In the course of human interaction, with our environment and with each other….we must always seek first and most diligently the paths of peace.
In the times when the enemies of God, Country, Family, Love, Freedom, and Truth insist they have no stomach for peace and push to destroy the integrity of such….we must pick up our ruthlessness and put on our stomping boots and look bravely into their destruction-filled eyes. We must defend our peace. Sometimes with swords. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with our wit. Always with The Word which changes not, And our human hearts. War is never a light thing. To harm or destroy another being, especially a Human Being, invariably steals away also some of our own Being. I have come to understand this hard truth....even the winners of a conflict suffer and sacrifice. I am thankful there are those who choose to sacrifice themselves (their actual Being) for us - for our freedom....even though they do not know us personally. In a fight or in war there are never actually unscathed winners….all lose something, some lose everything. Conflict is a task never to be entered into quickly nor taken lightly. It is serious business – a life-changing season, a life-changing time, a life-changing service. Always an option, fighting should forever be our last option. All involved and often uninvolved innocents will be losers in the fight. But sometimes a fight is necessary to end future worse destruction. In those times when the enemies of our very Lives resist reason and are bent on the annihilation of us and all we hold near and dear….we are compelled to stand against them and to choose to be the Survivors. Anger and rage should NOT be at our side, let The Lord hold them….Let Him keep those emotions for us, far from us. Practicality and Stewardship should be our guiding rails....Loyalty and Service to do what must be done. And once we begin we should not stop until the threat is extinguished, or we are pulled by Higher Power from the foray. That is just how it is. Fighting is such an ugly thing. A dirty thing, yet sometimes necessary thing. And we in some large or small way fight for our lives everyday. And our heroes stand in our stead daily, keeping our numerous enemies at bay. Giving up the wholes of themselves for the US of these United States, most of whom they do not even know. Thank you Veterans...for taking losses and enduring hardship so that we might be free, and remain free. Thank you Veterans...for your service...for being Everyday Heroes Everyday. Thank you.
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Backwards.
It is backwards. How we strive to succeed pushing ahead of others stepping on their heads cheering as they bleed. It is so backwards. How we think this puts us ahead jerking down those before us tripping those in our wake scavenging the same old carcasses instead of cultivating original successes ahead. It is backwards. How we tear and rip each other down. We are in the same race. We cover the common ground. Do you see? Why do we act like chickens pecking each other nearly to death? Do we not see that today it is him or her, Tomorrow it is you and me? And yet I see a flower, a photo. I hear a song. I see what people can do. I view a smile, a giggle, a deep belly laugh. I hear encouraging things people can say. It is backwards, I guess, by design. The sweet and loving people are often quiet. Many are so quiet…and kind. Doing nice things all day long. Not ringing a bell for themselves, Not commanding a throng. Not bragging or swagging Just being regular. Telling the truth. Being who they are. Doing what they do. Sharing what they are. Making life more abundant for me and you. Helping and sharing With no thought or hope of gaining Because they have to? Because they have to…. Because to not would be to them very wrong. Helping and sharing because that is just what they do. And they are rewarded. Mostly not from those with which they help or share. But with both Hands overwhelming rewarded. Their cups running over and over and over an ocean of blessing to spare. Just over a few hills from where I live is Loudon County. There are two roadsigns on Highway 411 that I pass everyday...one on the southbound side (LOUDON COUNTY) and one going northbound (LOUDON COUNTY). The City of Loudon is found northwest of here and is,as you would expect, in Loudon County.
It is pronounced "Loud - un"....just like you would say a kid yelling at the top of his lungs is a "Loud 'un!" Our electric power comes from Fort Loudoun ELECTRIC, which is associated with Fort Loudoun DAM. The Fort Loudoun DAM is downstream from us on the Little Tennessee River....where it meets up with the Tennessee River. Fort Loudoun LAKE is above the dam. That is a lot of Fort Loudouns! Oh yeah! And are you noticing now that there are two spellings for Loudon/Loudoun? You are correct, there are! Funny thing... they are the same...well, not really. One is a misspelling. Which one? Depending on who you ask, it could be either one. I don't care enough to fight someone over an extra or left-out "U", but personally I agree with the "put the 'U' in it" folks. It should be: L-O-U-D-O-U-N. Of course, I have not lived here long, am actually in Monroe County, and so my two cents is not entrenched with emotion over a "U" or the lack thereof. My opinion is merely the result of research, and the feeling that we should tend to keep with originals. L-O-U-D-O-U-N is the original. Here in Monroe County there is a historic fort site named Fort Loudoun. In 1756-57 a man called the Earl of Loudoun was the commander of British forces in North America. The fort was named after him. He spelled his name with two "U's" ....I think we should too. However, over in the City of Loudon and the County of Loudon...there are those who differ. There are placards and signs that differ. Many many documents from that city and county also differ....they have a long-standing preference for "U-lessness" over there. The city's name goes back to the 1850's and the county's to 1870. It is the way it is and has been for a long long time....almost long enough to be thought of as original. Oh, you might say..."Well, maybe there were two Loudons/Loudouns...the Earl and someone else." And sorry, NO there was not. I chuckled at the thought at first myself....maybe the Earl had a COUSIN, or COSIN rather, that was missing a "U". Okay, bad joke. Seriously, the town and county were named after Fort Loudoun, and it was named after the Earl of Loudoun. And they spelled it L-O-U-D-O-N. Being just an observer to this "One U or Two U" controversy, I think about how we humans tend to be. It does not matter if we are wrong or right, it is hard for us to change our mind once it is made. Particularly hard if there is a long history of the "Made Up Mind". It is always more difficult for us to turn corners than to keep going straight ahead. And more challenging still when we have to turn back again. We get rutted in and rooted in and do not transplant or flex well after a time. Of course, there is no problem with "Straight Ahead" when that is correct, but sometimes right is "Right Around the Corner". Sometimes we go straight off of a curve. Sometimes we turn when we should keep straight. Sometimes the road splits for a time and then reunites a few or many miles away. We are all just trying to keep in the roadway. That is a task common to human beings. It is the same struggle, even if we struggle differently. If two friends are walking side by side though and one turns right and the other keeps going straight...they may still be friends, but are no longer walking together. This happens to us humans in life. Things change. Thinking changes. Times and conditions change. People change. I guess the moral to this little story is to appreciate the time on the road while we walk together. It will be only as long as it will be. That day when someone wakes up and can no longer abide with the "U", and the other someone cannot live without "U" is likely to divide people to two separate roads. Anyways, it is something to think about today. Thank "You" for reading my postings. :) Have a good day everyone. Do you see Wesson? Wesson the Bobtailed Cat.... ...he is walking toward you in his brilliant camo. Do you see him? Dressed in his best gray suite. He loves to hunt for whatever moves. He blends easily among the leaves and trees. Bye for now he says.
The Figures of Tellico Lake
I love to go at dawn to the edge of Tellico Lake. On the way, I can see the blue haze of Smoky Mountains. However, it is the gathering sight down on the east Tennessee water that I seek. As the sun sneaks upward over those soft-looking Mountains to my east, fog figures rise from Tellico Lake. I watch them as the sky silently pinks and little wisps of breeze come and go. The white risers remind me of the native people who once inhabited the bottomlands. Until recent times this was a river. I can only imagine it winding within the valleys of grasses now covered by water. I stare at the steamy vapors lifting from the depths, phantom-like images dotting the surface of the dark green glassy stillness. It is an amazing sight at dawn. The tiny blond hairs on my arms stand at attention. Is it the chilly air or the sight? I do not know. They space themselves apart, but yet together... as warriors gathering, arranging for the day’s hunt. They are silent, lifting upward, drawing toward the lightening and inviting sky. Whether anyone notices or not, they appear. The fog figures cover the flat and shiny mirror of lake until the sun’s heat burns them away until tomorrow. You would think it to be an eerie sight. It is not at all. Beautiful and peaceful they flow smoothly upward slowly in columns of cloudy steam. They dissipate into the brightness of the day. I sometimes wonder if others can see them. Cars speed by on the bridge, but none stop. The cows on the far bank seem unaware of the ghostly presence. A couple of huge crows argue a paragraph of crow talk and are gone. A train rumbles in the distance. A squirrel violently shakes the farthest limb of an oak tree. The dew wets my shoes and soaks into my cool feet. I view the apparitions, noting this is something both special and awesome. The specters of Tellico’s waters stretch skyward with their vaporous toes hovering and tickling the water surface at dawn, oblivious to the swarm of feeding bass driving a school of escaping shad to flip into the air. I watch. The people of the fog grow taller and taller, wispy arms linking upward to the growing blue. I am mesmerized as their touch with the lake narrows, thinning, as the heavens free them of the water. They glide lightly into calm dissipation. As the world awakes they slowly vanish before my appreciative eyes. Another day begins. An attitude shift is like a change of clothes..."Talk Positive. Think Uplifting Thoughts.” “I wish that wasn’t like that.”
I love positive attitude shifts; they change my days for the better. The negative ones do just the opposite. An attitude is something a person wears, or ‘puts on’… lasting until you change it or wear it out. However, a paradigm shift is an alteration all the way to the cellular level....every bit of us is changed. While the inspiration of an attitude can wear off and dim with time and circumstance, we cannot UNSEE a paradigm shift. It is like having New Eyes. And at the point of a paradigm shift it no longer matters what attitude we wear…. underneath our whole life is different. A paradigm shift will often radically shift the attitudes attached to it. Alternatively, attitudes will rarely or barely affect the paradigm a person holds. To illustrate this relationship to My Self, I think about the Earth and the Weather: Earth being the paradigm we live on….in the big scheme of things it changes very slowly and very little. Kansas is still where the bulk of Kansas was, from a thousand years ago when it was yet to be named Kansas. Weather being the mood or attitude of the atmosphere where it touches the Earth…it changes minute by minute. In Missouri it can be nearly uninhabitably hot and dry in August, and so very cold in January. And it can even exhibit all four seasons in a single day. <><> It would seem that paradigms would not often shift for us humans. I am thinking most people have very few in a lifetime. Although some people have paradigms shifts at regular intervals. Both types of lives are great in different ways. For those who change paradigms a lot, it confuses other people trying to keep up with them or figure them out. It is as if they are swapping planets all the time. And, of course, how they adapt themselves to the new ways of thinking makes a difference as to how well life turns out for them. For those who are mostly the same every day, it is restful for others to hang with them. You know where they are today, because they were there yesterday and will be there tomorrow. And that is great too. We all have different purposes, and were and are being made special to fit those purposes. When our nation was being settled there were people who stopped somewhere by a river and created a town. Alternatively, there were those who moved and roamed all over the continent. Our ideas and dreams are the same way. Some find what they need early and stick with it. Some are always looking toward that next horizon. So, I say to My Self, be the best you can be within your paradigm today and everyday. And if, or when, it shifts - Learn the new one and do your best in it too. Don’t be condemning to other people for the choices they make. And don’t hold regret for your own wanderings and stayings. Regret and condemnation are negative attitudes, and a waste of time. We all are where we are. A positive attitude may not change where we ARE today, but it can make ‘where we are’ better until ‘where we are’ shifts. Just because another person’s path is different does not mean they are lost. What is writing?
It is about communicating an idea. It is about putting forth an intent or hope. It is an art to work within the grammar To make plain a molded clearly-defined thought. And yet the rules that bind it, Should not imprison it so much as for it to die. While less than raw, And not so well done to turn to dust and ashes. Art, Words, and Communication. What is writing? More than scribbling, crossing T’s, Or adding a Dot. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Well, I just hit the APPROVE BUTTON.....
and they gave me this link: https://www.createspace.com/5919480 CSP is telling me it will be 3-5 days before the paperback version becomes available for order on Amazon. CreateSpace.com has it already at the link above...of course, they are the ones printing it, so it makes sense that they would have it first. I am excited..and a little scared too. I have worked and re-worked it, used critique from the pre-readers, reviewers, and kindle readers...it is the best I can do, today. I suppose a person is never satisfied with their own work, except you have to stop somewhere and take a snapshot. Here is the snapshot. Thank you for giving it a look. Pj Date: January 18, FUTURE Dear XYZ Clone Administrator: RE: Questions about Cloning in response to your advertising. It has come to my attention that there is not enough of me, and your advertising promises to solve this problem. My questions are as follows: My right hand does not know what my left hand is doing NOW....so how will I keep my clones in sync? Is there a separate app for this? Or will that be an add-on later? In addition, can you guarantee that one of the clones or myself, possibly synced or unsynced, will not introduce more work for me and my clones? I envision multiplied problems to which I assume you have original answers. Can you insure the clones to be efficient problem solvers? How much do clones eat and are they picky about their food? Please advise. Thank you kindly, Original Me It is annoying, even frustrating to weave along a highway and find out it leads nowhere. All of us have made a turn or continued going straight Ending up at the end of a road... SOMEWHERE? There exists an abundance of Dead Ends in this world, Both on maps and in our lives. And if you are of any age at all, You know, It happens to everyone. You are not alone. No need to let it be a surprise. We learn to turn around and head back to the main road, Whatever main road that might be. But often we are frustrated and annoyed For wasting time on those paths Which to nowhere lead. Have heart my friends, Do not despair when this happens again. I learned from watching the kids play Mario There is often a jewel, a key, or a helpful bit of information In the cul-de-sacs and turnarounds that halt us suddenly At a wall around a bend. Now you are laughing, or crying perhaps At the silliness of this verse. But tell me is it not the truth That from everything we can learn? And if we cannot learn, what is worse? Even if the only purpose is to guide another by saying, “That’s a Dead End, a no-outlet path.” We might as well, when we are present anyways Look for that hidden jewel or nugget of gold tucked carefully away for us as we pass. You might be surprised, as I often am At how Dead Ends are good for you. If Mario and Luigi can find them, turnaround, and then go on. You and I can too. <><><> |
THE PAPERBACK IS NOW AVAILABLE AT: AMAZON
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