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Resolutions
It’s been five days since the New Year. All those resolutions - are they still on the list? Have you changed your ways? Have you tossed that ice cream? Are you saving something for the future? Are you riding that bicycle you bought to put in your living room, promising you’d ride it daily, or at least copying exercises on your cell or TV determined to lose a few pounds or kilos as you promised to kick out social media - stopped Facebook or Snapchat, YouTube or TikTok - have you moved them from your addiction?
 How can we start anew - how can we re-start a marriage, a romance, a challenge in sports, an intense daily duty toward exercise or yoga, or start saving money for dream trips, or just keeping records of your expenses and spending more on vegetables than Reese’s Cups and McDonalds? Can you turn from envy and greed to generosity and begin donating to good causes like St. Jude or Mifa and the Food Bank or St. Jude and any place that gives shelter to the homeless or the drug addicts who have no resolve, or just handing a dollar or five dollars or ten dollars to a man on the street who begs for help, even if that help goes to another bottle of whiskey? What about children - those in Foster Care. Could you squeeze in a child or two into your family and give that abandoned or abused child a chance to know what love is and how to survive in this violent and greedy world?
A new year. Businesses are crawling out from under masks, from darkness into light. From fighting against faith and church, to stepping in and giving God a chance in a church or temple or mosque near you. Knowing and better trusting God can revolutionize one’s life, which might have been destroyed by violence, hatred, failure, disappointment, greed, abuse, death and being left on the street or sold to the highest bidder. And the Football Team that gave you hope crashed and didn’t make it to the Super Bowl. The evil that winds in and out of life like a thick cloud can destroy children’s opportunities to make it in this life, be it through violence, or insults, or greed or hanging on the wrong street corner, and parents or guardians give up and screams at them so much to get children the out of the way, that they cannot believe in anything and run away.
It always makes tears in my eyes when I watch sports figures who in terrible circumstances had a parent or relative who gave them all the opportunity or help to rise out of the muck and misery and be the star, they had the potential to be. Just a little bit helps. A lot of bits can make a big success in a youth’s rotten upbringing. So never give up. Someone out there will make a difference so your new year’s arrival can also be your first big hope to have the life God wants you to have, and to scrape off all the memories of the bad things that you or some youth had experienced as a child, and sigh as you fall into the arms of God through people who care.
Why not get involved with making a difference on this earth? Climate disaster is big time and most people don’t want to believe it is in trouble, because they don’t want to give up running water in the sink, or using more electricity than you need, and that cellphone which occupies your life, your soul, and your mind, so that really you can forget everything because the cell will tell you what to do and what is, if you can remember your code.
Don’t let water disappear, not just in this rich nation, but in the poverty of so many places in Africa and India and some parts of South America. Don’t abuse the freedom and now expensive need for gas for the car. There are so many cars that the air is polluted. In Uruguay for decades there were few cars, mostly German made and a couple of Americans - but when China came in, with an intention I’m sure to get some sort of control in Uruguay and other South American countries, like they have done in Africa, and taught them how to invest in the quick growing Eucalyptus trees (they can be cut down in 7-8 years and are shaved to provide pulp for paper), and also brought in cheap cars - cars had been extremely expensive - $30,000 and up in a time when one couldn’t pay by the month so most people only had one car or no car and rode in taxis and buses. China brought in its cheap cars that last a short number of years and are for sale for $15,000 - so everyone who ever wanted a car, has one, even though many don’t know how to drive and still have no driver’s license. It’s a mess and traffic on the narrow streets where both sides of the street are lined with parked cars - those new ones as well as old ones- Note: no one ever throws a way a car in Uruguay - so that only one car can pass down it at a time. Buildings are built right on the sidewalks so there is no hope of widening. Yet the buses in UY are the latest and greatest and in general must stay on the principal streets which are usually bumper to bumper cars and taxis.
People in Uruguay used to walk a lot which was so healthy. The long Rambla which borders the Atlantic Ocean and knocks into the Rio d La Plata which empties into the ocean has been a walking and running place since time began. The beaches right at the toes of the city are perfect. Parking is a mess, always was, because there are no parking lots in the downtown area, and so one parks on the Rambla and walks a bunch of blocks to their offices. That’s healthy. We all need to get out and walk and walk and deep breath fresh air that one finds on the beaches and rivers. Inhale fresh air, exhale energy.
All these things can make 2022 a better year - that and getting vaccinated and wearing masks in crowds. Our health depends on your health and when everyone agrees, then wonderful progress can be made and friendships join to enjoy life together and to cheer for your favorite soccer or football or basketball team and fight, instead over who should have won that didn’t win. That is back to normal. Trust the police and sheriffs and our military. They risk their lives for us every day and night. They may make errors, like any human, but we need them. Go to church on Sundays and give thanks to your favorite saint or Virgin Mary that you have survived all the horrors of the past couple of years. And pray that the abuse that has been exposed in churches is eliminated as we all must be vigilant when it’s about our children. And let’s bring this year back to normal and toss out the political that has tried to destroy us.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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