Good-bye, December

It won't be long.  Just a couple more days.  And......you will be gone.  Along with 2018.  You have been good.  You are always good.  You are always special.  I know: you are just a month.  The twelfth one of every year.  The last one of every year.  But what a month.  What a cheerful month you are.  And yes, sad for some.  How ironic.  I once heard a convict who was being interviewed for a documentary about prison life in the state facility where he was serving his time......a long time.  He spoke from the heart.  He declared:  "I miss the Decembers.  I miss the Christmases."  It is interesting to note that he didn't say: "I miss Christmas."  I perceive that he was trying to get the most of his memories.  He remembered different Christmases.  He distinguished them.  He had the time to do it.  December, a time for friends, family, food, parties, fun, celebrations, laughter, Christmas carols, cards, desserts and much, much more.    Yes,  a great deal of money changes hands this month.  Lots and lots of shopping.  Many, many presents, and much activity in the streets and retail businesses.  This holiday is an influencer.  This holiday is powerful.  It will continue to be so.  Why?  Because it is the recognition, remembrance,  celebration, and honoring of the birth of the Messiah.  The King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of God, Savior, Emmanuel. (God with us).  It is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  He is the visible image of the invisible God.  Yes, December will continue to be special.............as long as the birth of Jesus is celebrated.
 I have an idea:  *CELEBRATE JESUS EVERY DAY.  Celebrate His birthday in December.

*Why?  Because He is God.

"The Best Tombstone" (Spurgeon)

"A good character is the best tombstone.  Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered.  Carve your name on hearts, not on marble." Charles Spurgeon

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Letter From An Ex Slave

Dayton, Ohio     August 7, 1865        

       To My Old Master,   Colonel P.H. Anderson,         Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.  I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.  Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

        Jordon Anderson

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Jefferson's Anger Toward Organized Religion (But Not Toward Jesus)

"Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there [the very words only of Jesus] stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ." Thomas Jefferson


(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US PresidentSource: letter to Samuel Kerchreview, January 19, 1810

Forgiveness (Five Points Of View)

Forgiveness is not always easy.
At times, it feels more painful
than the wound we suffered,
to forgive the one that inflicted it.
And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.
- Marianne Williamson

Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.
- Lama Surya Das

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business
that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.
- Joan Borysenko

The remedy for wrongs is to forget them.
- Publilius Syrus

 Forgive those who have injured you -
not because they deserve your forgiveness,
but because you can never be happy until
you release your anger and grant forgiveness.
Forgiving is not a gift to someone else -
Forgiving is your gift to yourself - a great gift - the gift of happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood H

Poem In October By Dylan Thomas (Part II)

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Poem In October By Dylan Thomas (part I)

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

It was my thirtieth year to heaven, Woke to my
hearing from harbour and neighbour wood       
And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore 
The morning beckon With water praying and call of
seagull and rook   And the knock of sailing boats on
the net webbed wall   Myself to set foot That second 
in the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-Birds
and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose In rainy autumn   And walked abroad in a
shower of all my days.   High tide and the heron dived
when I took the road Over the border And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside
bushes brimming with whistling  Blackbirds and the sun of
October Summery On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing Wind blow cold in the wood
faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls

Liberty Has Been Wounded (O.H. Kahn)

"As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends.  Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin-brother of tyranny."



Otto Hermann Kahn   (1867-1934) German-born American investment banker, collector, philanthropist


 

Flee Lawlessness

Flee lawlessness, but BRING IN LAWFULNESS to where you go.   RD

God........He Is Also.............

 I believe in freedom.  I believe I am free to disagree.
Some things are just too important to worry about if someone does not agree with you.  I guess I am still holding on to "antiquated ideas of marriage," marriage "equality" and so called "tolerance."
Look..........God has stated in His Word that He is against homosexuality and lesbianism.  Such conduct is an abomination to Him.  So, who do I agree with?  God, or the proponents of behaviors that are in disagreement with the will and the teachings of God?  I am not God.  But if you disagree with me on this one, you also disagree with God.  I am not perfect, but God's ways are perfect.  Is society perfect?  No.  But God continues and continues and continues to be perfect.  He is holy.  Not only is He holy, He is also eternal.  He is not only eternal,  He is also omnipotent.  He is not only omnipotent, He is also righteous and just.  He is not only righteous and just, He is also LOVE.  That is a big one.  God gave me (us) a choice.  He loved me first.  I choose to love Him back.  How can I go wrong?  Look at His characteristics.  Who has them?  Nobody.  But we can try to be like Him.  He is able to equip us to do so.  Why would I purposely embrace, or agree with a lifestyle that I know does not please Him?
Marriage is between one man and one woman.  It always has been.  It always will be.  Sure, some people can try to change the definition.  But if it is not between one man and one woman.  It is not marriage.
It is something else.