call me old fashioned…

Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it.
Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy,
but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral
concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.

Suzanne Fields


(Defence mavin)

Call me old fashioned.
It won’t be the first time…nor the last…
but when I saw the latest news story regarding Joe Biden visiting an automotive plant
in Detroit and actually getting into a heated fuss and cuss with one of the employees,
I thought to myself, “what planet am I on?!”

According to the website Blue Lives Matters:
Detroit, MI – Presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden got into a throw down
over guns with an autoworker in Detroit on Tuesday (video below).

The profanity-laced argument happened as Biden visited with members of the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers at the Fiat-Chrysler plant they’re building on March 10, CNBC reported.

The dispute was captured on video and showed a man in a hard hat complaining the candidate
was “actively trying to end our Second Amendment rights.”

“You’re full of s–t,” Biden replied in the video.

“I support the Second Amendment,” the former Vice President said.
But then he added “the Second Amendment — just like right now, if you yell
‘fire,’ that’s not free speech.”

“I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge, my son’s gun,”
Biden said. “Guess what? You’re not allowed to own [just] any weapon.
I’m not taking your gun away at all. You need 100 rounds?”

When the auto worker pointed out that Biden has said in the past he will take guns away,
the candidate exploded, the video showed.

“I did not say that! I did not say that!” Biden yelled.

The worker said he’d seen it in a video.

“It’s a viral video like the other ones that came out,”
Biden said, and then he claimed it was all “lies.”

“Don’t be such a horse’s a–,” he told the auto worker in the video.

The link to the full story is below.
But for a major candidate running for president,
when visiting an automotive plant in Detroit, stumping for votes while getting into
a tit for tat with one of the autoworkers, cursing at him,
is not my idea of how to win supporters.

It is not how a professional adult conducts himself.
Not how I was taught to act and I doubt it was how Biden was taught to act.
But act he has and this is not the first time he has “acted out.”

Sadly, however, this is just one more example of the current trend of
lowering ourselves rather than rising above.

There will be, of course, folks who will argue that Biden is simply trying to
“speak the language of the common man”…the language of “the people”…
but in reality, he is talking down to this individual…

It doesn’t matter that they were talking about 2nd amendment rights.
2nd amendment rights happen to be very important to many individuals.
Biden was not treating this man as an equal but rather he was treating him as ‘less than.’

Biden was also being blatantly dismissive of this man and his concerns.

An obvious lack of respect.

Does someone who is wanting votes, garner support by cursing at potential voters?

There once was a time when politicians may have actually cared to hear what
‘the people’ had to say.

I caught an interview clip yesterday with former VP candidate Joe Liberman.
I’ve always liked Joe, despite his being on the other side of the fence.
Maybe because he is a practicing Jew who has always honored America’s
bond with Israel.
Maybe because like me, he’s old school.

He noted that he was old fashioned, much like me, but that he did not agree
with politicians cursing in public let alone cursing at those who they were
meeting and greeting.

He admitted that politicians, like most adults, will certainly use choice language
when gathered in more intimate settings amongst one another,
but he was not, is not, a fan of politicians cursing when they are out and about
publically “politicking.”

Is this devolving causal thoughtlessness of our society a tribute to who we are?
Might it be a key sign that we are moving backward rather than forward?

We once held our elected officials to a higher standard.

Now I’ll admit that many politicians fall far short from that standard
line of thinking.
They fall short from most people’s perceived expectations—
yet nonetheless, we still want to hold our elected officials to what
we think is a representation of who we the people actually are…
a just and upright people.

That we are better than rather than less than.

Yet Biden’s public behavior of his getting into verbal altercations
with ‘we the people’ is not indicative of a person who truly cares
about the everyday man or woman.

Somewhere along the line…the party of FDR and Kennedy fell off the skids.

Socialism.
Radicalism.
Big brother.
Dismissiveness.
Disrespect.
Denial.
Anger.
Division.
Hatred…

One more example as to why middle Americans continue turning away from a devolving Democratic party
that embraces a progressive left and radical drive toward socialism.
A party that is banking on the likes of Joe Biden to save it from self-destruction.

https://defensemaven.io/bluelivesmatter/news/video-biden-curses-at-michigan-auto-worker-who-challenged-stance-on-gun-rights-dQUqm-73WU–VTNSO8seqA

We all have them…

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering…. The love of God did not protect His own Son…. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”
Elisabeth Elliot

images
(Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II / image borrowed from the web)

Elizabeth has had them….
She’s actually had what she referenced as an annus horribilis
An entire bad year…

Churchill had them…
just mention the word Gallipoli

Eddison had them…
think electric chair

David had them…
think plotting to have someone killed just to cover up your own bad choices…
As it just seems to get worse and worse…..

Joseph had them…
think betrayal by your own brothers…

Paul had them…
as it took three days of blindness to figure it out that raging murderous ways were not
the best use of ones talents.

Peter had them…
something about crowing roosters

Einstein had them…
A Nobel Prize winner actually failed his college entrance exam

Louis Zamperini had them…
think plane crash, 47 days in a life raft and over 2 years as a POW

FDR had them…
one word…polio

Indeed, we’ve all had them…
bad days,
bad weeks,
bad months,
bad years,
bad turns,
bad runs,
bad lives…

Times we would just rather forget.
Times we wish we could ask for the re-do or the re-start
Times we found unbearable, insurmountable and devastating…
Times we thought we’d not survive…

The thing is we will all face them…
bad times,
hard days,
difficult periods in our lives.

Some will seem endless as others will seem to be the end of us…

It will not be a matter of when they come…
because they will come whether or not we are ready, prepared or armed…

The important thing will not be what they do to us,
But rather what we do in spite of them…

Will we be beaten?
Giving up,
Lying down,
Rolling over,
Giving in…
growing bitter
resentful
resigned
hateful…

Or will we come out of it…
better,
stronger,
wiser,
kinder
even more courageous than before….

Unknown

Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,
for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

A man and his paints

“Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely”
Sir Winston Churchill

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(photograph of Winston Churchill at his easel taken from the Daily Telegraph Sunday insert 1965 / Julie Cook / 2015)

What is it that defines a man?
What is it that defines greatness?
What sets some men apart from others?
Does eccentricity and genius run merrily along hand in hand?

January 30, 1965, exactly fifty years ago, there was a funeral held to mark the passing of a life from this world to the next. I was a mere 6 years old. There was not the streaming online constant and instant 24 / 7 news coverage in 1965, beaming and streaming live action of the funeral around the globe, but that is not to say that the world did not briefly stop that somber January day, so very long ago, in order to take notice of the silent passing of greatness from one dimension to the next.

It is a rare event in the United Kingdom to afford anyone other than a crowned monarch or consort a state funeral. Rarer still is the assembling of much of the world’s leaders, statesmen, monarchs and dignitaries for the funeral of a mere prime minister. Yet after having lain in state for three days in Westminster Hall, affording the general public a chance to offer a personal farewell, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was honored by both prince and pauper at one of the most memorable state funerals, other than that of Queen Victoria and King George, which the 20th century had ever seen. Within Sir Christopher Wren’s 1675 architectural marvel, St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the world bid a splendid farewell to one of the most renowned figures of the 20th century.

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(even the often cold and arrogant honored this giant of a man as witnessed by a final salute offered by General Charles De Gaulle )

However, behind the façade of soldier, commander-in-chief, statesman, historian, author, MP, Prime Minister, husband and father, resided a man whose peace and solace was found quietly behind a canvas.

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These photographs are pulled from several of the English periodicals dating from 1949-65 which are a part of my beloved Churchill collection. It is because of Churchill’s stalwart leadership during World War II which most of the world thinks it knows this enigma of a man—however the true identity of a man is not always found in the obvious places nor within plain sight. This most brilliant and equally eccentric man, who helped to shape much of the modern world as we know it today, was much more than statesman or commander. . .he was more than husband and father, or Victorian dreamer— Winston Churchill was a prolific painter who sought and found inner peace during the turbulence of personal, professional and world tragedies, through the simple art of painting.

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(images of paintings on loan to the Millennial Gate Museum in Atlanta, Georgia offering a tribute of the man and his pairings)

Yet below, in this most famous image of “the Big Three” taken from the conference at Yalta, in the waning months of the war,there is much more taking place than just an orchestrated famous photo op of the three men to whom responsibility fell to mould and remodel a new world. . . There is actually much more going on in this image—there is a hidden and secret dance of diplomacy and duplicity being secretly choreographed by a cold and calculating man who was a master deception–this image is the pure essence of power plays, betrayal, death, and hidden terror all silently playing out before the cameras of a painfully yet hopeful naive world.

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The slight smile on Winston’s face is misleading. Stalin never hid his disdain for the Prime Minister. He also believed he held the President as a puppet in his hands, being able to manipulate a frail shadow of a man as Roosevelt was tired, sick and not much longer for the world. Roosevelt died of a massive stroke only two months following the conference.

Roosevelt came to the conference looking wistfully towards a new world order. At this point he didn’t care what sacrifices had to be made in order to establish his elusive global Nirvana. Winston was more weary, cautious to the resetting of a dangerous chess board with equally deadly results as compared to the game which was in the process of just being played out. Winston felt beaten and betrayed. He had been mislead, left out, manipulated, lied to and betrayed by a dear friend as well as mocked and ridiculed by a wolf, or in this case an angry grizzly bear, in sheep’s clothing. He too was tired as the weight of the world rested upon his aging hunched shoulders.

And it was to his art that Winston would retreat, again and again and again. . .as most often it is to the gift of creativity that a man finds himself turning to, being drawn to, in order to set his world back to balance. In the mere act of painting or to the repetitive laying of brick in order to repair an ancient wall to a family home, Winston found comfort. He was able make sense of often senseless situations. . .in the freedom of putting paint to canvas he could find the easing of mind and solace of spirit both elusive and often battered and bruised from the realities of an often cruel world.

Outlets, diversions, distractions, escape—whatever form of creativity a man seeks, it is all a part of his birth right, a divinely inspired gift of talent and wonderment, bestowed upon him by the one true Master of Divine Creativity. It is what is good in a man. It is what is positive. Just as man works toward waging death and destruction, he works equally towards that which is aesthetically pleasing, beautiful, redeeming and edifying.

Man’s ability to create, to make “art”—is a source of peace and calm. It is a counterbalance in a world bent on death and destruction. It is the tiny piece of hope instilled in man by his Creator which helps to serve the betterment of all of mankind–a gift within an individual which has the ability to ripple outward throughout the ages, resonating to generations yet to be. . . that hope, beauty, good, wonder and joy are indeed alive and well and still very possible as the world continues to allow the dark clouds of death to gather overhead.

It was to this very “gift” that Winston sought his peace, his time of release and his place of balance in a world spiraling out of control. May we all be mindful that such a gift is still very much a part of each of us and has the tremendous ability to heal and comfort in our own equally dizzying time of madness. . .

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