1 Liberty's Torch
Don’t let them rape the earth.
Don’t let them kill our people.
Don’t let them destroy our country with their lies.
Uncover wrongdoing.
Pour revealing light into the darkness.
Bring truth to light.
Stop robbing the people.
Make the wrong right.
Give back the power to those who used their strength to build.
There are good people in every place, on every level.
Join them.
Weave the strands of goodness and light into a web for them.
Reveal the bad for what it is.
Right the wrong.
Let the light of truth destroy the evil.
Let Liberty’s torch do its work.
Don’t let them kill our people.
Don’t let them destroy our country with their lies.
Uncover wrongdoing.
Pour revealing light into the darkness.
Bring truth to light.
Stop robbing the people.
Make the wrong right.
Give back the power to those who used their strength to build.
There are good people in every place, on every level.
Join them.
Weave the strands of goodness and light into a web for them.
Reveal the bad for what it is.
Right the wrong.
Let the light of truth destroy the evil.
Let Liberty’s torch do its work.
2. 6/19/18 Have a Nice Death
This afternoon I had a visit from one of my relatives (who arrived unexpectedly) with her grandson. It was such a momentous occasion that I thought I should write it down while the details were fresh in my mind.
I don't get to see them very often, in fact I think it's only the second or third time he'd been here. We often have our own grand-kids here. Today, in fact, we already had 2- the older out with my husband in the woodlot, the younger tying flies at his desk and listening to a movie on Netflix.
My husband and I have a pretty laid-back attitude with kids, and I was eager to make this little fella welcome.
****************************************************************************
Unfortunately, from the minute they walked in the door, control issues between the two of them started. He mustn't touch this. He mustn't touch that. He mustn't touch the deer mounts hanging on the wall. He must only play with certain toys.
I walked behind them trying to make the little guy welcome.
The first thing that was frustrating was that I really WANTED to encourage him to touch the deer mounts. Every child who has come into this house, from a very early age, has been encouraged to enjoy these not only with vision, but by touch. My husband would lift each child up and let them touch the fur, ask questions, become familiar with the deer. It's a long-standing tradition, part and parcel with who we are. They may have seen deer in videos, or briefly at the side of the road, but they all want to touch, to stroke, to ask questions. She quashed all that before it had a chance to start. It made me sad.
I let that go. Then she didn't want him digging in the toys. She didn't want him playing with the marble works. She didn't want him looking in other rooms. It became progressively more frustrating to me.
So I gradually began to intervene. She didn't want him getting into the Chinese Checkers pieces. But rather than let that go, I got out the board so he could play with them. She went to put him over in the corner on the floor with them. Instead, I cleared off the play table, set the board on it, got him a chair, poured the pieces out into a bowl, and encouraged him to enjoy- yes, ENJOY- the experience of building patterns with the different colors. And all the while I was trying to maintain polite conversation with her.
My other grandchild, meanwhile, was minding her own business, tying flies. When she stepped away for a minute, the other grandmother immediately turned off the light over the fly vise. I turned it back on and told my grand-daughter that if she wanted to, she could continue to tie flies.
Kids being what they are, she instead went over to the Chinese checkers area. At this point, the other grandmother immediately gave her the chair I had gotten out for the younger boy, told him to stand and watch, and the older girl could teach him how to play. Despite my protests that I had gotten the board out (and the chair out) for the boy, she insisted that he would stand, the girl would sit, and the girl would be in charge.
I was till trying to make polite conversation with my relative, but when I related a (to me) significant present day farm story, she instead cut me off to repeat a 20-year old story a neighbor had told her about the farm (as if that was the authoritative version)- and I finally said-'forget it, I've tried to finish this story 4 times, and I can't get a word in edgewise', and I walked out of the room.
While I was in the kitchen loading and starting the dishwasher, I realized she had hijacked my whole house activities. She'd shown up unannounced, given me no opportunity to have any input into how kids are treated in my own house, and made it impossible for me to interact in anything resembling a relaxed fashion with my grandnephew.
I then- o, mea culpa!- walked back in to tell her that it hadn't even been 15 minutes that she'd been in my house and basically had taken over control of the activities. She replied that he had 1-on-1 at school. I said I knew that, but I'd like a chance to see him sometime without her. When I suggested that she had set up control of him- and my grand-daughter- and the conversation- she said she and the boy were leaving, and that they wouldn't be coming back. I walked out after them, and her parting words were- get this- 'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
And that about sums it up. Confront a control freak, and the truth comes out. 'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
Well, about that. I in fact, to date, have had a nice life- more than 'nice'. All things considered, a wonderful life. And, whatever may be implied or included in the concept of 'a nice death'- (how kind she was to have wished that for me!)- one might dare say that would be an OK thing too. 'A nice death'.
****************************************************************************
More than once, during my 20 years as an ER nurse, I pondered what death I might have, and what I wanted from death. After reflection, my prayer to God, essentially, came down to 2 things. First, I wanted to die in a state of grace. And second, I wanted my death to make a positive difference.
And, as prayers and dialogues with the infinite often go, eventually there was what might be termed an answer, or another evolution of the interchange. It went kind of like this. 'Well and good- you want your death to make a positive difference. But, before you reach that point- what about your life? Do you want your life to make a positive difference?'
And that is a very good question. It might as well have been preceded by; 'Do you want to live in a state of grace?'
I am certain I do not always live in a state of grace (certainly not today). I try, and I hope, that my life makes a positive difference. You win some, you lose some, but you keep trying.
One thing I know for sure- people can NOT take away from you, what has already happened. If it was good, it was good. And further, you need to decide for yourself. People can wish you well, they can wish you ill. But thinking ill of someone, wishing someone ill, does not make it so. If it is good, it is good.
My life is better than nice. My life is good. And God willing, whatever good or ill people may wish for me, may my death, when it please him to take me, also be better than 'nice'. May I (so to speak) cross the rainbow bridge when my time comes, to catch up with all of those I love now and always.
This afternoon I had a visit from one of my relatives (who arrived unexpectedly) with her grandson. It was such a momentous occasion that I thought I should write it down while the details were fresh in my mind.
I don't get to see them very often, in fact I think it's only the second or third time he'd been here. We often have our own grand-kids here. Today, in fact, we already had 2- the older out with my husband in the woodlot, the younger tying flies at his desk and listening to a movie on Netflix.
My husband and I have a pretty laid-back attitude with kids, and I was eager to make this little fella welcome.
****************************************************************************
Unfortunately, from the minute they walked in the door, control issues between the two of them started. He mustn't touch this. He mustn't touch that. He mustn't touch the deer mounts hanging on the wall. He must only play with certain toys.
I walked behind them trying to make the little guy welcome.
The first thing that was frustrating was that I really WANTED to encourage him to touch the deer mounts. Every child who has come into this house, from a very early age, has been encouraged to enjoy these not only with vision, but by touch. My husband would lift each child up and let them touch the fur, ask questions, become familiar with the deer. It's a long-standing tradition, part and parcel with who we are. They may have seen deer in videos, or briefly at the side of the road, but they all want to touch, to stroke, to ask questions. She quashed all that before it had a chance to start. It made me sad.
I let that go. Then she didn't want him digging in the toys. She didn't want him playing with the marble works. She didn't want him looking in other rooms. It became progressively more frustrating to me.
So I gradually began to intervene. She didn't want him getting into the Chinese Checkers pieces. But rather than let that go, I got out the board so he could play with them. She went to put him over in the corner on the floor with them. Instead, I cleared off the play table, set the board on it, got him a chair, poured the pieces out into a bowl, and encouraged him to enjoy- yes, ENJOY- the experience of building patterns with the different colors. And all the while I was trying to maintain polite conversation with her.
My other grandchild, meanwhile, was minding her own business, tying flies. When she stepped away for a minute, the other grandmother immediately turned off the light over the fly vise. I turned it back on and told my grand-daughter that if she wanted to, she could continue to tie flies.
Kids being what they are, she instead went over to the Chinese checkers area. At this point, the other grandmother immediately gave her the chair I had gotten out for the younger boy, told him to stand and watch, and the older girl could teach him how to play. Despite my protests that I had gotten the board out (and the chair out) for the boy, she insisted that he would stand, the girl would sit, and the girl would be in charge.
I was till trying to make polite conversation with my relative, but when I related a (to me) significant present day farm story, she instead cut me off to repeat a 20-year old story a neighbor had told her about the farm (as if that was the authoritative version)- and I finally said-'forget it, I've tried to finish this story 4 times, and I can't get a word in edgewise', and I walked out of the room.
While I was in the kitchen loading and starting the dishwasher, I realized she had hijacked my whole house activities. She'd shown up unannounced, given me no opportunity to have any input into how kids are treated in my own house, and made it impossible for me to interact in anything resembling a relaxed fashion with my grandnephew.
I then- o, mea culpa!- walked back in to tell her that it hadn't even been 15 minutes that she'd been in my house and basically had taken over control of the activities. She replied that he had 1-on-1 at school. I said I knew that, but I'd like a chance to see him sometime without her. When I suggested that she had set up control of him- and my grand-daughter- and the conversation- she said she and the boy were leaving, and that they wouldn't be coming back. I walked out after them, and her parting words were- get this- 'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
And that about sums it up. Confront a control freak, and the truth comes out. 'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
'Have a nice death'.
****************************************************************************
Well, about that. I in fact, to date, have had a nice life- more than 'nice'. All things considered, a wonderful life. And, whatever may be implied or included in the concept of 'a nice death'- (how kind she was to have wished that for me!)- one might dare say that would be an OK thing too. 'A nice death'.
****************************************************************************
More than once, during my 20 years as an ER nurse, I pondered what death I might have, and what I wanted from death. After reflection, my prayer to God, essentially, came down to 2 things. First, I wanted to die in a state of grace. And second, I wanted my death to make a positive difference.
And, as prayers and dialogues with the infinite often go, eventually there was what might be termed an answer, or another evolution of the interchange. It went kind of like this. 'Well and good- you want your death to make a positive difference. But, before you reach that point- what about your life? Do you want your life to make a positive difference?'
And that is a very good question. It might as well have been preceded by; 'Do you want to live in a state of grace?'
I am certain I do not always live in a state of grace (certainly not today). I try, and I hope, that my life makes a positive difference. You win some, you lose some, but you keep trying.
One thing I know for sure- people can NOT take away from you, what has already happened. If it was good, it was good. And further, you need to decide for yourself. People can wish you well, they can wish you ill. But thinking ill of someone, wishing someone ill, does not make it so. If it is good, it is good.
My life is better than nice. My life is good. And God willing, whatever good or ill people may wish for me, may my death, when it please him to take me, also be better than 'nice'. May I (so to speak) cross the rainbow bridge when my time comes, to catch up with all of those I love now and always.
3.7 1 18 Do not go gentle
Who speaks the language of despair? Who gives voice to the knowledge that the battle is being lost?
Shakespeare in Macbeth's final soliloquy;
'...To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing...'
Thus one might well speak of the waning of meaning and competence in ones later years.
Dylan Thomas;
'...Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
What matter that one might rage? What does that change?
Omar Khayyam in the Rubaiyat;
'...The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it...'
These classics, first heard in my youth, come back to me in my age. They speak to me, saying that one is not alone. All walk this path, that of 'the way to dusty death'. Most, soon or late, do rage. Whether in bitter soliloquy, or rage, or tears, one fights to come to terms with change and ending.
****************************************************************************************************************************
What balance can be struck? What resources, what weapons, does one possess, to fight this losing battle? What grace may be brought to bear, what respite won? It is not a birth, where the valley of the shadow is a waypoint, a transition, a pivot point to leverage the coming into the world of a new soul.
Not the coming in, but the going out.
Worlds have crossed paths, have been in conjunction for the duration of life's span, and now inexorably draw apart. Slowly or fast, the moorings part. The living slip from the fingers of the dying, and the dying from those of the living.
The fortunate ones at least feel the tug, the heartbreak of the parting, and in that they acknowledge that which has been so precious.
There are those who will not know, because the end comes untimely and sudden.
There are those who will know but who cannot feel.
Then there are those whose mind crumbles, and each next thought is shorter.
Full of sound and fury..
Do not go gentle..
Rage..
All thy tears..
**************************************************************************************************************************
The failure of the body.
The failure of the mind.
The conflagration of the emotions- rage, fury, tears.
The mind, the ego, fighting a losing battle.
It is no surprise, that such a journey into darkness can be deemed a horror.
*****************************************************************************************************************************
But where is the spirit in all of this? That transcendent domain?
Those who refer to 'a higher power' are speaking the truth.
There was a time (in my younger days..) when I realized that people were making a big mistake when they tried to operate their lives 'without reading the instructions'.
So many of those instructions can be found in the Bible- the 'Good Book'. Each one when found is a signpost, a light in the darkness, a way to open the door.
And as they are discovered, as more and more is revealed, one begins to see the overarching, protective and enabling nature of the boundless domain of the spirit.
Some of them are so simple- and yet so profound. 'Hold fast to that which is good.' 'The Fruits of the Spirit'
Who speaks the language of despair? Who gives voice to the knowledge that the battle is being lost?
Shakespeare in Macbeth's final soliloquy;
'...To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing...'
Thus one might well speak of the waning of meaning and competence in ones later years.
Dylan Thomas;
'...Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
What matter that one might rage? What does that change?
Omar Khayyam in the Rubaiyat;
'...The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it...'
These classics, first heard in my youth, come back to me in my age. They speak to me, saying that one is not alone. All walk this path, that of 'the way to dusty death'. Most, soon or late, do rage. Whether in bitter soliloquy, or rage, or tears, one fights to come to terms with change and ending.
****************************************************************************************************************************
What balance can be struck? What resources, what weapons, does one possess, to fight this losing battle? What grace may be brought to bear, what respite won? It is not a birth, where the valley of the shadow is a waypoint, a transition, a pivot point to leverage the coming into the world of a new soul.
Not the coming in, but the going out.
Worlds have crossed paths, have been in conjunction for the duration of life's span, and now inexorably draw apart. Slowly or fast, the moorings part. The living slip from the fingers of the dying, and the dying from those of the living.
The fortunate ones at least feel the tug, the heartbreak of the parting, and in that they acknowledge that which has been so precious.
There are those who will not know, because the end comes untimely and sudden.
There are those who will know but who cannot feel.
Then there are those whose mind crumbles, and each next thought is shorter.
Full of sound and fury..
Do not go gentle..
Rage..
All thy tears..
**************************************************************************************************************************
The failure of the body.
The failure of the mind.
The conflagration of the emotions- rage, fury, tears.
The mind, the ego, fighting a losing battle.
It is no surprise, that such a journey into darkness can be deemed a horror.
*****************************************************************************************************************************
But where is the spirit in all of this? That transcendent domain?
Those who refer to 'a higher power' are speaking the truth.
There was a time (in my younger days..) when I realized that people were making a big mistake when they tried to operate their lives 'without reading the instructions'.
So many of those instructions can be found in the Bible- the 'Good Book'. Each one when found is a signpost, a light in the darkness, a way to open the door.
And as they are discovered, as more and more is revealed, one begins to see the overarching, protective and enabling nature of the boundless domain of the spirit.
Some of them are so simple- and yet so profound. 'Hold fast to that which is good.' 'The Fruits of the Spirit'