Category: Individual pieces

The Apple

I was looking for an apple.
I went to car dealership and they didn’t have any.
I went to the art store and they didn’t have any.
I went to the bookstore and they didn’t have any.
I hiked over to the jewelery store and they didn’t have any.
I drove to the men’s clothes store and they didn’t have any.
I even went to sporting goods store and they didn’t have any.
At the sporting goods store the guy I asked me why I was looking for an apple there?
I then told him about how I was looking everywhere and began rattling off all the places.
He looked at me and said, Why not just go to the grocery store?

The reason King and the investigation into terrorism and its link to extremism branches in Islam is because the bulk if not all terrorist actions perpetrated against our country in the past ten years have been from people who claimed to be Muslims.
So why wouldn’t he go to the grocery store looking for the apple?

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the hole

I read this NYT article this morning that was the result of two philosophers trying to explain why the majority of people feel “empty” and how to remedy the situation. They tell us to be proactive and participate in things that will provide us “whooshing up” moments. “We get whooshed up at a sports arena, at a political rally or even at magical moments while woodworking or walking through nature.”  The writer of the article points out that these two philosophers writing from the so-called scholarly ivory towers are of the belief that there is no God and since they feel that way and have the empty hole in their lives that the majority of society does as well.

Why I mention this article and am taking the time to post about it is that they do hit the nail on the head, accidentally, as to what many people are and do go through. And this pertains to Christians, religious, spiritual or not. I speak from first hand experience on this. One can have “beliefs” and really not be connected to them. Or another way to put, being spiritual minus the power and peace. In order to have any chance of explaining what I mean I have to speak from what I know so I will address it from the position of a Christian but if the reader is a Buddhist, free-lance, etc I believe they can easily and effectively replace the proper nouns to identify with this better.

For a Christian we are to be Christ-like and that does not just mean “behave”. Jesus came to this earth to save the lost because it was His Father’s will. He suffered and died on the cruel cross of Golgotha because it was God’s will for His life. To be Christ-like, to be a Christian, means to be fulfilling God’s will for your life. In can be to be a Christian book-seller, Christian teacher, Christian janitor, Christian doctor, and it can also be to be a Christian missionary or other similar responsibilities; the bottom line is that we are doing the Father’s will. If we are I am of the firm belief we will not have the empty hole. That does not mean we won’t have rough, tough, miserable times ahead. It just means the hole will be filled and there is a peace that passes all understanding when that is the case.

Our nation claims to be religious/spiritual but the truth of the matter is our nation is religious/spiritual only at a certain place and at a certain time/s a week; the other days of the week we are doing what we want, when we want and doing our best to accumulate wealth, prosperity or simply covering the weekly or monthly living expenses. There is without a doubt a large hole.

Selfishness, prosperity seeking and the like are never ever satisfied; they will always leave a hole.

So the question is simple, whose will are you trying to fulfill?

 

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Learning from history is wise

The conversations, debates and stories focusing around terrorism and Muslims usually goes the path about breaking of civil liberties in so called targeting or profiling based on appearance or knowledge of one’s association to Islam. Which is ridiculous as I have posted before and will continue to point out the ignorance to remove or disregard this first obvious level of discernment and decision making. I’ve been meaning to share the following illustration/example and just never got around to it until today…

Many years ago people feared another institution which murdered and brutalized people because of the recipient’s religious beliefs. In a town or village when they saw these people who often dressed different from the town/village citizens. These people also spoke in a different language when discussing their faith and reading their sacred texts. Villagers learned that these people who had travelled to the village/town had one focus – conversion to their faith due to the town’s wickedness for embracing the devil/satan/evil. Citizens also learned over time that these different people usually dressed in black would befriended people in the town to learn more about the other citizens and how their town was run. Who was the leader/mayor, government, and so on? You can read about their brutality which was far more evil than the current terrorists of extremism in Islam in such books as the Foxe’s book of martyrs. These terrorists were the Roman Catholic Church and the period has become known as the Roman Inquisition of the 12th through 17th centuries.

Why bring this up? Because the parallels are serious and the method of protection for oneself should be also. If you saw these killers you should identify them quickly and then remove their the threat to your society — you don’t protect the people by ignoring the obvious signs.

This is a pattern repeated down through out history in many if not most countries by different religions or forms of humanism. People too often and quite easily kill other people for the unwillingness to join the power holder of the moment. Whether it is genocide in Africa, Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, USA, France, Russia, China, and so on. Human beings kill other human beings and if you want to survive and have the norms and way of living in your culture and society the least unaffected by the murderers you HAVE to immediately identify the threat and neutralize it either by locking them away or killing them. Peace through strength not ignorance.

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A hole story

You hire a crew of 10 people each equipped with a bulldozer and send them to point X and tell them to dig a hole and not stop till you come and tell them to.
You hire a crew of 2 with shovels and after a week send them to point X and tell them to pick up the dirt that has been dug out of the hole and put it back in the hole.
Meanwhile the diggers keep digging.
And digging.
Now look at the pile of dirt – that is debt.
Look at the hole – that is the deficit.
The hole will keep growing until I make it stop.
I have no intention – that is the government.

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Predicament

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

“THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”

I wish I was so eloquent so as to share with you/anyone my feelings and belief about our country, our government and our predicament. If I had the patience and time I would comb through my books and other texts to provide many quotes, examples for why I “feel” and “believe” what I do. I lack the patience to wait and prepare such a draft because I fear that by the time I actually completed the draft it would be too late.

One truth, I believe there is a time, a parcel of the future where once we reach it that it will indeed be too late. At this moment I believe we are quite close to that parcel.

Second truth, I believe that our country has been the victim of deliberate actions meant to undermine and ruin what the country was meant to be. It began in the days of the nation’s founding but gained traction in the early 1800s and ever since has quietly and destructively rolled onto its goals – sabotage.

Third truth, our nation has been and is being sabotaged. Sabotaged as defined in the Random House dictionary “1. any underhand interference with production, work, etc., in a plant, factory, etc., as by enemy agents during wartime or by employees during a trade dispute. 2. any undermining of a cause.“

Fourth truth, the vast majority of our country’s citizens do not know enough about what America was suppose to be and founded as to be aware of the acts of sabotage that have occurred and are occurring.

Fifth truth, as I see it, the only way our country can be saved and restored to what it was founded as and meant to be is by revolution. Revolution as defined in the Random House dictionary “an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.”

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