Global Vision

As an artist, I often get fogged in. I tend to go to my studio and tune out the world. It's just me sitting there happily playing and making fun little things. Hmmm...must be the right side of my brain taking over....blocking out the world outside my own little world?

Then there's the MBA in me that forces me to come up for air and look beyond my studio, my home, my city, my state, my country...into the world and remember that it is a global vision that makes us better human beings.

And as a rather privately religious person, I do like to know what is going on in Israel. So I have subscribed to a blog that I read every day, One Jerusalem.

I watch Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem Ari & Jeremy...2 young men from America who moved to Israel and who are serving in the Israeli army today. Amazing young men. There is no where they would rather be in the entire world than in Israel serving in their army. Their weekly TV show is incredible.

Quoting them here: "If Israel put down their guns for one second....there would be no more Israel." "Do you want to watch Jewish history unfold from the TV in your living room? Or do you want to take part of it from the front lines?"

And I get my daily news from Israel Today. Their headlines the other day was "Israelis on alert as Hizballah declares war". CNN didn't even bother to mention it. Not even on their world news page.

One of my favorite map websites is called "Maps Don't Lie". I think if you read just this one page, you will have a new understanding of what I talk about when I say "global vision".

If you want some different inputs on global vision, check out some of the links provided by the Cotopaxian Press I particularly enjoyed the link to "Forget oil, the new global crisis is food". When we were in Israel, we saw how they are using greenhouses to grow food in the desert. We learned that Israel currently exports 1/3 of Europes produce. Will this be how Israel one day rules the world? We will turn to them for our food?

I grew up on my Great Great Grandfather's farm of 160 acres. There were the 7 of us and Grandma living on this land. 8 people. That was 20 acres per person. If all of the living descendants of those 8 people lived on this land today, they would total 41 and each person would have 3.9 acres. If we still raised all our own meat, dairy and produce, this would give each of us very little land to do so. Where is the food going to come from? Who is thinking this through? Not anyone in the US. Thank goodness, the Israeli's are!

Does Israel have more hidden treasures than we know about? Wealth in the bottom of the Dead Sea (we saw huge mines in the middle of the sea when we were there).

I just hate preachers who yell and scream from the pulpit, threatening the end of the world (ok, in my Baptist past the world should have ended every day for the past 50 years!). I truly hate pastors who point their finger while preaching and tell the audience to give them all their money (is that why so many of us grew up horribly poor?). I do not believe there is a church building on the face of this earth worth giving a dime to (another blog, another day). But I will send every spare penny to Israel to help them stay a nation.

Global Vision. How far past your studio do you see on a clear day?