Unremitting Love

She’s more enchanting than a summer's day, her enduring radiance calling back the lovely April of her prime. 

Her enlivened greetings brighten the common hour. In conversation she listens more than she talks, her green eyes intense and sparkling. 

Her presence enables everyone to feel special because she believes they are. She facilitates hope for a peaceful and cultured civilization. She’s as soothing as a downy pillow. 

Her home radiates warmth and welcome. She turns a sandwich into an charming meal and makes fantastic potato soup, malted milkshakes and iced mint tea. No restaurant can outdo her elegant meals. Watching her in the kitchen warms the heart. 

You never hear her boast about her family or herself. You won’t find her discussing her accomplishments, her famous friends or her worldly travels. She avoids all things pretentious and flees ostentation. Fancy cars and gaudy excess fail to impress her.  

Born of a cooler race with distrust for sweet-faced hypocrisy she endures no evil and tolerates no lies. She tells you what she thinks in way that makes you feel good about yourself and her. When she makes a request you feel disappointed if you fail to meet her expectations. 

Her pleasing counsel, sweet to the soul and healing to the spirit, comes from a discerning heart. She avoids nagging and guards against quarrelsome words, but remains firm-footed about her convictions. 

If she can’t find anything good to say about someone, she doesn’t say anything at all. She speaks the truth from her heart, respects everyone and casts no slur on anyone. She looks for the good. She understands and forgives. 

She’s as steady as an incoming tide. Once she makes up her mind, she almost never changes it. Because our strengths are, in excess, our greatest weakness, she’s hard headed and cursed by perfectionism.

She’s intolerant of overabundant fervor and vigorous gusto. I must curb my enthusiasm for improving a story with expanded truth. Her upturned eyes tell me that my free use of gesticulation and theatrics have overextended her tolerance for my unfettered excitement.       

She covers her eyes during crucial parts of an Aggie game and at the scary parts of a movie. She fears mice and getting her finger pricked, but other than that she can withstand just about anything from man or beast. When malice attacks a loved one or friend she comes to the rescue firm-chinned and determined.

She avoids religious babble and fundamental hypocrisies, but she’s rock faithed and spiritually solid. She trusts in the Lord with all her heart and in all ways acknowledges him. 

Her actions reflect her conviction that God comes first in her life. She comforts those in trouble with the peace she herself has received from God.

She avoids foolish arguments on the mind of God. She pays no heed to religious debates that are beyond the reach of our souls. She believes that all are predestined for grace and that free will gives us the opportunity to have an abundant life filled with love, peace and joy. 

She’s centered on each day, treasures time and wastes no hour. She abhors regret and believes the future will work out the way it has been planned. 

Fifty-one years ago I was just a boy with overflowing ambition made awkward by doubt when I married her, a girl as fresh as spring blossoms possessing a wide-eyed belief in the future and me. Her love and steadiness bring out my best.

The PC Debate: "Left" Behind or the "Right" Word

The political kerfuffle may be decided with words. Which do you prefer?:

• A lie or a factually false statement
• Bum or motivationally challenged
• Crazy or serotonin deficient  
• Example: 
• The sex-crazed bum left me and my kids broke and homeless. 
• The motivationally challenged libidinous serotonin deficient sperm donor abandoned the children rendering us a single mom family without a domicile or financial sustenance.
• Criminal or behaviorally challenged
• Example: 
• Lockup those ghetto-bred criminals. 
• The behaviorally challenged citizens who live in an economically disadvantaged area have an environmental induced tendency to behave in an improper manner that incarceration exacerbates.
• Temper tantrums or bipolar tendencies
• Garbage or sanitation challenged products so that a garbage man becomes a sanitation engineer
• Custodian or hygienic artist 
• Failure or deferred success
• He failed because he couldn't read, write or do arithmetic.
• His deferred success was no longer delayed when academic qualifications became equalized for all students so that no child was left behind.
• Fat people or the hormone induced rotund
• Foreign food or ethnic cuisine
• Example: 
• Fat people get high blood sugar 'cause they don't eat good"
• Ethnic cuisine of the Mediterranean variety may help the hormone induced rotund to attain a svelte physique that enhances a healthy life-style. 
• Housewife or domestic engineer, or, perhaps, CEO of a small cooperation 
• Natural disaster or climate change event
• Hot weather or increased global warming confirmation 
• Politician or self-serving autocrat

In summary let us endeavor to articulate in a culturally diverse manner so that our inoffensive communication enhances harmony with all people can be expostulated with less verbosity. In plain speech: Speak kindly and clearly.

Living with Honor in Tragic Times

Less than a week after a sniper’s shot killed five Dallas police officers and wounded twelve others a terrorist drove a 21-ton truck through a Bastille Day celebratory crowd killing 84 people and grievously injuring over 200. Just now as I am writing this three police officers have been killed, three more wounded in a Baton Rouge ambush. We seem wrapped in an pandemic of hate. 

But let us remember the perpetuators of evil are few. We, the vast majority, pursue peace, scorn prejudice, seek harmony. 

Let us remember that tragic events spur stirring and tender moments: 

• Police rushing toward the shots to serve those in danger
• Police risking their lives to shield and protect bystanders from harm
• Strangers of all races and colors gathering around the bereaved and the frightened 
• Volunteers turning anger into productive community service 
• Churches filling 
• Prayer vigils forming
• Police Chief David Brown appealing for duty and honor: 
• Become a part of the solution. Serve your communities. Don’t be a part of the problem. We’re hiring. Get off that protest line and put an application in, and we’ll put you in your neighborhood. And we will help you resolve some of the problems you’re protesting about. 
• George Walker Bush at the Dallas Memorial for the five assassinated police officers extolling our common values: 
• Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose. But Americans, I think, have a great advantage. To renew our unity we only need to remember our values. We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the spirit—by shared commitments to common ideals. 

We would be inhuman if we felt no horror, if we experienced no sadness or frustration, fear or anger, yet we have the responsibility to those who died and those who mourn, to ourselves and to our country to use our emotions in a way befitting our ancestors. 

We can be sad, but not despondent. Angry, but not bitter. Vigilant, but not paranoid. Anxious, but not immobilized. Reflective, but not worried. 

We can respect and honor each other. We can cultivate harmonious family relationships. We can trust God for who He is—the omniscient, omnipresent almighty. 

From the highest to the humblest tasks, we all have our part to play. Let us brace ourselves with our duties and so arm ourselves with rectitude that we march always in the ranks of honor.

An Antitoxin for Cynicism

We live in an age of cynicism. Skepticism, suspicion, mistrust, disenchantment pervade society. Bias favors the powerful. Money tilts the scales of justice. Lies are redefined as carelessness. Deviants are called heroes. Police are stalked by killers.  Mindless chants encourage violence. Deserters receive Rose Garden praises. Our warriors are denied health care while VA officials keep their jobs. The IRS squelches public protest. Excuses replace responsibilities. Promised transparency becomes muddied by blame.

Cynicism is a deadly social virus that corrupts virtue. Anything that increases cynicism damages fairness and honesty. Cynicism undermines the civil will and spreads social despair. It makes honest and sincere people feel like suckers and stooges. It causes trusting people to look clueless.

Is there a remedy for cynicism? Yes. Think ripples. The stone's ripple may dissipate but it creates change in the area it was tossed. Our influence makes a difference.

Wholesome behavior retards social sickness. For healthy living let's culture these antitoxins for cynicism:

• Read the scriptures to inspire decency:
• Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Philippians 4:8
• Pray:
• Adoring God's eternal grace
• Confessing and requesting forgiveness for our errors and sins
• Giving thanks for our blessings
• Asking for an ethical, principled, loving and peaceful world. 
• Consider the importance of our actions, even the most trivial. 
• Taking a paperclip from the office is a trivial event, but what if 7,435,155,823 people took a paperclip? 
• (BTW: To increase your humility go to the internet's world population clock. You'll be amazed at the increase in numbers.)
•  Defend our convictions. 
• Speak-up and speak-out for virtuous living and high moral standards. 
• Spread goodwill by considering Albert Schweitzer's suggestion:
• Our greatest mistake, as individuals, is that we walk through our life with closed eyes and do not notice our chances. As soon as we open our eyes and deliberately search we see many who need help, not in big things but in the littlest things. Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.
• Live with humility before God's creation. 
• Consider a boy digging a hole in the seaside sand, filling a bucket at the edge of the ocean and emptying the water into the hole again and again. Believing that the boy will empty the waters of the sea into the hole is no different from attempting to comprehend the mysteries of God.
• Wherever you are, be there. 
• Long ago our 14-year old daughter, Wende, came into the study where I was reading Sports Illustrated telling me of a boy she had met. Without looking up I replied, "Hmm, that's nice." Wende gave me the stare that parents with teen-agers recognize as a universal sign of disrespect retorting, "Dad, you get after me for not talking to you. Maybe I never talk to you because you never listen." 
• Let's listen, really listen: To our children, to our wives and husbands, to our friends and associates. Listening signals respect. It builds alliances, enhances trust and restores civil behavior.  

   

July 4th: Events and Thoughts

Intending to write a patriotic blog this July 4, I began musing about the American Revolution. I quickly realized how much I had forgotten about the War for Independence so I began listing a few important events:

• 1776: The Colonial population was 2,400,000.  Philadelphia, 30,000; New York, 25,000; Boston, 15,000; Charleston, 12,000; Newport, 11,000.
• March 5, 1770: The "Boston Massacre"became a rallying call when 6 or 7 British soldiers fired into an unruly crowd of 50 jeering Bostonians protesting tariffs and taxes, killing three protestors.
• May 10, 1773: The British Parliament passed the Tea Act allowing the British East India Company to sell a huge tea surplus without paying duty charges. Established tea merchants objected bitterly since the Tea Act allowing the East Indian Company to undersell them.
• December 16, 1773: The Boston Tea Party prevented the East Indian Company's duty-free tea from reaching the Colonial market when 150 men disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships and emptied 342 tea chests into the Boston harbor.
  
• March 31, 1774: In reprisal for the "Tea Party" the British closed to Boston harbor.
• June 2, 1774: A Quartering Act called for billeting troops in private homes.
• March 23, 1775: At Virginia's 2nd Revolutionary Convention Patrick Henry bestirred by peaceful proposals with the British exhorted the delegates to arm the militia concluding with these words: 

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains. Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

• September 5-October 26, 1774: The 1st Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.
• April 18, 1775: The midnight ride of Paul Revere commemorated in 1860 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow became a memory poem for elementary kids sixty years ago: 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year....

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And with the ride his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm

A cry of defiance, and not of fear

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

In the hour of darkness and peril and need

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

and the midnight message of Paul Revere

• April 19, 1775 : The first shot of the American Revolutionary War, "the shot heard round the world" occurred at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts where the first British soldiers fell.  
• June 7, 1775: The date known as Landmark Day when the United Colonies became the United States.
• June 15, 1775: Congress selected George Washington to be military commander in chief.
• June 16, 1775: The Battle of Bunker Hill marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Although the colonists lost the battle when they ran out of ammunition the heavy casualties they inflicted gave them confidence that they could win the war. 
  
• January 9, 1776: Thomas Paine published Common Sense setting forth arguments in favor of independence. The pamphlet electrified the American Revolution. 
• June 11, 1776: A 5-man committee consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston were named to produce a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote the first draft. Although the committee later omitted some clauses and Congress made alterations when they vetted the manuscript paragraph by paragraph most of Jefferson's words remained intact.
• July 4, 1776: Congress approved the Declaration of Independence containing these familiar words:
  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
• The Declaration of Independence consists of six sections:

1. The introduction asserts the ability of a people to assume political independence that the motivation must be reasonable and ought to be explained.
2. The preamble outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution.
3. The indictment gives a list of the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties.
4. The denunciation registers the past appeals of the colonies to "our British brethren."
5. The conclusion asserts that the British transgressions have impelled the colonies to become independent states.
6. The fifty-six signatures penned to the Declaration included those of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, two future presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.

• December 25, 1776: Washington ordered a night-time crossing of the icy Delaware River to route the British-hired Hessian troops the following morning at the Battle of Trenton. Emanuel Leutze's oil on canvas of 1851 depicts this crossing.  
  
• June 14, 1777: The Stars and Stripes became the official United States flag.
• October 17, 1777: To the strains of Yankee Doodle British General Burgoyne surrendered to General Gates to end the Battle of Saratoga.
• Winter of 1777-78: The American Continental Army spent the winter at Valley Forge where starvation, disease, malnutrition and exposure killed over 2,500 American soldiers.
• September 23, 1779: John Paul Jones replied "Sir, I have not begun to fight," when Captain Pearson demanded he surrender the sinking Bon Homme Richard. After a 3 hour battle Jones and his intrepid seamen boarded Pearson's ship the Serapis winning the sea battle off Scarborough, England.
• September 26, 1781: Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown.
  
• March 4, 1782: The British Parliament called for the end of the war and the recognition of the Colonies' independence. 
•  September 17, 1787: The Constitution of the United States was created. It began:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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 original seven articles of the Constitution describe the government foundation. 
• The first three articles cover the separation of powers whereby the federal government  is divided into three branches: the legislative consisting of two separate assemblies the House of Representatives and the Senate;  the executive consisting of the President and the judicial consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. 
• Articles Four, Five and Six describe the rights and responsibilities of the states. 
• Article Seven describes the procedure used by the thirteen states to ratify it. 
• The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. 
• The first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government. 
• The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. 
• Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures. 
  

• June 21, 1788: By a vote of 57 to 47 New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify the Constitution, the last approval needed to put it into effect. Due to its centralism and emphasis on Federal government over State rights North Carolina and Rhode Island rejected it outright. In a 30-27 vote New York approved the constitution with minimal support. Virginia and Massachusetts approved by slim margins. 
• July 4, 2016: The debate continues. Some like the Federalist Alexander Hamilton believe the larger the central government the better. Some like James Madison favor state and individual power. 

When asked if the Constitution Convention of 1787 had given the people a Republic or a monarchy Benjamin Franklin replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

That raises the question: What is the difference between a republic and a democracy? A republic gives sovereignty to each individual. A democracy provides no minority rights. Those who win an election 51% to 49% dominate all decisions.The 49% have no power and no rights. Socrates was executed by a democracy: though he harmed no one, the majority found him intolerable.

Can we keep our Republic? Is our country turning toward a democracy? Do some of the entries above seem similar to some of the events today? Those are questions for each individual. To make correct decisions we must become critical thinkers. To do so requires understanding all points of view. Arguing, name-calling, group-think, criticizing and hating interfere with clear thinking. Respect for the other point of view and for the other person enhances clear thought.