Some Sleep, FedEx, and the Newspaper

Praise God! Slept from 4:00 a.m. to 7:34 a.m.! Three and a half hours of straight uninterrupted sleep! I feel so awake! It's been so long since I have had this kind of rest....

Well, the UPS shipment didn't arrive because UPS didn't have the stuff. Instead it was shipped in FedEx...On a semi-truck.....Talk about heavy...Long evening and all that is left is the delivery.

I've been thinking much about people lately and their presuppositions of their place in the world. In reading the local small-town newspaper, I find about relatives visiting various townfolk, local politicians and their look of position, tragedies found, and obituaries of people who might have never before been found worthy of print.

I move on to the larger newspaper of nearby college/industrial towns, and find happenings of cultural value and people related to it. I also find about new businesses openings accompanied by hopeful smiles as would normally be found on the face of a new papa. I see commentaries on subjects of no real value to human life than the reason to rant, and I see tribute to the lives of the departed fortunate alongside the misfortunes of the less regarded. Everywhere I find someone has the ultimate way for me to save money by shopping at their establishment, or values on new cars I can only dream about.

On up to a paper/magazine of national or international scale, I find people mentioned for noble birth and caste, riots and the incivility of the human race, agenda's, and other notable mentions.

In all this, I am given a view humanity as a whole. Here I sit in my little bedroom while my four kids play on the bed, I am privy to the lives, hopes, and tragedies of the world....Both my local and global neighbors are here. I wonder who has the answer to life and can offer a true definition of success.

Grandma Jones was at her proudest moment when she was presented a great grandchild in her living room, while a thousand miles away, Jack Doe is being toasted for winning a Pulitzer.

I see a picture of old Walter Thompson being helped from a pickup truck after returning home from the funeral of his wife of 47 years. The text quotes some of the talk inside his little house as they remember funny and memorable milestones in the life of his wife. Across a Continent I see Limousines with family members and associates being escorted to the graveside of their recently departed...owner of a Fortune 500 company. The text gives a breakdown of his success in business, then goes on to discuss how his empire will be divided.

At the funeral of Walters wife, I am told that he just stood with his grown children with a look of loss, as he wretched at the brim of his hat, the photo's of the mogul's funeral shows the ladies in vale and men with starched faces.

In the end...Who will be the more sorely missed?

Maybe I should not read the papers for awhile...