Adele

Off of a friends Facebook page

BY A 15 yr. OLD SCHOOL KID who got an A+ for this.

Since the Pledge of Allegiance And The Lord's Prayer Are not allowed in most public schools anymore Because the word 'God' is mentioned..... A kid in Arizona wrote the attached NEW School prayer: 

"New Pledge of Allegiance" 

 Now I sit me down in school Where praying is against the rule

 For this great nation under God Finds mention of Him very odd. 

If scripture now the class recites, It violates the Bill of Rights. 

And anytime my head I bow becomes a Federal matter now. 

Our hair can be purple, orange or green, That's no offense; it's a freedom scene. 

The law is specific, the law is precise. Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice. 

For praying in a public hall Might offend someone with no faith at all. 

In silence alone we must meditate, God's name is prohibited by the state. 

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks. 

They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible. To quote the Good Book makes me liable. 

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen, And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King. 

It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong, We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong. 

We can get our condoms and birth controls, Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles. 

But the Ten Commandments are not allowed, No word of God must reach this crowd. 

It's scary here I must confess, When chaos reigns the school's a mess. 

So, Lord, this silent plea I make: Should I be shot; My soul please take! 

Amen If you aren't ashamed to do this, 

Please pass this on. Jesus said, 

'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.

' Not ashamed. Pass this on. 

I did

9/11 Faith, Hope, &......... Love?..... Part III

NINE 11 …. Faith, Hope and………………LOVE?

The one lesson we learned but flat out forgot after 9/11 is Love…

Well not everyone but I sure seem to be seeing plenty who have forgot and I’ve been guiltily of it…

You’ve gleamed on your own that this series was born from the line of Alan Jackson song about the few things that god gave us….1 Cornthinins 13:13 And now these three remain: faith hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love…… THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

We have been blessed with all kinds of love to experience, love for thy fellow man, family and romantic love, and Gods love.

I don’t know what line in Jackson’s song that gets to others and makes others break down, but I know which line gets me…  “Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family thank god you had somebody to love…”

In the six to nine months after the events of 9/11, evening news shows, Dateline, 60 Minutes and others were running programs about how much love the Big Apple and the rest of the country was experiencing.  Stories about how many couples had ran to the alter and committed to one another in marriage. Now these couples all stated in the interviews that they believed they would have eventfully got married in due time but after the events of 9/11 they were no longer willing to wait for that “somebody to love”.  The events shocked their systems to get busy living because if the events on 9/11 could happen…..anything could happen.

The applications for marriage licenses in New York State were up 3 times from what they were the year before. That and in the nine to ten months following 9/11 there was some very crowded delivery rooms across the country as 9/11 spurred a baby boom.

We can get into a lull in life, we just slip into complacency… wherever we are seems fine and that’s where we stay because change is scary, mankind in can get lazy. We have all these THINGS that make our life easy, it started with the automobile and the toaster, then the TV remote control, the microwave, the mobile phone. Life is way easier now than thirty years ago in the 1980’s and we have got lazy. These items, which make our lives easier so, we may do more living … I think with them we are actually doing less.   Are you living life to its fullest?

Its scary just how little we have to do at our actual jobs compared to the manual labor our parents had to do…and if you don’t want to have a job, well unemployment and government seems to content cover ya..

(Don’t hate me…I know certain government programs are needed and are fine when not abused, I am all about the “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” idea of helping your fellow man when he can’t help himself.)

After the shock to our world due to the events on 9/11 it was like the whole country woke up and got busy living.  However since that day ten years ago I think we have slumped back into that lull.

What do you think? Are you living a full life? You know there are no “Do over’s” this is it. You only get one time around. When you lay your head down tonight this day is OVER! You will never get it back, its gone 24 precious hours each made up of sixty golden minutes. What did you do today?

I am so filled with joy when I hear the stories of the folks who lost loved ones the day of 9/11 that got to say good goodbye to their loved ones by phone that day … they got the opportunity to say goodbye and say “I love you” to those special loved ones….

Who, if they drew their last breath today, would you feel remised not getting the chance to tell them you love them?

When cancer took my mother, my father and I crouched by her bed when she passed, we got to hold her in our arms and we got to tell each other we loved each other one last time… typing this tears are rolling off my cheeks and as painful as it was watching her pass and as fresh as that memory is 6 years later I just don’t know if I could have bared has she passed and I not been there and we had that opportunity to tell each other our feelings in those final moments.

________________________

1987 as a High School freshman I was able to attend National FFA convention what a impact moment, what memories I have from that trip but the memory that stays burnt in my mind is the three students from Melba, Idaho who never made it home from convention, who perished when the plane they were on, Continental flight 1713 crashed outside of Denver Co.

The memorial service had a fellow FFA member recited a poem that has stayed with me all those years, while I do not know if I remember it exactly right, I think its close enough to get help deliver my point

Please tell me why

Why do we wait?

Why do hesitate to be real

With those who Love

Until it’s to late

Please tell me why

…..

Why do we wait?

I sure have been guilty of wasting more than one beautiful day being lazy and bumming … I am penning this blog as much for my own growth and to remind me of these things more that any one else’s.

I have had people my life where are relationships have dissolved because of not saying what we feel. I would like to repair relationships in my life and family.  So don’t think I am pointing any fingers….

“Did you hold tight to your family?” This next part may hit just a little to close to some friends who read this but…. This summer I have seen several friends really face challenges and struggles with marriages and family lives. My parents were split up from the time I was eleven till after I was home from college. A very odd and rare situation that someday I may open up about on this blog, but for now understand my childhood was ….well…dysfunctional. Which, this is why it really upsets me to hear of families divorcing or talking of divorce. In every instance it was for one reason, lack of communication.

Because they quit communicating with a spouse and as humans we are wired to and have a need for connection with other people. The husband or wife starts conversations with a member of the oppose sex outside the marriage and then start thinking …Oh this person “GETS ME”…. Why doesn’t my spouse “GET ME” anymore?  Do I still love this person? Did I ever love this person? Is this the person and how I want spend the rest of my life? Am I happy? Is there something better out there for me? ……. is the grass greener over there?….. I have never met a married couple of any length of time that has not told me that MARRIGE IS WORK… and a lot of work… and some of those make it look so very easy.

One married couple I have idolized for years split this summer after 37 years of marriage. The kids are grown and are great people doing positive things in the world. The couple has worked together building a family farming operation since day one of the marriage. All I can ask is why?  My dream was to live the life they exhibited, a man and woman working side-by-side building something for their family. Bringing up a family in rural American doing what they loved.

Maybe my thought that the 9/11 lesson of love has been forgotten might be a little off base but it sure seems to me that folks are a little quicker to quit and walk away than they were that fall of 2001.  

It seems to me for the bad stuff that happened on 9/11 it did reminded us just how very precious life is and should not to take it for granted…

I wished more folks would remember this…

Thank You for visiting

Next Blog …. Fair Oaks Dairy or Post-it-Note Prayers..

9/11 Faith…….Hope and Love….Part II

Cross displayed during a 9/11 Memorial Church Service at Ginghamsburg Church 9/11/2011 

9/11 Faith…….Hope and Love….Part II

Recent Headlines read:

“New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has banned all clergy and all prayer from the upcoming 9/11 memorial service planned to commemorate the tragic events of that day.“

AND….

“American Atheists have filed a lawsuit against the World Trade Center Memorial 9/11 Cross”

OK this just blows my mind

Keep in mind what I am about to say and my view comes from someone whom for the last 17 years at best can be called a shirttail Christian… the phrase backsliding Baptist was one I used describe my state of faith more than once over the years.

However with that said I think most Americans are more like me than not… I think there are a lot of us as who call ourselves Christians…who do believe but may not follow God as would should … we keep God on shelf over to the side of our lives …. Just in arms reach…. And boy we aren’t scared to grab it and open it up when we need help… when we adapt and adjust to whatever our current dilemma happened to be we close the lid and put him back on that shelf. Until we need him again …. Until a family member gets sick, or that moment just before we run the red light.

With that disclaimer stated I have to ask…. Have these folks been eating dumb-ass sandwiches while riding the short bus with the other slow kids?

9/11 has to have been the single greatest thing to unite of folks to Christ that my generation will experience. Folks who had loved ones who were lost on that day  prayed for a loved one to be found, for mercy on that persons soul, if they had perished, then they prayed for the ability to simply survive without that spouse, father, sister, or friend. The rest of us prayed for the families of those who lost loved ones… for the brave souls of the police and firefighters who were lost…for the safety of those digging though the debris looking for those who might be trapped but had survived, and for god to show us a reason WHY?

Now they say we cant pray? Do they know that 92% of America believes in GOD?

Lawmakers have said we can’t offer prayer at events remembering 9/11.  How about those pesky and foolish Atheists and the cause to remove the 9/11 Cross which simply is a beams in the shape of a cross… it also looks like it could be a lower case “t’ …  What a cause to waste time with, just cant believe this is what they have joined to rally around….. OK Atheists I don’t get… Agnostic I sort of understand … We all have Agnostic thoughts when we doubt and question our faith, but Atheists … Atheists don’t believe in Christ … When I don’t be leave in something I don’t say or care anything about it …..I say pray for the Atheists … that’ll piss them off real good.

I know most questions ask in prayer were WHY? …. Some people seemed to suggest that God was mad at us for folks living against Gods will. Others questioned that why so many people had to die. That God gave us free will and the ability to make choices, and those terrorists made the choices to do what they did…… OK I get that…free will and all…. but why didn’t God redirect those planes… or at least keep the towers from falling … who knows maybe it could have much worse had those passengers on Flight 93 not had stood up to the highjackers……

For those souls who jumped … Rabbi Shmuley Boteach asks in his article “Was God at Ground Zero” , “ Could God possibly have caught them? Could He have extended the famously outstretched arm He used in Egypt to save the Israelites and grant the jumpers a soft landing so they could safely return to their families?”

……………..WOW GOOD QUESTION…….The good Rabbi also goes on to ask “ Could God have not reached down from his heavenly thrown and plucked them from the inferno, just as he saved Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah from Nebuchadnezzar's cauldron in the Book of Daniel”

President Obama ignored the ban…sort of… He did quote scripture in his remarks Psalm 46 “God is our refuge and our strength” President Bush also mentioned our “Heavenly Father” and Mayor Giuliani read from Ecclesiastes

My mother said taking prayer out of schools was the start of this counties decline… She might have been right.

To Be Continued …….

Check back and stay tuned for the 3^rd and final part of this 9/11 series….. LOVE

Find out what may be the biggest thing we gained but have since lost from 9/11

Closing with a prayer from Father James Martin.

Loving God,
You know that I believe in you.
You know that I trust in you.
You know that I love you.
But sometimes life is so painful,
your ways impossible to understand,
and your world so confusing.
Sometimes I am overwhelmed with pain.
Sometimes I feel tempted to despair.
Sometimes I give way to hatred.
Sometimes I doubt even you.
In times of pain, give me comfort.
In times of despair, give me hope.
In times of hatred, give me love.
In times of doubt, give me trust.
And even when I feel far from you,
be close to me,
Loving God.

Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author and culture editor of America, the national Catholic magazine

9/11 Faith, Hope, & Love ... Part 1

FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE

9/11 Part 1….I am scared of heights….

Where a person was on 9/11 seems to be the common denominator that goes in to account when we think of or talk about  9/11. My parent’s generation had the same commonality when they spoke of when President Kennedy was killed.

It starts out the same way…Oh I will never forget I was…… When, after we state our location and what we were doing, we all use the same additives and adverbs to describe how we felt seeing the images of horror that flooded our screens from the round the clock news coverage.

Disbelieve & shock, were the first initial responses everyone had. With in a few hours it turned to outrage, anger, and maybe even a little madness had crept in our hearts.

First we or at least I could not believe such a big hole in the South Tower could come  from a commuter plane, as had been reported early on. Second we could not believe that a second plane stuck the other tower as so many of us watched LIVE. The Towers then collapsed before many of us had time to process what had even happened.

~I often wonder if anyone of the first responders on site speculated that those buildings would come down. Seriously, in their wildest dreams would that have been a possibility?

I was perplexed, never being to a big city or in a building like that on just how you put a fire out on the 70^th something floor, how could you ever get a ladder truck or water to spray that high? I don’t know if many folks really had time to contemplate how to put out the fire before the buildings collapsed or was it all about getting as many people out the buildings as possible.

How bout the person who was responsible for making the call in the North Tower over the buildings intercom system not to evacuate, but to stay put that everyone would be safe…. Then minutes later have second plane come crashing though…..

____________________________________

For many like myself it was surreal, like it wasn’t happening that even though you or I had set up watching T.V. till the late hours it was like when we finally could not take the images any longer, the replays of people who jumped to their death to escape the fire, heat and smoke. That when we set our heads down to the pillow to go to sleep it was as if we thought we would wake tomorrow and it all would have all been a strange dream that it would have never happened ….. That was not the case.

I can’t get past the images of those people jumping… over and over I keep asking what was the alternative if this was the better of options that were available? Anyone who knows me will clue you in… I have a fear of heights … and bridges but that story is for another time. I’ll get back on message… what were these folks thinking? Was there a hope in their mind… even a thought they might survive? Did they fall? I just know this was awful and all I can do is ask God why?  

The night of 9/11 we all stayed glued to our televisions following every word that came from the news anchors mouth, hoping with every tick of the clock they would tell you about finding another survivor. Or relieved to hear stories of because this person or that person had missed there train or cab and were late to work that day or a father and business man had changed his ticket at the last minute.

A nation stood stunned, but what was amazing to me was how many people from across the country showed up to dig for survivors… so many that the news started reporting that folks needed to stop coming, that there was no where to stay and the city was basically at a stand still. I know in my mind I pondered loading some tools in the back of my truck and making the trip. What is it about tragedy makes a person desire to help his fellow man? Why don’t we have that same desire on days without tragedy?  

We listened to the President Bush tell all of us to be reassured our country would stand resolute and those who struck this blow would be dealt with. That resolve he stated for our country made me swell with pride.

I had some reservation if our country and the Supreme Court had made the right choice to be President of the United States. While I wasn’t necessarily a huge fan of Al Gore, I thought he would have been a good president…. Ok my real thing was he showed Angus cattle as a kid…. I figured he could have been all bad…. Right? Right?

Again I digress… As President Bush spoke that night from the Oval Office I knew we had the right man behind that desk.

What one thing did the nation do?

We prayed….. We prayed…..

We as a country begged God to let us find survivors, to watch over us, to keep our family safe, and to ease our pain.

Ten years later and we have people who protest prayer at 9/11 Memorials

To be continued........