Dying Uncared For.

We heard quite a bit this week re Boris Johnson demanding £100 million for the NHS.  This from the man who lied about leaving the EU enabling us to spend £350 million on the NHS from the cash we send Europe.  Of course that was a lie, we get most of that back, and he is one who wishes to introduce a US style health service so he and his kind can benefit from owning the shares of these private health companies.  This lie is another of many regarding the NHS that flies about these days and while it does so people are suffering in hospitals throughout the land because of financial cuts and mismanagement.  So much so that even the bureaucrats responsible are shouting about shortage of cash and not just to line their own pockets this time.  Note that people are suffering, many indeed are dying.  Lack of staff, not helped by attitudes that arose since the EU referendum which have seen many European nurses return to the continent, people not being seen in hospital for hours due to lack of beds, doctors, nurses, sometimes they wait days, and ambulances held up at hospitals failing to attend casualties because of being unable to offload patients into the A & E.  This alongside financial cut backs that lessen the number of ambulances and staff which leads to people dying while they wait.
That is my point.  People die because of mismanagement and cutbacks, people die in hospital and in the streets, people fail to see doctors when they require one and death follows and no-one appears to care.  Life is worth little.  
This however is seen also regarding road accidents.  Compare the result when a man takes a knife and kills his neighbour, he might get a life sentence and serve 15 or so years in prison.  However a drunk/drugged or careless driver who kills someone might only get 24 months, not years.  Some indeed do not go to prison at all because the law does not allow this and no-one appears willing to change this!  
No-one is ever responsible if a patient dies, this used to be different in Scotland maybe it still is.  No-one loses their job, no-one ends up before a judge.

We have aborted nine million children since 1967 in the UK alone and while many oppose this no government is willing to change, using the feeble reason of 'a woman's choice.'  No woman has the right to kill a child and the child is not the woman, it is in her body, and this responsibility is not hers alone but also the fathers.  No decent society ought to allow such murder but we do and find excuses to continue this.  Life is cheap.  
Life is cheap and we are demeaned by these attitudes.  We care less for one another and love unimportant things more as we do so.  Individuality becomes prominent, another way of saying selfishness.  The 'rights' of one becomes more important than decent behaviour or the 'rights' of others.  We care less about our neighbours, less about whatever the 'right thing' might be, although we all know what the 'right thing' in any event actually is but fail to allow this to propel us to act, and put ourselves first.  I find I do it, don't you?  Society in general in the UK daily to do the 'right thing' in so many situations encouraged by the gutter press though there is no other kind and  dumbed down TV shows that reach for the lowest common denominator and the worship of celebrity, and you don't wish to know my opinion of most celebrities!
We need to change urgently.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

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O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion! 

One thing recent times have shown me is another look at myself. Like you I have been much influenced by many things, including other peoples opinion of me. This can of course be very encouraging. The football coach that speaks of your ability, the boss that praises your honesty and work, and admiring friends who praise your artistic or practical abilities. It can also be destructive, only today a young lass muttered "Sod of Granddad," as I passed by, and she was at least forty! Folk you question your right to life when you accidentally allow the ball past you - for the eighth time can be exceedingly wounding, and parents, teachers and family can all leave a mark on the consciousness that may never leave. This can sometimes make it difficult to know just what you are capable off, or worse still, make it difficult to convince others you can, or cannot, do certain things. Their image often clashes with your own and when you know yourself this can cause many troubles with those around you!

 Recent times have convinced me of my true ability, although there are few opportunities that offer decent money for being a lazy fat slob. There are many who encourage me in the view that this is the most suitable employment however, usually those I once worked with. I have often been swayed willingly by peoples opinions of me. I have realised recently just how many I still carry, and just how wrong they were. From their point of view there was a reason to claim I had some ability in this or that, but at depth this was misleading. Now, as time passes by, I have a much more sober estimate (a phrase never found on Auld Reekie Rants) of my abilities, other folks remain convinced of their opinion! The best way to determine whether friends, bosses, or others opinions regarding you are correct is of course to put them to the test in the real world, a world where strangers regard you in the same manner you regard them, and they soon indicate your failings, as you would theirs!  

My thoughts originated when I looked at that cat in the picture. Is this a reflection of the image we offer the world, tough and strong, while inside we are like a kitten? Or could it be that within each kitten we have the talent to be a roaring lion? Some will see us as lions even when we ourselves are curling up inside like a kitten, others note the kitten dressed with a false mane. What strange creatures we can be? I spent many years being encouraged by people, and fooled into misunderstanding much of my capabilities, I trusted much of the opinion and spent a long time attempting to be what I was not. It showed, oh how it showed, but I didn't notice! I can see it now of course, and am very glad those people who also saw this are far, far away now. 

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Do you know what I am talking about? I did when I started, but I appear to have gone off in a daze somewhere. This at least shows that teacher who slapped my legs a lot was correct when she said I was dozy. Mind you I was 37 at the time....... 

The Self

The Self is the centre of the world. That place deep within us that only we know, and sometimes that is the place we do not wish to know. Deep within our heart is a centre in which I am god! I am what counts, and I alone matter.
Now many will say that people are good at heart, that many do wonderful acts of goodness and mercy around the world, and I agree wholeheartedly. But they too share the creation within of a heart, a self, that considers that self to be the first and only.
occasionally we let it escape. When we do, the best of us can be seen for what we are. What is revealed is not nice! A vicious, deceitful, hard, uncaring, self lies in the very centre of our being.
Getting it to change is impossible.
Jesus is the only one who can change us. He died to give us a new heart, as the old one is so bad.
But obtaining that new heart, the amended self,while simple, is not easy!
Why? Because the heart does not want to die! The Self wants to rule!
No Christian who attempts to seek the best has ever found it easy!
Simple to test this. Just stand in front of Jesus and say, all that I have, all that I am, belongs to you, and mean it. If you do there will be only seconds, maybe minutes, before you realise you have taken back what you said. The Self dies hard!
DOMINUS FLEVIT. And no wonder.

Hitler, Fascist or Inadequate?

Adolf Hitler, the man who led Germany to war with the world, the most renowned fascist in history, or was he? Most accept without question his political stance, but the more I read about him the less I am impressed with his fascism. Adolf Hitler cared little for the right wing in my view. His concern was always for his view! The rightist leanings in Germany fitted quite well into these views but not from an ideological point, instead it was merely personal hate!
Adolf decided the Slavs in Austria were bad, and Adolf decided a lot of things when bumming around Vienna in his teens, and once Adolf made a decision then in his mind it was the right one and all opposition was irrelevant. Opposition which had an intellectual basis was especially unwelcome, more so if he understood it was a correct basis, he then just shouted it down.

Hitler turned down the opportunity to lead the Nazi party, work was never his strongpoint, but in the course of time he accepted the views of his people that he was the leader, and once he accepted this, he ensured it was to stay that way, by fair means or foul. For our Adolf had no political dream except his pathological hatred of the Slavs, soon to be the Bolsheviks, and his intention to attack them, on the basis of freedom for the German people.
But it was all nothing more than his inadequacy as a man that lay behind all he did. His shyness, his inability to relate to women, his weakness, his laziness, all forced him deep into his 'self.' From there he viewed the world in weakness, and in defence of this showed himself strong.
An opportunist who was quick to grab the half chance, but with no real agenda, political or otherwise, but defend his empty weak 'self.'

It is the 'Self,' the core of our being in which we live. Hitler shows us the full extent of the 'self' when it is given over to it's own way. Christians in particular ought to read about this man and see just how awful selfishness can be! We excuse ourselves when we go wrong, but in doing so the depth of our own depravity is hidden.
Adolf Hitler shows us a glimpse of the sin within us, the damage done when 'self' rules. It relfects the size of the task facing God in Christ Jesus when he died on the cross. 'He took my sin' they cry. But have little understanding of how deep and hurtful this was for the Messiah.
Jesus dies for me, how then can I live indulging so many aspects of my 'self?'