He Who Has Ears Let Him Hear.

Nobody really understands

It is twenty seventeen and we in the United States have elected our forty fifth president, a New York business man named Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump did not win the popular vote but he did win the electoral vote which is not uncommon but what is uncommon is his stance on political matters. You see he may have the best intentions in the sense of being patriotic to the united state and I hope with everything in me he is, but he take's a hard line stance on issues, issues of which he has very little political training in. most believe that with the right people in your staff the lack of political knowledge can be offset but only time will tell.

But one thing is certain, sometimes it is not wise to always go around waiving a big stick, after all isn't that what politics is all about diplomacy before aggression. At the rate we are moving now there is sure to be some catastrophic event that will shake the planet, or destroy it. On my home I heard that “dooms day clock” that scientist have used in the “cold war” day has take a thirty second movement forward and it's not not just the nuclear situation, climate change, technology and biotechnology advances and worry about their use's, all these thing could get out of control at anytime without the right control's.

So as I listened to the radio while the three commentator's eluded to the question of, when the time comes, do you want to live forever or when it's over it's over and wow! Did that open the door for a different train of thought. First, the young lady said, “my grandmother is ninety six and all she doe's is sit in her chair, eat ice cream, all her friends are gone and she is all alone”.yeah when it's time to go I just want to go. Then one guys say, Well I think that there is life after death so yeah I chose infinity, I want to live forever for my kids sake but the girl tells him well then you will see them grow old and die and how would that make you feel? He couldn't answer her. The third guy was trying to make some sensible answer but all he came up with was that he wasn't sure about life after death but if there was what would it be like? We used to say, nobody has ever come back to tell us what over there. But in these days and times of documentation of near death experiences, science, investigations maybe, just maybe there is.

I think they were missing the point just looking at it from a two dimension stand point, life, then death but there are many beliefs that say when we expire in this corporeal sense our soul's and spirit live on. Personally I think that it is not if we will continue to exist but where we will exist. In a place that may not be pleasant or some place that can be compared to paradise, who knows? But down deep inside I think most people feel this. After all religion must serve some other purpose than just tradition, more than another form of control for men over other men. Think of a blind person. They don't have the use of a major sense that is needed to function but yet thru study and training they learn to use their remaing senses to compensate for their loss. Just because you can't see it doe's not mean it doesn't exist.

I think life is a test to see where we will end up in eternity and also to cause us to grow and reveal our true natures to our self. There is to much balance and cemetery in creation for all this to an accident, it just don't make sense, somebody's got to be at the wheel, there has to be some entity at the center. But I know many will argue the opposite and that's OK because in the end “all that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts”, As a man thinketh James Allen. Also I found this passage in the King James bible that says in “Proverbs 15;24 The way of life winds upward for the wise, that he may turn away from hell below.

In closing let me leave you with this thought from James Allen, “men are anxious to improve their circumstances but unwilling to improve themselves”.

When Everything Change

American history, or really history in general is not always marked with outstanding events, stunning personalities or remarkable speeches. Much of the history of a great nation is slow steady improvement, set backs and then how a people recovers from those set backs. But in the context of American history, there are a number of truly phenomenal moments when everything changed. These are not just one day events, although some are that sudden. But these are events that once they transpired, Americans thought of themselves, the world and their place in the world completely differently. And it’s worth noting what those events were and how they changed Americans forever.

Obviously the revolution itself and the founding of the country changed a small group of colonies who thought of themselves as Englishmen far from home. When the independence of America was done, that vision of ourselves was completely different. We were now a proud new nation, a new type of nationality that had its own view of the world and its own hopes and dreams as well.

World War II was the kind of event that once we underwent the tremendous trial, struggle and victory that such a war demands of a people, we never could go back to seeing ourselves again in the same way as we thought before the war. Our victory against Japan, Germany and their allies gave us tremendous confidence that we could affect world history for the better. But it also gave us a tremendous sense of responsibility. When we dropped those bombs on Japan, everybody on the planet began to understand the horrible power that was now in the hands of mankind, for a season in the hands of America and the huge responsibility for the fate of mankind that came with that kind of power.

Pearl Harbor while part of World War II deserves its own mention because of the fundamental change to how America viewed itself in relation to the world. Prior to that attack, America considered itself invulnerable. Like a teenager that thought they could never be hurt, we had never been attacked on our homeland before. But Japan proved that they not only could attack us but that they could hurt us very badly. Yes, we responded with a fury but from that moment forward, we knew that we, like everybody else in the world, were vulnerable and we had to start behaving differently in a world full of both friends and enemies.

Outside of the military world, the famous I Have a Dream Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 did not just change the black community forever. Yes, that speech had a mighty impact on the way the African American community saw their future and it gave inspiration and hope to a struggling civil rights movement that spurred it on to victory. But it also affected all Americans because we started to see ourselves as a community of many cultures, many races and many orientations. It was the beginning of acceptance in this country. But that is a process that is far from over.

In modern times, the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 had a drastic effect on the minds and hearts of America and indeed on the world. We are still learning how that effect will finally show itself as the ripples of shock, fear, anxiety and reprisals are still going on. But to be sure, as with Pearl Harbor, the effects on our feelings about our place in the world and our vulnerability were certainly be changed forever.