The Prophet

My friend Dick Prophet passed the other day. We were high school classmates. May he rest in peace.

The Prophet

©2016 Rolland G. Smith

I knew a man; I did not know

Accept I did when we were teens.

I knew him new when we got old

His heart and mind no space between.

He died the other day; I’m told.

His life lived well. Now, no more pain.

For me, It’s sad; we lived apart

For early friends, when old, remain.

Age is a time when we must go

Beyond the flesh of mortal life.

Where alabaster cities gleam,

And love is all. There is no strife.

My friend is there, where we will go

When all our challenges are gone.

He sees the truth of earthly faults.

His spirit lives in heaven’s dawn.

Happy Birthday America

Way back when, long before the time of today’s conscious memory, an idea became the child of freedom and democracy. At its birth, on July 4th, 1776, they named her Independence.

It was a hard pregnancy. The energy of violence was prevalent until the last British ships sailed out of New York Harbor. Then came the task of tolerance and the faith of forgiveness for 4-thousand, four hundred and 35 new American citizens died before the birth of Independence was possible.

Independence was a normal child with endemic growing pains and problems. She fought against others in 1812 and deep within her family in 1860 as she struggled to keep herself together.

Through the years into maturity, Independence traveled many paths. Old tired ones of war and new jubilant celebrations of peaceful success. Along the way, there was boom and bust in the quest for comfort and the persona of independence made its share of friends and enemies, but she always carried the olive branch of reconciliation.

So congratulations Independence on this your birthday. May all your other names of liberty and courage be forever tied to virtue, to tolerance, to honor, to integrity and the God We Trust.

Cutting the Lawn and Young Lives.

I was cutting he lawn the other day and as blades of grass and early flowers we cut in their prime, I wondered how often that happens to young people who are cut off by the blade of parents opinion, by teachers not seeing a potential, by group mores who inhibit rather then encourage, by restricting social conditions and condemnations before individuality can flower into full creative potential.

Authorities, both secular and religious; customs, both political and social often inhibit, if not restrict, the young from choosing a life path other than what is or has been the norm.

How many great discoveries have we cut in the bud by saying we don’t do it that way, or we’ve never done it that way or that’s not the way it’s done? How many creative geniuses have we stifled because Dad or Mom went to that school and so should you or you’ll make more money doing this than that?

How many hearts have we broken or bent in saying, “you must, you should, you’d better, and you owe me?"

Let the unending field of human choice and its innate creativity blossom into greatness.

I believe as philosopher Joseph Campbell espoused, “Follow your bliss” and you will be happy and successful in the context of your happiness. The world then will be a much better place for all of us.