http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/
These are the faces of the fallen. Today there are 5,854. every day the number increases. When it will end, I do not know but sorrow has no bottom to its depth. What we have really lost cannot be counted. I do not have words enough to express my grief which pales in comparison to those who have accompanied the flag-draped coffins to burial. The deserts and hills of the Middle East are stained with the sacrificial blood of Americas finest and bravest. The river of sorrows that flows around the world is deep and wide and mothers cannot find solace for their wounded souls. Life in American can never be the same. Something has been lost, something which can never be restored. I will never know the America that was mine as a child. There is a dark and dreary cloud that envelops our land. Freedom struggles for breath. Our constitution is shredded within the walls of the Government by men who have sworn to uphold it. I won't live to see again the glory that was once hers for bit by little bit pieces of liberty and nobleness are torn and trampled under the foot of evil men and women. I almost wished my soul had be whisked to heaven before this day of trouble had arrived.
Jan 10, 2011
A Latter-Day Grandmother's Musings, & Tidbits of Wisdom for my Childrens Children
January 9, 2011
Sunday. Alright, it's just another day. A day which followed yesterday and comes before tomorrow. A measurement of time. A beginning just like the one in Genesis which starts: "In the Beginning" and proceeds to tell the story of how God spent the first 7 days creating the world: the sun, moon, stars, day, night, animals, plants, the bugs and even human beings to care for it all.
I have lived for 20,006 days and yet haven't created anything nearly as spectacular as the tiniest of God's creations, except of course my children who then gave birth to their children, my grandchildren, who will, God willing, give birth to theirs and so on. These miraculous events of the births of my progeny will be thus duplicated to infinity and beyond!
Today, I began a new but familiar journey through the labyrinth of memories within the caverns of my mind following a worn trail littered with emotions, thoughts, and experiences. As my fingers touch the keyboard I hope with each purposeful stroke that the record of this journey may in some way, some day, be of importance to those generations that follow in my earthly footprints into the eternities to come.
I have lived for 20,006 days and yet haven't created anything nearly as spectacular as the tiniest of God's creations, except of course my children who then gave birth to their children, my grandchildren, who will, God willing, give birth to theirs and so on. These miraculous events of the births of my progeny will be thus duplicated to infinity and beyond!
Today, I began a new but familiar journey through the labyrinth of memories within the caverns of my mind following a worn trail littered with emotions, thoughts, and experiences. As my fingers touch the keyboard I hope with each purposeful stroke that the record of this journey may in some way, some day, be of importance to those generations that follow in my earthly footprints into the eternities to come.
I have painfully discovered that the dawn of each and every sunrise which is brimming with new adventures and eternal hope is too often smothered by nightfall by the day's unhappy events. These unhappy world events give me pause and apprehension for the minutes, hours, days and years that lie ahead. What will future events bring for my loved ones, my grown children who are leading their little ones and like the mother bird who nudges them into the big world to experience for themselves? What will the future of this world be for the little ones who I now hold on my lap and who look at me with bright brimming eyes full of eager excitement?
I have begun a unique period of my life where reflecting is something I do much more than planning; where memories are as time-consuming in my mind as dreams were years ago. My sensitivity to the world around me has erupted to the sky and back to earth many times. There is an endless constant beat of the media airwaves and internet explosion on my personal lap top that is marching, marching, marching on around the world and back again in seconds. A child dies in Ghana and I hear about it. A roadside bomb blows up an entire family in a village in Afghanistan, and within moment its on the net in vivid color, often in video with sound. A plane crashes somewhere in South America and within hours the mourning loved ones are interviewed by a cool mannered reporter who asks them to describe their feelings of the most heartbreaking of all heartbreaks. The painful words drip from their hearts like blood upon the hard ground yet the cruel questioning continues. Before my tearful eyes this constant scene plays and replays over and over like an old video stuck on replay. This show is entitled "Life in the Latter Days" and is filled with conflict, with the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the unimaginable pain and suffering that cannot even be described in words.
I turn it on at the snap of my fingers, or the stroke of my keyboard. I see, hear, feel, and know instantly what happens to the ends of the earth. There seems to be no part of this life that does not touch each of us in one way or another, at least to those who sensitive to the world around us. What will the future bring? I do not know, but everyday I pray for peace and I hope.
Yesterday a beautiful Arizona congresswomen while holding a meeting with her constituents in front of a Safeway store in Tuscon when a crazy 22 year old disturbed lunatic pulled out a gun and shot her in the head. She was the lucky one. She survived but it will be months if not years of recovery. There were 6 others that died, including a 9 year old girl who had aspired to be a future leader. The dreams her parents had for her died that day also. I heard her mother speaking today. She described her daughter as beautiful and talented and smart. A description up until yesterday at noon she would never have conceived she would be using the past tense to describe her beloved little 9 year old girl. (to be continued)
http://www.businessinsider.com/gabrielle-giffords-shot-2011-1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011003134.html
I turn it on at the snap of my fingers, or the stroke of my keyboard. I see, hear, feel, and know instantly what happens to the ends of the earth. There seems to be no part of this life that does not touch each of us in one way or another, at least to those who sensitive to the world around us. What will the future bring? I do not know, but everyday I pray for peace and I hope.
Yesterday a beautiful Arizona congresswomen while holding a meeting with her constituents in front of a Safeway store in Tuscon when a crazy 22 year old disturbed lunatic pulled out a gun and shot her in the head. She was the lucky one. She survived but it will be months if not years of recovery. There were 6 others that died, including a 9 year old girl who had aspired to be a future leader. The dreams her parents had for her died that day also. I heard her mother speaking today. She described her daughter as beautiful and talented and smart. A description up until yesterday at noon she would never have conceived she would be using the past tense to describe her beloved little 9 year old girl. (to be continued)
http://www.businessinsider.com/gabrielle-giffords-shot-2011-1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011003134.html
Jan 2, 2011
MTV’s Teen Abortion Sales Pitch: It’s Just “A Ball of Cells” - Big Journalism
MTV’s Teen Abortion Sales Pitch: It’s Just “A Ball of Cells” - Big Journalism: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
Abortion: is there anything more evil than the destruction of a soul even before it has the chance to have life!! These awful, evil people who support such Hitler-like practices against the unborn, will face the Wrath of God someday!
Abortion: is there anything more evil than the destruction of a soul even before it has the chance to have life!! These awful, evil people who support such Hitler-like practices against the unborn, will face the Wrath of God someday!
Why Can't we live in harmony?
Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney sung by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZtiJN6yiik&feature=autofb
New Years Day 2011
As I sit still in the quiet of my comfortable home I feel peace. The soft light cast by the small table lamp gives a feeling of serenity to the room. Beside me is my best friend Harrison; he is a 100 pound lovable hugable, black Labrador that loves me with the love that reaches to the moon. He tells me this with endless licks of his sticky pink tongue on my arms and the gaze of his eyes filled with adoration previously held for the Gods. My other sweet dog, Angel, sinks into the pillow bed on the floor and sleeps. The only sound in the room is the hum of the heater that fills my home with warmth. I sink my tired body into the overstuffed coach and begin to feel my limbs relax. Thus ends day number one of a new year and I wonder with wonder what lies in the coming days ahead.
Yet, even at this very moment it is strikingly evident to me that there are many people in the world that are not as lucky as me. There are those who at this moment are listening to bombs and gunshots, and those that cover their cold bodies with dirty cardboard as they sleep unsoundly upon the cold ground. I also think of those that are hungry, and the children abused and broken from the enemy hands that should have soothed them and comforted them. Most certainly the words: "This is the day that tries mens souls" applies today just as much as it did many years ago. Within this moment of solitude and quite my heart does not totally rest but is sorrowfully aware of the existing injustice and tragedy in our tumultuous world which seems on the brink of total ruin.
On this Saturday, the first day of January 2011 the dance of time begins a new waltz. With a fresh vision of sight we reach toward the stars and the glory of a new beginning brimming in hope. Yet, I cannot push past the memory of the yesterdays filled with moments of worry, stress and disappointment. In spite of this overpowering awareness of yesterday's sorrows, however, I renew my commitment to pray and work for peace in my life and the life of others, in whatever small way I can.
I love John Donne's poem "For whom the Bell Tolls" for it awakens in me the truth that everyone on earth is connected, and the knowledge that we each share a part in that great ocean of life. No life is solitary in itself, for each life touches other lives either for good or for bad, but they touch. What we do effects not only ourselves but others as well. Often we pass to the world our good will and love hope and laughter and joy. Yet, there are also times we pass our burden to the world through our inadequacies and shortcomings, whether it be an inability to forgive, or understand, our judgmental attitudes, or our insatiable desires for material things.
This year with all its promise of glory lays before us as a blank page waiting for the strike of our thoughts and actions to write the moments, the minutes, the hours, and the days into reality. Like novice actors nervously ascending the stage to perform the new act of an unwritten script, an unrehearsed play that will then become our tomorrow and our tomorrow and our tomorrow. On this day one cycle of time closes shut and the door to another miraculously swings wide open awaiting our footsteps into the future. And we, and only we, will make the marks that purposefully write the story upon this new year. Will it be a year to remember with joy, sadness, or regret? This is Act One, Scene One, and hopefully what follows in the closing Act will be a recollection of joyful memories, the pride of goals met, and the peace of knowing the world is a better place because we lived in it.
http://www.poetry-online.org/donne_for_whom_the_bell_tolls.htm
Yet, even at this very moment it is strikingly evident to me that there are many people in the world that are not as lucky as me. There are those who at this moment are listening to bombs and gunshots, and those that cover their cold bodies with dirty cardboard as they sleep unsoundly upon the cold ground. I also think of those that are hungry, and the children abused and broken from the enemy hands that should have soothed them and comforted them. Most certainly the words: "This is the day that tries mens souls" applies today just as much as it did many years ago. Within this moment of solitude and quite my heart does not totally rest but is sorrowfully aware of the existing injustice and tragedy in our tumultuous world which seems on the brink of total ruin.
On this Saturday, the first day of January 2011 the dance of time begins a new waltz. With a fresh vision of sight we reach toward the stars and the glory of a new beginning brimming in hope. Yet, I cannot push past the memory of the yesterdays filled with moments of worry, stress and disappointment. In spite of this overpowering awareness of yesterday's sorrows, however, I renew my commitment to pray and work for peace in my life and the life of others, in whatever small way I can.
I love John Donne's poem "For whom the Bell Tolls" for it awakens in me the truth that everyone on earth is connected, and the knowledge that we each share a part in that great ocean of life. No life is solitary in itself, for each life touches other lives either for good or for bad, but they touch. What we do effects not only ourselves but others as well. Often we pass to the world our good will and love hope and laughter and joy. Yet, there are also times we pass our burden to the world through our inadequacies and shortcomings, whether it be an inability to forgive, or understand, our judgmental attitudes, or our insatiable desires for material things.
This year with all its promise of glory lays before us as a blank page waiting for the strike of our thoughts and actions to write the moments, the minutes, the hours, and the days into reality. Like novice actors nervously ascending the stage to perform the new act of an unwritten script, an unrehearsed play that will then become our tomorrow and our tomorrow and our tomorrow. On this day one cycle of time closes shut and the door to another miraculously swings wide open awaiting our footsteps into the future. And we, and only we, will make the marks that purposefully write the story upon this new year. Will it be a year to remember with joy, sadness, or regret? This is Act One, Scene One, and hopefully what follows in the closing Act will be a recollection of joyful memories, the pride of goals met, and the peace of knowing the world is a better place because we lived in it.
http://www.poetry-online.org/donne_for_whom_the_bell_tolls.htm
Dec 31, 2010
The Cost of War
The cost of war, the broken hearted fathers, mothers, children? why?
How many need to die for men to see, feel, know that war is wrong? There is nothing that is worth the heavy toll upon the hearts of mankind!
A NEW YEAR TO: H*O*P*E - P*R*A*Y - B*E*L*I*E*V*E !!!
These are the faces of the fallen:
How many need to die for men to see, feel, know that war is wrong? There is nothing that is worth the heavy toll upon the hearts of mankind!
A NEW YEAR TO: H*O*P*E - P*R*A*Y - B*E*L*I*E*V*E !!!
These are the faces of the fallen:
A year Ends and Year begins
My thoughts in the last hours of 2010. As this year ends, I look back and wonder and look forward and wonder more. What will the new year bring?
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