but it doesn’t seem to be given without some prerequisites.  And the prerequisites aren’t fluff.  We’re talking Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering, versus The Relevance of John Wayne Movies.

Can one even learn to discern?  I don’t know, but I think it’s quite possible that discernment is a gift, much like a singing voice, a sports talent, or cooking gene.  These talents and gifts can be cultivated, but I just don’t know if they can be learned, from scratch, so to speak.

If these hunches are remotely true, we should all be praying for people with the gift of discernment, the gift of wisdom and impeccable judgment, to rise up into positions of leadership in America.  We need unity to complement our diversity.  We need intellectually sober, reason-based thinking instead of “follow-the-leader” banality.

We need peace instead of the incitement of civil war.  Saint Paul said to the Romans, “if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”  As far as it depends on you reminds me of “I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything but I can do something,” spoken wisely by Edward Hale.

We may not all have the gift of discernment or wisdom.  However, especially in these tumultuous times, who of us cannot pray?

I saw a poignant saying recently on social media, which sparked a memory.  It was, “You’re going to need oil in your lamp.  It’s getting dark out there.”

Instantly I remembered a really singable song from my youth church days.  Either it was from church camp or it was from one of those spiritually invigorating evening services intended to awaken a sleepy church.

The chorus I recall went like this, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning; give me oil in my lamp, I pray.  Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, keep me burning ‘til the break of day.”  The song was really catchy, as I guess it was supposed to be (E. Sevison, Lyricist).

About oil, there are all kinds of it.  Oil can be used to grease up a gear or other mechanism that has become stuck in its working.  Oil rejuvenates our joints or anything else in or on our bodies that has lost or worn out its flexibility or natural pliability.

Oil is a vital source of fuel, which powers our bodies and our human-made society.  Fossil fuel, can you say dinosaurs, plant fuel, from corn, other grains, vegetables, flowers and what have you, come from the earth around us.  We need to just tend it, and harvest it.

It’s harvest time, people.  I know in rural America; we celebrate the seasons.  Often those celebrations highlight plants or fruits as symbols of the season.  In the autumn we see a proliferation around the countryside of rich and earthy-colored pumpkins and other gourds, corn stalks, bales of hay, apples, and deep and darkly saturated colors in chrysanthemums.

It’s getting darker by the minute, it seems, as the days of autumn progress.  Daylight is dwindling and our moods grow slightly more somber to match the darker days.

We wear more black, brown, and earth colors, in the fall.  Gone, is the rule to stop wearing white after Labor Day, but aside from a bit of “winter white,” white or other light and pastel colors just don’t speak for our frame of mind this time of year.

We definitely need oil in our lamps to keep us going until the break of day, or spring daybreak as it seems.  So not only literal darkness is coming in increments of a minute or more a day, so is cultural darkness.

Speaking of cultural darkness, I don’t understand quite why we must maintain the cultural construct of Daylight Savings Time.  You know, the “fall-back, spring-forward” clock changing ritual that we follow in most of the United States.

I honestly don’t get it, as an east coast person, why when it gets dark at six o’clock in the evening the way our clocks are set now, we have to set them artificially back an hour making it dark at five o’clock!  Do you know what that means to older people?

We have to fight to stay awake until eight o’clock in the evening, eight o’clock!  I was used to setting out for a walk at seven in the evening, but very soon, my slippers and robe will be beckoning me at seven-thirty.

Humans created Daylight Savings Time.  Why do we have such a hard time changing it back?  It’s just too sensible, I guess.  A few years ago, someone in Congress offered a bill to do just that.  It was tabled by someone out west, I think.  Oh, my heavens, we can’t even agree on what time it is.

Why such darkening?  Some say it’s a spiritual thing.  Others claim it’s totally a human construct, quite by accident or inattention.  Yet others believe it’s a conscious effect of intention, for whatever reason.

At any rate, we need oil in our lamps folks.  We need light for the path ahead.  We need fuel to power the way forward.  How we obtain this oil is a matter of contention, and by nature, refining it is not a pretty process.

We don’t all agree about how to proceed in the darkness.  We agree that it’s getting darker and we need light, but now what?

It’s of little point to fuss over how we got here or why it’s dark.  The fuss begins, however, with specifically what to do now.

We’ve used up our oil.  Forgive us for spilling the oil given to us.  Show us how to refuel without retribution, remorse or regret.

None of us is wise enough to know how to refuel a nation stuck in division.  But I am wise enough to know the only way to unstick the mechanism that is America, is some pretty fragrant and potent oil.

All I can plead is, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…. keep me burning ’til the break of day.”  Sooner, rather than later, please.

 

The song lyric, “ground control to major Tom,” comes readily to mind when I think of control.   So does the hymn lyric, “I surrender all.”  As does the Serenity Prayer.  I’m guessing even though all these reminders should help us to stop trying to control every little thing in our lives, we stubbornly persist in the habit of it.

In 1969, David Bowie wrote “Space Oddity,” which is maybe about surrendering control by cutting off communication with ground control.  A constant barrage of suggestions, information, this opinion and that one, orders from the boss, pretty pictures of pretty people and pretty things, tempt most of us to unplug the communications.

“Space Oddity” starts out with the quote from above and further on it says “this is Major Tom to ground control….  For here am I sittin’ in my tin can far above the world, planet earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do.”  It might feel okay to unplug and let go.

There are all kinds of control but the prominent kind in my mind, is basic restraint.  Either we’re being restrained beyond our will (controlled), being restrained for our safety (under control), or exercising self-restraint for the purpose of discipline and the building of character.  One of the biblical fruits of the Spirit, is the virtue of (self-control).

Recently I had an opportunity to spend some time at “the beach.”  Watching the ebb and flow of the waves, tides, and water, was educational for this observer.  It was easy to accept that I had zero control over the powerful process of the ocean’s movements.

On social media I shared a short video of what seemed like layer upon layer of gray and white and tan from the sky to the ocean, its waves, and sand.  The robust waves tumbled one after the other toward the beach in one of the most controlled examples of power, imaginable.

The sound of water is soothing, when it’s controlled.  Two of the basic elements of life, air and water, under control, dominate white noise machines and can soothe our busy minds and help us to relax or fall asleep with greater ease.

When the noise of life with its constant barrage of communication, in whatever form, gets to be too much, I think we need something larger than life to settle us down.  Few humans, like “Major Tom,” get to go to space to get some space from the noise of life.  We need to listen to an ocean, a river, a stream or fountain.  Or go to a quiet aquarium, if you must.

We may need to putter in, walk through, and look at a garden, a forest, an arboretum.  We should probably smell some flowers, observe the grandeur of trees that tower above us, look at clouds and the entire expanse of the sky.

People need people but we need more than people, society, politics, problems, business, commerce.  I think we need to get off the highway from time to time, and walk the path, for respite and perspective.

It’s so easy to get bogged down in controlling one snippet after another snippet of procuring the food and finances of our daily lives.  I wonder if once in a while we need to glimpse an ocean or vast canyon or giant forest – stuff that is obviously beyond our control, to bring us back to peace.

The Serenity Prayer is essentially about humans accepting limits to our capacity to control what happens.  We can do something about some things.  We need wisdom, however, to know when and under what circumstances, to accept the things we cannot control; when to let go.

It should be a universal goal for us to learn to discern between what is an ocean and what is a pool, among the circumstances we face in life.  One is there to teach us to calm down, stop trying so hard against the tide, and dwell in peace at the vastness of it.  The other is to show us that we’re capable of navigating it even if it’s dicey, sketchy, deep, or muddy.

Some of us, maybe more than others, have trouble regulating our internal control mechanism in response to the external stimuli of life.  We do better with some sort of outside controls in place to even out the ups and downs and prevent the spread of an undesirable outcome.  Parents, friends, spouses, or employers can fill this role.

When personal control exceeds its boundaries, it’s a problem.  For example, when you’ve controlled your own environment and then succumb to the temptation to control the environment of others, you need to let go.  If you’re judging what is best, good, or right about somebody else’s behavior or lifestyle, you’d better step back and stick to your own corner of the universe.

Jennifer DeWeil said, “Control is the enemy of rest…. When things feel out of control, our tendency is to hold tighter, grip harder, or work more.”  I say, stop trying.  It’s exhausting. 

I once had a relative at risk for dehydration and all manner of unseemly repercussions from such dehydration.  She didn’t drink enough water.  We practically begged her to drink more water.  We’d place a glass of water in front of her and ask her respectfully to drink it.  She often said, “I’m trying.”  To us, it seemed simple, “don’t try to drink it.  Just drink it.”

Let the power and peace of the ocean have its way with you.  We can’t restrain it anyway, so we might as well let it go.

“Sweet dreams are made of this.  I travel the world and the seven seas.  Everybody’s looking for something….”  So said Annie Lennox (David Allan Stewart), the Eurythmics, a few years ago (1983).

All the song lyric experts have varied opinions about what those lyrics mean, and I don’t know for certain, but I think it’s a bit of dream interpretation.  We literally travel the world in some of our more fanciful and sweet dreams.  Lennox goes on to refer to some of the more negative dreams where people are using us, and some of the other anxieties of life, but sweet dreams reflect the best of our emotional life.

Don’t you love it, though, when you have a dream that makes you smile, feel encouraged, appreciated, cared for, and hopeful?  Those are the sweet dreams.  The origin of the word, dreams, dates from 1200-1250, meaning “joy, mirth, gladness.” Hm

Hopes and dreams seem tied together.  What is it about dreams that make hope their most prominent buddy?

There are a couple of definitions for “dreams.”  One has to do with a fanciful or concocted scenario of the future.  It’s a hopeful but largely unreal vision of excellence in your life.  This is the concept of dreams that Roy Orbison sang about, in the first part of Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream), in 1962 (Cindy Walker, songwriter).  “Dream baby got me dreamin’ sweet dreams the whole day through.”  

The other definition of dreams, has to do with a mental activity, usually in the form of an imagined series of events, occurring during certain phases of sleep.  This type of dream is what Orbison meant with the lyrics in the second part of Dream Baby, “Dream baby got me dreamin’ sweet dreams in nighttime too….”

I wonder how these two different definitions of dreams are related.  I think perhaps the common denominator of both types of dreams is, hope.  Thusly, the reference to “sweet dreams.”

Why do we pray for sweet dreams?  From Proverbs 3 – “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.”

When we wish someone “sweet dreams,” it’s a blessing.  In my opinion, pronouncing “sweet dreams” to someone, punctuates their day with a perfect period.

My writing is a case of recording what happens to be going on currently in my head rather than some crafted work of creative writing.  I think my dreams are similar.  Are dreams just simply dramatically-set spill-over from waking life?

Dreams, in my view, aren’t some executive producer’s concocted symbolism, meant to express a deep concept.  Yet that’s how we’re supposed to interpret them, according to some dream experts.

Dreams truly are movies which are made up of symbols for feelings.  So, the bottom line of a movie or show isn’t so much that the girl gets the guy or the cop gets the perp or the soldier wins the war.

Rather it’s that good overcomes evil, love conquers fear, the turtle wins the race, the beaten-down rise up, and hope can’t be suppressed forever.

In this sense, dreams are movies and we are executive producers, who sometimes really deserve an Oscar for our dream content.  Dream symbols may reveal emotional material which we aren’t ready to confront readily or just yet, in our waking life.  Quite possibly, dreams are meant to ease us into a reality that’s brewing beneath the surface.

Some dreams are subtle, others are obvious.  Once in a while a dream is so memorable that we’re startled by it and remember it easily upon awakening.  It’s usually the shocking, absurd or scary dreams that we wake from and have to tell someone about.  But we “forget” most of our daily dreams.

So, cheers to getting your anxieties or conflicting emotions out in a few confusing dreams.  But most of your dreams, I hope reflect the best of your emotional life, spilling out in the sweetest of dreams.

Some sayings resonate with you and others don’t.  “Everything happens for a reason,” doesn’t.  “You do you,” does.

There’s something about “everything happens for a reason,” that doesn’t work for me.  It just feels like a desperate attempt to explain the inexplicable.

Of course there is a reason for everything, but we aren’t always privy to that reason.  Sometimes it’s just not worth banging your head against the wall trying to find answers to the question “why.”

I’ve lived long enough to realize that I can live a lot longer accepting some mystery in life.  I don’t have to know or understand everything.  Also, I don’t ask “why” nearly as often these days as I used to.  I’ve learned to live with a measure of acceptance of stuff I just cannot control.

I keep a note paper on my office desk, a saying attributed to Laura Jean Truman.  It serves as a reminder, which I don’t always heed, that I am not God and I don’t have super-human ability to control everything that I want to.  “You can’t heal people you love.  You can’t make choices for them.  You can’t rescue them.  You can promise that they won’t journey alone.  You can loan them your map.  But this trip is theirs.”

In fact, “it is what it is,” is another oft heard saying that suits me.  Michael J Fox said that “acceptance doesn’t mean resignation but the understanding that something is what it is and there’s got to be a way through it.”  Now that makes sense to me.

I’m a believer in a Christian notion that God doesn’t just whisk believers out of hard or impossible circumstances because we’re His children or His friends.  I’ve tested that theory more than a few times in life.

Instead, God has our backs through hard times, never leaving nor forsaking us.  It’s way cool to have a “friend” in high places, to know someone.

I really like the permission that “you do you,” gives us to live our lives the best way that we see fit.  The concept reflects a commitment to keep your judgments to yourself.  You’re telling everybody whom you encounter to “be yourself,” “you do you.”

In terms of self-permission to be yourself, do you always know who “you” are?  Early in the Spring, I took some notes which I titled, “You Who?”  I was in a position to seek a diagnosis for a small myriad of surprise maladies.

It felt somewhat like, if you’re old enough you will get the reference to dwelling in “The Twilight Zone.”  It feels like I turned around in a fairy-tale, fog kind of thing, and I’m like this.

The advice, “you do you,” is hard to follow when you don’t yet recognize you in this manifestation of you.  Along the way, you deal with doctors, and you pass people who buck the health care system to forge an alternative path.  But the thing is, none of this is you.

You feel slightly desperate to find answers to questions you don’t know who to ask.  You think, “this is not cancer, stop winching about every little thing.”  You might sound like a freaking, raving, lunatic, who is not you.  Who are you?

I’ve made a decision to be myself in a fluid kind of way.  I’m trying to stay receptive to the point of view of others yet keep my own counsel, so to speak.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.  Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.  A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages…”  In other words, you be you, and don’t wholly depend upon the experts who wish to guide your life from without.

Nobody knows you like you do.  The Scripture in I Corinthians 2, verse 11 confirms this, “For what person knows the thoughts and motives of a man except the man’s spirit within him?”

So, even when all manner of mysterious happenings hover over your life, take heart to know that not only are you not alone, but you can trust yourself.  You be you and hang in there until another manifestation of you emerges from within and do that you.

Have you ever fallen for a scam?  The word, scam came from U.S. carnival slang and was first used in 1958.  I guess prior to that date people were honest?

A scam is a dressed-up trick or sleight of hand, designed to look real.  It’s fraud, plain and simple and designed entirely to make money off of the unsuspecting. 

I grew up hearing synonyms of the scam as being rooked, gipped, shortchanged, or conned.  It all has to do with money, more specifically taking yours through fraudulent means.

What about spam?  The word, spam in its popular use is from a Monty Python sketch in which the canned pork product was referenced as being everywhere, unavoidable, and repetitive.  So, spam in today’s parlance is junk mail or nuisance phone calls, texts or emails sent out in bulk to reach anybody who will bite.  The purpose of spam advertising is commercial, or to make money.

Spam doesn’t directly steal your money like a scam, but it steals your time.  And time is money, right?  I spend a significant amount of time in my work day, sorting emails into what’s real, what’s spam but maybe worthy of a second look, and what’s just plain nonsense.

Trying to unsubscribe from certain spam emails, and don’t get me started on the uselessness of the “do not call” list, is difficult if not impossible.  After all, scams are meant to trap you into giving information or purchasing something that you did not initiate.  They are called a “come-on.”

Earning money, making a living, selling and buying, are all legitimate commercial and social endeavors which fuel a capitalistic economy.  We all benefit from money.

An oft misquoted Scripture is from Paul to his mentee, Timothy, about the love of money.  Based on this Scripture, people frequently say that money is the root of all evil.

As in the one little letter of difference between the words, spam and scam, Paul warned Timothy that money is not the root of all evil, but the love of money that is at the core of much that is evil in the world.  One word in a sentence can change the whole meaning of the stated idea.  This is the case with the I Timothy 6:10 Scripture.

What is the love of money?  The fancy word for it is pleonexia, “the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.”  It’s greed; wanting money more than you want God, or people, or goodness or kindness, etc.

Before you quickly cast stones toward the rich, the relatively poor are equally capable of loving money as those who are relatively rich.  I’m reminded of John D. Rockefeller, at one time one of the richest men in the world, who answered the question, “when would you consider that you have enough money,” with “one more dollar.”

In fact, lack of what one perceives as enough money, can make you hungry, even starved for more, so much so that you will do almost anything to get it.  Even people with sound moral and ethical principles, will contemplate an easy answer to offset lack.

Chasing after riches is probably at the root of much crime and lawlessness in the world.   Even legitimate businesses scam us with “just legal” practices that exploit our vulnerability.  If you need a product or service, you are at the mercy of those qualified to help.  Some of them will take advantage of your desperation.  Can you say seven hundred dollars to fix a refrigerator ice maker?

Have you ever felt like a fool for falling for it?  You’ve heard the saying, “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?”  Well, when the scammers change their tactics or tug at your heart-strings, you are never a fool, even if it’s a third, fourth or twentieth time.

Scams prey on kind-hearted people with the best of intentions to change their circumstances in some way, to  help others, or to save money.  Lost animals and lost children can sometimes be scams.  Why?  Because people care.

In commercial scams we’re usually expected to make a quick or hasty decision, with a time-limit.  Beware of free trials.  And, grandparents, get a call-back number before sending bail-money over the phone to get your grandchild out of jail.  That’s not how the real process works.

Advertising fuels our economy.  We’re all familiar with pretty images catching our eye and our attention.  We may not need or even want thus and such, but a mouth-watering picture of a steaming burger, makes you hungry for one.  An image of a family vacationing on a yacht makes you really hanker for a vacation on the water, even if you get seasick on a pond.

So, are most ads scams?  I guess one might say yes considering they use perfect models who could literally wear a feed-sack and look good in it, to sell you clothing that no way on earth you can pull off.  It’s in one sense a trick of the eye.  It looks great on her/him but when you try it on, not so much.  The steaming hot burger that looked oversized and delicious in the ad, comes out of your sack, flat, lukewarm and kind of sad.

I’m wondering if we can better live with spam and scams, if we’re aware of them.  It takes a certain alertness that frankly, sometimes we don’t have in the barrage of email, phone calls, and texts, that we all receive on a daily basis.

One part of me wants to unsubscribe and be rid of spam, but the practical part of me has learned to just hit delete, every day.  Stay alert out there and polish your scam-guard.