Scuttlebutt

#1761

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Henry Thomas Buckle

            Apparently, no one can be shocked anymore by anything. Our senses are bombarded everyday by things that the science fiction writer of my youth, could never have dreamed. From the talking head newscaster, politician, pastor, everyone talks "slivers" of solution... just chasing one thing until another comes up.

            This writer is always listening, everyone's talking... no secrets anymore. I am told that every living/breathing person, from the school child to the grandmother, either has a telephone in front of their face or they are looking down talking on their phone with their fingers (texting.) I have personally let several female employees go because they had their eyes and mind focused on a telephone rather than the dictation I was giving them for the computer. I went through eight years of university training, the most difficult courses of study in the world, working jobs at night so I could go to classes during the day. Never once during those eight years did I ever have a telephone call from home. I don't believe many students did at that time in our countries history. We knew the real joy of the mail man, "letters from home." During all my years of military service, there were very few telephone calls. The phone was for emergency-business, not visiting. One of my friends told me that his daughter, age 8, wanted a cell phone. I said, "You tell her that I was reared in a time where there was only one telephone for many miles." My cousin had a telephone at his country store. Everyone for miles used that telephone to call the doctor, the funeral home or to get an emergency message from somewhere.

            Scuttlebutt, where the happy hour at the pool haul, the golf links at the country club, women's mission circle at your church, was, is and will always be just scuttlebutt... talking-visiting. Human beings are the same, the world over, very social animals. This writer has traveled every continent, whether the desolate areas of India, crowded streets in Egypt, people talking-gesturing and body language. I was never one to waste my valuable time in idle conversation. I was always, perhaps, too brutally sharp on the phone. Professional people do not have time for the leisure of idle conversation. I can tell very quickly, the future of any professional man by his attitude on the telephone... friendly, fair, fast. I am told that every billionaire gets there because he is fast with a decision.

            There is two things that bother me the most about people engaged in idle conversation. If a person is sick enough to be in a hospital, the patient does not need visitors. People coming in, spreading their germs, talking and bothering a tired patient with unnecessary narrative.

            The other, a place of worship. The church house, the inter court is not a place for conversation. The worst, the Baptist. Their visiting-conversations should take place in the outer-court, the churchyard. I still like the denominations that have kneeling benches. You come into the sanctuary and get immediately and completely in the mode of worship. I often listen to the local Baptist church on the morning radio. Often, there is a interlude between the radio and the church house. The noise from the sanctuary is anything but worship. Talking, laughing, one is a place of worship... to honor god.  All attention to Christ, the cross. So many churches no longer have a cross and the Christian service is no different than that of a civic club, the same noise of a sports arena.

            I was on the staff of the Army hospital, fort McClellan, Alabama. A long desire of my life has been to worship at the Baptist tabernacle, peach tree St. Atlanta, Georgia. I drove the long distance one weekend to attend the service. The great tabernacle was everything I expected, the great choir singing without any hymn books. The great organ, grand piano, great preacher, the thing that ruined in all... before and after, the noise of the people come to worship. I do not know how or why this silly matter of running around shaking everyone's hands during the worship service. We are in the church to honor Christ, not to compliment one another.

           

            The history of the world started with conversation. From nothingness to something-ness, God spoke and the world was formed. God spoke and man was formed and the other animals, all life with its ability to participate.

            In other articles, I have described much of my world travel, many around the world trips... every continent... both the north and south pole. I want to bring two places to your attention, The Great Barrier Reef, near Australia. a 1300 mile coral reef made up of bodies of articulating animals. We are told that all around this great miracle of nature, marine animal life, can be heard to the educated ear. Like the great humpback whales, all marine life has a language and of course this is true with bird life near the great reef, rain island (known for its birds, their noises.) I was in the Indian ocean, bird island, another sanctuary. The place was alive with their communication skills. Life would be tragic indeed if not for the SHARING of tone sounds (music) whether in the great opera halls or in cheap radio. It is the universal language of mankind. The letters may be different on the type writer, in different countries, but the notes are always the same anywhere on a musical instrument.

            Talk radio has revolutionized the world of communication during the past 20 years. It is now an established fact that more people enjoy the different sounds-cadences of the human voice of people talking, than ever enjoyed music. The success of a talk show, radio-TV-platform, is completely dependent on a variety of speakers. Words mean something, words have a way of changing the mind, changing the world.