Category: faith

  • An angel has ascended. RIP James Earl Carter a true American Statesman, Humanitarian, and Global Servant Leader

    An angel has ascended. RIP James Earl Carter a true American Statesman, Humanitarian, and Global Servant Leader

    Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
    Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter by Carol M Highsmith is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

    Yesterday afternoon the announcement came that President Carter had passed into the gates of Heaven and we were all saddened, but in awe of what he accomplished in his 100 years-plus in his life on this planet.

    Each day, Jimmy Carter worked to the best of his ability to SERVE others. He did hands on work. He taught. He worked with others to spur innovation and inspire solutions to cure dreadful diseases. He pulled people together to do good work. He lived as a true Christian doing what Jesus Christ taught that many “Christians” have totally missed and messed up.

    Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
    Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with his wife, Rosalyn by Carol M Highsmith is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

    Jimmy Carter epitomized working for the greater good. His wife, Rosalyn, at his side as long as she could be, shared in doing these same selfless acts – their embodied impact on planet Earth and its people have been widely received and deeply appreciated by those in need. With Habitat for Humanity, the Carters built houses for the homeless across the globe. They worked on disease eradication in Africa. They helped people in Asia and Africa and other continents, learn how to properly farm to get better yields from crops to improve the farming livelihood and impact positively local economies.

    He was a civil rights advocate and activist. A broker of peace in the Middle East. A Nobel Laureate. His involvement in politics was brief in comparison to his decades long efforts to make change for the better. To make people aware of the dangers of the direction that political factions are having on human rights and existence especially the rights of women being primary to much of this – this was a large part of his crusade for the improvement of human rights and women’s rights in particular.

    Sadat and Begin and their
    Sadat and Begin and their by Central Intelligence Agency (Source) is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

    I was heartbroken when he stayed alive to cast his vote for what we hoped would be the first woman president of the United States. However, we will take his legacy and be inspired by what he did. The flags will fly at half-staff from yesterday through January 29th at least – to give a backdrop to the state of the nation as it faces four years of uncertainty. May we look upon his passing as a ray of hope that his influence will help inspire us to building a strategy and solutions to throttle and check once again the spread of fascism.

    Rest in Peace, Mr. Carter. We will miss you. We hope to see you on the other side.

    Hubble Friday - Heavy Metal Stars
    Hubble Friday – Heavy Metal Stars by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

  • the anxiety of our demise

    the anxiety of our demise

    When you think about it, we are set onto the path of our journeys to eventual demise from the moment we take our first breath, naive and innocent, launched off the launchpad of our mothers’ wombs.

    Most of us are pre-wired for wonder. As we rapidly mature at first, then as aging does, the process slows down, we divert into a number of directions of pulls or pushes into interesting positions, many in pursuit of figuring out the meaning of life before we get to the end.

    We have our families and our other people in various roles with whom we become acquainted along the way. Some enter, some exit, some return and disappear again, never to return. Life is rich with experiences, both positive and negative. Emotions and feelings are always present despite some people saying that they shouldn’t be. Give that up! We’re humans. Not rocks.

    We often can look back to understand where we’ve come and the relationships with people near and dear as well as the difficult ones. Friends, lovers, family and those with whom we have worked or had as neighbors – all are a part of the long acts of our lives – some scenes are shorter than others – some are dramatically ended, leaving us to contemplate in sometimes painful reflections.

    Some experiences are so traumatic that our spirits may reach close to a breaking point. The layer of spiritual existence integrates within us being in ranges from vacant to intense. Some of us experience these variations and others stay steady with faith to survive the tough roads that we sometimes face. Directions and decisions. Conundrums depending on the complexity.

    With age comes wisdom, but the paradox is that wisdom becomes relevant the older we get and the frustration is that we have difficulties with communicating with those younger who do not appreciate wisdom. Ageism is a bitter pill to swallow.

    Music and expression. Those are gateways between our past memories and the relevance of now. The hope lies with our present experience and past understanding of how our lives integrated with others, both human and animal, spiritually and physically, the connections and contacts at all levels.

    What gets us through the days and nights that are harder than others? It’s up to our own strengths to be able to rely on ourselves. We learn by being independent and confident in situations that are challenging. Figuring out how to understand when we need help and when we can solve it ourselves.

    The wildcards are health…and dangers from nefarious people seeking to steal or destroy just for the delight of terror and torture. These characters have been around since the dawn of man. Yet every day we are reminded more of these than of the good in humanity. Shameful as it is.

    With health is the genetic component we can’t necessarily change. Learn from your history and those who are genetically connected. It makes total sense and is the purpose of that capability within us. We can do our best to survive despite.

    To cope and alter, to modify and still enjoy life. That’s it. That’s the secret. Have wisdom. Enjoy while you’re here. We can’t know what’s next.

  • Life is a river.

    Life is a river.

    You start off the day you are born and everything is preset with defaults. Then things begin to get interesting.

    With every second that you are alive, you are on that big float trip down the river. You have a family whether your family is interacting with you (or not) throughout your life is full of variability depending on the timeline and lots of other factors.

    There are boulders in the river of various sizes that must be navigated by you and sometimes with help from your family or your friends. Some boulders are very large and you might have to port around them for a period of time, then get back in when it seems like you can go with the flow again… Until the next set of boulders.

    How you are equipped to float down the river to your inevitability depends on many factors. The human being is an interesting combination in design – designed to not be able to know itself. That would suggest that there is a creator or group of creators that have made this situation for reasons unknown to the human. As humans do, they try to figure themselves out regardless. They play games and are constantly involved in brinkmanship. Although there are humans that encourage working together to survive and thrive, the nature of humans is to want to be a part of a community but to be selfish and not share willingly. Sharing is learned and adaptive behavior. Humans quickly figure out that the float trip will end in disaster if they do not cooperate with other humans.

    Navigating the boulders and coming all the way down the river is the goal. Yet, no human knows ahead of time where their final dock will be. As they get closer, some of them seem to feel that their dock is getting closer. No one knows why this is – no human that is…

    Whether the creators of humans are “God” or several gods are beliefs held in organized faith philosophies humans call religion. They are at high levels similar but getting in the details they differ and diverge like branches on tree. Humans also are a family that has diverged significantly since when the first humans were present that nobody human has yet to 100% confirm. They keep finding remains of humans that are older than the last remains that were deemed “the oldest so far discovered”. That caveat always leaves the door open.

    The key is to stay on the river and navigate through the boulders as well and long as we can, and enjoy the ride.