Grateful for Peace and Strength

    Yes, on a federal holiday when we celebrate and thank those that served us in uniform, we are grateful.

    The enemies of the United States tried to overcome us, but they have not.

    We celebrate and give thanks for our strength and peace.

    Victory over the fascists, communists, even those former slavers and colonists.

    We have been bad, yes, but not as bad as our opponents.

 How Close are you With Jesus?

    A Frenchman was just called as an Apostle of Jesus Christ this week, in November of 2025. Most of the world did not pay attention or make note of it. The Christian world, which is composed in biggest numbers by the Catholics headquartered in Rome, the Eastern Orthodox spread across eastern Europe into the Middle East, and the panoply of Protestants spread across the entire world. Of course there are other Christians, like Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and still others. Most do not recognize Gerard Causse as a special emissary and holy oracle of the Jesus of the past, present, and future. We shall see, and know for certain, some day.

    Muslims have special beliefs in Jesus of Nazareth; there are close to a billion and half of them on the earth. So, all told, as those that revere Him as a holy prophet and leader, that is at least 3.5 billion people who posit love, faith, and hope in Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed One, born over two thousand years ago.

    Some believe He was a fanatic or delusional, or simply an influential teacher, but had no extraordinary knowledge or powers.  Much less that He was a God. Some think that He was the enemy, which could make sense to some Jewish and other believers of God, or Allah, or Yahweh. Millions, upon millions, of people, innocent women, children, babies, men, and boys, have died, many in terrible and violent ways, in the name of Jesus. 

    There were those that thought they loved and worshipped Him, yet would torture and abuse and annihilate others in allegedly "doing His will". Not cool.

    While many of us, or most Christian believers, for that matter, think of Him and follow Him as the Prince of Peace, way too much violence and hate has been committed in His name. Despite His injunctions and peaceful mandates and counsel.

    We, the Christians, who like devote Catholics, pious Orthodox, Bible believing Evangelicals, active and temple going Latter-Day Saints, dogged and faithful Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, and all others, are convicted that our way of the cross, or the path of following the Lord and Savior is right and holy, proper and correct: we can err greatly in how we execute His orders. Do good, not bad. Of course. Obvious, yes?

    Us Christians can be very wrong in how we mete out His values. Millions of variations of implementing His will for bad and good. Yet, most of us, I submit, do really good things in His name more than the negative ones. 

    This can be said of people of all beliefs, like those who are Hindu, or Buddhist, or agnostic, or secular humanistic or communist or atheist. We all try to do what is right. Right?

    Some of us believe in Jesus to the point where He takes all our sins, where in moments of great pardon or release we can let Him take our cares and sorrows. We find solace and relief in Him, in His supernatural powers that can cleanse us and empower us believers to move and grow and live in a more beautiful way.

    Can we be that close that He always heals us? Even for the fervent believers and followers of Jesus, this can be difficult.

    My mother, an ardent and close believer of the Lord all her life, in three Christian traditions, still suffered from bouts of serious depression, apparently not completely righted by the Masters of the Tempests. However, perhaps Christ saved and preserved her from worse?

    She is with Him now, we believe. In Heaven.

    Earth or beyond, we wonder how close we come to Him. I was thinking of making a scale from 0 to 100, one being the closest, while the other extreme being far from, even devilish. Sad and funny that some thinking they are doing His will can arrive at the most opposite.

    Anyway, I will post this now.

    Food for thought.

    And I will try to worship and celebrate Jesus my Lord today.

    God bless.

 The Best Blog Post Ever Written

    Sorry, my readers, this is probably not the one. But, we cannot have perfection, often, AMIRITE?

    Heh, heh. Oh, my humor. Pithy, or silly, or obscure. Or none of the above.

    Unlike the Poet, Pablo Neruda, I could not write the saddest nor the most perfect verses this night.

    This week I did have some profound thoughts and ideas, some blog posts or blurbs that might have been of value, of some merit, of some type of meaning or significance.

    Maybe.

    Maybe not.

    I had a range of feelings at work and at home, and everywhere in between this last week. Love, loss, worry, regret, hope, charity, tiredness. Some loneliness, some forlorn sentiments, whatever those are.

    Things are happening worldwide, and things locally.

    What else did I wish to say and express. The best blog post is yet to come.

    Good night.

    

 Make Life Precious, Keep People at a Premium

        It's hard to make everyone equal and the same. Because we are not.  In a capitalist world, we all have values that make us different.

    Even in a world without money, some people are stronger, some are faster, healthier, live longer. We are all different but we should all have infinite worth. Unfortunately, it is not the case.

    We know that some people in some neighborhoods, because of income or status, or even ethnic persuasion, or health, do not receive as much care or concern, and do not "count" as much as others. Whole countries are like this.

    Elected officials and celebrities generally have more wealth than others. They tend to more valued than others, of less notoriety or import, for many different reasons.

    Some people are smarter than others, many make more money and have more prestige, therefore they get better treatment than others.

    Why?

    Such is the world. Many would say men in general get more respect and attention than women and girls.

    Israelis over Palestinians. Light skinned over dark skinned.  Rich over poor. Protestants over Catholics. Hindus over Muslims.

    Democrats over Republicans. Well, maybe not that.

    Fast over slow.

    All of us should be worth it, no matter our characters. Well, merit is a thing.

    Good character deserves merit and aplomb. But more worth?

    Discuss.

 I Wish to Be the Only One for My Beloved

    Is this selfish? Is this covetous? Am I super jealous?

    Well, I want to be enough for her, that is for sure. That is not a bad desire. That requires me to more, and better. But I think it is possible only through God and His power and grace.

    Eternal companionship.

    What. A. Thing.

    Discuss.

    

Stop the Presses! Cheney Dies, We Reflect on Published Knowledge

    While family visits Meinz, or Mainz, or wherever the Guttenberg press was invented, in the heart of Germany, perhaps formerly Prussia in the times of the princes and feudalists developing their gears and letter blocks, and their ways of speaking and writing and then publishing, their Deutschish tongues and vowels and consonants. 

    My wife thinks she could learn to sprecken it if she was there for six months. Fiel gluch, meine fraulein! Who knows? We can never tell where we will end up. It would be painful for me to learn it. Not enough speakers, not far enough from my Germanic English native tongue.

    I speak Spanish, and then learned Portuguese, with Arabic over the years... French pops in there, also closer to my native understandings...

    So, certain people think that I write some stuff on everyone that dies. Okay, not true. Many people die that I never even know about! Hundreds and thousands have died in Afghanistan lately, from earthquakes. Then there are the drug runners on the open seas in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

    Oh, Hegseth and Trump, you make quite a team. Maybe Vance gets some love for these deaths too. Not as bad as the medically deprived in Africa by the US AID cuts, but rather constitutionally challenged acts of death hits against the boats.

    Dick Cheney died, age 84. He did a lot in our country, and a lot abroad, like what we did in Iraq. I am not as concerned as much about the lack of found Weapons of Mass Destruction as I was chagrined by the firing, dismissal of half a million Iraqi police and troops. No money, no bueno, Dick. Ay yai yai.

    Your daughter now has quite the legacy. She likely would not have rose to her status without you, who knows?

    84. You were rich and powerful; some thought it was all about lucre and might.

    Maybe? You were a patriot, but maybe an elitist.

    What else?

    My daughter published! So awesome. She wrote about a totem, of sorts, if I may, which I have seen going back through the years, the Venus figurine, with over-emphasized body parts, which she wrote as conjecture that perhaps that is the perspective of the female looking at her own body. Maybe so. But, as a dude, I can see why male artists might hyperbolize those body parts, too.

    Publishing and research makes me search my memories, and leads me to think of the papers that I wrote growing up, many of which had their bibliographies and works cited, based on books, magazines, articles and essays that we would find in the good old days before the Internet. We could type our papers, or print them on the old noisy printers that we had in the days of the perforated sides. I kept a few of them, which may be among my boxes in the attic of my house, well into the 21st century.

    I have a hard time throwing those works away. Many have the comments of the teachers who graded them. Mr. Courtney gave me wonderful superlatives, like complimenting me on subjects of which I reported that he "had never heard of", or "knew little of". Wow!

    To teach a teacher! 

    What is better?

    To teach ourselves. To reach the masses. To strive for education, enlightenment, stretch the mind and the soul.

    To learn, to share, to celebrate, commemorate, the living and the dead.

    Rest in peace, former Vice President Richard Cheney, master puppet manipulator, uber patriot, or whatever people will think of you. Iraq is doing okay in 2025, no?

    The bio weapons that Saddam gassed Kurds with in Halabja perhaps moved to Syria (when our troops occupied the Land of the Two Rivers) where Bashar Al-Assad would later gas his victimized minorities.

   Good riddance, despotic and cruel beyond words Arab strong men, and torturers!

    Cheney was better than you, in the end; but look where he came from.

    The U.S. has more freedom and power, and perhaps it is easier to be a fairer power broker here than in the Middle East.

    Publish that.

    Cite that.

    

 Memories, Nostalgia, Canciones, Family

    My wife and son have been away about four days, but it feels like five or six! Yeah, get ready for empty nester time! Do we need grandchildren to stay together as a couple? Perhaps it requires a lot more than that... I know I got some work to do. I will keep at it.

    Tonight it is dark very early, and I am with the mostly empty house, looking for my daughter at her friend's. We got together, and we will go out to Chinese food. Maybe I have not been to that restaurant before? We shall see.

    It made me think of when I was 14 I would go out during the week, usually with my mom, and we could eat Chinese food at Peach Garden, or maybe Lung Cheung, or House of Hunan... Not far from downtown, close to where she was living.

    Some sort of lonely times, before she met her second husband. My dad was single longer, too. Man, divorce was hard. I so do not like it. A bit like death, in my opinion. But, my step-parents made things much better. It became great, really. No more complaints from me. I got lucky, and so did they.

    God is good.

    Tonight I saw Christmas lights through my kitchen window, so a song in Spanish came to my brain, and then lungs and heart. 

    Veo luces! Navidenhas! Por las ventanas, de mi casa!

    I see luces, de Navidad, through the windows, de mi casa.

    'Tis the season, to be nostalgic and celebrate, yes?

    Okay, if you insist.

    Veteran's Day, in eight more days.

    Enjoy.