Thursday, July 30, 2020
2619: The Extra Mile from Lincoln County Watch
By Anna Von Reitz
"Go the extra mile," my Mother would
chide and wave her hand, as if the sacrifice she expected was nothing
more than a bit of lint on a sweater.
Carry ten sacks of groceries up
three flights of stairs. Go visit the inmates. Comfort the elderly.
Bring bouquets of flowers for the hospital front desk. Donate the
homemade apple jelly you slaved over to the church bazaar. Volunteer to
scrub floors and carry bedpans at the VA Hospital. Just do it.
Make decorations for the dance you
will never go to. Be the Sag Wagon for those in the race. Be content
to sit on the bench in a head-to-toe Tiger Mascot suit. It's okay.
It's all okay. Put your extra pennies in the collection tin at the
grocery store. Sew blankets for Salvation Army to give to families in
need. Don't even think about it.
"Count your blessings!" she'd roar and then, with a quirk of the eyebrow, "When's the last time you went hungry?"
True. So do what needs to be done.
Get on your bicycle and take the sewing to Miss Susan. She needs to
make some extra money this month. And help Uncle Merton shingle his
roof. You can carry a couple shingles up a ladder! (It's only a couple
hundred trips up and down.) It's time to plant the community garden,
but first, you'll have to take the rototiller to it..... and on and
on.
Go the extra mile. Boy, I thought, this "mile" goes on forever! If it were only a mile, I'd have ten laps around the Earth!
Dad needs you to prune the apple and
plum trees this year. (There goes my social life for a month.) The
work crew needs lunch and coffee. (Lunch for 15 men, with dessert, and
plenty of coffee, by noon. Coming right up....) Can you help Albert
with his algebra? (Wonderful. It wasn't bad enough I had to learn it
myself, I also have to teach it.) And the choir is singing at the
sunrise service.
Oh, joy.... that also means get up
an hour early to feed and water the cows. And the dog and the
chickens. O-dark-thirty just turned into plain dark.
And while you are at it....Bunny LeFevre needs you to help serve coffee at the VFW next Wednesday ---and on Thursday morning, it's our turn to clean the Town hall for
the meeting that night. (Picture fifty of the dustiest chairs in all of
creation, all needing every rung and seat to be in white glove
condition. P. S. You can forget about going swimming with the rest of
the girls.) Oh, and Olive Kimball needs donations for the Bake Sale on Saturday. You know she loves your Walnut Brownies.....
But that's not the point, is it? Go the extra mile. Give back. Make it work. Make things happen.
It never occurred to me as a child
or young adult that "going the extra mile" is an ethos and a way of
life. The connection to Yeshuah's shirt ---- the one we are supposed to
give away --- wasn't always apparent. Early on, it just seemed like a
lot of extra work for no certain outcome.
What person in their right mind, I
used to wonder, would embrace a lot of extra work for no certain
outcome? --- as I watched my parents sail over the horizon, bearing
burdens they didn't have to bear. Unwanted children landed on their
doorstep, unemployed vagrants, lost dogs, alcoholic friends....
What, ho, my Mother would rub her
hands gleefully and jump right in. No job too big or too small. Grow
an extra acre of squash for the Food Bank? No problem.
Right. And she never doubted that
she could do it, either. Whatever the challenge was, she was ready, all
five-foot-nothing of her. Like my Father, I used to draw a deep
breath, hold it, and slowly release.... if life didn't offer enough
opportunities to "go the extra mile" she'd go out and find more.
Recently, I found an unwanted thirty-year-old motor home that
was still salvageable and gave it to a family that was living in a
tent. Now, (in all our spare time, right?) we are helping them get
ready for winter, slathering goop on the roof, insulating doors and
windows, repairing electrical systems....
Somewhere in the midst of this
endeavor, the Dad turned and looked me in the eye and said, "Why are you
doing this? Why do you even care what happens to us?"
I was tempted to quip something
like, "Frozen neighbors isn't an option." --- but I didn't. I stopped
and thought about it. I realized that I was just "going the extra
mile" with no doubt that I could do it, and no big question whether or
not I should.
This family was hit by a trifecta of
health problems, job loss and home loss. None of it was their fault,
but they'd reached such a depth of destitution that there was no way for
them to climb out, unless somebody stopped to help.
The man was looking at me with a combination of suspicion and wonder.
What did I want in return? He
couldn't imagine anything that he had left to give, and as everybody
knows, people don't take on a lot of extra work for no certain
outcome....
Unless, that is, they just pick up
the extra mile, the extra job, the extra child, the extra motorhome
renovation--- and sail on. Our ragtag band of Merry Men living out here
in the Big Lake Forest will get the job done before winter sets in.
This family will have a small but
secure shelter from the storm, and good neighbors who have been blessed
enough to have snow plowing equipment and freezers full of fish and
moose meat to share. This family will get by and so will we, because
some of us remember that old extra mile, having trodden over it many
times before.
They are learning the hard way ---
on the receiving end --- what it means to be an American. The day will
come when the Father of this family will shake himself awake from his
bad dreams and realize how much he has. And then, like generations of
Americans before him, he'll learn to walk that extra mile.
This country needs to remember its
hard-scrabble heritage. It's time to remember what we do when our
country and our neighbors are in trouble. Get off your couches and turn
off the television. Look around.
What can you do to help? Where's the
burden you can carry? What's the errand that you can run? The food you
can deliver? The wisdom you can share? The skill you can bring to
bear? The tools rusting in your basement? The clothes and extra shoes
in your closet? The comfort you can render?
Once you start looking, that old
extra mile opens up in all directions. It's there waiting for you, in
your neighborhood, in your town, in your city. Right now.
And all those in need are giving you
the precious opportunity to give, and to care, and to live and let
live. And yes, an opportunity to welcome a brother or sister home to
America.
Don't waste time feeling afraid of a
virus that hasn't even been isolated or identified. No such beastie as
"Covid 19" has even been shown to exist. So ask yourselves --- how are
they testing for or developing a vaccine for a virus that they haven't
even identified? Hello?
Think about that, in full view of
all the Big Lies that the media and the government corporations have
been telling everyone for years.
Don't be overwhelmed, get moving.
Have that cheerful confidence that you can go the extra mile. Just do
it. Put one foot in front of the other, join together, and cover the
distance.
If you haven't done so already, you
can start by getting your own house and political status in order, so
that there is no longer any doubt about who you are or what you believe
in. Go to: www.TheAmericanStatesAssembly.com today and get started.
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See this article and over 2600 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com
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