Quick change of course

“Fortunately Jesus didn’t leave [the disciples]-
or any of us-without hope or direction.
Where we fail, Jesus succeeded.
The only One who as able to recognize and follow His purpose from the beginning was Jesus.
He alone was able to obey consistently and please God completely.
And His divine mission was to make a way for each of us to do the same.”
Charles R.Swindoll

I don’t know why I am still amazed…still amazed at how quickly our lives can
take a turn as our little worlds can quickly change in the blink of an eye.

This came to mind last night while watching the breaking news from Florida
when it was reported that there was a jewelry store robbery in
Coral Gables, Fl.

The armed robbers shot an employee of the jewelry store in the head,
took off from the store, carjacked a UPS truck, held guns to the driver’s head
and lead police on a chase that ended in a hail of gunfire.

The UPS driver and an innocent bystander were both killed.
The robbers were apprehended and both already had a laundry list of
past serious committed crimes.
I do not know how the store employee has fared.

As the wife of a man who ran his own jewelry store for 50 years,
we always thought about these incidents.
In fact, a few years before I had met my husband, he was shot in his store when
three armed men came into his store in an attempt to rob the store.

His body still bears the scar.

He was lucky.

I see a lot of UPS trucks out and about this time of year.
They actually come to our house a lot this time of year as I tend to
shop a bit more easily the older I get.

It’s a matter of a click and poof…
in a couple of days, a UPS driver rolls down my driveway.

So the thought of a man who got up yesterday to go to work and didn’t come home
last night tugged at my heart.

Then I think of the two shootings we’ve had on two of our different military bases
in the past two days…
People got up to go to work and didn’t come home because
of the evil intent of others.

So when I got an early morning call that The Mayor was throwing up
uncontrollably and they were headed to the ER of the Children’s hospital,
I simply got dressed and got in the car and made my way to Atlanta.

It hadn’t been my plan to make a mad dash on a Friday morning to Atlanta nor was it
our daughter-n-law’s plan to call into school and request a sub at the last minute.
Nor was it in the thoughts of a 22-month-old little girl to become suddenly
violently ill out of the blue.

But life happens…for good or bad.

I don’t know about you, but I pretty much take each day for granted.
Getting up, going through the motions of the day as I plan on doing the same
the following day.
I think we all do.

But maybe we, me, you all need to be a bit more reflective,
a bit more thought-filled.
Maybe we need to consider our lives a bit more reverently.
Considering it as a fragile gift that is to be savored and cherished.
Reveling in those who are nearest and dearest rather than the cursory hi’s and byes
as we pass like ships in the night.
Relishing, rather, in those brief moments we can spend together at home.

Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s my age, but the revelation that life is fleeting
is felt more keenly.
And so the divisiveness eating away at our country, I find to be such a terrible waste
of time and energy.

God.
He is good…
and yet…

We are living in a time that has the lowest number of people attending a
Church or Synagogue.
We have the lowest number of people who consider religion as an
integral part of life.
We have the highest number of people who doubt the existence of God.
And yet we have some of the highest numbers of depression, suicide, addictions,
and a large number of the population that has a deep dissatisfaction with life.

I recently read that the traditional religions of Christianity and Judaism are
both being replaced in younger generations with an odd mix of yoga, self-help,
and meditation.

I saw the same thing happen in the early ’70s just as we were coming out of
the tumultuous ’60s along with a war, as people were looking desperately for some sort
of numbing agent. Self-help books were flying off the shelves.

But what is the first place we turn in the face of disaster?
We look to God.

A perplexing quirk and fickleness of humankind.

In our world, a little girl got medicine and got better.
In the world of others, they are trying to put to pieces
back together without their loved ones.

May we take this season of all things holiday to reconsider the
importance of our lives and of those in our lives.

Cherish those closest to you.
Hold them a bit longer, hug them a bit tighter.
Linger in their presence.

For both time and life are fleeting…

The Mayor and Moppie or Biyah or Ba easing back to better health / Julie Cook / 2019)

(The Mayor managing to eat a Pedialyte popscilce / Julie Cook / 2019)

Be strong and courageous.
Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.
He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 ESV

the root of the trouble…

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
Victor Hugo

(a memorial in Savannah, GA commemorating the relationship between the founder of
the Georgia colony, James Ogelthrope and the first Jewish settlers of Georgia / Julie Cook / 2018)

Roots.
Dictionary.com defines such as a part of the body of a plant that develops, typically,
from the radicle and grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment
and moisture.

The root system to any plant or tree is essential to its survival.
It aids in nourishing the plant as well as acting as the anchor…
that which holds the plant in place.

A deep and strong root system ensures a plants survival during strong winds, torrential rains
and even deadly droughts.

Anti-semitism.

According to Merriam Webster, the word Anti-Semitism is defined by:
hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group…

Anti-semitism tears at the very root system of a people.

Just this past week, we’ve heard a great deal about anti-Semitism.
Its reared its ugly little head in one of the least likely of places…

It was heard not during some Neo-Nazi rally.
It was not heard uttered from Hezbollah.
It was not seen on some ISIS video.
It was not found in the pages of a dusty copy of Mein Kampf.

It was actually the words heard, read and shared multiple times by one of the freshmen members of
The United States Congress, Rep Ilhan Omar.

Ms. Omar is a Democratic Representative from Minnesota who also happens to be
a Somalin Muslim.

Ms. Omar has made a name for herself as of late, but not for what one would think coming
from an excited new member of the US House of Representative.

Ms. Omar has made her disdain for Isreal and our Jewish brethren very clear.

The thing is that the United States and Israel, along with those Americans of
the Jewish faith has a long, very deep and strong relationship…
it is a relationship that is the core root system
of our Nation…
It is the whole Judaeo Christian base that this nation has built it’s governing upon.

Now it would be one thing if Ms. Omar had what we call a simple ‘slip of the lip’–
a spoken misstep…something we are all guilty of uttering…most often without thinking.

We call it a mea culpa…a “my bad”

The more mature among us humbly acknowledge our errors, the hurt we’ve caused,
the inconvenience, the shame, and pain to our fellow man …
We apologize, we make amends while working to go forward.

However in the case of Ms. Omar, rather than expressing umbrage or remorse,
Ms. Omar has doubled down on her rhetoric and continued with her caustic stance.

Her words and defiance are now sending her own upper Democratic “management” into something
fresh out of the Keystone Cops.
The leadership is fumbling over itself struggling over how to handle this new
firebrand member.
And unfortunately, they have tragically failed over how to reprimand this new young member.

How do our more youthful citizens learn if the wizened “adults” in the room fail to act
or lead…preferring to basically bury their heads in the sand?

The answer is they don’t—not unitl it’s too late.

Ms Omar’s words are gravely anti-Semitic…
they are insulting, hurtful and rooted in a deep arrogance.

They are the types of words that this Nation has actually shed blood over while helping to
defend others who have fought the scourge of anti-Semitism that was rife
under the likes of Adolph Hitler.

And yet we hear of a more modern day hate-filled individual,
the Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan,
praise Omar for her hate-filled words–commending the young Congresswoman
while encouraging her to never recant or apologize.

It seems that Mr. Farrakhan has a long history of anti-Semitism.

According to a 1984 Washington Post article the now 84-year-old leader of the Nation of Islam,
Louis Farrakhan likened Hitler to being that of a great man.

“Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, whose threats against a Washington Post reporter have
become an issue in Jesse L. Jackson’s political campaign,
yesterday defended himself here in a second controversy,
having called Adolf Hitler a “great man.”

He said he thinks Hitler was also “wicked. Wickedly great.”

To say that my head is now spinning over all of this while the likes of Nancy Pelosi and
Chuck Schummer can’t seem to bring themselves to explain to this young member of their party
as to why all of her words and behavior are unfitting for a member of the US Congress,
as well as, simply wrong from one human being directed to another is simply irresponsible
and gravely dangerous.

Add to this the fact that Bernie Sanders is now standing by Ms. Omar while throwing her
his support.
Mr. Sanders who is Jewish but has been branded as more atheist than a
practicing Jew seems to have forgotten his own roots.

Yesterday I read an interview given by Megan McCain regarding Ms. Omar.

Now I’m not always a fan of Ms. McCain.
Whereas I did greatly respect her father, I did not always see eye to eye with the
various stances he took during his time in the US Senate…
I still respect, however, the contributions that he and now
his daughter each have made and continues to make on behalf of a Nation that
I believe they both deeply cherish.

I applaud Ms. McCain for her outspoken words regarding the lack of Democratic
leadership regarding this recent avalanche of anti-Semitism and Ms. Omar’s words.

“I take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what’s
happening in Europe is really scary,” McCain said.
“On both sides it should be called out.
And just because I don’t technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn’t
mean that I don’t take this seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous…
what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me.”

Last night former Senator Joe Liberman offered a very thought-filled response to his once own party’s
lack of leadership with regards to Ms. Omar and the lack of the House’s Democratic leadership
in a sit-down interview with Martha McCallum.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6011384683001/?playlist_id=5410209611001#sp=show-clips

American and Israeli / Jewish ties run very deep.
Jews were members of the earliest settlers within our 13 colonies.

And yet we are now standing idly by pretending that anti-semitism is
not really happening here before our very eyes by members of our own governing body.

Our troubles, it now seems, runs very deep but our root system, a system that make this Nation
who and what it is, runs much deeper.
Our Judaeo / Christian heritage is a foundation—if we allow our foundation
to be chipped away, then our root system suffers…possibly even being
damaged beyond repair.

“We are confronted with another theme.
It is not a new theme;
it leaps out upon us from the Dark Ages–
racial persecution, religious intolerance, deprivation of free speech,
the conception of the citizen as a mere soulless fraction of the State.
To this has been added the cult of war.
Children are to be taught in their earliest schooling the delights and profits of conquest
and aggression.
A whole mighty community has been drawn painfully, by severe privations,
into a warlike frame.”
(Winston Churchill in an excerpt of a speech broadcast to Britain
and the United States October 16, 1938)

when do we know love becomes stronger than hurt?

“Dad’s genuine contrition took the fun out of holding offenses against him.
In choosing weakness, his love became stronger than my hurt.”
Joshua Rogers

(daddy’s idea of fun / Julie Cook / 2018)

When does one first know that they are a daddy’s girl?
Is it in the womb?
Is it in the delivery room?
Is it upon the very first face to face meeting?

Is it when he looks down and sees not only himself or his wife, but his own dad
in that tiny new face staring back up at him?

Is it during that first visit to the doctors when tears are first really shed?
That he reaches to hold you, comfort you, to protect you?

Is it during those early on sleepless nights?

Is it when daddy is left to babysit and dresses you in your first crazy outfit
unbeknownst to mom…are those Mardis Gras beads?

Or is it when daddy watches his own father who once cared for him when he was your age,
who is now taking on a new role in both of your lives?

Or is it when daddy shares the Mickey Mouse show with you,
just as his grandfather had done with him at that very same age?

No matter when it is…when that first moment registers that this is the man who is charged
with your care and protection…
the man who has been given the most important role of watching after you,
caring for you, providing for you, training you, teaching you, instructing you,
having fun with you, having to correct you…
exemplifying all this it means to be a father…
just as God is Father to us, in turn, entrusting our earthly fathers to be that
same living embodiment of God Himself…

We all know that living up to such a trememdous role and responsibility is a monumental task.
It is not for the faint at heart.
For there will be joy, but there will also be gut-wrenching heartache.
Because to love is just that…
an uncontainable joy matched with unrelenting pain…

There will be those who will fall and those who will, at times, fail.

It is with all of this in mind, my son’s first Father’s day, my husband’s first Father’s day
as a grandfather, that I came across a most sobering reminder of the power of both love
and forgiveness within the complicated role of parent and child.

How both love and forgiveness far outweigh anger and resentment.

Click on the following link to read one man’s story of his own relationship with a man
who had spent a lifetime letting him down, but in the end, taught him about the
most important lesson a father can offer…
that in forgiveness, there is power.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/06/16/my-dads-stunning-response-when-told-him-off.html

Happy Father’s day to the two most important men in my life….
from the one little girl whose hearts of yours, she has captured now forever.

absolute

“In passing we should note this curious mark of our age:
The only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute”
Francis A. Schaeffer

(the upside down gills of a spent mushroom / Julie Cook / 2017)

Death…
the one true absolute…
and yet,
there are those who would even argue the definitive nature of death….

What is it about man and absolutes??

On the one hand man riles against those who espouse in absolutes…
“be damned you fools” he will shout, “for I will not live by such pronouncements…”

While on the other hand he will test and retest in order to hold triumphantly
a handful of litmus papers of absolute proof…
that being the definitive definer…
as he will now forever hold those stained papers sacred.

Thou, oh ancient man, shall have no other gods but the Lord your God…

Absolute…

Yet man hordes a thousand other gods.
Clinging and clutching tightly to the fading fancies of his whims.

Thou shall take one woman as your wife and have no others besides her…

Absolute…

Yet man will alter and amend each law and sacrament in order to appease his current
fickled and twisted lust.

Thou shall honor and cherish your wife just as Christ honors and cherishes his own bride…

Absolute.

Yet man will opt not to have and to hold until death do part as he will grow weary
and seek that which is constantly fresh and new as he opts for the easier throwaway
mindset of the fleeting.

Thou shall cherish and love life and thou shall honor and love one unto another just
as you would wish to be cherished, honored and loved.

Absolute

Yet man will prefer to fight, hurt, murder, slander, defile, maim and destroy not
only others, but himself as well, as life and the living have lost all holiness…

For man has proclaimed himself his own god…

And thus it is man who extols that which is right and that which is wrong.

And since he is never satisfied with his choices for very long,
he will just as quickly turn each proclamation upside down,
in order to suit the latest craving or longing…
because nothing remains scared,
nothing remains holy
and nothing remains true…

for the only absolute in the mind of man is that there are no absolutes….

Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven,
with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth,
to every nation and tribe and tongue and people;
and he said with a loud voice,
“Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come;
and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.”
Revelation 14:6-7

won’t let nobody hurt you….

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me.
Of course we will hurt each other.
But this is the very condition of existence.
To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter.
To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

(two plovers wandering for a meal / Rosemary Beach / Julie Cook / 2017)

Songs always seem to just pop into our heads do they not?
Current songs, past songs, songs from childhood…
Songs for singing, humming, shouting…
As it seems that songs, as well as music in general,
is a very real emotional part of what makes us…us.

Walk into any grocery store and there is music being piped in throughout the store.
Elevators, restaurants, stores all serenade us with background music and song.
As there is some really powerful psychological magic taking place with those
songs and music choices…what they say about us as consumers and what they say
about us simply as people..is perhaps that they showcase how we are actually wired.

So for whatever reason, the Pretenders song, “I’ll Stand By You” popped
into my head as I was just getting my first cup of morning coffee.
I was having to travel over to Atlanta to met with the nice gal at the cemetery
as it seems that in my overwhelming and chaotic time since Dad’s death—
I forgot one little detail.

I forgot to pick out, and of course pay for, a grave marker.
Or actually I thought I had just told her that I’d take something matching
the other family members already there waiting on dad….
but it seems it does’t work that way.

So there I was grabbing a quick cup of coffee before jumping in the shower,
I was focused on Atlanta…
why suddenly the song?
I was dreading the mind numbing morning commute to a city paralyzed by a closed interstate
when this song just suddenly rings out in my head.
“I’ll stand by you…won’t let no body hurt you…I’ll stand by you”

Sometimes, for whatever reason, it is very clear that God directs what I’m to
write about for a post.
He can be very specific that way.
And no, I don’t buy into the notion of coincidence or happenstance.
I believe things are connected and there are reasons beyond my understanding
and I believe in the nudging of the Holy Spirit…

So back to the song.

The sentiment is wonderful and heartfelt.
Something we as parents, grandparents, guardians, friends all adopt
for the people and animals we care about and love.
We want to love, honor, protect and defend those in our care and those whom we cherish.

Any parent will tell you that they try their darnedest to protect and defend
their children….sometimes that means going way over the top…
But any parent who has been around the block once or twice will tell you—
accidents will happen, sickness will happen, bad things will happen
and no matter how much you, as defender, may protest…hurt will happen.

We cannot protect those we love from being hurt in life, no matter how hard we try.

Skinned knees, broken bones, broken hearts…all rites of passage.

The worst being the unforeseeable accidents, illnesses, tragedies that just happen.
The automobile accident, the freak accident, the cancer, the random act of violence.
They all sadly happen.

Does it mean we failed to do our jobs?
…that we could have somehow done something superhuman in order to prevent
the unthinkable?

99.9% of that answer is a resounding NO!
Nothing could have prevented the unavoidable hurt.

And so now, in that unpreventable hurt, we in turn now hurt.
As some of us will never get over that hurt.

Which in turn leads me to think about God—as Father.

That we have a God, who we are taught, loves us as His children.
And yet there has been many a soul who has raised a clinched angry fist heavenward
cursing and blaming this “loving Father” for the hurt…

Our hurt is indeed His hurt.

And to assuage our hurt, He offered the ultimate hurt…

so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many;
and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin,
but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:28

“I’ll Stand By You”

Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
Don’t be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
’cause I’ve seen the dark side too
When the night falls on you
You don’t know what to do
Nothing you confess
Could make me love you less

I’ll stand by you
I’ll stand by you
Won’t let nobody hurt you
I’ll stand by you

So if you’re mad, get mad
Don’t hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too
Well I’m a lot like you
When you’re standing at the crossroads
And don’t know which path to choose
Let me come along
’cause even if you’re wrong

I’ll stand by you
I’ll stand by you
Won’t let nobody hurt you
I’ll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I’ll never desert you
I’ll stand by you

And when…
When the night falls on you, baby
You’re feeling all alone
You won’t be on your own

I’ll stand by you
I’ll stand by you
Won’t let nobody hurt you

I’ll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I’ll never desert you
I’ll stand by you
I’ll stand by you
Won’t let nobody hurt you
I’ll stand by you
Won’t let nobody hurt you
I’ll stand by you