Greetings Dear Family!
Regardless what we encounter in life there is never need to allow ourselves to succumb to fright.
There is so much in life that we do not choose nor have full control over...
But in spite of this our choices can affect the degree or intensity of that which we cannot change which we and others must endure and suffer through.
None of us can make choices for our neighbor, our teachers, our parents, brothers or sisters or anyone we meet and greet along every street.
In many small towns and cities here in Louisiana and I am certain the social climate of small communities around the entire world whether in India, China, Brazil, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, or Egypt....our somewhere in the Outback of Australia...right here in the not so big United States of America...
Human nature is human nature.
I remember growing up when I was very young...in Elementary School though this did not merely apply to a particular grade or school year....
I often wondered what it would be like to live in a small town community such as those Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes and later Charles Kuralt wrote about and did film series on television about...
Like on the Television Sit-Com: "CHEERS" where everyone knows your name...where love & peace prevailed and each human being regardless his or her age.
Growing up in a pit of hatred...my father & mother's house...where no one knew how to love nor have they learned by now over 50 years later...
I imagined that they were angry all of the time because they had too many things to be concerned about.
That though they were no longer renting in the big City of New Orleans also known as
"The Big Easy" or "The City that Care Forgot"...
When you rent you are typically in bondage where ever you are and this is biblical:
"The borrower is always slave to the lender"
That they were still though now in the suburbs Metairie in Jefferson Parish escaping all of the dirty Orleans Parish politics in a house only ten years old in a neighborhood of families...no rough tough bar rooms or clubs on corners and the largest road... Veterans Memorial Boulevard was still not yet completely paved....some portions of Veterans Highway were actually dirt and others dirt covered with white clam shells dredged from Lake Pontchartrain and Momma & Daddy's new house that had had only one other owner before they bought it:: the " Bells" was a full four long blocks away far enough that problematic traffic rarely entered but remained on the major arteries.
And so from the start of my new life with my two brothers & Momma & Daddy at 3909 Haring Road in Metairie Louisiana I could not figure out why Momma & Daddy were still not content certainly not happy for they were always arguing seemingly over something that was nothing for neither of them ever made any sense.
I believe regardless where one lives or what their purpose in life is that anyone who in their heart thinks it is their responsibility to correct all things...
No mother & Father when they marry and have a child on the way has even an idea of how to parent a child...
unless they were a rare one who was born to parents who also had parents for whom loving was natural and who knew how to correct a child's action or inaction without attacking the child's very heart and soul.
And at least here in North America this is very rare...
But as a Kindergartner in Saint Mathias catholic School in New Orleans on South Broad by Jefferson Davis Parkway on up through when I attended Grace King Senior High School in Metairie...
I dreamed and imagined if life would have been different had my parents not ever lived in a large tough city...like New Orleans.
What if they both had lived their entire lives in Flippin Arkansas where my mother graduated from Flippin High...
Would there stress level be less...would fewer worries or concerns make them more gentle and kind?
Well God is a the only "Dream-maker" and the only "Devil-Deal Breaker" !
HE Himself places our dreams in our hearts...HE Himself leads our minds wondering if we live close to HIM, In HIM & Through HIM.
And in recent years God has allowed me to live my dreams so that when HE gives William & I not merely what we have in our minds and hearts imagined & dreamed will be wonderful when in HIS timing HE decides to...
But HIS dreams & desires for us...that which HE created us for...that which we through out our lives journey towards...all seek but few find or arrive there.
Few ever enter into deep relationship with others or within God Himself and relationships that are true, honest not just on the surface: "How ya doin How ya doin?...oh really...too bad....well maybe next week will be better....oh maybe next week...and next week never comes"
The truth is most people through out their life times this superficial stuff is all they ever experience or know....and how can such ever know God?
God has given William the opportunity to live in several small cities since Hurricane Katrina two in North Carolina: Concord then Kannapolis... Then here in Louisiana we have been in Mandeville, Madisonville, and now Ponchatoula where there are only 6000 people and the majority were not merely born here but their mothers & fathers and grandparents too were born here with the exception of maybe a couple hundred who came up here from New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina.
And what I have witnessed is not what I had imagined growing up that folks in small cities and communities have brotherly sisterly love and affection for one another...
Few care whether their neighbor brother or sister is abused or brutally attacked right in front of them.
In Junior High School,,, The 70's decade, it became a common slang phrase among the children in all grades both older and younger than I..." What do you think I am...my brother's keeper? I should say not! Its not my turn to watch Johnny or to watch Stephanie" And then they would laugh.
God has proved to us by giving us lives in types of places we dreamed of...in some cases actual places William or I once dreamed or imagined to show us that small town or city folks can be more crude and unkind , more deceitful and out right vindictive and not the laid back no schedule or agenda to life people like Andy Rooney or Charles Kuralt met "along the road again" that those folks merely no different than Marilyn Monroe, Julie Andrews, Vivian Leigh, Goldie Hawn, or Jimmy Stewart they simply smiled and acted for the camera!
Small Town; Small City folks are actually tougher but regardless where William & I or any of you find yourself today...you & I can by choice return kindness for harshness with a prayer in our heart for each angry tough one we meet.
At times when greeted with unexpectant ugliness that seems to have no motivation the shock of it can intimidate us...
But instead we can on purpose consciously on purpose with our words...never silence which is indifference make difficult unchangeable circumstances less burdensome for many....
Our words always matter...our words or lack of words will either make us HIS Holy Saints...or drag ourselves down in the muck as the New Orleans Saints were once called the "Aints" when they were a losing team and their fans wore paper bags over their heads to the football games.
But life is real and not a mere game or a race that we earn a winners ribbon or cup...
Though as Saint Paul wrote of his own life as a race...
If we are always in a hurry to get to still another place...tail gating and oppressing the one just in front of us...
The false urgency we place on ourselves will eventually cause us to break....breakdown that is.
It is never about accomplishing, nor getting ahead of another to win...
But rather it is to be in relationship with others and within Almighty God that we all were created...
Living in mutual encouraging relationship that all can prosper, grow and live...
It is my prayer for all of you today...that regardless what you encounter today....you find a way to be kind...a way to encourage that you yourselves never be blue but wear blue instead and lead others to do so also!
Amen Amen Amen and Alleluia!
EstherStephanada!
Mr & Mrs William Gustavson
PO BOX 1144
Ponchatoula, LA 70454
USA
