There's been so much disturbing news lately that I thought I'd share a couple of different "bits." They both came from forwarded emails, so perhaps you have seen them, but they bear repeating.

Having been a language arts teacher, I enjoy a clever play on words, so this set of "Travel Plans" proved interesting.

"I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone."

"I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there."

"I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump and I'm not too much into physical activity anymore."

"I have been in Doubt. That's a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often."

"I have also been in Flexible, but only when it was extremely important to stand firm."

"Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I have been getting older."

"I may have been in Continent, but I don't remember what country I was in. It's an age thing. They tell me it is wet and damp there."

The quoted information below (which has come to me in several forms, but I can't vouch for the numbers) reflects some dire situations in the world, but should make most of us count our blessings.

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead, and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8 percent of the world's wealthy."

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day."

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 700 million people in the world."

"If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are envied by and more blessed than 3 billion people in the world."

"If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm. You're unique to all those in doubt and despair."

"If you are reading this column, you are more blessed than over 2 billion people in the world who cannot read at all."

Those statistics were set within a longer article detailing a dream about prayers.

It ended with an admonition to those who are counting the blessings: Remember to say "Thank You, Lord."

Helen Taylor's column appears periodically in the Dawson Community News.