I was having a tough time over the past few days. This was in part because I learned 3 or 4 months ago that one of my children had joined an outreach organization as a volunteer. This organization helps provide food and medicine to poor people living in places like Africa and in other 3 world nations. As his mom was telling me this story, I started wondering why he didn’t tell me about this himself when I had seen him this past summer; then his mom tells me; Oh by the way, he’s been taking flying lessons in both airplanes and helicopters – apparently this aid organization uses aircraft to reach poor people in remote locations. News of this took me back to all of the stress that a close friend and I was having when his son that’s in the Air force, was learning how to take off and land jets on aircraft carriers – I mean, he wouldn’t even answer his cell phone when it rang, he would let it go to voicemail, and then call and get his messages; his son did in fact survive all of his training, but man, was this ever a stressful time for the both of us – I love his son, just like if he was my own.
In my sons case, I started thinking about the day, when I awoke to the sounds of kids screaming, and then looked out of the window, only to see that my little heathens had built an 8 foot ramp, to jump an old bike into the air, then grab a rope, and swing over to the pool, and then drop into the pool – our kids could be very creative in finding ways in keeping both their mom and me, on pins and needles. When I asked these guys just what in the hell that they thought that they were doing, they said: “this is fun, you should try it dad!” I think for awhile back then, they must have thought that they were part monkey or something.
Then this past week, I learned that the father of this Air Force pilot, who is a Firefighter, was injured when a wall of a burning building fell on him. This guy has been my friend for way over 30 years, and I love him just like a brother. At first I became mad at him, because he’s also been a Firefighter for more than 30 years, and he should have known better than to be standing next to a wall of a burning building – then I discovered that he had walked over to the wall, to warn a rookie Firefighter that he was standing to close to the wall, then the wall fell on him; he probably saved the life of the rookie Firefighter.
I guess that I just don’t handle the stress to well, when it comes to the health and safety of my children and my friends – I spent the past few days thinking about just how wonderful it must be for Christians, who pray to “god” and “jesus” and ask “them” to protect their loved ones and their children; however, to me that’s just the same as doing nothing.
It has taken me a few days to get over this dread that I’ve been feeling over what has happened to my friend, and what my son is doing (the flying thing). I awoke this morning feeling pride over what my friend did at the fire, and what my son is doing so that he can help people in need – I’m sure that he remembers when he was growing up, his mom and I going to the 7/11 and buying money orders, and sending them to those organizations who claimed to be helping the poor in those poor nations like Africa; and I am so proud of him for taking a more hands on approach. But I’m still having an issue with the flying thing – I guess that I just can’t let go of the fact that he’s not a baby anymore.
I’ve been like this for most of my life – how do you as atheist deal with issues like these, just writing this post has made me feel a little better about this – how do you deal with the stresses like this in life – the Christians simply have their god(s) to pass them off too. What do you do in situations like these?
