@#%$ Americans - or wait, maybe not.....

"That's what you do to deer, son. After you shoot them you hang them on the wall" - Dad to boy in the Buckhorn Saloon

"This is a family owned & operated business business. No indians, no paki's, no foreigners. We only have real americans working here." - guy in hat store

"All Glory to God (with picture of football). Play hard. Live for Christ" - caption on girl's T-shirt

I don't like admitting that I'm bigotted, but often I guess I am. I have some biases towards Americans - some from the traditional Canadian pastime of US-bashing (which gets a little sickening by the way), some of it from just what I've seen (had some american's in Belfast long ago voicing their desire to get back to the U.S. of A soon 'cause there was nothing to see/do in Ireland - which I thought was crazy).

Being here in the land of Texas is interesting. It's a chance to be an observer & witness to a small cross section of Texas culture. On the plus side, I've seen lots of friendly people. I still make eye contact with people here - not sure if I should - and normally I find a smile & nod back. We've had some fantastic waiters/waitresses & in general people have been great.

But yeah, some of it had just been odd. A lot of it comes at breakfast where all the hotel guests wait in line to use the two nifty La Quinta waffle makers. It's just interesting to see the, to use a phrase used for the liberals in the last election, a 'culture of entitlement'. A lot of what annoys me is just seeing people who figure they're the only ones on the planet & the world should stoop to clean their shoes & serve their whims. Part of it is the apparent affluence - people driving big SUVs, wearing the latest & greatest fashion stuff. Some of it is young girls being drama queens & living the illusion of being all important & that everything is a crisis.

Some of what bothers me is seeing the way people seem to associate God/Jesus with the affluence & the U.S. of A. There is almost the unspoken belief that they are rich & 'free' because God likes them, or, of more concern, that because they are rich & one of the most powerful nations in the world, they are therefore 'right' - with God, with everything. & yeah, that just scares me. I think part of a healthy spirituality is to recognize your smallness - to look up at the great expanse of space that stretches to infinity, to look at the complexity of our makeup, the marvel of a single cell, or a single atom - to truly see the world around you & recognize that, for as much as you know, understand, control or conquer, you really know very little, are in control of very little, understand very little of the big picture.

I think part of spirituality is admitting that you don't know things, that you aren't all-powerful & therefore you look to find someone who is greater, who does (hopefully) know it all.....

but yeah, it scares me to see a people who figure they're completely 'right' with everything they think or do.

But today, in the middle of some internal grumping about americans, I saw a little girl choke on some of her food & her dad, one of these Americans that I was being all bigoted towards & assuming he was all pompous, etc, he has to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on her to get the food out. After this the girl is all scared & hurt & he just sits there holding her, her sobbing face buried in his chest, his eyes full of concern for her & he just sat there with her, letting his food get cold, not rushing her to feel better, but just holding her like she was the most precious thing, the only thing, on the planet.

And yeah, it made me realize again that people are just people. We are at our best when we live in love - in the giving & receiving of tenderness to each other. We are at our worst when we are selfish & treat others as objects instead of people (I did enough of that today - you can ask my brother & he can tell you how he was all shocked at my impatience with people). All of us have the capacity to give love or withhold love and all of us do a little of each in our days. Hopefully we grow towards love.....