P-E-O-P-L-E

P-e-o-p-l-e. That is usually what my husband spells out for me when I naively ask a "why?" type of question about something or someone that I have encountered. Not that either one of us think of ourselves as higher beings or anything of the sort. And we know we are most certainly lumped into p-e-o-p-l-e, too.

I love the quote in Men In Black as K is talking to James Edwards about joining the MIB:

Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

I been at two community consignment sales (for kids clothes/toys/etc) the past two weekends. For both sales, the last part, whether a whole day or just a couple of hours, was designated as 1/2 price sale. The consigner could choose to mark his/her items to be sold for 1/2 price or not. After the sale, the consigner could also choose to donate the left over items to charity or to pick up. Okay, I've been a consigner for one of these sales and I placed items in the sale that I was cleaning out...I did not want them back and if I could make at least 1/2 my marked price, then that is more than I was making on it sitting in my garage. And if it could be donated for someone else to use, then good. Better than sitting in around here doing nothing but taking up space. But that is me. So, I find it amazing to see all the Do Not Donate tags or Do Not Discount markings on children's items that have been worn, used, played with, and are not going to be gold mines of opportunities for more cash other places. But again, that is me. And I'll just sing Scott's p-e-o-p-l-e song.

My other "why" question of late has been over family. Seems that almost everyone is in crisis of some sort. And more often than not, the crisis is of their own making. Yet, these p-e-o-p-l-e keep looking to someone else to bail them out of their own crisis. I guess I get a little more agitated about this since it is family. With the other stuff, I can roll my eyes and sing the song and go on my merry way (probably with someone singing their own "people" song about me! HA!). But with family, I can't just walk away.

Then the big questions hit. Why am I so bothered by this? Am I a closet control freak and I can't do anything about this? Or is it because I've lived so much of this stupidity and have come out of it that I can't understand why others haven't come out yet? Or because I let go of worry, fear, control (an everyday battle) and strive to live my life in joy, not because of religion, but because of a relationship with Jesus and I so want my family to do the same?

Yeah, the last one is probably more to target.