Whose Lives Matter?

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The Great Gift

Given Every Human Being

is

Choice

Contrary to what the Talking Heads Du Jour

are doling out,

Peddling from their pie holes these days,

Our lives do not Matter

just because we were pooped out onto the planet;

And if we claim they do, this begs the question, 

"To whom?"

Mankind has been presented

with the Extraordinary Privilege

of Making our Lives Matter...

...Or Not.

To accept the welfare checks of self-esteem

being written out wholesale,

paid to the order of "Whosoever Will"

from a bank account woefully in the red and desperately overdrawn

Is to abdicate our God Given Freedom

of Earning

and Owning

How we Matter to Mankind,

Is to indulge in unpareleled naivete and ineptitude,

being conned with cubic zirconias

out of the Diamond of our Dignity.

To buy in to vacuous verbiage is to Sell-out,

Is to willfully choose Slavery

to the Fickle and Groundless

And Very Changeable

Dictums of the Day.

In the end, it will be a jury of our peers

Which reviews the resume we leave behind,

Wherein our value to humanity is determined:

Whether or not our lives benefited our fellow-man in any way

Whether our lives made other lives better

Whether our lives

Did indeed

Matter...

...or Not.

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"This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you, that I have placed before you this day, Life or Death, Blessing or Curses;

Now therefore Choose Life, that you and your descendants may live."

-Deuteronomy 30:19

Truth?

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“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

-Joseph Goebbels

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Destabilize, Dehumanize, Dominate

 

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It begins.

These governor's dictums

Feel all too familiar;

Familiar because the formula is not new:

The same formula was used in Nazi Germany's concentration camps, 

In Japan's POW compounds, 

Is still used in the suppression of women in parts of the Middle East...

In any system, in point of fact, where control must be leveraged, and compliance enforced.

-Destabilize, Make them afraid and Dependent,

-Dehumanize them (cover the face, shave the head, destroy individuality, give numbers instead of names, separate/isolate them from their families),

-Dominate.

It begins, America.

Don't let it.

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Isolate, Dehumanize, Dominate

 

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It begins.

These governor's dictums

Feel all too familiar;

Familiar because the formula is not new:

The same formula was used in Nazi Germany's concentration camps, 

In Japan's POW compounds, 

Is still used in the suppression of women in parts of the Middle East...

In any system, in point of fact, where control must be leveraged, and compliance enforced.

-Destabilize, Make them afraid and Dependent,

-Dehumanize them (cover the face, shave the head, destroy individuality, give numbers instead of names, separate/isolate them from their families),

-Dominate.

It begins, America.

Don't let it.

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Exodus

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As I slept

I was Delivered

We toil so to be born

But nature knows

How to bear us

All the straining

All the striving

All for naught

And vain

The hour of our Birth

Arrives,

Insensible

Oblivious

To our cries

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Hidden

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 God's Plans 

Held in abeyance...

The Freeze Frame before the Finale 

The Rest before Resurrection

Entombed Promises awaiting Exodus...

All seem Still,

Pensive 

Waiting...

The jury out 

The body in

...Hidden...

...As most of God's masterpieces are, 

Before the unveiling 

Before the cocoon breaks open

Before the stone is rolled away...

This Garden Enclosed

Will flourish

And once again fill the Earth

For now

Sit quiet in the stillness of The Second Day...

The Son Will Rise Again

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Peace

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Be Still

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Ruining Lives to "save lives"?

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"Here's to your good health" 

"Yeah you too, congrats on beating Covid."

Really, America?

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According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2018, 80,000 people in this country alone died from the flu (not to mention the 770,000 who died from the incurable communicable virus of HIV, I guess our healthcare system is a little more resilient than they would like you to believe in this hour).  It didn't make the news, it wasn't even a ripple on the radar, our healthcare system did not crash and no one called a national day of prayer.  

What IS crashing, is our economy, our way of life,

Our Lives, America.

The government isn't saving your lives, with these restrictions of our liberties. (ask yourself when the government ever cared about your life except when it needed your vote.) The government is causing the ruin of your lives and livelihoods for years to come.

The Human Race has survived for thousands of years without the nursemaid of government.  The Human Race is mightily adaptable.  

Time to exercise one of the few remaining freedoms left to us in this hour, freedom of information, and start questioning the powers that be, 

While we still have the power to question.

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“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 
― Edmund Burke

Stuck?

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When we feel we've colored ourselves into a corner,

Remember,

God has a bigger box of crayons.

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"Thus says the Lord who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters...I will even make a road in a wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Isaiah 43:19

America Strong.

According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2018, 80,000 people IN THIS COUNTRY ALONE died from the flu, and it wasn't even a ripple on the radar; last year 770,000 people died from the ongoing pandemic of AIDS (32 MILLION people to date), our system didn't skip a beat. Time to question what we're being fed, America. Time to save our infrastructure, while there's still one to save.

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 Fold like a cheap suit?

Cave under pressure?

Be cowed into fear and financial failure?

When did America the Beautiful

Become America the pitiful?

What have we ever allowed to drive us into hiding,

bring us to a standstill,

Cower behind closed doors from our neighbor?

Not even 9/11 could do that.

Joseph Murphy said, “the future of a country is in the collective subconscious of the people of that nation."

It is time for us to remember who we are,

What we stand for,

And what we won't stand for.

It's time for us to be

America Strong.

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(During WWII when Great Britain was being attacked with fear inducing propaganda meant to paralyze them, Churchill counter attacked with this propaganda we're all familiar with: Keep Calm and Carry On.  The operative part of that message was "Carry On"...And Carry On they did. Time for us to do the same.)

Gambler- A Tribute

I wrote this post last year, inspired by Kenny Rogers' song we all know...Re-posting it here, I hope he'd approve...

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We all play our cards

As best we can

All we're made up of,

For better and worse,

Informing each move

We sometimes play cards we desperately wish we hadn't

We despair at the cards

We did not play instead

Our hindsight a merciless taskmaster

Keeping us fettered to the futility of regret

It is not a new hand we need

 or even a new game,

But faith in The Dealer Who still holds an ace up His sleeve 

Faith in the fact,

 that when all is said and done,

 It is His hand which will play out,

His hand, which so tenderly holds us,

which also holds all the cards

And in the end,

Wins.

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega

The beginning and the end,

The first and the last,

I am He."

Revelation 22:13

America Strong

"The future of a country is in the collective subconscious
 of the people of that nation."
-Joseph Murphy

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Go ahead, America -

Stop working

Stop Living

Cower behind closed doors

Fold like a cheap suit.

Because God forbid you get the sniffles

Or suffer in any way, Ever

Or be expected to soldier through anything

Like The Depression

WWII

9/11

Thankfully, all we have to contend with 

is a bug.

Not Leprosy,

Not AIDS,

a flu bug.

But we've opted to supersize it with a side of financial failure.

There have been bugs for thousands of years

But we're responding to this one

Like a woman portrayed in the 1950's

Standing on a chair screaming, "eek!"

As a little spider looks up from below.

I had the flu a couple of years ago.

No one panicked.

No one went scrambling for a vaccine.

The Nation was not called to pray.

Ya know what I did?

I stayed home for three days

and watched a Golden Girls marathon.

That cured me.

The only crisis is the one we are creating.

This is not a crisis.

This is business as usual.

And if we'd find our backbone (with a side of Common Sense)

And treat it like the latter

Instead of the former

We'd come through on the other side,

As we always have,

America Strong.

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"Be watchful, 

Strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die."

-Revelation 3:2

Trust Me.

Proverbs 3:5-6

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Trust Me.

Don't lean too heavy

On your own understanding right now.

Don't try to do calculus

With an abacus

Leave the math to Me.

Trust Me.

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"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts."

-Isaiah 55: 8-9

Ingathering

***

We exhale out into this Life 

Up it's shore

 To the highest point we can reach

We deposit our treasures,

Pick a few up 

Then our deepest selves inhale us back in...

Beautiful Breath

 Inhaling 

Exhaling

Expanding

  Contracting...

The birth of a Life

Taking a lifetime 

Breathing our way,

 in the end,

To the beautiful Rest,

The Stillness

Of Ingathering

***

Departed

 

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God sees our pain

And raises us Grace

He will not be bested by darkness

Or deep seas

Or unparted waters of any kind...

Come hell or high water

Heaven will hold...

Thus held,

We journey on

Promised Land

Awaits...

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Unparted

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I stepped into the Red Sea

And Drowned

The waters overflow me

As I sink

   Down           

            

           Down

   Down      

Till, like a stone

      I hit the ground    

Silt, softly burying

bygone dreams

harbored hopes 

Suffocating

Still...

Incredulous eyes

Stare up at the surface

Sickly light seeping through

A fool watching for Phantoms

Lazerus yet hopeful he hasn't been lost

Straining, Searching

Somewhere Still Believing

Even

As her last breath

Departs

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Grief

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A Torrent

A Flood

A River

Tears always described by water 

By great forces of nature 

As grief seems to be

To what end? 

To carve out, what? 

Canyons in our hearts

Where courses deep the water

Which truly quenches thirsty souls 

And isn't that what we're all here for, anyway...

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consecrated...

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on we go, "consecrating this time, this journey, this life to God", 

like a fish, consecrating the ocean to God.....

How He must smile........

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Lost?

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The Wanderlust Life

We lead on this planet

Our Oz

Our Far Country

Where the Wild Things Are

Yellow Brick Roads

Prodigal Parties

Our days whirling round

The Wild Rumpus of it all

Till one day

Road Weary

Disillusioned by the din

We tire of the endless circling

Our Dervish wanderings...

Yet ever peripheral

Persists Promised Land's pull

Closer than breath

Calling...

We dance unaware

Right on the edge

Feeling always the eventual falling...

Siren song or Still Small Voice?

I like to think the latter

Gravitational Grace

Bending our way

Vectoring us Home...

Every One of us...

Finally...

Forever...

Home...

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"Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the Way and bring you into the place which I have prepared."

-Exodus 23:20

Twinkle

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Twinkle twinkle Little Star 

funny little star we are 

full of angst and rivalries 

hopes and dreams

 and follies

 In the scheme of things

 We are so small 

Our problems even smaller 

Such that someone miles away 

Might look upon us all and say, 

"Twinkle twinkle little star,

how I wonder what you are"

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Psalm 144:4

Hush

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We struggle so to hear 

The Still Small Voice:

Sing the right song,

Pray the right prayer,

Sit just so,

Eat just so,

or no...

I play guitar

And sometimes

When the strings are strummed

I feel a soft silence fall

As though I have bent all of Heaven's Ear

As though,

Perhaps,

He also loves my still small voice

And bids the angels hush

So He can hear...

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"Oh my dove, my darling, in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely."

-Song of Solomon 2:14

Time Travel

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Grace Alone

 Can travel 

Through time

Through space

 Past and Future 

Reaching 

Healing

 Filling in the gaps...

 The "might-have-beens" 

The "should-have-dones" 

Our failures 

Our falterings

 And turn for good 

And alchemize

 The basest parts

 The broken things

 Grace cocoons these places

 Metamorphosing our moments 

Making joy out of mourning

Gold out of garbage

Wings out of worms

Grace weaves through every tick of time

From Beginning to End

Backwards

And Forward 

Turning our lives into a tapestry

 Fit for our King

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"All things work together for good..."

-Romans 8:28

Beauty

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The Match is Struck

When we are born

And we burn through our Lives

Hopefully bringing Warmth

And Light

to Others

Which may, indeed, be our only Purpose...

...Letting God

Turn our Ashes

Into

Beauty

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Isaiah 61:3

Dark III

"The Lord said he would dwell in the dark cloud"

-I Kings 8:12

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In the darkness

 In the spin

 In the bewilderment of Which-Way-Is-Up

We are helped 

We are husbanded

 We are harnessed into Him 

When all we feel is madness

 Method holds us 

In higher ways

 In higher thoughts ...

In the dark cloud 

We are tethered to Light 

and Light Himself

 will lead us 

Home

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A Christmas Story

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Men decided

They could improve

 upon The Manger

 A chandelier here

Some red carpet there

 Custom carved pews and podiums...

 Layer upon layer replaced "Line upon line..."

 Though more is just more

They persisted

Reducing posterity and Providence

Into princess and the pea

The essence buried 

Under stacks of superfluous nonsense 

And once again

In tragic irony 

The Sovereign Ruler 

Finds no room at the inn

Deity displaced

Emmanuel eclipsed

 A baby's cry 

Barely heard

On a Bethlehem night...

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"For unto us a child is born,

Unto us a son is given..."

-Isaiah 9:6

Rare bird...

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Seven years ago

A friend saw these wings

On the bark of a seven times seven

Year old tree...

Seven years later

Their re-emerging 

Graced me with the harbinger blessing

Of fleeting things, 

Of encounters with the Elusive,

Prized precisely because 

of their ephemeral nature

Treasured for their rarity...

Whether once in a lifetime

Or once every seven years,

How Precious are the wings we are given,

In whatever form they come...

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"He who holds to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy,

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sunrise."

-William Blake

Echo

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Lovely Echoes

Of Long Gone Lovely Seasons

Bitter Sweet Beauty

Gilding amber branches

And prophetic falling leaves

Once-Upon-A-Times

Linger golden with last light

The aurous encore

Before their flight

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"To everything there is a season,

And a time for every matter under heaven."

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Interlude

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The Tristan Chord of our lives
In tremulous tension

Craving,
Reaching,

 Longing for resolution,

Rest

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"For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come."

-Habakkuk 2:3

Bathwater

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Religion is the ultimate counterfeit of God

 Seemingly innocuous

Sometimes attractive

But always a Trap

Selling the tasty treat of Belonging

Which our Souls so crave

Which is meant to be found in God

Not rituals and regulations

It is a sideline

A deadly detour

Derailing us

Distracting us

From

Deity

Well meaning atheists

and waylayed agnostics

were right to reject 

this ersatz nonsense,

In their intelligence they saw it

for what it was

Failing only to compartmentalize

the counterfeit from the Creator

Thus the Baby

Born in the manger

Got thrown out

with the 

Bathwater

Leaving
Otherwise
Wise men
Defrauded

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Counterfeit--made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud.

One Thing

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See me

 Scraping and clawing at your word 

Trying desperately to find the metaphor 

Which makes sense 

of my existence...

 My failings,

 My agonizing misses

 My utter lack of character

 My Self 

It is here

 In the middle of this crazed kerfuffle

And not in some pious white washed prayer time

You meet me

You gently take my chin

You reel my gaze back in to meet Yours

And to look

Instead

For You

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"One thing is needed..."

Luke 42:10, 12

Prisoner's Paradox

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We write

Like Paul

Out of our own imprisonment

Which 

In the end

Is what makes others

Free

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"The spirit of the Lord is upon me...to proclaim freedom to the captives."

-Luke 4:18

Saved

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I am the woman at the well

I am Mary

 I am the one caught red-handed, 

The Pharisee in me poised with stones,

Saved by Grace alone 

By The God Who Sees

 And loves anyway

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"I have loved you with an everlasting love."

-Jeremiah 31:3

Gambler

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We all play our cards

As best we can

All we're made up of,

For better and worse,

Informing each move

We sometimes play cards we desperately wish we hadn't

We despair at the cards

We did not play instead

Our hindsight a merciless taskmaster

Keeping us fettered to the futility of regret

It is not a new hand we need

 or even a new game,

But faith in The Dealer Who still holds an ace up His sleeve 

Faith in the fact,

 that when all is said and done,

 It is His hand which will play out,

His hand, which so tenderly holds us,

which also holds all the cards

And in the end,

Wins.

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega

The beginning and the end,

The first and the last,

I am He."

Revelation 22:13

Third Day

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A pensive stillness

As the crowds

Which had dissipated

Stopped

And

Turned...

... There was movement

They saw it

Unmistakable

The body thought dead

Was Alive

What was that?

Another movement

A Breath

They were sure if it

The dead was being raised,

Back to Life

The Breath Giver

Held her in His Arms

Resuscitating

Reanimating

Determined in His Purpose...

...She 

Would

 Live...

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"I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not evil, to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

-Jeremiah 29:11