Conversation of Our Generation

The racial politics we're in right now has had obvious negative effects, especially over the last ten years. What can we do to move past race and see each other as individuals? How do we heal the wounds and move on?

The reason for this topic is I recently watched the movie Fences with Denzel Washington, and I found it to be a beautifully made movie. However, it was also full of insight.

Individual: Basically, don't be racist. Then, if you're truly not racist, don't be guilted by false accusations.

Society: The intersectional way of thinking is inherently racist. I am willing to agree that people who were subjected to Jim Crow and were the grandchildren of former slaves have a disadvantage for them and their children. However, I will not say that being black means that someone doesn't have the same chances I do. I know plenty of people of all colors who have more and less privilege than I do.

Can public schools teach the Bible? What does the 1st amendment say? What can we learn about reading the Bible both religiously and secularly?

Individual: We can obviously learn lessons from the Bible. It has a plethora of characters, and we should be able to find our faults and shortcomings in some of the characters as well as our greatest strengths in some. You can read it as a religious text- as I do- or you can read it as you would Aesop's fables.

Society: We can teach the Bible as literature. It is the most referenced piece of literature. If you wish to understand Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Dickens, or even the Declaration of Independence, you must know the Bible. It is impossible to understand Western literature, art, or music without at least a basic understanding of the Bible.

Politics: We must allow for people to explore ideas. As the Constitution states above, the government should neither prohibit or establish any religion. Since that was written, the Bill of Rights has been expanded to include state governments. However, to teach religions, at least as an offering, is obviously not the establishment of religion. The "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution, but an idea of the founders. The point was not to root out all religious ideas from the government, nor was it meant to not prefer one over another. Rather, it was the assurance that they would not be one institution as the Anglican Church was, so all people could practice their religion.

Mark 12:13-17, NIV:

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax[b] to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

And they were amazed at him.

In honor of MLK Day, I wanted to talk about healing the country's divisions, since he was so instrumental in healing our racial divisions. It seems we are divided among new lines.

Racial Lines: It seems like this is mostly in our past, but still part we must address. The racial divides seem to be more real, I think, because of tendencies of certain races to belong to certain political parties or religions. Because we organize ourselves to people who think like us and attend the same church, we seem to have some racial pockets.

Elites and Average: This isn't that some people are actually elite, but the coasts talk about the middle of the country as if the people there are bumpkins. Meanwhile, average people in the Midwest and West look at the coasts as stuck up. I think this is a very big divider in our country, and a place where most of the issues we have stem from.

Political: Republicans and Democrats are at each other's throats.... like usual. However, it seems as though the rhetoric is elevated. Again, this seems to be happening due to disparities in political alignment between regions. It's easier to hate the other party when you don't know many, or any, people who you disagree with.

I know I've tried to be less political, but I think this is a good lesson for us. It's been weeks since the government shut down, and you would never know if it weren't being hyped up in the news. So, we'll discuss all the fuss and why I think this should remain permanent.

The spending problem: Why are we regularly funding "non-essential services?" What are they? I say that anyone that is non-essential should be fired right now. Any agency that is closed should stay closed. I have not seen one single difference in my life, nor have welfare recipients, social security recipients, or people getting groped by the TSA. We need to curb spending to have a country in 50 years, so why not start with the things that have no effect on your life.

The tax problem: Taxation is theft. Government workers are given stolen money, and do not pay taxes. They would have to work to create value rather than suck value from the economy to pay taxes. What government workers "taxes" are really is simply the government keeping some of their paychecks.

Political optics: I don't know if this shutdown hurts either side. Trump is being blamed for the shutdown, but it seems that Republicans aren't against it, especially as a negotiating tactic. Democrats look like they're playing hard ball against something that their radical base is against, and most moderate democrats as well: the wall. The problem for democrats is, eventually they have to pay their base, which is most (if not all) federal employees.

I apologize for the 2 week hiatus! Both of the last 2 Tuesdays were Holidays, and with family in town and an unexpected illness, I was unable to do the podcast. I think the break was needed, and I'm ready to get back into it today!

Me: New Years is a good time for resolutions, but what should they look like. I take the approach for myself every Lent to abstain from some things and to build habits. I also try to to work on things in my life of different magnitudes like not biting my nails and praying everyday.

Individual: Discipline reminds us that we need to sacrifice now for tomorrow. We want a retirement fund, but don't want to put away 10% of our money at age 20. That doesn't work. What we find in discipline is the ability to forgo comfort today for a benefit tomorrow, and by doing that we hopefully can learn to forgo trivial things for deeper more meaningful results.

Community: A community-wide mentality of discipline will ensure that people who are able to fend for themselves do, and don't drain the community. It ensures that those who truly need help are the only people that others have to tend to, thus removing the burden of the laggards. There will be people who are struck by tragedy or who have handicaps that prevent them from caring for themselves, and the community can handle these issues without disdain and through empathy for people with a bad lot.

Society: I think what this would do is reduce resentment. Discipline at the individual level allows charity to mostly remain at the local level. If we are helping our own neighborhood or city, we don't have as much disdain for or distrust of the assistance being provided. I don't know where my dollars go in D.C., but I do see local roads being built, new school lunch programs, and the Wheeler Mission food bank by my work.

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If you would like to join me in the Conversation of Our Generation, follow me on Twitter @ConOfOurGen, Facebook Conversation of Our Generation Facebook Page and SteemIt @jamell

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I am just trying to join the Conversation of Our Generation. Let’s get the dialogue going with comments, shares, questions- just say something!

I want to talk about faith and how it is not some giant leap that starts you on a journey, but a small step at the end of a journey of learning.

Individual: At the individual level, faith is an essential part of sanity. If we try to rationalize everything down to the beginning, we'll simply spend all our time doing that, looking for the end. So, no matter what we have to take things on faith. However, it should be the last step to a journey of understanding to complete the worldview.

Spirituality: People often talk about faith in God as a starting point, but it's really the end point for the cosmogony in the Christian world. God is the leap of faith that is made to make sense of a logical universe.

Society: A cosmogony is an understanding of the world and how it is structured. Currently, there are way too many understandings of the world in our society which makes it hard to have commonalities in beliefs. Having a system that holds certain main tenants in common is necessary. Ideas of truth, ethics, science, and many other fields of study must have certain underlying principles in common to allow a society to function-especially a free one.

We often look at our ancestors as rubes or primitive, but they were far smarter than we give them credit for. Maybe they hadn't advanced technology to the point of self-driving cars or iPhones, but there is more to human intelligence and survival than technology that makes our lives more comfortable.

In reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, I was struck by how much some of his teaching had become common knowledge (or maybe was and he simply codified it) and it made me think about how much of his book is likely proven or disproven through psychology over the years. How much of it has changed as the culture has, and how much is simply innate to the human condition?

It made me realize that even discussions on networking fit into the Conversation of Our Generation because my hope is to take the wisdom of past generations and apply it to the problems we face today, and that means that any knowledge is welcome.

Our innate knowledge: We are born with intuition, reflexes, and more knowledge than we are aware of, and this is an advantage. There are so many things that are in our DNA that we don't have to learn which opens us up to be able to focus on the things around us that we encounter everyday.

Our family's wisdom: My mom moved away from her family when she married my dad, and when she became a mother, she had to look to my dad's family for guidance. I know that I learn from my older cousins, aunts and uncles, parents, and grandparents. I also hope that I am a source for my younger brothers, cousins- and will be future nieces, nephews, children, and grandchildren.

Friends and colleagues: These people can offer fantastic nuggets of wisdom, but I find that they are the best for tactical parts of life. Because they are often around the same age, they often are facing similar problems or have run into similar issues recently. This makes them the perfect people to help navigate a new landscape or offer pragmatic advice on things like job searches, choice of a major, or living situations.

The collective wisdom: This isn't wisdom of some sort of bodiless, ethereal consciousness we call the collective. It's the fact that when there are 100 people in a room, there is a better chance that someone has the solution to a complex problem than when there are 10. When the number is 7 billion, we are really talking about the ability to solve each other's problems. My hope is that by creating a forum for this discussion, we can find a way to do this better by bringing together different perspectives and belief systems to find the path toward a deeper Truth.

Learn how everyday is the start of a new year. With that in mind, I often find motivation for the year to come, and gratitude for the past year.

It's a year from December 4th, 2019, and it's been a year since December 4th 2018. What is different in your life? Where are you going?

As I've said, this has been a year of change for me, and the way that I gauge these things is by looking back.

Birthday: Your birthday is obviously your new year. I'm not one for "your truth," but this is by definition a new year for you in this life. It often changes your life by taking you across milestones, and into new phases of your life.

Advent: Advent is the beginning of the New Year for Christians as we await Christmas and the coming of Jesus. We start the next cycle of the readings at mass on Sunday. It's a time of anticipation and reflection.

New Year: This is the beginning on the calendar, and only means anything because we arbitrarily say so. It's just the day we chose. However, this necessary, and a great time for our society to begin a new year together.

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If you would like to join me in the Conversation of Our Generation, follow me on Twitter @ConOfOurGen, Facebook Conversation of Our Generation Facebook Page and SteemIt @jamell

Also, you can find me on YouTube Conversation of Our Generation YouTube Channel.

I am just trying to join the Conversation of Our Generation. Let’s get the dialogue going with comments, shares, questions- just say something!

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I stopped watching news, checking Twitter, and binging political podcasts- which I'm pretty sure upped my IQ by a solid 20 points. I didn't even spend extra time reading, writing, or listening to classical music. I just decluttered my mind for a few days and feel so much clearer now.

I think there is a ripple from how the news makes us feel individually to the ills we see at a national level in America today.

Individual: I feel my blood pressure spike when watching main stream outlets, even if it's people I agree with, because that's what it's intended to do. That's not healthy. I switched more to podcasts because the format is less conducive to the short segments of outrage that the MSM does to maintain viewership, but it's still so often top of mind. It's important to be aware of the news around the world, but watching the news is not necessarily the best thing.

Family & Friends: Not only does politics divide family and friends now, but the news outlet you watch does. The siloing of ideas to ideology is dangerous, but to present one as news is utterly, and purposefully, destructive. This divides people along fanatical lines rather than allowing people who should love each other to unite despite these issues.

Community: What happens to families and friends occurs in communities as well as the people segregate by ideology. This makes it hard to be a minority viewpoint in any place, so people become more entrenched, which reinforces the ideology and pushes out any disagreeing viewpoint.

America: Now, since we have nowhere to turn in our personal lives- family, friends, community- we turn to the national politics, social media, or mainstream outlets to find a tribe. Instead of falling into a tribe that has disagreements, scuffles, and other struggles, we find ourselves in a tribe based on an ideology shared by people online or on TV that we will never meet.

Subscribe to our email list for our Recommended Reading, reviews on books and other content that can grow your store of knowledge. New products will be coming soon, exclusively for subscribers.

If you would like to join me in the Conversation of Our Generation, follow me on Twitter @ConOfOurGen, Facebook Conversation of Our Generation Facebook Page and SteemIt @jamell

Also, you can find me on YouTube Conversation of Our Generation YouTube Channel.

I am just trying to join the Conversation of Our Generation. Let’s get the dialogue going with comments, shares, questions- just say something!