Thank You to Our Fallen

The top of the Facebook page asks a simple question: "What's on your mind?" Today's answer is easy, for me, and likely for many of you. My answer: The Fallen.

This country, and by proxy any nation she has fought for, supported, liberated, re-established, or allied itself with, owes a debt of gratitude to America's Fallen. The world itself has been changed through their sacrifices, and freedom in our world today surely waves a flag colored red, white and blue

 Let us, therefore, today and every year until America is no more, honor and remember our great benefactors, our beloved sons and brothers, our brave sisters and daughters, our heroic friends and family. Let us do so with quiet, fierce dignity, honor and respect. Let us never forget!

I ask a favor: Lest we forget, please, share the name of your Fallen with me, along branch and time of service if you know it. Let this simple posting be a humble "Thank you" to them. This we can give them.

Time is a Thief

I beg you, look around yourself, take careful note of the lives and love GOD has surrounded and supported you with, and sincerely give thanks.

I just watched my daughter's graduation, and have to wonder just who this funny, charming, quick-silvery and beautiful person is. Do you know her? It seems she should be about 18 months old, as I understand time, yet, in truth, Natasha, is closing in on 18 years old. I cannot even begin to describe how proud I am of her! But, now, she's grown...

Today, I congratulate her, and all of you new grads, on the achievement you celebrate in this season. I've been allowed into the lives of a couple hundred of you, and you are all treasures in your own right; anyone who says otherwise is a misinformed fool.

I've also been given perspective from lives around me. My dad reminded me that it seems only 15 days ago that we celebrated my own graduation. My friend, Geferson Fraga, guards and prays over his son, Junior, as he recovers in a Brazilian hospital. He became my Brazilian brother 10 years ago! My Danish could-have-been daughter, Tenna Lindberg Orgaard, rejoices with her husband and their daughter, and remembers with me a little of the time when she, herself, was Natasha's age, and living in Norwalk. It's been a very good day!

GOD has richly and fully blessed me, and these are just some of the names I can give you. Tenna, Geferson, all of you, PLEASE!!! Pay close attention to your blessed children. Love them, help them, encourage, strengthen, and uplift them. Correct them when they need it, and don't forget to praise them as they grow. Make absolutely sure that they know you love them! One day, your children, too, will be grown, and you will know how I feel today. Time is a thief, and she steals from us all.

I love you, Punk!

 

Kinda excessive?

Be kind excessively.

Be excessive kindly.



Know the difference.

The Winds of Change

Can you feel it? Daily, there is something different. A growing tide, slowly and powerfully building, rolling in, easing out, returning stronger. Like a wind bearing the scent and hope of a long-ago promised rain that will, finally, inexorably, be delivered to the dormant desert landscape. What is is? Can you feel it?

A determination, a need recognized at long last, an understanding that something is coming! Everyday, eyes see the determination growing to be part of the change when it arrives. Indeed, arrive it will! We know it is over due, and can't understand why it has taken so very, very long to arrive. We ache for it, we need it, and we feed it. Yet, somehow, we are afraid to start it. We fear what it might do, what it might change; how high the cost?

How high the cost?

There is, in these United States of America, a growing frustration with the way things are. The frustration builds, just a little bit, every single day, for one after another person. We feel it in the family home, where the very nature of a "family" is being assaulted and challenged. It's partly a matter of the "gay issue", but it's more than that. It's also a challenge of how men and women interact with each other, with their roles in the home and in society, at work and at church, in how we see ourselves. It shows up in how we talk to each other, in how we raise our kids, in how we do or don't value life. Can you feel it?

The tide is building.

Churches are being bullied into silence. The Press chooses neither decency or integrity. Judges are acting as Congress. Congress acts like movie stars or, more accurately, like children, always chasing things they want, rather than seeking to fulfill their oaths. History books are being...adjusted. Animals are valued above unborn human babies. It's cooking us from the inside, and we are just about to burn. Somehow, the chaplains in our military are supposed to faithfully uphold their duty to guide and uplift our troops...as long as the chaplains don't say key-words, like "Jesus" or "Christian". Seriously? Might as well ask a mechanic to do the job.

Interestingly, as the noose tightens on so many bedrock freedoms and cornerstone rights, people are finding hope, and it's not quietly done. These hopefuls calling out to the Americans around themselves, sharing their hope, building encouragement. It's indomitable, illogical and unstoppable. Patriotism is a lot like a name or a faith; it's close to our passion's beating heart, it's deeply personal, it's part of us!

So, I ask you: Can you feel it?

It's true, there could be a down-side. It could cause government systems to fail. We could see martial law. There's a chance that people could die. Take a breath and ask yourself a question: Is it the right thing?

If so, what are you prepared to do? Is there a cost that is too high? Or are we paying that price already?

"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."

James Arthur Baldwin