I heard that question on one of those 60 minute type shows the other night and it got me to thinking. For me the Big Pitcure would be Tallorance, for everything and everyone in life! Live and Let Live, And Remember to Treat Everyone Like You Want TO BE Treated! I don't think it will ever happen.

-- Teresa (c3ranch@socket.net), September 30, 2001

Answers

The big picture for me is seeing things for what they are not what I want them to be. Not just what CNN shows me but the picture from as many viewpoints that I can get. Del

-- Del (dgrinolds@gvtel.com), September 30, 2001.

Del has the right approach. Never take anyone's statement, particularly as relayed by our friendly plastic news people, as truth without an agenda or hidden objective. How to be sure? In the world at large, with a short wave radio. It is easy to tune in the BBC (even though they've given up beaming programs to us), Radio Canada International, Deutche Welle (Germany) and others. Listen to the news and commentary there and you likely will learn a lot more than you can from our electronic and bits-and-handouts print media.

Locally, scanner radios tell us what is going on in our immediate area. In fact, it was a scanner picking up an enroute airliner that tipped us to the WTC/Pentagon disasters when airliners were groundede and a pilot was questioning his instructions.

As an "old" media newsman-professional journalist, I'd also caution; never take any story as truth that only presents one source for the information. It used to be we would never present one without checking facts and assertions elsewhere. That, alas, has become a lost cause. The result is news made from media handouts and "spin specialists."

Vern M. Vern and Phyllis in the Ozarks www.runningriver.com

-- Vern M. (modeland@runningriver.com), September 30, 2001.

You know that is a good answer! I am a trusting person and it gets me in trouble somtimes. I take what people say as the truth, why would they lie, but people do. I like the idea of getting a bunch of different view points on the same subject. I watch cbs that is about it. I don't hear different points of view. I will have to start listening to other sources to have a view point of my own. Thanks. eyes now open

-- Teresa (c3ranch@socket.net), September 30, 2001.

I think you are absolutely correct, Vern and can't really add much to that! I am really, I guess, a philosophic person at heart, and have been chided for "thinking too much". However, I believe one can never "think too much" when we know that information from alot of sources today is at best partially false, at worst, downright lies.

-- Lisa (tepeeclan@nidlink.com), September 30, 2001.

To me the big picture is what God sees. He knows the end of a matter from the beginning, and therefore knows all of history as well as the entire future. None of us can see the big picture in its entirety. All we can do is back away as far as possible and take a long look from everyone else's perspective, and then take into account that we are still not looking from heaven's vantage point.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), September 30, 2001.

For me the "Big Picture" is what you accomplish in your life in the way of relationships, how you cared for God's land and animals, and how you conduct yourself according to God's will for your life. When it is all over those are the only things that matter anyway!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), September 30, 2001.

An important part of the big picture is what we teach the little people in our lives. I personally feel that my greatest contribution to the big picture is my two children. They will inherit our homes and all we've worked for in our lives. Hopefully they will carry on with what we teach them: to respect and care for the earth and all who live on it; learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), October 01, 2001.