Africa

Good Morning All,

As you read this post I am on my way to Nairobi, Kenya and I will be in country for nearly a week. You will notice come Monday a new blog visual header designed by my friend and noted artist Sue DiCicco. Thank you Sue.

I will be with some executive personnel and several members of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Medical Mission Board. CMMB. They are visiting their partners in the medical outposts in Kenya that service the needy and poor with treatment, medicine and medical equipment in the slums of Nairobi and in Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria.

I will participate in creating a half-hour program showing their outreach programs. The final product will be on their website in a few months. I'll let you know when through this blog.

I've never been to the continent of Africa before. I've read its history to prepare for this trip and it's not pretty for 18th and 19th century European white control of the riches and treasure of a continent is vast and dictatorial. Vast is an understatement; if you rolled the continent into a ball in would be the size of the moon.

Until the middle of the 20th century the control over a predominantly black tribal society by white overlords was cruel, tolerated and prejudiced. It was then that black leaders in several countries emerged to demand independence and self-rule. Africa was then on its way to the turmoil that independence brings to newly constituted governments. In many of the countries it continues to this day: Congo, Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, to name just a few.

I don’t know what to expect from my short visit. I will share my thoughts and feeling on this blog over the next week. I trust I will be able to post daily missives, but then you never know what might get in the way. I'll try. Stay tuned.

rgs

Misunderstanding and Misquote!

The Washington Post yesterday had the following as their Quote of the Day:

Judson Phillips, the founder of Nashville-based Tea Party Nation said in an interview on Wednesday:

“If you read the Koran, the Koran in no uncertain terms says some wonderful things like, ‘Kill the infidels…it says it on more than one occasion. I happen to be the infidel. I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I’m the infidel.”

If Mr. Phillips read the Koran he has not understood it. It is unfortunate that his misunderstanding or misinterpretation can influence so many people who won’t take the time to read, study and ask the experts.

I pulled the following off the internet and selected this piece from other similar ones that explain what the Koran says and means.

“The Qur'an commands Muslims to stick up for themselves in a defensive battle --i.e. if an enemy army attacks, then Muslims are to fight against that army until they stop their aggression. All of the verses that speak about fighting/war in the Qur'an are in this context.

There are some specific verses that are very often "snipped" out of context, either by those trying to malign the faith, or by misguided Muslims themselves who wish to justify their aggressive tactics.

For example, one verse (in its snipped version) reads: "slay them wherever you catch them" (Qur'an 2:191). But who is this referring to? Who are "they" that this verse discusses? The preceding and following verses give the correct context:

"Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight
you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevails justice and faith in God; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression" (2:190-193).

It is clear from the context that these verses are discussing a defensive war, when a Muslim community is attacked without reason, oppressed and prevented from practicing their faith. In these circumstances, permission is given to fight back -- but even then Muslims are instructed not to transgress limits, and to cease fighting as soon as the attacker gives up. Even in these circumstances, Muslim are only to fight directly against those who are attacking them, not innocent bystanders or non-combatants.

Another similar verse can be found in chapter 9, verse 5 -- which in its snipped, out of context version could read: "fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)." Again, the preceding and following verses give the context. This verse was revealed during a historical period when the small Muslim community had entered into treaties with neighboring tribes (Jewish, Christian, and pagan). Several of the pagan tribes had violated the terms of their treaty, secretly aiding an enemy attack against the Muslim community. The verse directly before this one instructs the Muslims to continue to honor treaties with anyone who has
not since betrayed them, because fulfilling agreements is considered a righteous action. Then the verse continues, that those who have violated the terms of the treaty have declared war, so fight them... (as quoted above).

Directly after this permission to fight, the same verse continues, "but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them... for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful." The subsequent verses instruct the Muslims to grant asylum to any member of the pagan tribe/army who asks for it, and again reminds that "as long as these stand true to you, stand ye true to them: for God loves the righteous."

Any verse that is quoted out of context misses the whole point of the message of the Qur'an. Nowhere in the Qur'an can be found support for indiscriminate slaughter, the killing of non-combatants, or murder of innocent persons in 'payback' for another people's alleged crimes.”

Let us always be careful of what people say especially those who misquote to seek advantage of point or principal.

Jack Smith

Google has been archiving 10-millions Life Magazine photos from the 1860’s to the present. I clicked on the link and found an astounding number of photos in a categorized collection.

I sifted through some from the Civil War and into the 1880’s, but then the 1910 category caught my attention and I remembered that my Uncle Jack fought in World War One with a Canadian infantry regiment.

I don’t know much about him accept he was a stepbrother of my Father. He was 15-years years older and certainly a great influence on my Father. I never met Jack; I just heard stories about him.

There was one picture taken in April 1917. It is a photo of Canadian troops climbing out of their trenches and “going over the top” during World War One.

The artillery shells were bursting in air over the trench. The soldiers were carrying British Lee-Enfield rifles, which were issued to virtually all British Commonwealth soldiers on the Western Front. The Lee-Enfield, with its ten-cartridge magazine was well suited to rapid fire; a soldier could expect to fire twelve shots a minute.

It is possible my Uncle Jack is in this picture. I don’t know, but I can imagine he had similar experiences. Jack survived the war, but like too many of the returning combat veterans from the Gulf and Afghanistan Wars, he could not survive coming home. He committed suicide sometime after the war ended.

War does things to those who are asked to fight it and to kill. War is an unnatural condition in which to live. Some make it through OK and go on to lead productive lives. Others like my Uncle Jack could not let go of the pain, the fog, and the psychological wounds of battle with images of dead buddies and slain bodies. Mankind makes no bandage to heal war time memories.

I am going back to look at that picture again and wonder about the Uncle I never met, and I'll also wonder why we haven’t learned very much in nearly a hundred years.

Expectoration

I was always taught that spitting was unsanitary, unhealthy and a filthy habit. The only time it was acceptable was when a bug flew in my mouth or I got hit in the mouth while playing a game or just fooling around and you had spit blood. Spitting was never done in polite society.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been watching the baseball playoffs and in just one game I stopped counting at over two hundred spits by the players and that was only in the early innings. At first I thought the only one who doesn’t spit is the catcher because he has a mask on, but then I saw one lift the mask, spit and go back to signaling his pitcher.

I know this is gross, but can you imagine the collective accumulation of saliva in the dirt around home plate and the other bases and especially in the dugout. I’d hate to be the guy who has to swab the dugout floor after a game. And I’d hate to be the catcher who has to look at that stuff in the dirt and then catch a ball that’s bounced in a glob of body fluid. Yea, I know it’s gross, but look at what it teaches our Little Leagues.

Major League Baseball is big, big business. They bill themselves as wholesome family entertainment; they promote high moral and ethical standards among the players, yet baseball is one of the few sports where spitting is constant and the camera always seems to have a close-up of the player in the act.

It seems to me Major League Baseball could suggest and encourage its players to be a little more courteous to the fans who watch on television.

Spitting is a habit and habits can be eliminated with conscience effort.

Thoughts and Memories on a Fall Day

What a magnificent Sunday! It was lazy. It was warmish outside. The leaves continue to fall into their singular and collective oblivion. Actually they are the nutrient loam of future growth, but today they are the crinkled collection of crunch in which children can play and adults can rake. What a gift.

There is nothing like the sound of a bamboo or thin metal rake as it scrapes along the grassy ground. I tried to write the sound that I made with each rake scrape, but it didn’t look right or even sound right in the attempted writing of it.

I mentioned Sunday was a lazy day. It was. I had a leisurely farewell lunch with a long time friend of mine who is moving to Texas. My wife cooked a turkey to take to a neighbor whose husband just died Saturday. We both felt the loss for our neighbor. It reminded us of our loss of a son eleven years ago. It’s the kind of memory that remains as fresh as the day it happened.

It doesn’t last long, but it is there because everyone who allows their divinely connected emotions to surface in this realm of density will empathetically resonate with the sadness of another.

In my home area it takes several weeks for all the leaves to fall so I can continue a clean-up for the winter. I enjoy the slow leaf shower experience and I’m reminded of Robert Frost’s poem October.

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Be well, this 25^th day of October, my reader friends. I thank you for your tuning in to this blog and hope you continue to do so.

The Torch of Fall

I don’t know if you've noticed the torch of autumn as yet. It depends on where you live and whether your environment and sensibilities present and choose to see the glory of nature manifest into a fleeting brilliance of color.

My house is high on a ridge between a river and a tributary creek. I am probably a thousand yards from the river and several hundred feet from the creek. The ridge is about three hundred feet above the river and maybe a hundred feet above the creek as it too flows to the river. It is an extraordinary place to be.

I mention this because toward the river, which is west of my home and down the slope there is a line of river trees that have turned a seasonal golden yellow. When the sun sets over the far ridge the yellows festoon their color into a curtain of gold. It is magnificent.

During the summer, when I look in that same direction at sunset, it is a variegated curtain of green. Light green, dark green, and all the bright greens you can think of only until the sunsets over the far ridge.

In a very short time it changes; autumn does that. In the next week the yellows will be gone and the river will be in full view through the lace of branches and trunks for the leaf scrim will have dropped collectively to the ground.

I think the season’s change is a profound lesson for humankind. To me both autumn and spring are sacred. In these two opposing seasons we see the seeming death and life of nature.

The trees, grasses, and flowers pass. The insects and some mammals disappear and essentially hibernate until the warmth of spring encourages the return to active life. The trees especially are the harbingers of endings and the heralds of new growth.

The human condition is similar to the cycle of tree life. Like the trees when we pass we really don’t die. The body passes, but the spirit, the sap of life, survives. We meld, we blend, and we hibernate into the root cosmos until divine guidance gives us another opportunity to return and grow bigger and better and more fully in the appreciation of All That Is.

I acknowledge that this concept may be both inimical and foreign to some beliefs systems. It doesn’t diminish your dogma, nor does it augment mine. It is a thought that works for me until another comes around that's better.

New York City

I’ve been going in and out of New York City for over forty years and the only thing that’s changed is nearly everything.

The alignments of the streets are still the same. The streets run East and West and avenues run North and South. Broadway, which kind of runs diagonally up and down Manhattan, is still a vibrant, energetic, electronically colorful way in all of New York City. Now it has a pedestrian mall respite in the eye of it’s activity at Times Square, but that’s about it.

Most of the restaurants have changed names. Some places I used to frequent twenty years ago are no longer there. The buildings are there, but the facades are changed. Delis have become Bodegas. French cuisine is now Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. Trees have died or have been cut down. Parking meters have been replaced by parking stations in which you put your money in and get a ticket to display on the dashboard of your car.

The cab drivers used to be a mix of third generation old world immigrants who spoke in a New York accent and tolerated nothing. Today many of the cabbies are from the Middle East, Russia or occasionally Latin America. If it weren’t for portable GPS’s some of them would not know how to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Traffic, by the way, is still the same. Congested, intolerable, horrendous, and frustrating. In recent years I’ve gone from driving in to taking the train and using mass transit.

Speaking of that, the subways have gone from tokens to electronic metro cards. It is one of the positive improvements of subway travel.

I was in Gotham recently and stayed at the Hotel Pierre. It is the newly renovated gem of the Taj Hotel group. Elegant comes to mind. I stayed there once forty years ago after a reportorial stint in Vietnam to speak to a group of selected advertisers hosted by the organization with which I worked at that time. I knew it was a high priced place then and it is now. Both times I didn’t pay. It was on somebody else’s dollar.

Yes! Lucky me.

There is one thing about New York City that has not changed over the years. It is its heart. Its spirit is still the same. Its breath of infectious life is still the same. The engenderment of wonder and awe on the faces of first time visitors never changes.

It is no wonder that the slogan, “I love New York” is still the truth of the place.

The Art of Fall

The Art of Fall
Rolland G. Smith

Each breeze of fall creates her art
By choosing leaves to fly around.
Yellow's float and crimsom's dart
The browns and oranges twist and bound.

Some colored piles are rococo
While others blend like pallet's streak.
It changes when the breezes blow
With added colors in their peak.

To find a frame for autumn's grace
And hold it's beauty for a time
You must imagine and embrace
That nature's glory is sublime.

Old Music, New Technology

I was listening to some old music last night and wondered what has happened to some of the artists to which I was listening. Doris Day, Perry Como, Ames Brothers, Phil Harris etc.

A song would come on and I sat there with my IPad and typed in the artist's name or the song’s title and immediately up popped the information from Google. The various artist’s life story, careers, and current situations whether it is in life or in an obituary. It was on my screen.

This is still a phenomenal thing for me for I remember when I was researching information for term papers and/or reports so many years ago; I had to go to the library and used the magazine and book card catalogue.

The Dewey Decimal System on the library shelves categorized information and it took a lot of time to get the appropriate information for my reports.

Last night it was instantaneous. WOW!

I’m old enough to be able to say WOW! The young of today with their instant gratification penchant and instant information need see it as normal. It’s great for them, but I wonder if they would know how to do it if the Internet went down or the computer crashed?

I remember my Dad saying, “ We tried it and it didn't work,” and I realize in new generations of time and space the past memories of how one used to do things really doesn’t work. (There are exceptions however, but not for this post ) What one must say in every succeeding generation is that it didn’t work then, but time and technology have altered the possibilities. Let’s see. Let’s try.

And then I thought about the music I was hearing. It had all been re-mastered. It had a quality that never existed when I listened to it as a teenager.

Now I listen to it on a little round silver disc that fits into any number of devices I have around the house and an hour or so of similar songs are embedded on the disc. I haven't even mentioned the minion's of music on a pod the size of my thumb.

I used to listen to the same music on a one song 45-RPM record or a collection of songs on 33 and 1/3 LP’s. The 45’s back then cost nearly a dollar, so what’s changed? I tunes charges 99-cents for a single tune these days. I also realized why songs of the 1950’s were so short, generally a minute and a half long. They had to be that length. The recording space on the 45 disc was limited. You couldn’t record a six minute song and have it fit on the record.

Hey, I even go back to 78’s. My folks had a limited collection of 78’s from the 1940’s. Talk about no fidelity.

I love the modern ways of music and the new technology. Keep it up! Soon we will hear it in our minds. Then it will only cost a penny. Isn't that what thoughts are going for these days?

Weekend Headlines

Do you ever wonder why sometimes we get depressed?

Look at the headlines over the weekend.

The Housing Secretary says foreclosure problems are shameful.

Gunmen kill 29 in Karachi as Pakistan’s election is held.

France reports a new terrorist attack in Europe is possible.

A super typhoon is heading to the Philippines.

Leaked Iraq war files worry the Pentagon.

Police shoot a football player at a NY bar brawl.

Kentucky Senate debate dissolves into name-calling.

Here’s the way the headlines could be envisioned.

Housing Secretary says we will fix the problems of housing foreclosures.

Militants save 29 in Karachi as election looms.

France reports dissidents involved in finding a solution.

Strong building codes in the Philippines humble a super typhoon.

Leaked Iraqi war files show Pentagon true to American principles.

A football player involved in a bar brawl praises police for restraint.

Kentucky Senate debate stays with the issues.

If we think it…could it not be that way?

Ahmadinejad

Here’s the headline from yesterday.

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for 9/11 investigation."

What is wrong with Iran that allows this kind of behavior, rhetoric and lies from its alleged leader?

Iran is a country with a noble and great history. The Persians of old must be turning over in their tombs with this kind of dictatorship.

He blames the US Government for creating the attack on the United States on 9/11/01

Speaking at a late night rally, he said: “I announce that the formation of an independent and neutral team to examine the facts and discover the truth of the September 11 events is the demand of all the peoples of the region and the world.”

Smith Dictionary of idiots:

Ahmadinejad – certifiably insane.

1. Megalomaniac.

2. Malcontent

3. Sycophant

4. Psychotic

5. Criminal

See Also: Mentally Ill

Sequel

To those who did, I'm glad you liked yesterday's post.

To a friend who send me this reply I am indebted. It is wonderful.

"Today is mine. It is unique. Nobody in the world has one exactly like

it. It holds the sum of all my past experiences and all my future potential.

I can fill it with joyous memories or ruin it with fruitless worry. If

painful recollections of the past come into my mind, or frightening thoughts

of the future, I can put them away. They cannot spoil today for me. It is

mine."

Author Unknown.

If you know the author, let me know and I will honor and credit the writer.

Attitude

Doom and Gloom
© 2010 Rolland G. Smith

Let’s choose some words and play a game
To fit our national mood.
For some it’s doom and some it’s blame;
A few are misconstrued.

But I am sad in what I read
For gloom is part of it.
Investors think the wall street seed
Is tarred within a pit.

That may be true and times are tough
And loss does come to mind,
But don’t you think we have enough
And need not be entwined?

We really have a lot to count
For those who keep the score
And when it's bad we all surmount
The issues we abhor.

When global markets scrape the tanks
And numbers breach and fall
Let’s change our thoughts to giving “thanks”
For what we have at all.

We have so much, we’re spoiled kids,
Complaining all the time.
Comparing us to real skids
Our lot is most sublime.

Can we not go from East to West
And turn and then head back
Without a stop to even rest,
No border stops to track.

Do we not have a power source
Without a thought each day?
To me that is a gift perforce
And something we should weigh.

Do we not have a freedom’s grace
To say what all we please?
And let our thoughts then interface
With others in degrees.

We have a vote where some do not
And choice to make it so.
Too many say, Oh, I forgot
To pull the lever row.

I’ll bet with thought a list would come
And blend within your mind.
So many gifts where we succumb
To be as if we’re blind.

There are so many things we need
To say we’re thankful for.
The sun is one and flower’s seed,
And mountains and the shore.

A gentle rain is in there too
As is an Eagle's screech.
Let’s not forget the morning dew
And those who like to teach.

So when we say we’ve not enough
Complaining here and there.
Perhaps we need to call our bluff
And make the choice to share.

A thank you is oft hard to do
And some think it means weak,
But we should say it and pursue
This way to always speak.

So I will end this post this day
With lofty thoughts in mind
And hope that all who read will say
Tis gloom I leave behind.

A Walk In the Woods

My walk began at wooded rim, beneath an autumn sky
The morning air was crisp, and dust came from the dry.
I looked around at nature knowing I would find
Her rhythm in a rock, and reason in her rhyme.

I heard it first on the path, walking, slowly not too far.
It faded in and out of mind, like a distant twinkling star.
Then louder came its gentle tone, uniquely humming mild,
When tuning clear to natures sound, your spirit is beguiled.

You know it in the sparkle of a trickling tiara stream
That slides o’er stone and granite bead crowning Gaia queen.
You feel it in the wilting wind with all its names that please,
“Refreshing,” “Cooling,” “Gentle,” special kinds of breeze.

You see it in the flora and the rainbows of the flower,
As blossoms burst with color, in a natural sculptured bower.
You taste it in her breath when fragrance fills the air,
With tiny pollens of her heart, perfumes of scented prayer.

Nature’s essence is profound; her truth comes when you listen,
To the dew that’s on the grass and hear the sunlight glisten.
Squinting crystals in the bright that hide when it is warm,
Returning precious liquid life in shower and in storm.

I found it tiny, on the ground, in trails of hurried ants.
I found it too, among the herbs and healing medicine plants.
I find it often in the trees, amid a darting of delight
As playful fluttering feathered ones put magic in their flight.

There are other things to know, from the silence of her breach,
And heed the wise and warning shrill of the Owl’s casting screech.
Nature’s sound speaks many tongues to tell us there is trouble
For in the print of humankind, the future reeks in rubble.

But on this day, I shall not dwell on the ablutionary bad,
For it would change my wooded walk and make my smile sad.
In all my walks, on many paths, even ones without a tree,
I choose to find the joy of life, for nature lives in me.

1492

Some have tried to prove he was a Spaniard, others thought he might be Greek, but serious scholars, through years of research, are firmly convinced he was an Italian.

Much has been written about this man and he is known throughout the world. In a few countries they even have a special day to celebrate his accomplishment, but not too many really know about him.

He had little or no formal education and spoke a native dialect that was never a written language. When later in life he did learn to write, it was not in Italian, but Castilian, then a dialect of Spanish, but now the main spoken language of Spain.

He worked in his father's trade as a master weaver and even as a wine buyer for a little shop his father operated. In his early 20's he started to make trips to sea, to nearby lands, perhaps to buy the wool and wine for his father.

His brother was a mapmaker and for awhile he learned a little of that trade too. Once, as a deck hand on a voyage to England, French pirates sunk his ship and he used an oar as a life raft and made his way to Portugal. That turned out to be a fortunate event, for Portugal at the time was a center for overseas exploration and the young shipwrecked man learned navigation and hydrography.

Sixteen years later he did something that changed the course of history.

In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed to this continent and claimed to have discovered a land fully inhabited by native and cultured people. Hubris was around even then.

Inattentiveness

I heard on the news last night that Congress passed a bill that basically no one read; there was no debate, no publicity, no nothing. The bill was sent to the White House for the President's signature.

The bill would have given the banks an easier process to foreclose on millions of homes. Apparently someone at the White House read the bill and informed Mr. Obama of its contents. He did not sign it.

Where were our Representatives and Senators on this? Are they once again so busy keeping their jobs that they forgot to do their jobs. Who pushed this through Congress? The bank lobbyists?

It is time for a change! It does not matter who or what party you vote for or belong too. Those in congressional positions need to be replaced by responsible legislators. Lobbyists need to be curtailed. Seniority needs to end so committee chairmanships go to new blood and not to senior and often obstructionist and partisan politicians.

I am sure that many good babies will get thrown out with the changing bathwater, but that's the risk of ineffectual politics and not paying attention to your job.

Memories

I listened to some music of the fifties and sixties last night and it brought back many wonderful memories of hops, high school dances, summer and puppy loves and fun times with friends.

I tried to remember if my parents talked about the music they listened too in the late twenties, thirties and forties. Performers like Guy Lombardo, Cab Calloway, The Mills Brothers, Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby and the profound Ella Fitzgerald. I couldn't recall, but I know they did.

Music is the great remember-er of happy times or sad times of lost loves or just of younger times, especially when one is older and listens, by chance, to a song that invokes an emotion long gone in the mind, but lifted to the surface of thought with a knowing smile.

For me flavors are like that too. My wife and I cooked some fresh green beans the other day and I tasted one raw before it when into the pot. The flavor brought back memories of holiday dinners and the goodies on the kitchen counter.

Music, tastes and aromas are the sensory sentiments of memories. Sometimes the aroma of a Pot Roast cooking in the oven will take me back to childhood. The ancient dusty smell of a long used stage will bring me to plays and performances I saw or played in as a youngster.

The sound of a trickling and gurgling mountain creek moves me to atavistic memories of lazy days fishing and hiking; even the occasional pipe smoke one comes across these days will remind me of my Dad.

I suspect that many of us often hear the distant divine din of the universe when we take the time of let go of all the holding thoughts that keep us from knowing who we are.

2012 Presidential Hopefuls?

It’s started!

It will be an interesting campaign for the Republican Nomination for President in the election year 2012.

Already potential candidates like Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee are all in a position and have made some indications that they might choose to run for the Republican nomination for President.

All of the above have a common employer.

FOX NEWS.

Does not that tell us something about the “fair and balanced” slogan of Fox News?

I wonder how Fox would cover any of their employee's campaign? In the old days of legitimate journalism they would have abstained from coverage or acknowledge in every story the association.

Speaking of megalomaniacs. Was I? Sorry, a momentary lapse of impartiality.

Donald Trump said at a news conference yesterday that he is thinking about running for the job. He is a Republican. It gets more interesting at every moment.

If he’s elected I can see the voice-over announcer’s copy now: “Ladies and Gentlemen the President of the United States, The Donald.

The Wandering Mist

My thought wanderings this morning are motivated by the continuing climate of fear that seems to permeate the economic realms of our magnificent world.

I have come to realize that fear and trust are inimical. They cannot co-exist. You cannot tie one to the other for trust is real and fear is an illusion. Unfortunately so many choose the illusion. No matter how we let fear manifest in the mind, it is still a fiction, a false emotion precipitated by the ego and its need to justify and sustain itself. Trust, however, is a freeing gift from the benevolent and infinite Source that allows us to accept that things are as we create them on our path to enlightenment.

Throughout history humankind has been using fear as the great motivator, a great blindness as not to see the serendipitous joy in living. Individuals, groups, societies, religions and countries have used fear as a motivator to react and direct our thought and support to a specific area.

I have come to believe that once we acknowledge the genesis of fear, and trace it honestly and lovingly to our egos, it can no longer instigate or be the catalyst of negative action. When fear does not exist, sacred and unconditional trust emerges.

In my sixty eight plus years of shared emotions and blended tears in just the living of life, I have come to realize the importance of the truth of living in the moment, or the “Now.” I have always felt its efficacy, but its slamming reality is always brought home through crisis, through life's wanted and unwanted experiences, through meditation and through prayer and especially through joy. I believe we are eternal and each life is not only a physical concept embedded in matter, but a spiritual reality called spirit as we merge to the mystical Oneness in the far reaches of the inner universe.

We are all Chela's in the quest for knowing.

The Splendor of Routine

Hello my friends on this early morning of rain and fall breezes. The wind is pruning the leaves. The splendid colors of the tree spirits now festoon Gaia’s ground with a varigated quilt of color.

On such a beautiful morning, my thoughts lean toward perceptions. Concretized perceptions, however, limit the perceived wonder of life and cloud the light of living in the NOW. Let go of the stuff that's cemented into your mind-set and allow wonder to blossom into thought.

Each contraction of our hearts beats a powerful message of joy. If we listen.

Listen to your heart. Feel its divine onomatopoeic cadence. Infuse your heart with a verbal rhythm "Love Is All.” In the truth of these words you have the mantra of miracles and the interconnection of spirits.

If we see others only as a separate physical being struggling to live then we limit all of us. If we choose to see the divinity within each human being as an expression of the continuing divine unfoldment of growth then we are all limitless.

To me the joy of earthly existence is to see all that is as All That Is and to recreate ourselves in every moment in the grandest vision we can image for ourselves and learn that different is not lesser and "the other" is not separate from the self.

God cannot be unknown to its created expressions. If we accept the premise that our spirits are divine then it follows there is divinity in all others. If we see all that is through the divinity within us, then we will see nothing but the light of love personified. We are all one with THE ONE and therefore one with each other.

The miracle of life, however, is not the Oneness. It is the diversity within the Oneness. An ego-focused existence confuses different with diversity. Living, by choosing to see others as different, inhibits the ability to express the divine within us for we empower the ego-sustained illusion that believes we are separate. We can think we are separate and thereby choose to live in the illusion, but the reality is that we are never separate from the divine that is us. We are always only a choice away from the abundance that is our creation gift. The ONE-der of diversity encourages expression of the divine within us as us.

I started this post by watching the leaves fall and cover the sacred ground of earth. Isn’t it marvelous how the mind can wander in wonder?

Life

How far back can you remember? Take a moment and direct your mind to find your earliest thoughts. Sweep all distractions from your mind and with some silent concentration you will be able to guide your memory to the time when your mind was new and unencumbered with intellectual illusions stuffed into the boxes of time.

Once you are there get comfortable and will the mind to pass the gossamer vail of illusion and you will know the splendor from which you came.

Poet William Wordsworth wrote:

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory, do we come from God, who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy, but he beholds the light, and whence it flows, - He sees in it his joy."

Wordsworth is poetically saying that before we came into this physical plane, we existed in glory as conscious beings whose spirits are enthused by the light of omniscient Love and each of us is encouraged to be that love in the density of matter through experiential choice.

I believe that life is eternal. Matter and physical form is not. Physical life is only one manifestation of temporary being. The Master Jesus said, "In my Father's house there are many mansions." Earth is just one of the many schools for learning. Some proclaim, it is the only one, but singular belief comes from the density of our form, not from the gnosis of our being.

In whatever worlds and realms we reside, we are the divine emanations of God's love, and perpetual life is His gift. We are the individuation of the indivisible. The reality of our life, the personification of God's gift, is our choice based on a direct precipitate of what we think.

Descartes hypothisized: "I think therefore I am."

The Buddha: "What we think we become."

It's not that we have lived before or that we will live again, it is that we never cease living.

I'm gonna go and think about the national debt for awhile. It's easier!