OVERCOMING MY DEMONS

Overcoming My Demons


Well all, I’m going to try and report on the meeting at Love Fellowship Baptist Church I went to last night. Let me start by saying there was a deli tray of sliced ham and beef and three kinds of cheese, plus a veggie tray. Not being easily embarrassed I took full advantage of that aspect of the meeting. Before, during and after. Kudos to the Providers.

Jill Montgomery and her able assistant Margaret Plicta (SP) filled more than my stomach last evening, lots of information was well presented. I felt perhaps too much of an emphasis on charts of the breakup of race, income distribution and all the other divisions that need healing in the community that are required to obtain government grant money. This after all was what the meeting was about. To be fair the meeting was about getting input from this part of the neighborhood that might help formulate a more representative grant proposal. Lots of ideas came forth, plus lots of accusations, all in all a lively time was had.

Being familiar with how lawyers coach clients and prospective clients on what they want them to say without really telling them what to say, I couldn’t help but feel like a client being maneuvered into coming up with the correct answers to already formatted questions that needed to be asked and answered in order to meet the requirements of the grant. I am just to old school to not get upset by the inherent manipulation of this process. It is a struggle for me at times like this when my cup is running over to keep it from spilling and getting messy. lol

On this point I need to bitch slap myself some. My whole reason for this blog is that I will accept the catastrophe that is this our bloated government for what it is. Though I may do what I can to limit it’s abuses, However I will become as one of those I criticize if all I do is use “therapeutic alienation” to “self medicate my frustration“, instead of actually doing something constructive with the tools at hand. Believe me, Government money can provide a powerful tool for helping people help themselves, Jill and Margaret were the face of that tool. I must also admit that they did a good job. Being on the sidelines is easy, doing what they do is hard , personally hard. The people in the middle who actually do the work are the ones doing the hard work for now and deserve our thanks. Later the key to the success of the projects will lie in the actual participation of us, the neighbors in our area for the money to be well spent and have a chance to do some good, we are the ones who need to see to it. We might remember that there is no one left to thank us, we should accept self satisfaction in what we create as thanks enough.

This money as I understand it is a one shot deal. It cannot fund by itself a long term project, and the amount involved is relatively small and probably will be divide into a few smaller sections or projects. I will look at this as a good thing. I will choose to look at these projects as individual pilot projects with enough seed money to succeed if they are worthy. Kind of like a free enterprise system of government money with the profit motive being the wellness of the community. A pretty compromising position for a right wing nut like myself or a left wing loony like some of my friends. Well they were friends till they read this. Lol. But hey, look at all the compromises that went into the Constitution. That turned out “fair to Muskegon”.

Before I close I do think that there were people there willing to do some of the roll up your sleeves work. Rev. Phillips seemed such a man, and he seems to also be in a position to help coordinate efforts, whether we get grant money or not. I to be true to my beliefs, I have to make the point that things can get done without the granting of government money. To bitch slap myself again and keep me in my new path, it is my job to help do the work to help to see to it that the money if it comes get used well. If we all our share in that, it can’t help but not.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative