David N. Walker's Blog, page 27

Why Does God Allow . . .

This past week, I’ve had conversations with two different people in which the question arose, “Why does God allow _____?” You can fill in the blank with pestilence, storms, murder, or whatever question happens to be on your mind at the time.

This is a question a lot of people ask. In fact, I would guess most of us have asked it at one time or another. I suspect it’s a question that has stopped many people from accepting Jesus and His saving grace.

When God created man, He wanted a race of beings that could decide of their own volition to fellowship with him. He didn’t need servants—He already had millions of angels to serve that purpose. But angels could not fill this desire, because they had no free will. They couldn’t freely decide they wanted God.

Because of this, He created Adam and Eve and gave them free will. He told them what he wanted them to do and not do—what they should do and not do—but he gave them the free will to obey or disobey.

Not to pick on Adam and Eve, because you and I would have done the same thing, but when they disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit, sin entered the previously perfect world. Mankind fell, and nature fell along with it. This was no longer the perfect world God created.

The only limits on God’s omnipotence are His own self-imposed limits, but He does place certain limits upon Himself. If He was truly going to give man free will, He had to give man the space to exercise that free will and experience its consequences.

If you tell me I have the free will to jump off a cliff, but you stop me every time I try to exercise that free will so you can spare me from the consequent death or injury I would sustain from jumping, you have abridged my free will. You have denied me the very thing you told me I had.

That’s the same position God was and is in with respect to His fallen creation. If He interfered with our right to experience the consequences of our actions, He would then have abridged our free will. We wouldn’t actually have it.

Murder and rape and abortion are part of man’s fallen condition. Hurricanes and forest fires are part of nature’s fallen condition. For God to reach out and arbitrarily stop these things would negate the free will with which He endowed us.

When a baby starves to death, when a woman is raped, when a hurricane ruins a village, that was not God’s doing. It was the result of the fall.

Does this mean that God simply sits in heaven and watches, never lending a hand? No, but rather than run this post overlong, we’ll discuss that in a future post, probably next Tuesday.

If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Christian Thoughts Tagged: Adam, Christian, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Eve, Faith, Fancy Series, Free will, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Sin, Works

Fair Play

Although I try to steer clear of politics with this blog, there are times that issues of such overriding importance arise it would be shirking my duty as a citizen of this great republic not to discuss them. I don’t really consider what I’m going to talk about today as a matter of partisan politics, anyhow. I consider it a matter of common sense.

Our nation, as everyone knows, is made up of fifty states—well, everybody except certain political candidates who think there are fifty-seven. These states are not just administrative districts of our federal government.

When we first won our independence from Great Britain, the former colonies formed a confederation. Each state, under the Articles of Confederation, was an autonomous entity which cooperated with other autonomous states for mutual benefit.

Under the constitution passed a few years later, the states were a little bit less autonomous, but they were still pretty much self-governing entities. Our history for the last two and a quarter centuries is one of constant erosion of that self-governance. The federal government has usurped more and more power, leaving the states with less and less.

At the present time, our federal government is trying to remove the power of the state of Texas (and others as well) to assure its citizens of fair elections. Here in Texas, we have an untold number of people—a number probably in the millions—living here illegally. They have neither citizenship nor resident alien status. They entered our state by simply crossing the border without permission from any level of authority.

In order to differentiate our legal citizens from non-citizens, whether legally here or not, our legislature passed a law providing that proof of identity be given in order to register to vote. A simple and straightforward requirement against which no one has, as yet, come up with a sound argument.

We are required to show identity—with a picture—for numerous activities. If I want to cash a check, I have to show identity. If I want to borrow money, I have to show identify. If a policeman stops me for some traffic violation, I have to show identity.

Isn’t maintaining the integrity of our electoral process at least as important as cashing a check at Walmart? Do we really want to make it easy for anyone desiring to manipulate an election to go out and round up people who are not citizens and get them to vote? Where is our sense of fairness?

If we passed a law that said you can’t vote if your skin is too dark, or if you are a homosexual or anything else designed to prohibit certain classes of citizens from voting, that would obviously be morally wrong as well as unconstitutional. But that’s not what our legislature did. All this legislation says is, if you are a citizen qualified to vote, prove it. That’s all. No discrimination against any qualified voter.

The federal judiciary has messed with Texas long enough. It’s time for them to back off and let our duly-elected officials do their job.

Three years ago, our legislature, consisting of 181 people elected by the people of Texas because they liked what these people stood for, redesigned all the legislative and Congressional districts in Texas. That was its duty under both the U.S. and state constitutions. New maps emerged from that process representing the will of the people of Texas.

One crybaby state senator didn’t like the senatorial map, because it made her district a bit less favorable to her, so she sued in federal court to negate all three maps. The courts did as she wished and subverted the will of our citizens for the benefit of this woman and her party.

Since then, she gained national prominence by staging a last-minute filibuster to defeat passage of an important bill. Once again, she managed to defeat the will of the voters of Texas, causing our governor to have to call a special session to finish what should have be done in the regular session. This cost our taxpayers millions of dollars.

When are we going to stop allowing prima donna politicians and federal judges to subvert our political processes and defeat the public’s clear expression of its desires? This has gone on long enough. It’s time to bring it to a screeching halt.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Articles of Confederation, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Government, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Politics, Self-help, Texas, U. S. Constitution

Misty

Misty Adams is a feisty bundle of personality. She’s been working at Rise & Shine serving breakfasts for ten years. I suppose she serves lunch, too, but I’ve never been there for any meal except breakfast.

I caught her on a slow day when she had her seven year-old son with her, and she sat down for a minute for me to get this picture. She also has a ten year-old daughter. Misty probably has her down times, but I’ve never seen her when she wasn’t happy and smiling.

On Saturday mornings, the restaurant is almost a madhouse. There are almost no empty tables or booths, and the customers keep the waitresses hopping, but every time I comment to Misty that she must be getting tired, she flashes me a bright smile and says no, that it’s not bad.

Like far too many young women these days, Misty is raising her children as a single mother. Her tips at the restaurant, along with the paltry minimum wage waitresses earn, are the sole means of support for her and her two children, but she doesn’t whine about how tough life is. Her motto is, “No matter what life throws at you, just keep pushing forward.” She said she has to be careful with her money, so she sets up a budget based on minimal expectations and then sticks to it.

When I asked her what she liked best about her work, she didn’t have to hesitate. The people. She’s very much a people person, and she truly enjoys the various ones her job brings her into contact with.

She had to think longer about what she likes least. She finally said some people don’t appreciate her or her work, but I could tell it wasn’t something that really bothers her. With her attitude, I can’t imagine many people not appreciating her. I asked her if many people stiff her on tips, and she admitted it does happen but not very often.

They have a number of Hispanic customers who like to speak Spanish, as well as one Latino waitress, and I’ve heard Misty carry on fluent conversations with them. Once, I asked her if she grew up in a bilingual background, and she said no, that she just decided she wanted to be able to converse with Hispanics in their own language, so she taught herself to speak it. No courses or anything. Just self-taught. That impressed me. It had to require a high level of intelligence.

Misty’s hobbies include cooking and “art stuff.” I suspect they also include anything her kids are interested in.

How many waitresses, cashiers and others who serve you do you know anything about? What do you do to let them know you care about them as individual human beings? Readers want to know.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: People Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Misty Adams, People, Personal development, Rise & Shine Restaurant, Self-help

Rise and Shine

Every day, millions of people eat breakfast at chain restaurants like Denny’s and IHOP. Although Denny’s has totally worn me out, I do eat at an IHOP now and then when I meet a certain friend for breakfast. For real quality food, however, I don’t look for either of these logos.

There’s no guarantee a Mom and Pop neighborhood restaurant is going to have wonderful food. Some are very mediocre, but when you find such a place that really does have good food, it can beat the chains hands down. Such a place is Rise & Shine, a neighborhood restaurant in southwest Fort Worth.

Steve and Christie Phan have been running this restaurant for twelve years or so. In that time, they’ve built up a base of loyal customers who keep coming back—many of them several times a week. I go there anytime I get the chance.

Steve and Christie both grew up in Vietnam. Steve left to come here in 1985, and Christie, in 1994. Steve helped open a couple of restaurants before he took over this one.

Christie laughed when I asked her what got them over here. Steve came because he had family here, but he missed her once he got here. She said they grew up in the same neighborhood together but that he was too shy to let her know how he felt about her. Apparently it took the intervention of some family members to get the two of them together.

Once they got together, it didn’t take them long to start their own family. Their older daughter just graduated from high school, and their younger daughter is in third grade. Both girls spend time at the restaurant now and then, and both are attractive, well-behaved young ladies.

Steve does the cooking, and Christie is the manager and cashier. Both are friendly with customers, although Christie is much more outgoing than Steve. She kids with a lot of us about breakfast being free tomorrow. Of course, we all know tomorrow never comes.

Steve has two particular claims to fame. The first thing new customers notice about his cooking is that he is fast. Seems like the waitresses barely get the orders turned in before he calls to them to come pick them up. Yes, he calls them. They don’t use bells or such devices. He calls the waitress’s name at a volume that can be heard all over the restaurant. That’s part of the unique charm of the place.

Steve’s other claim to fame is that HE CAN COOK. I love omelets, and I like them soft. Those who know me know that I don’t like anything well-done and dried out. Steak, biscuits, eggs—it doesn’t make any difference. I want it soft and moist. When I’m anywhere else, I rarely even try to get an omelet cooked to my liking. The cooks just can’t make one soft enough to suit me. Steve can. His omelets always come out exactly as I like them.

His hash browns are better than anyone else’s, too. Most restaurants grate them into such thin little strips they can’t keep from making them dry—and usually burned. Steve grates his more in the shape of shoestrings. Then he must cook them in actual grease at a reasonable temperature, because they’re always moist and never burned.

You might wonder if he just undercooks everything, but he doesn’t. I hear other customers order crisp hash browns, well-done eggs, crisp toast and so forth, and he gets theirs right also. We customers consider Steve a treasure and feel fortunate to have him.

Since Christie is the manager, I assume she’s responsible for assembling the wait staff. Maybe he helps—I don’t know. But with or without his help, she does a great job of it. I’ve told her before that in most restaurants I have a favorite waitress and always try to sit in her section, but at Rise & Shine they’re all wonderful. They’re all friendly and give attentive service. And when they have a few extra minutes, they’ll sit down and visit, or at least stop by the booth and visit.

In future posts, I’ll be presenting these wonderful ladies to you one at a time. I consider all of them friends, and I hope they consider me one, too.

What do you look for in picking a restaurant? Which meals are your favorite for eating out, breakfast, lunch or supper?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: People Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, Christie Phan, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Rise & Shine, Self-help, Steve Phan

Dumbass Award

Today was going to be the first of my People posts, but this came up, and I just had to do it. I’ll start the People series Friday with a post about the couple who runs my favorite restaurant.

Today I’m awarding myself the Dumbass of the Year Award. So far as I know, this is a brand new award, and there may never be another. Or, I may win it again next year. Who knows. 

When I woke up yesterday morning, everything seemed to be okay. Even when we left for Sunday School about 8:45, neither of us noticed anything out of order.

After Sunday School, I helped wash the coffee urns and clean up the kitchen, as usual, and then we went to Furr’s Cafeteria for lunch, again as usual. Continuing our normal routine, we went to my mother’s assisted living home to visit her after lunch.

By the time we got home, it was probably 1:00 or so, and we both noticed it seemed a bit warm in the house. I checked the thermostat and found it set on its normal setting, but the temperature in the house was several degrees about the setting. Even Sharon, who rarely complains about heat, had to pull up a fan and direct it on herself.

As the afternoon went on, the heat climbed to 83, 84 . . . finally topping out at 86 degrees. Somewhere in there, I realized the air coming out of the vents was warm. Something was definitely wrong.

I’m neither an electrical engineer nor a handyman, but I did know it wouldn’t be good on the compressor to leave it running under these circumstances, so I turned the air conditioning completely off and turned the unit to fan only. Then we called our air conditioning repair guy. He confirmed I was right to turn off the compressor and told us he’d be out today around 1:00 to see what was wrong.

We spent the rest of the day getting more and more miserable. At bedtime, I placed a portable fan on my chest of drawers blowing down onto the bed to augment the very good ceiling fan we always have on in warm weather. At 86+ neither of us felt very good trying to get to sleep.

Age has not hampered Sharon’s sleep like it has mine. She usually gets to sleep fairly fast and, except for a bathroom interruption, sleeps through the night. She even gets back to sleep easily after the bathroom.

Between the pain in my shoulders and my tendency for one nostril or the other to become stopped up, I spend much of every night awake. Last night was even worse than usual, due to the heat.

After spending the first half of the night alternating between cursing the air conditioner and drifting into fitful bursts of shallow sleep, I began thinking more seriously about what might be wrong, or what might be the cause of what was wrong. That’s when I had my first rational thought on the subject.

Memory crept in of how Saturday night, fumbling in the dark to try to turn on the circuit breaker for the hot tub, I’d flipped the wrong switch first. Then I’d fumbled with every other switch in the breaker box until I finally got the hot tub turned back on.

Could I have turned off power to the air conditioner compressor? I didn’t know, because I’ve never actually known what switches controlled its power. I didn’t even know if it had its own separate circuit. Wouldn’t lights fail to function in that area of the house if circuit breaker was turned wrong?

After lying there trying to figure that out for awhile, I finally decided a rational person would probably get up and investigate. I turned the thermostat back to air conditioning and went outside to see if the compressor was working. I even thought to turn the burglar alarm off before I opened the back door. My neighbors would not have appreciated hearing it go off at 3:45 in the morning.

When I got out on the patio, I couldn’t hear the compressor. I walked across the yard to look at it, and sure enough, it was sitting still and silent.

When I went back onto the patio and looked at the breaker box, I could see that two of the breakers were turned off. As soon as I flipped them on, I heard the turning of the compressor fan.

Back inside the house, I could feel cool air coming out of the vent. It took the rest of the night to get the temperature back to normal in the house, but we were able to call the a/c guy and cancel the service call. I’d caused us a very uncomfortable 18 hours or so, but at least I hadn’t cost us a $100 service call. I can just imagine the guy grinning all the way to the bank with our $100 after flipping two little circuit breakers.

Now I suppose I’ll have to go to the doctor about this dent I put in my forehead from slapping myself. Oh, well.

What’s the closest you’ve come to winning the prestigious Dumbass of the Year Award? We want details.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Awards, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help

Class Action Lawsuits–Legalized Ripoffs

Anyone ever have any dealings with a class action lawsuit? Why don’t we just pass a law allowing lawyers to reach into the bank accounts of any business they want to and take all the money they want? That seems to be the whole purpose of class action lawsuits.

We received notice awhile back that we were eligible plaintiffs in such a lawsuit against Washington Mutual. We could have declined to participate, but all that does is remove our names. It doesn’t do anything to stop the suit itself.

In a class action suit, some bright lawyer or law firm gathers together thousands or millions of people who were allegedly harmed by the actions of some company. Then they sue the company. At best, the company is out several million dollars in legal costs to defend itself. At worst, it may be out tens of millions of dollars in damages on top of the costs of defending itself.

The way most of these suits work out, when the plaintiff class wins, each plaintiff receives a check from the law firm for $1.27, or $15.82 or whatever. Meanwhile, the law firm handling the case pockets millions of dollars. The injured parties—if they were actually injured—normally receive paltry sums that do them little good, while the lawyers make out like kings.

In the case I mentioned above, we purchased about $5,000 worth of stock in Washington Mutual. If you follow stock market news, you may be aware that that was not a real good place to have money invested when the banking industry began having trouble a few years ago. The company went bankrupt, leaving our investment worth zero.

I’m not sure just how this all worked, since the company was liquidated in bankruptcy. I suppose they sued some company that acquired WaMu’s assets. They also sued some brokerage companies and an accounting firm.

I’d like to know why they didn’t sue the federal government over the requirements that made this bank and others lend mortgage money to people who couldn’t qualify for loans. Those regulations—started under Jimmy Carter and expanded by other Democrats—were the primary cause of the whole banking problem, but we don’t ever hold politicians accountable for anything.

Political considerations aside, I’ll get back to the point. This lawsuit ended up costing the defendant companies, none of which were the actual causes of the problem, $208.5 million—that’s $208,500,000. Out of that sum, we received $22.41 to indemnify us for our $5,000 loss. The law firm probably received 30% off the top for its share. That would be over $60 million. Nice fee.

I don’t know whether or not any of the defendant companies were put out of business by this settlement, but I do know that the plaintiffs the lawyers supposedly represented received peanuts. Where is the sense in this.

This is just the most recent example of a class action suit I was pretty much forced into. I’ve also received settlements of a dollar or two because some utility company allegedly charged too much over some period of time in the past. I’ve heard of lawsuits against companies on behalf of their stockholders because the value of the stock wasn’t high enough, but no one has ever explained to me how suing your own company is going to increase its value and therefore the value of your stock.

To me, the whole idea of class action lawsuits is nothing but a naked rip-off for the benefit of lawyers. I can think of no rational justification for this.

What experiences have you had with class action lawsuits? How did you feel about your peanuts compared with the huge treasures the lawyers got?

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Class action lawsuits, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, Heaven Sent, Lawyers, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help, Washington Mutual

People

Almost all of us are interested in what’s going on in the lives of our spouses and immediate family members. We usually have a pretty high degree of interest in cousins, aunts, uncles, as well as in our best friends. We like to know how they’re doing, how their health is and so forth. We take time to listen to them. We let them know we care.

But how about the teller at the bank? Or the waitress who served us breakfast? Or the clerk who checked us out at Walmart? Do we ever recognize them as human beings, or do we think of them as part of the furniture, or as robot placed there for our convenience?

Think of someone you see on a regular basis, maybe not every week, but at least frequently. Maybe the lady who does your hair. Maybe your pedicurist. A greeter at your church.

What do you know about that person? Do you know his or her name? Whether or not he or she is married? Kids? Health? Does that person know that you care about him or her?

There are far too many strangers in our lives. I’m not just talking about the guy in the next car we’ll probably never see again. I’m talking about strangers we see on some regular basis. Far too many of these people are strangers to us, even though they may play a part of some importance in our lives.

You know what? People are human beings. They all have feelings, ambitions, desires. Far too many of them go through life being ignored by everyone they see. We’ve become a nation of head-duckers.

Through the years, I’ve learned that sometimes the simplest act of kindness can make a profound difference in someone’s life. Being called by name can brighten the whole day. Knowing that someone cares can make life more bearable when times are tough.

Realizing these things, I’m going to start a blog series on people. Unsung heroes. People it’s easy to overlook. People whose jobs put them in the position of making my life better in some way or another.

Christians are commissioned by Jesus Himself to go into all the world making disciples. All too often, I’ve seen dear Christian brothers and sisters get into shouting matches with nonbelievers or try to persuade them through logical arguments. Neither of these techniques is effective at winning converts.

There’s an old saying that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. I take that to heart. I’ve never been one to start up conversations about Jesus with strangers. I prefer, instead, to love them in hopes they will see the love of Jesus through me. Just let people know I care.

I don’t know just where this series will take me. I may write about a half dozen people and then run out of steam. I may start noticing people I haven’t really noticed before. I probably won’t devote every blog post to this series. I see it more as a now-and-then series.

I hope in the process I will let some of the people who touch my life in some peripheral way know that I’ve noticed them and that I care. And I hope that I’ll cause some of my readers to notice others around them and let those people know they care.

We won’t be talking about great generals or Presidents or movie stars. We’ll be dealing with ordinary people who get overlooked far too often. I hope this idea of honoring people will resonate with you. If so, I hope you’ll suggest reading it to some of your friends. Maybe we can brighten some people’s lives.

What people can you think of, people you deal with on some basis or another, who are overlooked? How do you deal with people like this? Our readers would like to know.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, Caring, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, friends, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, People, Personal development, Self-help

Medicare

You hear a lot of talk from politicians and bureaucrats about how to curtail the cost of Medicare. They’re all good at crying about it, but they rarely come up with good solid solutions to the problem.

Usually, the first thing they want to do is make it more difficult for people to get the medical care they need. My friend Sheri de Grom posted a blog last week that will make your hair stand up about the way Medicare has treated her in her quest to get much-needed treatment. Click here to see her post.

The next thing on their agenda always seems to be making it more and more difficult for doctors to make a living. I don’t know about brain surgeons, but I know my internist struggles to generate enough income to pay his malpractice insurance, his office help—including the extra personnel it takes to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s to satisfy Medicare—and leave enough for a comfortable living for himself and his family.

While internists and general practitioners and many other doctors struggle to remain in practice with all the straight-jackets placed upon them by Medicare, owners of home health agencies and hospices laugh all the way to the bank. I don’t remember the exact figure, but the last hospice that took care of my mother billed Medicare $125 to $150 per visit for an aide to come out and help bathe and dress her.

Stop and think about this for a moment. Let’s see if we can find any fairness in the current system.

Any medical or osteopathic doctor you see had to spend four years in college plus four years in medical school—running up debts of several hundred thousand dollars in the process—and then three or more years of internship and residency before he or she can hang out a shingle. In return, if he or she accepts Medicare patients, the government cuts fee payments back to $50 or $60 per patient visit.

By contrast, the hospice aide has to take a course to become a Certified Nurse Assistant. He or she may or may not have a high school diploma. And the company employing that person charges tow to two-and-a-half times the doctor’s reimbursement. At the same time, these companies pay the aides a little above minimum wage.

I have no axe to grind with the aides. Most of them are wonderful people who are dedicated to their patients. They earn every penny they get paid. What I question is allowing these companies to charge Medicare $125 to $150 for services they pay their employees $9 to $12 an hour to perform.

To make this situation even more ridiculous, Mother could get along fine without hospice if Medicare would allow her to be served by a home health agency. She has resident caregivers in the house where she lives who can bathe and dress her. All she really needs is access to a nurse. Maybe one who would stop to check on her once every week or two—but mainly one who would be available when she injures herself, which happens frequently with a 97 year-old person.

Paying for a home health nurse to stop by now and then would cost maybe a fourth what the hospice coverage costs—and maybe even less—but Medicare, in its great wisdom, will not allow her to have home health because she has caregivers in her assisted living facility.

We save money by providing a more expensive alternative and forbidding a less expensive one. How does this make sense?

The politicians and bureaucrats who have come up with this system are the ones who will be running all of our healthcare once Obamacare kicks in. That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in our future.

What experiences have you or your loved ones had with government-sponsored healthcare? How do you feel about turning your own future health over to the people who have so thoroughly screwed up the Medicare system?

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WANA:We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, Heaven Sent, Home health services, Hospice, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Medicare, Personal development, Self-help, Sheri de Grom

Announcement

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I think a certain amount of consistency is a worthy goal to shoot for, but if we get to the point of diluting the value of our work for the sake of consistency, I think it does rise to the level of foolishness.

For a good while now, I’ve been posting blogs on Christian subjects on Tuesdays and on whatever happens to be a current interest on Fridays. This has worked fairly well, but there have been many times I wanted to write on a Christian theme on Friday or strained to try think of something of interest on a Christian theme on Tuesday.

To keep this consistency from becoming foolish, I’m going to change that. I’m going to start writing on whatever seems important to me at the moment, whether it happens to be for a Tuesday or a Friday.

This doesn’t mean I won’t post on Christian subjects—just that I won’t limit myself to certain days for it. I may not write a Christian blog for two or three weeks and then write several in a row.

Probably somewhere down the line I’ll change the format again. I may even change the days of the week I post. But for now, it’s going to be Tuesdays and Fridays on whatever subject seems important at the time.

Have you found yourself bogging down trying to stay within a strict format? What did you do about it? How many times a week do you think new posts should come out? The readers want to know.

If you abide in Me and My word abides in you, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Archives Tagged: Christian, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Faith, Fancy Series, God is in control, Godly Wisdom, Grace, Heaven Sent, inspiration, Works

Amping Up the Volume

As I’ve aged, the entire television industry has engaged in a cruel conspiracy. Actually, it may not be the entire industry. It could be the manufacturers, or it could be the satellite and cable companies that provide the programs. I’m not sure just where the blame should go.

In any case, there is definitely a conspiracy somewhere out there. They are making the audio volume lower and lower. Seems like every year the volume is a little lower than it was the year before. As a result, I’ve had to turn the volume control on my television louder and louder in order to hear it.

This creates another problem. My wife, whose hearing is so bad she never hears a word I say, can somehow hear the television from a room or two away. How they throw the sound into another room when it’s almost inaudible right in front of the TV is a mystery to me, but it happens somehow.

After putting up with this conspiracy year after year—and realizing that the volume increases I need in order to combat it bother her—I finally took a drastic step Tuesday. I ran into a friend who works in electronics at my neighborhood Walmart and asked him if he knew any way to deal with this problem, and he told me there was: a wireless television headphone.

He showed me a few his department carried in stock, but they were either too limited in ability or too expensive, so he took me over to his computer and showed me some selections I could order from their online service and have them ship to his store (free of shipping charges). He gave me a suggestion or two and told me to order one when I got home.

The ones I ordered cost less than $20 and should arrive at my local store sometime today. I can’t wait to go get them. There’s more than one way to overcome a conspiracy.

Has this little conspiracy hindered your television watching? Maybe you’re too young to be affected. If you have had the problem, how have you dealt with it? Readers would love to know.

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We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.

Filed under: Freestyle Friday Tagged: Advice, Authorship, David N. Walker Christian Author, David N. Walker Historical Fiction Author, Fancy Series, Heaven Sent, Life, Life experience, Life lessons, Life truths, Life values, Personal development, Self-help, Walmart, wireless headphones