What Kind Of World? Fill In The Blank

We live in a (fill in the blank) world today. Sure, I can give you some options, but I’ll bet you’ve already come up with several of your own . . . some of which might even be suitable for a family newspaper.

One slightly weird thing that may (or may not) surprise the eight or nine of you who regularly follow these ramblings . . . in the late ‘60s, I was a big fan of heavy metal groups liked Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Black Sabbath and the like. A decade later I had long hair and thought I would play tennis for a living.

How things change.

Today, what little hair I have left keeps falling out and the last time I was on a tennis court I think Ronald Reagan was telling Mr. Gorbachev where he could place that wall.

I digress.

Everyone seems to rely on the Internet today, but that’s a place where nothing is simple and certainly not all is accurate – even things you think are no-brainers. Do a search on how many sexes there are and up jumps a whole lot more options than I thought possible.

It’s a (fill in the blank) world.

Back to the eight or nine regulars, you know that I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve in these weekly missives. I believe strongly and am not ashamed or embarrassed to say so. My wife was raised Lutheran and I grew up in a Catholic church. Today, I still go to mass and we “attend” weekly services on the Internet watching Pastor Allen Jackson – no, not the country singer.

Recently, he has been talking about the world and the path we’re on. I won’t do him the disservice of trying to tell you what I think he said, but it resonated with me.

In short, we have been trained over the years to not discuss two things in polite company, religion and politics. Well, ever since Donald Trump came on the scene (and even before), we threw away the concept of not talking politics. But we still don’t go much for religion.

Why?

Look, this isn’t a column recruiting you to my beliefs, nor any others. Not at all. At the end of the day, we’re all going to be responsible for our life choices. If you are an atheist and you turn out to be right, then I’m wrong. If God is indeed up there like I think, then I’ll be held accountable for all my decisions, some of which I’m not looking forward to explaining.

We each make our choices. We each live with the outcome.

But for the first 50 or 60 years of my life, it seems like what we all believed wasn’t as diverse and peculiar (sorry, that was the politest term I could think of) as some of the stuff going around today. What was considered extreme a decade or three ago would pass as vanilla today.

My point?

I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe I’m turning into the old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn. But I truly believe that something has to give. I truly believe it has to start at home with moms and dads. It’s not up to schools or governments or companies. Values, morals, ethics, beliefs come from the heart or perhaps a church. They certainly shouldn’t come from the ballot box or the blackboard.

I’ll end with this. The changes in our world, our society, are happening so fast that if we as individuals and families don’t step up and do something about it soon . . .well, remember that part about what was considered extreme? What do you think that’ll look like in five years?

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at [email protected].