What Makes the World Go Round?

I have several ideas on what makes the world go round.

Of course it is truly God who makes the world go round. Hebrews 11: 3 says, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." I love that verse. It settles Creation.

But on a more frivolous note, there are some other things that I believe make the world go round. According to the song, it is LOVE that makes the world go round. I guess I believe this to a certain extent, but there are many people and cultures that don't have much love. So it must be other things that make their world go round.

I also believe that BILLS make the world go round. I pay bills; therefore I am. If there are no bills to pay, we probably don't own a house or pay rent; we don't have utilities; we don't have a car or put gas in a car; we don't go to the doctor or vet; we don't buy gifts; etc, etc, etc.

Since I've been working at the Sheriff's Office, I've come to believe that CRIME makes the world go round. It lets many people know they really do exist either because they've had things stolen or damaged, or they've been harmed, graffitied, or scammed, or they just read the newspapers or listen to the news about these things. Or the big OR is that maybe they commit these crimes. Maybe a crop of drugs grown in Brazil is gathered and sold to a middleman and to another middleman, and then put on a boat and sold to an American dealer who sells it to many other American dealers who sell it to our children and druggies, which ruins their lives and the lives of their families. This one isn't really very funny or frivolous.

But my last idea of what makes the world go round is SEEDS. Apple seeds, tomato seed, cucumber seeds, weed seeds, human seeds, tree seeds, and many, many more. Without seeds human lives would come to an end. I'm so glad God planned the seeds along with the completed fruit, veggies, etc.

And maybe God spun the world like a top several thousand years ago, and it's still spinning. And that's why the world goes round.

Crime and Punishment

A few years ago I remember hearing a sergeant at the Sheriff's Office laughing out loud every few minutes. She was down the aisle from me so I couldn't hear what she was talking about or who else was there. When she came by my desk I asked her what was so funny. This is the story she told.

She and another officer had been dispatched out to a call at a residence. When the older man came to the door, he was only wearing his underwear--nothing else. When the man saw who was at the door, he said he would go put something else on.

When he came back to the door, he had put something else on alright. It was a hunting cap with ear flaps. That's all. Underwear and a hunting hat.

While the other officer was trying to talk to the man, Cindy, the sergeant, started to laugh. She tried to hold it in but the laughter just kept getting louder and louder. After some explanation to excuse her, she finally had to step outside the porch--where she could still be heard by the man and the officer very clearly.

That's the story she told every few minutes at the Sheriff's Office while laughing rather hysterically each time. It was a good story.

Confessions of a Sinner

This is the story about my one and only brush with criminal activity. When I was about eight years old, my family lived on the north side of Pueblo, Colorado. On that block lived many kids including a family named Brown who had a boy my age and a girl my sister's age and maybe a couple of other kids at that time. The Brown kids were known for always having homemade popsickles which they ate outside in front of all the other neighbor kids with no regard for our great need of having homemade popsickles too. I found their attitude to be very rude and selfish and totally unfair. I came to a decision to do something about this injustice.

One day when the Browns were gone, I took a small group of kids into their house. This was done easily enough since the door wasn't locked. Immediately I took the group into the kitchen and we helped ourselves to homemade popsickles. It was a wonderful and justified thing. And I decided that since we were already in the house, we should look around since we hadn't ever really seen the house before.

I was in the bedroom where I dripped pink popsickle juice (I never realized how much the word "popsicle" is like the word "pickle" until I started typing this story) on the white bedspread. Well, about that time, we all heard the Brown's car drive up outside. All the other children ran out the back door. I didn't. I shot under the bed.

I could see people's feet from my vantage point and could hear them (the people, not the feet) talking. My heart and brain were racing a mile a minute. What to do? What to do? I could either stay under the bed the rest of my life or I could slide out from under the bed and run out the backdoor. I chose the second option. I don't recall if the whole family saw me. However, I do know that the mother saw me. Needless to say (but I will say it anyway), I was not her favorite person from that time on.

I don't believe Mrs. Brown ever told my mother about this incident, so I never really got into trouble, which was either a good thing or a bad thing. I do know I never did anything like this again--God is good.

As an adult I understand why the child in me believed that a wrong had to be righted. Fairness was an extremely important issue. However, I do wonder why I didn't feel that stealing and breaking and entering were also wrong. And why didn't I feel any need to right those wrongs. I never apologized to the Browns. I was on their "bad" list for quite a while. And this wasn't the last episode I had with the Browns. A couple of years later they moved to a different neighborhood. Sometime after that, my family moved to the same block where they lived, and there were more contacts. I may tell you about them later.

The moral: Don't get so caught up in one thing to the exclusion of other important things.
OR: Always lock your doors.
OR: Share with the neighborhood kids if you know what's good for you.
OR: Don't ever hide under the bed to escape crime.