This morning I spent some quality time with one of my client/customers over breakfast at one of my not so favorite eateries. The food they serve is OK, but I really don’t like their coffee, and they don’t offer real cream or half and half so to help kill its taste, but instead they only offer those nasty little personal creamer cups. Yuck!
We had a very good chat about world events, happenings in our Country and State, and lastly, the most recent events here in our City. Having just read another article written by one of our so-called journalists who I believe is also a purveyor of one-sided, and sometimes downright “fake” news. I couldn’t believe he referred to something said by a businessperson as being a “demonization”.
Wow! Now that was pretty raw if you ask me. Since I do try to follow area news, I couldn’t believe he said that. Just because someone speaks the truth about a given situation, it then calls for that person to be branded as a demonizer only because a truth was illuminated. Sounds like tabloid tripe if you ask me. Reading some of this nonsense that gets published in North Iowa is just another reminder that we live in a bloated village where socio-economic groups quietly promote their own forms of tribalism.
Before we headed our separate ways, I handed off my client/customer clipped, pasted, and printed section of an email I received from a very “together” woman who took the time to write freely and openly about what she believes are the best avenues for our City to take as far as promoting businesses in our Historic Downtown along with things we can do as a community to attract more companies to relocate here so to give upwardly moving people an incentive to make Mason City and North Iowa their home. I will be writing her very soon while saying she needs to move here quickly and get this City back on track.
Since I had some free time later this afternoon, I decided to make a longer than normal trip to an area church and attend one of their services which I’d not attended for several months. Having taken the long way there, I found myself driving towards a charming rural church. I stopped at a distance and snapped the above photo.
Whenever seeing a rural church out in the middle of nowhere, thoughts begin to come filtering from within. Just think how close knit those families have been since the time it was built, and their inter-connected faiths that actually lived, breathed, and likely surrounded them for decades. Someday I’m going to do a little interviewing of people who belong to those rural churches just so to confirm my suspicions as to why their communities are still alive and well in the midst of our fast-paced digital age where all the more of our young want to be “entertained” while in attendance of their own newly-found external inspirations of their personal faith.
Don’t you think after the end of the day while pondering the vastness of unknowns that’s surrounding us on a daily basis, we’re finally resigned to say to ourselves, “Aren’t all we like sheep when it comes to understanding the essence of faith along with understanding the workings of our universe?” Do have a mindfully pleasant evening.
