Romney - The Lesser of Two Evils

The 2012 elections are a pivotal event this year, as much is at stake.  Many of us of a more conservative persuasion are wanting Obama out, and the thrust of the election this year seems to be more on getting Obama out than picking the right alternative candidate.   And, to the reluctance of many of us - Republicans and independents alike - it looks like Romney is going to be our man.

Mitt Romney is not my first choice of candidate, but being we have a two-party system it seems like in this country, he is the best option mainly because he is the proverbial "lesser of two evils."   Although he is too centrist to be conservative unfortunately, nonetheless he does have conservative backing and it is hoped that the backing he is getting will exert some influence on the way he does things if he is elected.   Some of my fellow conservatives have tried to oppose him because he is Mormon, but I do not think this is a valid reason.  We are, after all, electing a President, and not nominating the pastor of our local church, so that makes little difference.  

I additionally would give my support to Romney because despite any issues, he is at least native-born - no one can be all that sure about Obama at this point, being he lied about his last birth certificate.   And, contrary to a lot of accusations flying around from the Left out there, our opposition to Obama has nothing to do with his skin color - it must be understood that it is politics and not pigmentation that we have issue with.  Personally, I voted for Alan Keyes in the last election, who is also Black.   That being said,  let me summarize why we need to rally around someone who has a chance to get Obama out of office for good. 

We do need a change, but not the "change" Obama proposed as that has been for the worst.  Rather, we need positive change, a return of someone like Ronald Reagan who can restore this nation's greatness.  Whether Romney is up to the task or not remains to be seen, but for now he may be all we have.  Therefore, vote for change in the White House first, and then change in the nation will follow. 


by YourLocalSecurity.com

Of Roots, Place, and Making Do

Being laid off has given me some time recently to catch up on my reading, and subsequentially it has afforded me time to read some books I haven't been able to read for some time due to busy schedules.   I have been reading more recently, thanks in part to some challenging debates from some friends and also due to the mess the Martin/Zimmerman case has stirred up recently, about some facts on Southern history that I found interesting, and as I do so I am starting to realize that maybe the "official" version of history is not the correct one, as often facts are left out in favor of "political correctness" to appease the powers-that-be.   However, I am not going to talk about that today (although I do think it a worthy subject for later) but rather about being put back in touch with some of my own roots.

Many of you who know my story know I am half-Southern - the Thrower side of my family is originally from Crenshaw and Butler Counties in Alabama, although their deeper roots take them back to South Carolina.   For many years, I had bought into the stereotype of White Southerners and for a long time in my younger days I was even ashamed of those roots.  As I got older though, I realized some things as I read more a grew up a little.  I regret that shame I felt, as it was a slap in the face to many of my ancestors, who were noble people with a rich history behind them that I have been able to trace back many generations.  And, to my Southern side of the family, I hope you will accept my humble apologies, for after getting to know many of them, I have come to see them as godly, patriotic, and loving folks who share a lot in common with me in conviction and outlook.  I have also come to appreciate small-town Southern culture better as well, as there is something comforting and enchanting about it that many who slam it miss out on.   Being half-Southern is not something I am ashamed of any longer, but I am actually proud of it now - it is truly a great heritage to have!

At one point too, I was actually ashamed of my Appalachian roots as well, until I moved away from home.   Regrettably, I have even told some people in the past I was from western Maryland rather than West Virginia, and as I look back on that too, I realize that was very stupid of me - I mean, I loved my hometown and where I grew up, and have nothing to be ashamed of!  So, in a change of heart over the past several years, I am proud to also call myself a West Virginian, and don't care who knows it.   And, God help the citified idiot that calls me or any other fellow Appalachian-American a "hillbilly" or any other stereotypes!  I honestly am getting sick and tired of being made to feel like I am less than human or something because I come from a small West Virginia town, or that my father's family is from south Alabama.   As the old axiom goes, you can take the boy out of the mountains, but you will never take the mountains out of the boy!  It is just too bad that it takes many years for some of us to fully appreciate it. 

A lot of my earlier shame about having Southern roots came from my dad, with whom I have never gotten along.  My father does tend to be a little short-sighted on things, and he does have prejudices and other hang-ups - I have to be honest - that put me off a lot.  Plus, he and I have never really gotten along all that well:  I mean, he is my dad and I love him, but he also can be a bit closed-minded about some things.  My mistake though over the years was making the rest of his side of the family somehow responsible for that when in reality all of the ones I have finally gotten to know are not even close to being like Dad in that aspect.  As a matter of fact, I regret not being around to get to know many of them until I was almost college-age, and I felt a little cheated in that regard too.   The Thrower side of the family has turned out to be a fine group of people, and I am proud to call them my blood - they really are the best now that I have gotten to know them, and I look forward to getting closer to that side of my family now.  They also deserve a great deal of respect, as many of them have remarkable lives and stories.  Take my cousin Donnie Myrick for instance, who is my great-aunt Olene's son - I have gotten to know him over the past couple of years, and he is really a gem of a human being.  And, then there is my aunt, Dorothy Pitts - she is the baby sister of my grandfather, Melvin Thrower, and I talk to her online almost every day - she is a very sweet lady and I love her dearly.   There are other relatives too, and getting to know them is something I have looked forward to for a long time, and now it has happened.   Donnie and Aunt Dot in particular have both been telling me some interesting stories about the family, some I have never known about, and it makes me appreciate those roots more.   Even Dad, despite some major issues, has provided me some great memories - Dad does have a good side, and if only he would let his better attributes shine more, as he has the potential of doing a lot of great things still despite the fact he is in his 60's.   In short, getting to know the other half of my family has been quite a blessing, and I am grateful for that opportunity now.

If there is a moral to this whole story, it would be this - some of the best things we can have in this life are strong familial ties, and we need to foster those as early as possible in life.   Also, as a secondary moral, never be ashamed of your roots or where you come from.  Sure, the "political correct police" may try to discredit some aspects of our heritage, but the truth and facts are always there despite any type of liberal whitewashing that goes on.   As I get older, I grow sicker and less tolerant of the revisionism and whitewashing that goes on in much of what the public gets in the name of "history," as oftentimes it serves an agenda rather than telling people the whole story.   And, I am going to be speaking out more about it too, because someone has to before a bunch of rabble-rousers and bureacrats try to steal something precious from our future generations.  So, today, for those of you with Southern, Appalachian, or other roots, don't be ashamed of who you are but rather get the real story from your loved ones rather than some corrupt President in Washington or a bunch of biased media moguls out to get a fast buck from sensationalized revisionism passing off as "responsible journalism."   God bless you all until next time.

Thoughts on Struggles, Learning from the Past, and Other Related Things

Over the past month the wife and I have been through a lot of challenges - we both lost our jobs in a relatively close proximity of time, and we have had to refocus a lot of priorities and other things in order to make some sense out of what happened.   In doing so, however, I have thought about a number of things and wanted to just talk about those a little.

We are at the crossroads of a new chapter of our personal lives - I am about to start graduate school finally, and we will soon be starting new jobs and beginning the process of getting things back on course again.  The whole point of starting a new chapter, whether we think about it or not, is learning from our shortcomings from previous chapters of our lives and building upon our past successes.  No one can continue "resting on their laurels," and moving on is a necessary aspect of our life's pilgrimage.   However, it can be an intimidating prospect to face, and stepping into something new is always something that takes some adjustment.  Consider, for a moment, if you buy a goldfish from a pet store.  You don't just dump the fish out of a bag into a bowl, do you?   If you did, the fish would go into shock and possibly die.  What you do instead is you set the bag in a bowl of water, and let the water inside the fish's bag acclamate to the temperature of the water in the bowl.   We need to do the same thing - baby steps are often safer to take than huge leaps, and we adjust better with baby steps.   For those of you facing some challenges now - perhaps some of you reading this have either lost a job or started a new one, you have gotten a major purchase such as a house or a car, or you may have a baby on the way, just for a few scenarios - I encourage you to just take baby steps.  Don't try to leap ahead, but proceed at a pace that will help your adjustment to the new paradigm shift in your life be a smoother transition.  These are words of wisdom I have come to appreciate, and they do help.  That being said, I have a few reflections now I will share with you.

I have for several years now been engaged in writing down a lot of my life story, as some of you may know already, and it has been a daunting task.   It is something I will print and make a bound copy of, but many of you will never see it because it isn't meant for publication.  However, much of the material I put into these articles is drawn from that story, which I call the "master book" of my life, and although I have not shared a lot of the negative aspects, I like any other human being have had my share of upsets and unfortunate circumstances.    After some pondering, I have decided to share some of this with you today in large part due to some recent political developments, as there are some segments of our society who think everybody owes them something because of physical differences - they play the "victim" and are assaulting innocent people in the name of "justice," and what I am about to share shows that in many cases some of us have been a lot worse off than these fools, yet we don't resort to beating up innocent people and Balkanizing our nation over it.    So, it is time for you to hear a part of my story that is hard to write about, but it has a good ending - I have overcome a lot, and with the grace of God I am a better person today because of some of this stuff and perhaps there is a reason why some of it happened - my spiritual mentor, Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, has a great quote that I feel applies to my situation which goes something like this - man's disappointments are God's appointments.   And, I have had my fair share of disappointments - growing up for me was not easy, and at a certain part of my life I have had to grow up fast and may have missed out on being a kid when I was younger.  And, that is what I want to talk about now.

I mentioned I am a native of West Virginia, where I was born and raised.   I come from a pretty decent family, although they are not perfect, and my earliest years were pretty stable.  However, my parents - both Vietnam war veterans who met and married on the island of Okinawa - were not really that compatible with each other, and at an early age they divorced and I was largely raised by my mother.   My dad had very little interaction in my life - over the course of my childhood, I had seen him three times after my parents split - and as a result he and I never really got along as father and son (unfortunately, we are not on the best of terms even as I write this, due to a disagreement we had six years prior to this writing).  As for my mother, well, she did her best but she wasn't perfect either - a bad childhood for her, a bad marriage to Dad, and some other factors led her to develop a bad drinking habit when I was a kid, and for much of my childhood up until around my high school years we spent much of the time migrating between relatives - we stayed with all of my grandparents, my great-grandmother, and a couple of aunts over those years.  Most of the time, we didn't have a lot of money either, as from a period beginning in 1979 all the way up until 1986, my mother was never even employed at a regular job (she did some housecleaning and a few odd jobs for people, but that was the extent of it) and by and large we lived off food stamps and my dad's monthly child support check of $100 when I was growing up.   It was a rough existence, and oftentimes I do remember having to use safety pins to patch up holes in my clothes as well as stuffing plastic baggies into my shoes because they would often wear holes or the soles would come off.   And, we lived on a lot of food that was not the most nutritionally valuable - a lot of canned roast beef, boxed macaroni and cheese dinners, canned ravioli and soup, and in some instances I didn't get a dinner at night and had to resort to butter and saltine crackers or potato chips.   Summers were better, as fresh vegetables were readily available and people would often give us the excess in their gardens.   And, the food stamp rations at the beginning of the month helped too, as then we could eat such luxuries as chicken and cube steaks for a week or two.   My grandparents had a little more of a stable household where they lived outside of Augusta, WV, at the foot of Short Mountain, but they were not rich either - my grandmother and step-grandfather didn't have running water in their house for many years, and the "facilities" consisted of an outhouse while a woodstove provided both heat and cooking appliance provision.  They were also a little more resourceful in that my step-grandfather hunted for a lot of their meat - venison, groundhogs, squirrels, and other things that could be readily hunted in the woods were part of the fare at my grandparents' house, usually served with sides of things like wild mushrooms, poke greens, and ramps, among other things.  And, we also ate a lot of potatoes - potatoes were cheap, readily available, and in large quantities, and on some occasions a boiled potato with butter would be a full dinner of a night too.   That was essentially how I grew up.  

When I got into high school things got a little easier when Mom took a job when I was 16 taking care of a dear lady in her late 90's out on Salt Lick near Terra Alta, WV.   It was one of the best places I had ever lived to that point, and my high school years were relatively good and stable as a result.   Despite these circumstances, I managed to work hard to get a good education, went to college, married a good woman (we will soon be celebrating 20 years together), and many other great things happened over the course of the past 20 years I have been a self-supporting adult.  Adulthood has had its challenges too, but a need to survive has kept my head above water and I have always managed to overcome, with God's help, a lot of adversity even in my adult years.   And, that leads me to a point where I need to soapbox a little.

There are evil men, like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and our current President (to name a few), who are exploiting the myth of certain people being "oppressed" when in reality they are out to stroke their own egos and cause division among people of different ethnic backgrounds in this nation.    I know what I may say here is not "politically correct," and it may be misunderstood and may even cost me some friends, but it needs to be said.   The people that the "plantation pimps" such as Jackson and Sharpton are stirring up and inciting to commit acts of violence against innocent citizens are people who by and large grew up better than I did, but they call themselves "oppressed."   Let me tell you something - these "gangstas" with their $500 shoes, thousands of dollars of expensive stereo equipment, and their expensive drug habits in many cases don't know what "oppressed" is.   Some of those idiots, with their buttcracks showing and their stupid outfits, would not know what to do if they had to use an outhouse or cook on a woodstove - I had to do both, and not out of choice either.   I had to fight my way to get jobs, a good education, and to honestly get what I have today, and didn't have to gang up on people, beating them up and causing violence, under the delusion it was "owed" to me.   As a matter of fact, it gave me the resolve to rise above it, advocate for change by making it happen in my own life, and thus I achieved many things that circumstance otherwise would not have afforded me.   Unfortunately, there are some I grew up around that didn't pursue that, and one of them is now in prison on a serious charge.  I was thinking about this particular individual one day, whose name is Randall, and realized first of all how blessed I was, and secondly my heart broke knowing that someone ended up like this.   I knew Randall's family well - they were not particularly close to us, but they lived in the same town and they were poor like us then.  Randall came from a family of five kids, and his parents were both alcoholics and very abusive to him and his siblings.  His one sister, who was developmentally handicapped, was even exploited by her own father to give sexual favors to old horny local men for money when she was a young age - it was a shame, as she was actually a pretty girl and otherwise had a sweet personality that had gotten hidden among all the crap she had in her life.   My mother was poor and drank too, but she never abused me - on the contrary, she made sure (to a degree) that I did my best in school, and that I even had some religious convictions.  Unfortunately, she was also aloof from many of my activities in school too - for instance, although I was in the high school marching band and lettered, she never came to one of my parades or concerts.   It is not for me to say what her reasoning was behind that, as she just never got involved for some reason.   That does bother me sometimes, honestly, but on the other hand she let me develop my own interests and felt that I had the freedom to do that, so I could appreciate that too as I got older.   And, although she didn't show it a lot, I know she was proud of me - the little things she did to show it said that, and on occasion (usually when she had a couple of drinks) she would actually say she was proud of me, and that encouraged me as well.  Her greatest compliment to me though was in recent years, when she told me that I reminded her a lot of my dear great-grandmother, Ottie Stevens Turner - she said I had her convictions and that I also thought and acted a lot like her.  That spoke volumes, as Granny was one of the great influences of my life and I do love and miss her a lot.   I only wish Randall and his siblings had that blessing in their lives at times, because today Randall would not be in prison.   With all the big hoo-hah over this Trayvon Martin stuff recently, I find it sickening that the color of one's skin is what gets people noticed.   There are many of us who came from poor Appalachian backgrounds that were not as blessed as Trayvon Martin was in his life, yet when something tragic happens to one of our people, it is largely ignored by the news media, as it always has been.   Some people have debated about Appalachian people being an ethnic entity within the American "melting pot," and as I get older I realize we are actually an entity - the signs of an ethnic group are a distinct culture, a body of literature, and a language - we people in the Appalachians have all that.   And, although we come from diverse origins - some are Scots-Irish, some Cherokee, some French, some German (as were my folks) and also a huge number of African-Americans and people who came over at the turn of the century to work the mines, lumber yards and railroads - we have become one people.  We in Appalachia are a microcosm of what America is supposed to be; we forged our identity as a people when others like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, and Barack Obama are trying to divide the US over race now.   People get along in mountain communities - we know the "Code" and follow it, something wider society has forgotten for some reason.   And, although we have our Randalls, we also have our Homer Hickhams and Dolly Partons who make us proud, and we love and respect all of our people the same.  That is why Barack Obama, Jackson, Sharpton, and all these other rabble-rousers are people I cannot get - they seek to divide the nation rather than fostering unity among our people, which is what we need so desperately right now.  And, it is something I can no longer be silent about.  It is time Washington, DC, cleans up its act and maybe follows the example of the small hamlets tucked away in our mountains where I grew up - thing is though, Obama would not survive a day in someplace like Thomas, WV, or Morristown, TN, because many people would find his attitude repulsive and not indicative of the way a decent human being acts.  Even many Appalachian Blacks are put off by these hucksters, as the bureaucrats don't represent their interests either and they know - Washington needs to know that moutain people are not as dumb as they think we are!! 

I have spoken my piece about many of the issues I have been thinking about over the past several weeks as I have seen race riots fomenting due to stupid stuff, and also I have learned over the past several years more about who I am.   Yes, I grew up in a way that some might say is "disadvantaged," and it was not easy, but God used it to give me a character and standards.  Therefore, if the people committing so many acts of violence now, all "in memory of Trayvon," would actually get some character and learn to move past it and try to use something like that to bring people together rather than divide them, this nation would be a better place to live in.   Blacks and Whites, as well as other people of other backgrounds, need to mutually respect each other and appreciate the common humanity we share - however, that respect goes both ways too.  Whites are often treated as if we are the cause of the Blacks' plights, but in reality some of that plight is self-inflicted and it is time some of those people rise above it.   I did, and you have just read about my history, and if I can do it, they can too.  Question is though, although they can do it, will they??   And, that is the question I leave you with today.

A Serious Matter To Address - The Truth About Obama's "Successes"

I am in a bit of a grumpy mood today because of something that transpired regarding a heated debate I had with a former co-worker of mine on my Facebook page today.  I have for some time been a bit disenchanted with our current President, Barack Hussein Obama, and I have been particularly sick of the way he has more or less ridiculed and persecuted Evangelicals and Catholics on so many levels, from that stupid "guns and Bibles" comment he made when he was running for President back in 2008 to the current throat-cramming of abortion laws down the gullets of Catholic health institutions.   So, in response to the "guns and Bibles" remark, I said something about Obamanistas clinging to daishikis (a type of African-themed garment that some African-Americans promoted as part of a campaign of "Afrocentricity" during the Civil Rights era) and pot pipes.  Boy, did THAT open a can of worms!   It was said in jest due to the fact some of us are sick of all the Christian-bashing we have to put up with, and ironically there is some truth to the statement - many Obama supporters are marijuana legalizers, ex-hippies, Black Panther wannabes, and socialists, and it fits them to a tee (especially these new OWS derelicts that are defecating on city streets now like some sort of filthy, rabid hyenas).  But, God forbid someone say that - your comment is labeled "racist" and other such badmouthing.  In other words, they can say what they want about us, but we can't about them.   Don't think many of us can't see through that hypocrisy.

To my friend (who happens to be African-American himself, and in other aspects a decent guy) I need to enlighten him and others with some facts about our "fearless leader."   There is a book written entitled Nightmare Along Pennsylvania Avenue, that my fellow West Virginian Perry Stone wrote back in 2010.   The book deals with the prophetic aspect of the directions America is taking, and although from a Christian/theological viewpoint, Perry has done his homework.   What we want to look at first is where Obama got a lot of his political ideology shaped, and it is actually quite scary to think about.  Basically, he has two sources for the ideas he espouses - one is radical Islam, from his upbringing, and the other is radical Marxist-socialism, which he embraced from his college days and early youth due to subsequent involvement in the gangland political jungle known as Chicago, where political corruption tends to be the order of the day.   I want to talk about his Marxist-socialist influences first, as they are the most revealing as to some of his current policies:

1.  Rev. Jeremiah "Kill Whitey" Wright -  This was Obama's official pastor, and he is a dangerous man in that he hates the US,  embraces Black Liberation Theology (he is equivalent to Richard Butler in the "Christian Identity" movement that inspired Timothy McVey, and is just as dangerous) - BLT, as it is often called, is both racist and Marxist to the core, and seeks to re-write both history and the Bible through radical Marxist lenses.

2.  Frank Marshall Davis - A member of the Communist Party USA who was a childhood mentor to Obama.  And, just as Obama said if he had a son he would be like Trayvon, his mentor Davis was "almost like a father" to the young Barack.  Interesting how these things repeat themselves!

3.  Saul Alinsky - The Marxist-inspired ideologue who is often considered the founder of modern community organizing.  This is the guy who, in his 1971 treatise, Rules for Radicals, advocated taking from the "haves" to give to the "have-nots."  He was also a mentor to Hilary Clinton as well, as she based her senior honors thesis when she was at Wellesley College on his efforts.  Obama became inspired and motivated by Alinsky during his swimming around in the tepid pool of Chicago politics. 

4.  William Ayers - Obama befriended this individual, who was a member of the Marxist Students of A Democratic Society and also had ties to the terrorist organization Weather Underground in the 1960's, that bombed government buildings and treated Vietnam vets like crap, spitting on them and persecuting them.   (all of the above from pages 12-15 of Nightmare Along Pennsylvania Avenue {Lake Mary, FL:  Front Line, 2010}).

It also must be understood that Obama had radical Islamic roots too, as he was reared in madrasas (Islamic theological schools for boys that are notorious for also recruiting terrorists) in Indonesia and has been reported by many of his former classmates as behaving like a Muslim.   Also, there is little doubt, due to the hush-hush nature of the issue, that he may also be illegally President now due to the fact he was not born an American citizen - too many people, including his own grandmother in Kenya, say he was born there despite the efforts of his propagandists saying he was born in Hawaii.  Also, in lieu of his recently giving the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the Middle East with ties to both Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, in Egypt $1.5 billion in American tax dollars, pretty much tell us where his loyalties lie.   He has, for instance, totally ignored the plight of persecuted Black Christians and animists in South Sudan, which have been slaughtered by the Islamic Brotherhood and its allies in Khartoum, and he didn't even issue a letter of condolence to the Coptic community at the recent loss of their Pope, Shenouda III (the Copts have been suffering for decades under intense persecution, much of which has been stirred up by radical Islamists connected to the Islamic Brotherhood).  My question to Mr. Barack Hussein Obama in this case is a simple one that has been asked before - are White Muslims more important to his agenda than Black Christians??  The President, who squawks "racism" every time someone respectfully disagrees with him, seems to have no qualms with giving money - our money! - to terrorists who slaughter these people to the tune of the infernal "allah akhbar!" chant.   And this, while gas prices escalate ($7 /gallon reported in California now) and unemployment is at its highest since Hoover was in the White House.   He funds terrorists while Americans struggle to survive, and his definition of "taxing the rich" obviously is fuzzy - apparently I am in this category, despite the fact I made under $20,000 last year and I got hit with a tax bill for the first time in ten years (nice to know someone thinks I am rich!)!  And, whereas Bush - I am not his greatest fan, but he did some good things - gave money back to us, Obama is bailing out big corporations by giving them millions of dollars to ship jobs to India and kissing China's backside while he increases the tax burden on those of us who are struggling to recover from some major financial hits on our family, thanks to the mess that fool created.  My friend I mentioned earlier made a comment about how he "tends to judge the President on his actions."  Well, if costing people jobs, funding terrorists, and encouraging outrageous gas prices while increasing the national debt by $5 TRILLION in just two years in office is "good" to him, I think something is amiss with people's judgment!  The whole thing makes me sick, honestly.

But, it gets worse.  Obama is the most pro-abortion president in American history, and ironically this fool in the White House, who cries "racism" at every little thing that disagrees with him (much like two other Chicago-based idiots, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, I might add), supports one of the most racist, genocidal practices ever implemented.   Nothing is more evident of that than the largest abortion provider in the nation, Planned Parenthood, and its founder, Margaret Sanger.  Sanger was a bored, gold-digging housewife at the beginning of the century who got caught up in something called eugenics, which essentially is the pseudo-science of "culling the herd" and is based on a radical implementation of Darwin's "Natural Selection," tweeked by his relative Francis Galton's adaptation of the practices of nineteenth-century clergyman Thomas Malthus's population-control principles (George Grant, Grand Illusions {Nashville, TN:  Highland Books, 1998} pp. 32-33).   Essentially, Sanger wanted to remove what she called "human weeds" from the genepool in order to create what she called a "race of human thoroughbreds" (sound familiar?   A little like Hitler's "Master Race" I think!).  Her targets were the mentally handicapped, poor Appalachians, immigrants, Jews, and yes, Black people!   And, she often used her "agents of uplift" - ministers (that also explains some tenets of Black Liberation Theology as well), big corporate benefactors, educators, and others - to sell this nonsense to the populace, which she thought was too stupid to know better and would go along with anything - one way she did this was by promising free "medical services" and other handouts if only the recipients got on her bandwagon.   However, this led to some tragic things happening - in mental health facilities (Weston, WV, about 70 miles from where I grew up, was notorious for this too) often patients with Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsey, or other "inbecilic" disorders were forcibly sterilized, and in that state they were often treated like dirt by the staff who raped and abused them for their own amusement, all under the benevolent gaze of Sanger and the corporate benefactors (executives of JP Morgan, Chase, and other large banks), who wouldn't give the proverbial rat's rearend of care about these people.   Blacks and others too poor to support themselves were forced into this as well, and often were encouraged to be derelict rather than being taught skills that could help them, and the idea was to "cleanse" the human race.  I have published some other articles on my other site, www.sacramentalpresenttruths.blogspot.com, that go more into that if you wish to read more, but I wanted to give some background as to the insanity that many people, such as Barack Hussein Obama, indulge in by supporting the genocide of their own people.  What hypocrisy!!!   Thankfully, there are Black leaders with integrity, such as Alan Keyes and James Manning, that are speaking out against it, and people need to pay attention to what these real leaders are saying.  And, lest you think this is just a thing for the turn of the century, well, hold on to your knickers - what I am going to express next will blow them off if you don't!

I find it interesting that huge corporations such as Bank of America, CitiBank, and so many others have all these big funding drives for groups like United Way and March of Dimes, and it amazed me recently when working at a large corporation how this propaganda is belched like bad bean dip - an aggressive person campaigning for the March of Dimes recently was getting up into people's faces at work and saying "It's for the babies - don't you love babies!"  in an attempt to get the unsuspecting secretary to cough up bucks on the way back from the cafeteria.  But, is March of Dimes really "for the babies?"   Let's see.   For one thing, Planned Parenthood and March of Dimes exchange each other's literature for distribution, and March of Dimes, which was founded by President Roosevelt in 1938 to supposedly prevent birth defects, gave $500,000 to Planned Parenthood in 1980 alone, and the two organizations have apparently been working even closer together since (Grant, 163-165).   Apparently, the way March of Dimes now prevents birth defects is to prevent the birth - murder has become a charitable act to these people.   Yes, they say they are "for the babies" - if being for the babies means cruelly ending their lives by dismembering them in the mother's womb and extracting them in pieces to dump in a Glad bag in a backstreet dumpster!  Not just March of Dimes, but corporate philanthropy has benefitted Planned Parenthood too - of course, what big mega-corporations are after is not the best interest of the disadvantaged, or even the benefit of their often overworked, stressed-out employees, but rather about the bottom line - the buck in the billfold!  It was reported by a University of Texas professor, Marvin Olasky, that seven of every ten corporate dollars designated for "philanthropy" go to liberal organizations like Planned Parenthood and others (Grant, 166) - this is a 1998 statistic, so it is probably worse now.   And, working in a corporate environment is poisonous ideologically and spiritually - if you happen to be conservative, Christian or Jewish, a veteran, or anything else deemed "politically incorrect," you face a lynch mob if you even civilly voice your convictions.  You can be written up, fired, or worse - lawsuits and arrests have happened to some.  Yet, a "transgendered" lesbian can dress indistinguishable to a guy, grab at their crotch ( I saw this at a company I worked at once too - true story!), and it is perfectly OK - ugh!  And, the abusive talk about "Bible-beating, gun-toting fundamentalist right-wing imbred loonies" is applauded and even encouraged by managers and supervisors!  Again, the hypocrisy shows its ugly face, and in corporate America is no surprise either - liberalism sells, and corporate executives will flout political correctness to get a few more points on their stock; it is sick, this motivation for greed (no wonder the Bible warns so much against it!).   That is why personally as far as work preference is concerned I would rather work for a small company than one of these nasty big corporations.  If I have to work for one, I do my job, stick to myself, and stay low - you have to these days.   But, on my turf, I have rights guaranteeing my free speech, and for those who don't like it, oh well- get your own pages then! 

So, I have ranted enough, but I need to say that Barack Obama is not a good President - he is now trying to stir up race trouble with this Trayvon Martin thing, and he is placating Muslims while being totally disrespectful to the Catholic Church and the State of Israel, among others.  It is sick, and that dictator needs to go.  He has swallowed up the auto industry on top of it, and he cost my wife a job recently in the health insurance field with this Obamanation called Obamacare!  Socialized medicine, Federal takeover of certain industries, giving huge banks bailout money, and funding terrorism - sounds like a Marxist to me!  However, lest you doubt (and some of you will I am sure - it is your right to be wrong though, so make my millenium!) just wait and see where it all goes.  Then, when your heroes fail you and you are double-crossed by this man, don't whine about it - he is your hero after all!  Have a good day.

Musings, Thoughts, and Other Sound-Offs.

I am not exactly sure where to start this time around as I begin this new discourse of my thoughts, but some things do have to be said that I have been pondering, so I am going to just "jump in" and see where it goes.

To start, anyone remember that preacher that used to be on TV some years back, Dr. Gene Scott?  I remember him being on late at night, and to be honest, he cracked me up!  Although highly-educated and generally orthodox in his doctrine (he did hold to some wacky stuff like pyramidology and Anglo-Israelism, but we won't hold it against him!), oftentimes his flamboyant personality, goofy hats, cussing, and stogie-puffing characterized him more than his academic and theological achievements.  I don't really advocate the guy at all - he could be a challenge to watch as he cussed and harangued his audience, and was a little too acid-tongued for me - there are a couple of observations I wanted to note.   For one, you couldn't call the man a hypocrite.  Basically, when you watched Gene Scott, what you saw was what you got, without pretentions (cussing, stogies, and all!).  Second, I have to say I have a lot more respect for Scott than I do some of these ding-dongs on religious television today, as for one thing he was more doctrinally orthodox than some of them, and he was also more real - again, what you saw was what you got, and there was no pretension with the man.  So, if I were given a choice of only two ministers to watch or listen to, and they were Rick Warren or Dr. Scott, then Dr. Scott would be be my choice hands-down.   I would take Dr. Scott's cussing over Warren's apostasy anyday - at least Scott preached the Cross!   Plus, he was a heck of a lot more entertaining to watch - you certainly didn't get bored watching Dr. Scott, that is for sure!  Any rate, just a couple of thoughts about that.  Gene Scott was to preachers, in short, much like Gordon Ramsay is to chefs - his work is gold but his language is blue! 

Also, I want to talk about the current situation with this Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman issue that seems to have dominated the news, and what I personally feel about this will probably open cans of worms on both sides of the issue.  First off, I want to say that it is tragic that a death had to happen, and perhaps Zimmerman was too willing to play hero, but I also think that Zimmerman may have had some justifications to his actions.   First off, when you have a Black kid shlepping through a neighborhood looking like a thug in one of those stupid-looking "hoodie" things, it is bound to arouse suspicions.  And, to quell a protest, this observation is not based on race - too many White kids look stupid like that too these days!  And, although the case has been made that the kid was making a run for Skittles and sweet tea that late at night, something doesn't jive with the facts - first off, what IDIOT of a parent would let their kids be out unattended like that in the first place??  Secondly, being dressed like a thug and out at late hours like that doesn't look good.   Third, this Martin kid has some history of lookng like a "gangsta" and acting like an ass, so there you go.  As for Zimmerman, the man was accused of a racially-based "hate crime," yet some facts came out on that too.  For one, Zimmerman is a Latino, not white.  Second, Zimmerman was a left-of-center Democrat politically who voted for Obama - to call someone like this "racist" would be like making a case that Byron de la Beckwith and Martin Luther King Jr. were golfing buddies!  Yet, there are some individuals - including the evil trinity of Obama, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson - who seem to play the "race" card with everything, and they are exploiting this like no one's tomorrow.  What is so interesting about these idiots though is that they never spoke out against Planned Parenthood, which itself has murdered far more Black children than Zimmerman ever did, and its founder, Margaret Sanger, was an avowed evolutionist and racist whose main goal was the eradication of what she termed "human weeds" in order to make way for a race of her ideal "human thoroughbreds."   And, it is appalling that despite the evidence that exists substantiating these facts, the "plantation pimps" like Obama, Sharpton, and Jackson (not to mention Julian Bond, Jeremiah "Kill Whitey" Wright, and others like them) kiss Planned Parenthood's corporate butt.   Another issue is South Sudan - over the decades, MILLIONS of Black African Christians have been killed by Islamic extremists there, and yet it is interesting that Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama were not only silent about it, but actually buddied up with the terrorists killing these people!  A question was asked concerning these people once during the Kosovo mess in 1999 by a South Sudanese activist that needs to be revisited - are White Muslims more valuable than Black Christians?  Maybe if they put those damned "hoodies" on the South Sudanese and made them look like Crips and Bloods, Jackson and the rest of the pimps may have taken notice, no?   Thankfully though we DO have real Black statesmanship in the US - I have nothing but the highest respect for Dr. Alan Keyes, who in my opinion should have been the first Black President of the US rather than that crypto-Islamic Kenyan illegal we have in there now.   Keyes has been staunchly pro-life, and he also was a lone voice of reason speaking up on behalf of South Sudanese Christians being slaughtered by Islamic terrorists (with bin Laden's help, I might add, as he was in Khartoum at the time).  And, in 2009, he showed his character by placing himself in the trenches at Notre Dame when the Obamanazis on campus were unlawfully arresting pro-lifers for protesting Barack Obama's appearance there.  What was interesting about that was one thing - apparently, Obama thinks an octogenarian priest like Fr. Norman Weslin singing Ave Marias while being manhandled by his goons was a greater threat than a street thug like this Trayvon kid, who Obama says would be like his own son (the equivalent to that would have been George W. Bush saying he wanted a son just like Timothy McVay - imagine THAT can of worms being opened!).  Although of course all the facts are not in on that situation (some only God himself knows), I would venture to say at the risk of getting a lot of "hate mail" that this Trayvon kid was not out that late at night just for a pack of Skittles!   And, for our idiot of a President (who bears a striking resemblance to Mr. Potato Head, except the latter has more brains!) is trying to incite a race war in this country over it.   People are unemployed, gas prices are way higher than they should be, and this ding-dong in the White House has his nose stuck in that business!  If we elect this idiot as President again, we are in some big trouble (I wonder how much real estate in Argentina these days is, seriously?).  In short, that whole screwed-up, convoluted mess makes me want to vomit, and another reason why Obama in office is the worst thing America needs now. 

Any rate, that is my spiel for today, and I apologize for getting too emotional - it is just that this issue and others like it have me a bit rattled, as it seems like anything today that disagrees with the establishment is labeled "racist" or something else stupid, and I am tired of it.  That is one of the reasons too why I limit my activities on Facebook and other social media too - they are a lynch mob at times waiting to happen if you voice an opinion people don't like, and it is just wrong.  Anyway, so long until next time.

Random Thoughts

You will notice I haven't been writing articles as frequently, as a recent move and a busy schedule hasn't allowed me the time to actually sit down and put some good thought into an article, but recently some circumstances have changed and I wanted to just share a few things that I have had on my mind recently,  and hope you all will appreciate, be encouraged, or whatever other way these ramblings of mine may affect you.  There is no rhyme or reason to this expression of thought you are about to witness, so excuse me if I tend to do a little rabbit-chasing.

2012 has gotten off to a hectic, but not bad, start for us so far, and my head swims with so much that I need to organize myself a little.   At the beginning of the year, for instance, an unfortunate plumbing situation necessitated our getting new tile floors in the house, but a good thing resulted - I was able to get my new home office set up!  When we moved into the new place here in Lakeland back in September last year, I was originally consigned a room off the living room of the house that was small, cramped, and frankly didn't feel right. So, after talking about it, Barb and I decided to switch our bedroom and my office, and it has turned out to be a much better arrangement.  As it comes together, a generous tax refund is allowing me the purchase of a desk and some printing equipment to really get things organized, and in April that will all start to come together too.  Barb now has her own office as well since we have moved into the new house, and she is also getting organized and together so she can launch a business venture she wants to do, which is a great idea for her and which also I will be lending her some support as well.   Overall, it has been a bit tumultous getting settled back in Lakeland again after moving from here originally in 1998 to St. Pete, but it has also been good to be back - the atmosphere over here is better, and our quality of life has improved somewhat from what it was in Pinellas County.  And, although Lakeland is growing, it is still a small town compared to the urban jungle of Pinellas and Tampa -  that area was just insane.  As a result, Lakeland is also somewhat less stressful for us, and that is helping us on a major level too - it is nice, for instance, to see people who are not ashamed to say they are conservative or that they like Larry the Cable Guy's comedy (he is hilarious, I must admit!) without getting a bunch of left-wing hippie wannabes trying to lynch them for their views.   And, it is nice to find solid churches again - the one we go to is really good, and there are several other great congregations (Lake Gibson Church of the Nazarene, pastored by Rev. Charles Kirby, is a great example - it is one of the few churches you can go to where good gospel music concerts can be found; their pianist, Marlin Nichols, is also one of the best I have ever heard personally) that are not sucked in by Rick Warrenism and liberal politics.  However, I will save the ecclesiastical issues for Sacramental Present Truths in the near future, because it is more appropriate to discuss those there.   And, the cost of living here is very nice - it has been cheaper for us to live here in six months than it was for the entire 13 years we lived in Pinellas County, and I actually think we can begin to see our assets being preserved rather than drained for once!  God has been good with bringing us back here, that is for sure. 

It is not that Lakeland is perfect - slow traffic lights and the influx of flocks of geezers from the North tend to cause some issues, but nothing we can't handle (one thing to their credit is that the geezers may overall actually make Lakeland a more pleasant place to live!).   But, overall the quality of life in Lakeland has improved greatly from what it was even when we were here before - the new Lakeside Village Mall in south Lakeland, as well as some good restaurants and small businesses, have made our return here even better.  Some of the restaurants, such as Catfish Country on 98 South in Highland City, are mainstays that have been here for years and tend to stay great.  However, there are others - Fred's Southern Kitchen comes to mind - that are relatively new discoveries but have quickly become our favorite places (mind you, getting into Fred's may be a challenge - the food is so good that often the wait is long, so be prepared!).  Again, you will be seeing more about some of those restaurants in David's Kitchen later on, so stay tuned for that. 

One of the greatest opportunities for us being back here though is the possibility of my actually getting back to my graduate studies, which I plan to do later this year.  The process has been started, as my old alma mater, Southeastern University, has the graduate programs I need and they are making the process very workable for me.  My plans are to get my MA in Theology, and thus embark upon some Church History projects I want to do, including the newest endeavor I have formalized called Highways and Hedges.  I have talked a little bit about Highways and Hedges in my Sacramental Present Truths page, but essentially it is a project that seeks to bring to documentation those little fellowships and denominations which I feel have fascinating and unique histories that need to be told.  They will ultimately be the thesis in my MA program and could lead to a book later on.  But, Church History is not my only pursuit I wish to invest more energy into, because I have been thinking a lot about some ways to really become more self-sufficient over the years, and these have led me to think about some other more domestic projects I would like to take a crack at later on as time and resources allow.

Over the past several years, I will admit I have developed a certain affinity for some "reality-based" television programming on channels like Animal Planet, History, and National Geographic.  Watching these has given me some ideas that I would like to put into place.  Recently, for instance, there is this show on National Geographic called Doomsday Preppers that I have really gotten interested in watching.  For the people not familiar with what this subject matter is, let me give some background.  There is a segment of the population - a growing segment, fueled in part by that Obamanation in the White House in recent years wreaking havoc upon our nation (as you may have guessed, I am not an Obamanatic!) - that practice something called "prepping" in which they are implementing practices, stockpiling essential supplies, etc., in anticipation of what they feel is some sort of global catastrophe they feel is immanent.  Being these people are a diverse group, they also have different ideas as to what the catastrophe is - some say it is an economic collapse, others a polar shift, others still a nuclear war, various natural disasters, etc. - and feel an urgency to get themselves ready to survive the onset of any of these said scenarios.  Some of these people have developed some impressive things - huge underground condos, backyard farming, and defense, for instance - and although some people may think they are on the "radical fringe," or that they are just conspiracy nuts or something, I think these people may be onto something.  The Bible does, after all, foretell a time in the future that is coming when a period of seven of the most violent years of human history called the "Tribulation" will be unleashed upon the earth shortly before the Second Advent of Christ.  And, there also has been a lot of hysteria generated by the New Agers and others over this Mayan calendar thing regarding December 21, 2012 in the past few years.  With rising gas prices, economic issues (Greece is the most dramatic example) and a rising tide of political-correct thought policing in the US, people are concerned and they are starting to think more seriously about their own future.   These "Preppers" have taken that to something more practical than just fretting about impending disaster - they are securing their own survival should it hit!  The show is actually quite objective too, as it views the preppers in a positive light pretty much and even offers expert evaluations of their plans and what they can do to improve their projects, etc.   The fact that situations like this could happen - the Bible is very clear they will actually, something that those of us who believe what it says take seriously - should be something that all of us should address, but of course panic and paranoia are not the answer.  Even with something as tangible as a house fire or hurricane, it is always good to have a preparedness plan to execute in order to protect yourself and your family.  Therefore, these "preppers" are people we could learn something from if we do so without judging them as "kooks" and "conspiracy nuts."  That being said, I have actually begun to think about ways I can also be more independent and self-sustaining, although preparing for a natural disaster is not my only motivation for that.  I also watch people like Gordon Ramsay, who despite his volatile temperment and "blue talk" vocabulary is actually a highly capable chef who has good ideas.   One thing I have learned from watching Ramsay on TV all these years is that fresh is better - I have slowly begun to ween away from using jarred spices, etc., in favor of fresh herbs, and it indeed does improve the quality of your cooking.   Of course, running to the supermarket everytime you need fresh seasonings is not exactly practical, so I figured we are in a position now to where I can grow this produce myself.  And, not just herbs - there are speciality produce items, such as red currant tomatoes and microgreens, that you can't find just anywhere, so it only makes sense to grow them myself.  That being said, I am also planning on maybe looking into learning to make cheese, homemade sausage, and also since I live here in Florida, take advantage of catching fresh seafood myself; would be nice, for instance, to have a freezer full of my own shrimp I caught myself.   And, one resource here that would do the environment a world of good to get rid of because it is wreaking such havoc on the local landscape is wild boar.  Many people do not really understand that these wild pigs have some of the richest and best meat of any creature, and being they are feral and a nuisance, what better way to take care of the problem than to eat it!  A friend of my mother's she worked with has been keeping us in a good supply of wild boar, and I have been making good use of it.   Perhaps later on, I can think about the same possibilities with snakeheads and other invasive species too.   Now, if only I can keep the tax-greedy Democrat politicians from interfering with that enterprise....  Any rate, as I start embarking upon those projects, you will see some of the results showing up on David's Kitchen later.

Another idea hit me like a ton of bricks over the past week - church-run grocery stores!  Since moving back to Lakeland, we discovered a couple of local businesses that come to find out were extensions of ministries, and they are great ideas!  One of them, called Wings of Eagles, has two locations of discount grocery stores it operates here in Lakeland, and although some of the goods qualify as "bent-and-dent," it is still good food and a bargain for people in these tough economic times.  Our local meat market, Harvest Beef, is also connected to a ministry enterprise, and just the other day we had two of the best T-bone steaks from there for dinner, and they only cost us $6!  This is a great idea, because by getting these great deals you are also supporting the Lord's work, and that is two great things out of just your weekly shopping trip.  More churches need things like this, because although the Christian bookshops and thrift stores are good, they don't really fill the needs nor do they generate the funds needed to keep a ministry afloat - however, grocery stores do.  Some Christian groups, such as the Hutterites out in the Midwest as well as some inner-city Black churches, have actually been pioneers in doing this for years, and they are worth studying more to tweek, modify to fit one's own community's needs, and streamline to meet the budget of the church or ministry operating it.  I am eventually going to be exploring this more in-depth myself soon and will learn more about it to share better insight, as I feel we need something like this in our churches.  Practical ministry to meet practical needs, without compromising fundamental teachings - that is how our witness is best expressed.  However, I am going theological again, so let's regroup.

Other "real-life" TV programs are lighter fare, and some stuff my old co-workers got me watching.  Do any of you, for instance, watch that show on History Channel called Swamp People?   That show is truly the best!  And seriously, how can anyone not like Troy Landry or those Guist Brothers - they would be neat to get to know.  Gotta hand it to those guys though; that is not a line of work for just anyone off the street, that is for sure!  Gators are dangerous animals, and these guys make their yearly salaries within one month tackling those things in the Louisiana bayous.  One of them, Bruce Mitchell in Hammond, LA, is so enterprising that he not only catches his own gators, but he processes the meat and hides himself and has a good business doing it - I would buy a few pounds of gator meat and a gator-claw backscratcher off the guy just to support his efforts.  Bruce Mitchell, Troy Landry, and those other "Swampers" are truly what America is about - self-sufficiency and still maintaining good values doing it.  Some of these corporate hacks would do well to learn a thing or two from guys like this - I would love to see a couple of my old office managers trying to wrangle a 1000-pound gator on a trot line in the swamp like that; they would be gator scat before the first day ended!  Then there is that guy in Kentucky on Animal Planet, Ernie "The Turtleman" Brown.  He comes across as a little weird to the Kim Kardashian/Justin Bieber crowd (gag me with a spoon at the mention of those names, please!), but I want to say a couple of things regarding folks like The Turtleman.  First, this guy is not after fame or fortune - many of the people he renders services to pay him with produce, eggs, chickens, homemade goods, etc.  Second, Ernie and his buddy Neal are people some of us can relate to - like myself, they are just simple Appalachian folk, and they have good manners and are unpretentious, not trying to impress or kiss butt with anybody.  These are values many of the tofu-farting hippie wannabes laugh at and deride, yet they could learn something to maybe enrich their own sad, shallow lives by watching these guys.  Third, Ernie is just an interesting guy - he is one of those people you want to have as a friend, and I think we are all a little envious of Neal who can appreciate that fact.  However, in a society obsessed with "American Idol" and the Biebers, Kardashians, Lady GagGags, and other trash on TV, shows like this are often the butt of jokes, some of them cruel and nasty.   But, they have followings despite the idiots in pop culture, and that says something about the "silent majority" who are sick of the glitz and stupidity of Charlie Sheen's latest exploits or Lady GagGag's outrageous behavior.  So, I encourage my readers to watch Ernie the Turtleman, as well as other good programs like the Duggars and their family of 19 and the Swampers in Louisiana making do with harsh surroundings to feed their families.   They are what America is truly about.  And, enough said on that soapbox. 

Well, I think I have shared enough with you for now as my humble "food for thought," and as with everything else you are welcome to take it or leave it.  I know these ideas may offend some - a complimentary razzberry blown in the direction of those individuals - but I know it will strike a familiar chord with others.  We are, for all intentions, in a cultural war for our very survival, but the voices of decency and humanity are breaking through all the butt-kissing, thanks be to God.  But lots of prayers are still needed.  And, that being said, I am going to take my leave for now on that point and will see you all again in the near future.

The Beginning of A New Year - Personal Wisdom I Have Gained and Want to Share

This is my first writing of the year 2012, and I guess there is much to talk about, although this will be informal.  

The past 18 months, from roughly June 2010, have been challenging -  we have faced financial challenges, had to redefine where I am spiritually, and we ended up with a new place to live, a new car, and a new job.    Although some valuable education has been gained from living the past year, I personally am glad it is over though - this is a time of new beginnings for our household, and that being said, it is up to us (in conjunction with God's sovereign will, of course) to make this year a year that we can look back on as one of our best.   I say this not only for myself, but for the benefit of all who read this, as it is something we all must reassess individually and take positive steps to move forward.

Since September, we have moved back to Lakeland, where I originally graduated from college, and I have, as of the first of this year, entered a new job that basically opens up a whole new area of work for me.   At the time I am writing this, I am still in some very extensive training for it, and it is both intense and interesting at the same time as it is also inspiring me by providing new material for research that many of you will be seeing both in these articles as well as on my theological webpage.   God has created all of us with minds, and we continue to use them throughout our lives, as the learning process only ends when our heart stops in natural death.   Thing is, we are not to use this knowledge as just a storehouse of parroting facts back to people on demand, but rather it is to be used to apply to our lives and to make them either better or more efficient.  Everything we do - formal schooling, work, what we read, watch and hear, etc. - contributes to that reservoir.  I guess the resolution we all have is how to effectively channel what we have accrued in our intellectual reservoir in order to enhance our individual qualities of life.   God has given us that mandate to ensure we are proper stewards of the things he gives us, and those things are not all material - much of it is spiritual and intellectual too. 

I chose this year to resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions for a reason - resolutions often set a bar too high for us to reach, and that is why, as our priest noted in his homily at Mass a couple of weeks ago, that by March all those people on the bike trail that started out so enthusiastically in January disappear by March.  And, it is why the few pounds you resolve to lose end up being a few pounds heavier by Easter - you do see where that is going, right?   Mistakes can be stepping-stones as well as stumbling-blocks, and although you may trip over them at first, eventually you pick up your feet and climb the block.   A common mistake I have made over the years, tying this all back together, is setting things too high and out of reach, thus ending badly in frustration.   So, I personally have done the Biblical thing, so to speak, and have refrained from making oaths I don't have the capacity to fill.  

That being said, does this mean I don't have goals and objectives?  Not at all - Lord knows I have a lot of those, perhaps too many!   What it does mean, however, is that I approach those ideas realistically and try to make them happen within a reasonable means of attainment.   It is a lesson that I very much have had to learn the hard way, and after getting my knees scraped so many times, I realize this is the way to do things that makes more sense.  

I guess now I need to take time to talk personally about some things though.   The several years -  eight in Largo, 5 in St. Pete, meaning 13 total - we spent in Pinellas County, FL, were a sort of exile for us.   However, they were also a time I began to look within myself, and really understand what my own story is all about.  And, I had the inspiration to write it all down, both as an unpublished manuscript as well as a regular and consistent amount of journal-keeping, and that is something I cannot stress enough for you to do.   Your story is something God has given you - it is your testimony, your legacy, and your school of life experience - so write it down and NEVER underestimate its value.  Who knows - your story could inspire and help someone else someday.   These blogs grew out of that, as a matter of fact, and I have been able to organize and formulate my collective life story and worldview into an easily-digested form to share with many of you, although I sincerely hope that it doesn't give you indigestion at times either!   I find I communicate more effectively in writing than I do in speaking, and doing this is a great venue that helps me as well.   And, as I do, I learn a thing or two about myself as well.   In the past two years, I have developed three websites and write as many as 70 articles annually now, which I also print out and have bound in books at home too.   They encompass all areas of my interests, my faith, and my worldview, as well as my personal story as I have lived it and to the best of my ability to recall things from many years past.   I hope to continue this for many years to come. 

An important part of that story is understanding your past, even your roots that presage you personally.  Genealogy has been a big interest of mine since high school, but in the past 10 years, and thanks to the new technologies available, I have been able to take this a long way.   Learning about your ancestors is an important way of understanding your own worldview, because whether indirectly or directly, some of the thinking of your ancestors has come down to you - simply, you inherit more from your forebears a lot of times other than just DNA!  As I particularly have researched my paternal grandmother's family, who have a family tree going back almost 2000 years being they are of French Huguenot heritage and are tied into both European nobility and Sephardic Jewry, I found out about something called Nobless Oblige.  What that is essentially entails a sort of "warrior's code" that goes back to the Visigoths, Lombards, and others who are in my bloodline, and essentially what it says is this - with noble bearing comes noble responsibility.    In today's society, where many people are so stuck on themselves and on other crazy notions shaping much of the modern world, this is almost a foreign concept because it involves three things:

1.  Be true to your word
2.  If you claim to be something, act accordingly
3.  Manners, chivalry, and etiquette

Many people have as their role models today many lying politicians and musicians and movie stars who present themselves as one thing in the public light, but live radically different in private.   It is deceptive, and it harms people - take the modeling industry as a good example.   That, along with an increasing selfishness (an "every man for themselves," evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest mentality) has diminished us as a nation and as a society in general.  It has even gotten into Christian churches now, where anything goes as long as the numbers are good, etc.   However, it is fake, and it rings hollow.  I have a strong conviction within me I could not explain for years that basically dictated me a desire to be real and who I am, but at the same time emphasizing what is best about who I am.   Later, when a couple of relatives who researched the family histories made me aware of the concept of Nobless Oblige, I now understand where that came from.   That, of course, doesn't mean you deny your shortcomings - if you are confronted with those, you are honest about them, but you don't emphasize them constantly.  Added to that my Appalachian upbringing - things such as "sense of place," "making do," and other things, as well as a strong identity with the misunderstood and persecuted being I have shared their experience to a certain degree (hence, my strong connections to Assyrian Christians and Gypsies) - and the general "live-exceeds-talk" faith of my Swiss/German Anabaptist roots, it shaped me as a person and bears much influence on my worldview.   Now that I understand that, I appreciate it more too.  And, most of that was discovered over the past 10 years or so as I began to recollect and write down my own story, as well as tracing my personal genealogy - the two are inseparable.  And, this has had its share of conflict too - many who don't share my upbringing and roots don't really get where I come from, and I have made enemies of some, but that is how it goes.  After all, it is unrealistic to think everyone is going to like you and throw themselves at your feet in adoration (I thank those of you who want to do that though - just kidding!); personality conflicts are a part of our fallen human nature, and are going to happen whether we want them to or not.  But, even those who conflict with you can respect you, and you them, as long as you are real with who you are and they reciprocate.  And, those who conflict like that can even end up being valued friends in some cases - conflicting worldviews don't mean you have to be enemies!   And, conflict in personality doesn't mean misunderstanding or lack of appreciation - you can disagree with someone and still understand where they come from, thus appreciating the fact better.   Of course, in some cases that also means there may be a few headbutts along the way, but in time they work themselves out too.  Bottom line, not everyone who is your friend has to be your "yes-man" as well.   Your life would be a lot more boring if that were the case.  

In these ramblings, I guess I could sum up what I am saying in two good points:

1.  Get to know yourself better, your roots, and recount your story.
2.  Don't view those who may give you personality conflicts as necessarily your enemies - on the contrary, they may become your most trusted friends!

That being said, I look forward to a good year ahead, and hope that I learn a lot more about myself in the process, as we who profess to be Christians are on a pilgrimage of faith called life, trekking to the heavenly Zion we all have set as a destination once we profess Jesus Christ as our Savior and become baptized into His Church.  And indeed, that is what our faith is - a pilgrimage.   As I continue the pilgrim trail this coming year, I hope the journey is an enjoyable one.  And, I wish the same for each of you. See you next time!