Question

 How does the foreman on a jury get picked?  Do certain people have an aura of leadership?  Is it intelligence?  Alertness?  Poker face?

Just wondering. 

Whenever I am in a role where I am placed in the front of an audience, I look over the crowd of faces. I see some that look very attentive. Are they more intelligent than the others?  When the speaker tells a joke, they laugh out loud. Others don’t. Why?  Didn’t they get the joke—weren’t they listening—are they thinking about it—just naturally poker-faced?

What do you think?  

Culture is Important

 This is another Book Club recommendation, A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci.  The calamity is the mix of morality between races.  This is set in the American South of the 1960's.  Segregation had just ended and is grudging, not accepted, but rather enforced by law.  People still automatically kept the same roles as before segregation ended.  Blacks automatically sat in the back of the bus, went into back doors, and didn't mix.

The story begins with a black man, Jerome, being arrested for the murder of his two white employers.  Immediately, the reader sees the language and treatment, the accused endures.  Jerome's mother-in-law asks Jack Lee to be his attorney.  They know each other and live in the same town, albeit different segregated neighborhoods.  

Jack knows he doesn't have the skill nor experience to win the case, but he was willing to give it his best.  In walks Desiree DuBose, a hot shot civil rights lawyer from Chicago.  Plus, she's black. Together they try to defend Jerome.

This book should be recommended reading for high school history/literature classes.  I was alive then and had forgotten how bad it really was.  It was bad, really bad.  Desiree stood up to all the vile harassment and hateful vitriol.  Besides the evil vibes, Jack's sister was killed, Jerome's wife was arrested, also, and all the families involved were traumatized.

The reader of course knows Jerome is being railroaded, but the story includes how the witnesses play out on the witness stand.  It seemed Jerome had no chance.  Reading their testimonies and Jack and Desiree's rebuttals sound convincing, but the jury is all white and not Jerome's peers.  

The ending is satisfactory

Autonomy

 My friend, who passed over five years ago, once had a discussion on "autonomy," with me.  At the time, I didn't understand her devotion to the word.  It seemed like unbridled anarchy.  What kind of world would we have if everyone believed as she did?  She believed in abortion, gay rights, even therians/otherkin rights. She divorced her husband and was in the midst of a robust love affair, when I first met her.

I could barely discuss, never mind argue with her.  She was smarter and more self-assured than I was. She was a science teacher, an artist, and a reiki master.  Unfortunately, she got cancer and chose to have doctor assisted suicide.  She was really suffering.

What could I do but pray for her?  And what to pray for?  

She came to mind, during this morning's gospel on Matthew 4: 1-11.  This is the gospel where Satan tempts Jesus in the desert.  My friend, I think would lean more towards the temptations, than towards Jesus' choices.  Jesus was following scripture.  She would have scoffed at scripture dictating His choices.  He should have been able to choose what He wanted.

But don't you think Jesus did choose what He wanted?  He wanted to obey Mosaic laws.  

Maybe she would choose what Jesus did.  I'll never know.

His temptations are so very human.  His first one was food.  After all, He had been fasting for 40 days.  I know that if my belly is full, I'm not hungry.  But if I haven't eaten in a while, I'm hungry and will grab whatever, good for me or not.

His second temptation was authority over His religion in Jerusalem.  Think that He was offered the job of pope over all Jews.  Didn't Satan know Who He was?  Why would He be tempted for something He could have, if He wanted?  Free will be damned.  

Lastly, was Lord over all the world.  His kingdom is not in this world.  Satan has it.  

Autonomy is tricky.  It sounds nice. The freedom to make your own choices.  But you need to know how your choice affects others.  You need to take into consideration the consequences.  

Maybe you need discernment, help, a guide, otherwise you probably make selfish, emotional decisions.  Perhaps, it is best to follow an ethical code--like religion.

                     If this image is under a copyright, please let me know and I will remove it. 

Dust

 Today is Ash Wednesday.  Ashes is what everything eventually will become.  Did you ever return to your childhood home?  Nothing is as you remembered.  Stores are renamed.  Movie theatres are gone.  Your favorite drug store where there was a soda fountain is missing.  Condominiums are everywhere.

Everything is changed or completely gone.  Reminds me of Ash Wednesday, "You are dust and to dust you will return."  Again, my mantra comes to mind, "All is passing, only God abiding."

This Lent I will work on my relationship with God and others, who are in His image.

Juvenile Thinking

 How does one mature in an immature environment?  My "cloistered brothers" were telling me that they feel sorry and don't know how to help the 18–25-year-olds, in prison.  How can they ever grow up in prison?  After they've served their time and go outside back home, how will they fit in?

Thinking about it, I don't know if they ever will.  They will always be that juvenile delinquent and think like one.  I say that because I had an experience that cements my opinion.  

When I was about 35-years-old, I took a class to obtain a real estate broker's license.  Sitting in the classroom, I found myself "checking" out the guys that entered the room.  After a bit, I stopped myself and asked, "What am I doing?  I am 35 years old, married, and the mother of three children!" 

Why was I thinking like that?  I think it was because the last time, I was in a classroom was when I was in college and would have been "checking out" the guys, as they entered the room.  Even though I was 35, I was thinking like I was 18.  

How in the world, could excons think any differently?  They would just pick up where they left off, before they became incarcerated.

God help them.

Reliving the Past

 The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark is a mystery, thriller, and a study in character development.  The gist of the story is that Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter who needs money.  She is estranged from her father-- you will understand in the story.  Her father, Vincent, is a successful mystery thriller writer.  However, he has Lewy Body Dementia and needs to get a story out.

As a teen, Vincent survived a murder trauma in his family.  Consequently, the townspeople always thought he was guilty of murder.  The court system, however, said he was innocent.  However, a cloud always hung over his head.  Now that he is dying, he wants his side of the story to come out.

Fifty years ago, Vincent's brother and sister were murdered.  That night is revisited-- eventually relived in the story Olivia is writing. Olivia learns about each sibling through diaries, films, still photos, and interviews with the victim's friends.  At first, it seems that Vincent was guilty as hell.  However, a different side of each character is displayed, than public perception thinks. 

It is an interesting "who dun it."

Wind Phone

 What is a Wind Phone?  It is a device to give comfort to those who need it.  Usually, it is an old fashion rotary phone that isn't connected to anything. People symbolically call their deceased loved ones and converse with them.  Grieving people call whomever they want.  People say they feel solace.  There seems to be some kind of cosmic connection.  People who use these Wind Phones feel better, somehow.  

The story of the Wind Phone begins in Japan by Itaru Sasaki.  He missed his cousin who died of cancer.  He purchased a phone booth and installed an old phone that was not connected in it.  Whenever he missed his cousin, he went into the phone booth, lifted the phone receiver and talked into it.  He called this The Wind Phone.  The next year, 2011, an earthquake resulted in a tsunami the obliterated the coast of northern Japan.  Many people died and felt overwhelmed with grief.  Itaru Sasaki moved his phone booth to the devasted area with the most missing people.  He welcomed mourners to visit his Wind Phone to call to talk to their lost loved ones, hoping they would be comforted, somehow.  Some people said the Wind Phone did help them cope.

Don't knock it until you try it.  Here is a link to Wind Phones in the USA.  Map | My Wind Phone

Who would you call?

What would you talk about?

Where would you like to see a Wind Phone?