May you all have peace! I would like to comment as to a couple/few comments made. Usually, I address the poster personally, because I wish to impart a greeting of peace specifically to that person. In light of the topic, however, I am going to refrain... this time... as I just want to address the comments, regardless of who made them. Thank you.
Have we all not watched American Idol auditions where the people are convinced they can sing and they are just horrible? In tears, they cry that their friends and family have all told them they were "good singers"! Did their friends and family do them a favor, letting them persist in that delusion and letting them be publicly humiliated on national television?
Yowch. I think the accurate and truthful response to this is that the family did in fact do them a "favor". Family is the FIRST set of people... and friends second... who SHOULD encourage, support, and help a loved one realize his/her dream(s)... if such one possibly can. And everyone has to start somewhere. Family says, "We love you... and support you... no matter what you choose to do (so long as it isn't illegal/immoral). WE think your voice is beautiful... and YOU are beautiful." How do we not know that, while that person may not have succeeded on American Idol, they did not succeed elsewhere, just by reason of contacts MADE during the experience?
I wish to relate an experience: I once worked with a lady (a friend) who would lie to people at work ("You've done such a GREAT job, Sarah, GOOD job!") when the work was shoddy and half-baked... but lost her 'good' husband (her words) because he wanted to be a writer and she over-critiqued his efforts. Ridiculed them, even. Rather that give him LOVING, constructive input (NOT "criticism"), which might have included something like "Why don't you submit it to an agent and get his/her feedback" she pretty much told him that he was wasting his time... and as a result she didn't want to waste hers. That was over 10 years ago. He has now published two books... and she's still crying the blues over being single. She also wasn't all that respected by our management superiors or her staff.
One day, I was relating to her about my daughter selling her house and condo and leaving a very lucrative stylist career (she did high-end hair and makeup, including for music videos and independent films) to attend a performing arts school, model and sing/songwrite. The friend almost lost her mind: "You're going to 'let' her do WHAT??! You're not going to stop her??" Mind you, my daughter was over 21 at the time. My response was that OF COURSE I wasn't going to STOP her! I was going to SUPPORT her... because she was going to NEED all of the support she could get. She was taking a GREAT leap of faith... and there was NO way I was going to dash her hopes... or her faith. I told her that my words to my children were always... ALWAYS... "you can do it. Let me know how I can help." And she said, "That sounds like what I say to my STAFF... but I NEVER say that to my daughter/ex-husband."
And so I told her that maybe she had it backward. We then discussed that maybe that was why she was having problems with her daughter... at age 10!... and had had problems with her ex. She admitted that she was a "perfectionist" and she "picked" at them a lot... because she didn't want them to be embarassed by what people might say! I looked her dead in her eye and asked her: "Are you sure it was their being embarassed that you were worried about?" We are still good friends, although we don't talk as often... but when we do, she always tells me that she remembers that and as a result, started encouraging her daughter... and even being more supportive of her ex... and her relationship with both is MUCH better.
Bottom line... no one... NO ONE... has the right to hatefully or unkindly dash another's hope... or faith. In whatever. It is absolutely immoral. Even if you think another can't sing... the truth is that what YOU think... is irrelevant. I don't think a LOT of people can sing... but the CDs sales say different. If Tiny Tim can sell "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" made it... who is anyone to say that someone else can't do the same? My daugher is now a successful model...
Image removed by request - Lady Lee
singer...
Image removed by request - Lady Lee
and recently signed a deal to write songs for a label under Universal. Does she sing like Beyonce? Not by a long shot. Does she look like Halle Berry? Not even. But, what if I had dashed her dreams??? Where is the love... and Christ... in that??
(To my dears ones: don't worry, I'm going to take them down in a sec... but I wanted to make a point... which I have as much right to do as the next one ...)
if someone opposes those beliefs it is interpreted as a personal attack - to attack my ideas/beliefs is to attact me.
This, too, isn't always accurate. Sometimes people are perfectly fine in their beliefs... and others attack them because THEY don't "like" such beliefs... or agree with them. They sometimes translate that dislike into dislike of the person. Of how the person speaks as to and about their faith. "Christianity" is famous for that... against the beliefs of those in the Middle East... Africa... Native Americans... anything that doesn't comport with their "Jesus." Some (many) of them even have problems with those who DO believe in the God of Abraham... and His Son... unless they call him by the same name as they do. Even if that is not his name.
Funny thing... is that for the first time in my life, I recently observed "atheists" doing the exact same thing. Although they supposedly don't even believe in a god of any kind, they can apparently get quite vocal on the subject... from a "christian" point of view... even stating opinions as to the things they claim to have no belief of/faith in. Even telling those who DO believe what they should or should not believe as to such things. I found it truly fascinating.
Both groups include many who claim to live "without any fear"... but their actions and comments often belie that and instead give loud demonstration of the presence of "fear"... of something. Maybe something they don't understand or perhaps never heard of before. But say there is NO fear... isn't totally accurate.
Assume 99% of other posters agree this person is being an arrogant prick and this is not a figment of my judgemental imagination.
I can only "speak" for myself but I have come to know that the majority is not always right. Indeed, it is very often quite wrong. It really comes down to the group you're polling. Poll currently active JWs, for example... and we... all of us HERE... are arrogant pricks... and even worse: apostates and doomed to die "at Armageddon." But neither is true. We are simply no longer enslaved to THEM (although some of us are still enslaved to our fears)... which gives us freeness of speech... and some of us are no longer enslaved to ANY fear, truly... and so have even greater freeness of speech. Unfortunately, just like JWs who can't handle the freeness of speech those who leave and/or do not agree with THEM use... some of those who have so left... can't handle it from others, either. Which is hypocrisy.
What is "right" and/or "true" cannot always be measured by numbers, percentages... or votes. On occasion, only one voice may have dissented or agreed, but it may have been the "right" voice.
Again, I bid you all peace.
A slave of Christ,
SA
