Unbelieveable!

I haven’t dumped on Fox News lately mostly because I am generally disgusted every time I leave the channel there for longer that just switching through.

I didn’t see the original exchange, but I did see it on You Tube.  I still wonder where do we get these fear mongers and partisan politicos.

In a panel discussion with Lou Dobbs on Friday he apparently agreed with a former Fox News lobbyist that Americans need military-style assault weapons to protect themselves from an Iranian invasion.

Angela McGlowan, said in the discussion:

“What scares the hell out of me we have a president that wants to take away our guns, but yet he wants to attack Iran and Syria. So if they come and attack us here, we don’t have the right to bear arms under this Obama administration.”

Want to see it? http://youtu.be/JE8LHmIcQZY

The panel also said that gun ownership in Israel helps prevent terrorist attacks.

That’s not true. About 170-thousand guns are licensed for private use in Israel. Assault weapons are banned for private ownership.

These guys must be attending the Michele Bachmann school of history and fiction.

Underlined Passages

Good Morning on this magnificent Friday.

The prologue to this blog includes a statement of my interests. I’ve written about and still do dabble each day in the quest for spiritual understanding.

Through the years I have read hundreds of books and lectures on spirituality. They other day I picked up an old tome and started going through some of the passages I had underlined years ago; for me the passages still have value and validity.

Today’s post will include a litany of those underlining’s to share with you. If you find they have value for you, send me an email and I will share the name and author of the book from where they came.

To wit:

“You strive so valiantly to create a happy future. You hold with such reverence the joy as well as the pain of the past. In so doing you rob yourselves of the lives you have come to live, for if you are living in history or anticipation, you are not living in the moment.”

“When you insist on understanding, you remove yourselves from the moments of magic.”

“If you can allow each moment its own uniqueness, you will find a way through the forest.”

“Recognize that there is no future and no past. Each moment is filled with its own riches. You live NOW.”

Be well my friends.

The Signs of Spring

My meadow and woods are alive, even though there is still some snow on the ground. You have to peek, probe and be still to see that life abounds beneath the snow and leaf cover and within the ground and at the edge of branches and twigs.

There is something spiritual about the spring season. It’s a celebrating renewal and rebirth for many religious communities and disciplines, and it's a regenerating time for all of nature.

Some of the old leaves from last fall are still embedded in the tan and matted grasses. Last fall’s leaves are now a deep brown and black in color. They are withered, wet and drained of their nutrients in order to nurture renewed growth and new life from the seeding winter winds.

The Lichen on the rocks and trees seems a bit greener in its grayish demeanor. I know that Lichen florets grow more slowly than Pluto orbits the sun, but to my observation, there seemed a burst of colored growth in their crocheted stillness.

All along the meadow and adjacent woods there are fallen limbs and branches pruned by the cutting winter winds and the gusting breezes of early spring.

At a pond there are no signs yet of small fish, turtles, tadpoles, and water bugs, but there is an occasional gas bubble from the decaying leaves underneath the surface. It’s too early yet since the ice is still leaving.

Besides the trickling stream that fills the pond most of the year, there is a side spring that drains its underground flow into the pond. But there in the middle of the crystal spring is the brightest green of growth; a patch of Watercress about the size of a small rug.

It gets its early start from the warmer spring waters surging from deep underground.

In many ways we are like the watercress plant. We are warmed by deep spiritual waters from an inner Source and we grow despite the outward climate or birth conditions and our main nutrient is unconditional love.

Amazing.

Maple Syrup time

Today is the first day of spring. It arrived at 7:02 this morning EDT. Yippee! I’m ready as I am sure most of us are ready to let the vestiges of winder dwindle as the temperature rises.

It’s still cold here. Yesterday we got about six inches of wet snow, but spring is coming. I haven’t seen the Crocuses’ yet, but a seeping spring in my lower meadow is greening with watercress.

Another sign of spring here in the northeast is the tapping of the sugar maple trees and collecting buckets of sap to boil down to maple syrup and sugar. 

In my region they use the traditional method of drilling a couple of holes in the tree bark and inserting a spigot draining into a bucket or some sap collectors insert a couple of taps in a tree and have the sap drain into tubing collecting into a barrel like container.

The rule of thumb is the rule of 86. Divide 86 by the sugar content. If you have 2% sugar, 86 divided by 2 is 43, so it will take 43 gallons of sap to equal one gallon of syrup.

The other day some tree trimmers cut some maple branches and the sap started to drain where they made their cuts. Over night it drained and froze and you can see the result.

By the way, the native peoples of the northeast made maple syrup and sugar long before the European settlers came to these shores.

The pancakes are ready. See you!

This is wonderful!!!

Good Morning!

I received this email last night and it is a must for my post this morning.

A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. 

This video meaning is the exact opposite backwards as forward.
It is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen...forward and backward. 
The video was submitted to a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=42E2fAWM6rA

A Friend Dies

A long time friend of mine died the other day. I'd known him for 47 years. At one time we were colleagues in the broadcast business. After awhile we went our separate ways, but we stayed in touch through the years. He was well known in his broadcast environs, mostly in Indiana and Kentucky. He also dabbled in other professions, but his love was broadcasting and he was good at it.

Our friendship began with humor, fun light-hearted one-liners and grew rapidly through mutual interests into a bond of trust, truth and honesty. In the trust, there was a deep mutual respect for the gifts of the other. In the truth, there were the acknowledgements that if one succeeds then so do all and in the honesty there was a simple sharing of the pain and pleasure of life.

When a friend or a colleague passes it always gives us pause. First of all we reflect on our own finiteness, then we resurrect memories of that person; tiny moments of experience long ago tucked into the recesses of our mind and only brought to life because of death. Isn't that ironic. Generally the memories of personal friends are positive and probing into the original reasons for the friendship. Snippets of conversations and laughter rise in the mind eliciting a smile or sadness because of the memory or the loss.

I've often wondered why I have certain friends. What attracted each of us to the other? What commonality and camaraderie sustains the mutual gift of like? Why are we attracted to certain people and not to others?

I also wonder if we had known our friends before we were born. Were we friends on the other side and will we be so again in one to one communication?

I don't know who wrote the following, but it has been on my computer clip list for many years. I think it's appropriate for this post and for my thoughts of my friend.

"When I die, give what is left of me away. And when you need me put your arms around someone and give them what you need to give me. Look for me in the people I've known or loved. If you cannot give me away at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind. You can love me most by letting hands touch hands and by letting go of children who need to be free. Love doesn't die. People do. So when all that is left of me is love...give me away."

My friend's name is Will Murphy. Requiescat in pace