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)

what they really mean

“Socialists cry ‘Power to the people’,
and raise the clenched fist as they say it.

We all know what they really mean——
power over people, power to the State.”

Margaret Thatcher,
Speech to Conservative Central Council, March 1986

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning:
just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes,
we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

C.S. Lewis


(a buckeye butterfly enjoys a sunny day / Julie Cook / 2017)

I wonder if anyone really knows what anyone really means anymore.

Our leaders, politicians, statesmen, media personalities, legal eagles, entertainers…
none of them seem to know what they mean anymore…
simply because they’re always apologizing or deferring or deflecting these days.

The headlines splash across our eyes daily with the current mea culpas turned defense…
“I didn’t mean it”
“That’s not what I meant”
“My attorney won’t let me answer that”
“That was just a joke taken the wrong way”
“I didn’t say that”
“That wasn’t me”
“This has all been blown out of proportion”
“You heard wrong”
“You took that out of context”
“The devil made me do it / say it”
“The sky is falling… uh, just kidding….”

It’s all fun and games until there’s a push back, a backlash or a pure revolt….
Then the last laugh is no longer on the targeted but rather is now turned back around
to the one who was attempting to initiate the laughs, or the claims,
or the accusations in the first place.

And within all the mea culpas comes the deferments, the denials, the deflections,
the blind eyes…
as in…
“well, that wasn’t even my idea”
“he, she, it made me do it”
“I have no recollection of that”
“I didn’t do that, say that.. but rather he, she, it did”
“I plead the 5th…the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and whatever else I can plead….”
“No habla inglés, or suddenly any other language for that matter…
“Who me?”
“I wasn’t even in the country”

The list is endless.

And hidden within the denials, the confusion, the lies, the excuses
is the anger, the rage and the resentment…
of the “how dare you not think me funny, factual, fair…”
“how dare you not think I wasn’t joking”
“how dare you take what I said / did the wrong way”
“how dare you, be you, who now makes me look bad / feel bad”

Actually it’s all really confusing because not only do we not know what
“they” mean anymore…we’re being told that we no longer know what we mean…
as what we thought we believed and knew to be true…is nothing but an illusion
of what we once knew…

The only meaning that has stood the test of time, the test of man….
despite man’s best attempts to alter it, change it, rewrite it, deny it, ignore it…

God’s word…..

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing to the division of soul and spirit,
of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

fall of the legends

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.
One Stab–Legends of the Fall

“History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.”
― Victor Hugo

IMG_0758
( Schönbrunn Palace Gardens / Vienna, Austria / Julie Cook 2012)

Each day, another individual who lives in our limelight, bites the dust. . .

A well known major network news anchor embellishes his in-field reporting (aka tells lies).

Another older well known and long married nationally syndicated news story reporter has been carrying on a tawdry and torrid, and now very public, affair with a much younger married woman.

A revered married and highly decorated Army General is accused of disclosing highly classified information to his biographer who also happened to be his key love interest.

Another news anchor fails to disclose his political contributions to a high profile presidential candidate which now clouds his “non biased” honest reporting.

A beloved actor and comedian is suddenly accused of a litany of sexual assaults spanning the past 30 years.

The hottest new NFL quarterback hopeful, who was living the life of the fast and furious, has spent the past 6 months of the off season cleaning up in re-hab.

Many an up and coming national political figure has been discovered to be leading a dubious double life—

Plug in any name from any state or any county and it would all sadly fit. . .

It seems that each and every day we read, we hear, we watch as another national and / or local “famous” figure falls quickly from grace.

And it’s not always a famous individual. . .

Atlanta is coming off of an unprecedented, and very nationally embarrassing, public trial of a myriad of its city school system educators who cheated on their students National Standardized tests.
Teachers going to jail for cheating.
The very people who stress to their students the importance of honesty.

It’s pretty obvious that we are living in a world that is less than keen on taking the high road.
Perhaps we’ve become a low road kind of people.
As in low is easy, cheesy and sleazy.

Morality seems to have hit the road long ago. . .moving on without leaving a forwarding address.
The current mindset is simply one of no remorse— but rather remorse comes only with being caught at whatever it was one was simply caught doing.

Mea culpas have become so common place that we have come to expect contrition as opposed to valor.

It sure seems as if man is a flawed and fractured creature.

One would think that we are a most hopeless lot.
That we are in such sorry shape that God has washed His hands of us and simply moved on. . .
And that would pretty much sum up what we deserve.
We’ve made our beds and are now destined to lie them.
Dante painted the picture rather vividly in 1337 with his 9 rings of hell. . .
Hell in a hand basket with no looking back.

And yet. . .

Within the dark days of our fallen ways, there remains a single ray of hope. . .

Grace.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10

Dumb and dormer or the age of the mea culpa

“…our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes”
Thomas Hardy

DSCN8418 2

Should a soon to be 55 year old woman climb out of the dormer windows in order to scrub the mildew off the trim and gutters?
Don’t answer that. . .not yet.

Trees around a house can be a messy affair.
There is the annual profusion of dropped leaves or pine straw.
There are the mishaps of falling limbs and branches during storms and ice.
Then there is the dampness which hides in the shadows causing havoc to roofs, gutters, trim and paint as the moisture never dries—plus trees have a tendency of sloughing off “stuff.”

After cutting down our trees a couple of weeks ago, the ugly mildew around the windows and gutters, which I had not noticed prior to the cutting, now taunts me from above.
I have a couple of options:
A. I can clamor around on ladders, precariously holding aloft a pressure washer hose, getting soaked in the process during this nippy time of year, possibly knocking off some integral piece to the house, say the shingles, and finally slipping off said ladder. . .
B. Let my husband do the above as I hold the ladder, receiving the full brunt of roof run off and worrying that he’ll fall off the ladder, on me.
C. pay a fortune trying to find someone who does this sort of thing professionally.
D. climb out the windows and scrub the sides myself, worrying about the gutters later.

Hummmmmmm. . .

I announced that I was going to “clean” windows one morning recently as my husband was leaving for work.
“What do you mean clean windows? he asks.
“As in the dormers and all that mildew. I’m going to open the windows and hang out as far as I can reach and then scrub.”
“Well whatever you do, don’t you dare try getting out on that roof” this said on his way out the door.

Hummmmmmm. . .

Opening the windows, spying my mess, I begin scrubbing everything within arm’s reach.
Hummmm, the roof is a bit slanted but it doesn’t look all that steep. . . .
Maybe if I just climb out while holding onto the window frame with one hand. . .

Hummmm. . .
Rope.
Where’s a rope?
I could tie the rope to. . .the bed? A doorknob?

Hummmm. . .

The roof was beckoning and I was wanting to answer.

Two little me’s perch on my shoulders.
One little me reminds me of my husband’s last words as he left for work.
The other little me asks “what does he know?!”
The first little me brings up my broken ankle and the never repaired torn ACL
The other little me says “you’ve got this”
The first little me reminds me of my birthday this week, as in turning 55 then queries “what about the osteoporosis?
The second little me say’s “you’re fine. you’re as young as you feel. it’s not like you’d fall very far”
The first little me reminds me that it is a two story drop and “whereas there may be bushes down below, there is also cement.”
The other little me tells me to “grab the gutters on the way down, you’ll be fine. . .”

Hummmmm. . .

Adventuresome and Daring
or
Hard-headed and Impetuous.

Fool hardy and Tempting
plus
Reckless and Impulsive

Impulsive behavior, with the often very public apology or acknowledgement of poor decisions, has become all too common in our culture–
I call it the age of the mea culpa.

Everyone from entertainers to politicians, to news personnel, to athletes, to law enforcement officers, military personnel, musicians on down to your average everyday person–everyone seems to adhere to the latest trend of — Act first, think later.

Public, as well as private, apologies abound. Turn on the television or flip through any newspaper and someone is apologizing for some indiscretion or egregious action.
I often think the tide of apologies sadly stems from the mindset of having simply gotten caught and therefore an apology must follow.
I don’t know if we have grown more bold, more greedy, more self centered, more daring,
but self control appears to have been thrown out as the proverbial baby with the bath water.

Sadly it appears we have forgotten. . .
Forgotten that our God is a God of control and order, yet not a controlling God–there is indeed a difference!
He is not a god who condones the uncontrollable self absorption of a willy nilly gobbling up whatever comes down the pike people. The mindset and philosophy of today’s society appears to be ‘if I see it, I want it, and I’ll take it or do it”—-and it doesn’t matter what the “it” is—be it food, clothes, sex, drugs, people, money, etc. and to heck with the consequences.

We (as in the human race) were once given regulations, laws, commandments if you will, as to how we should live—laws which would make things much easier and simpler if we chose to abide by the “rules.” If not, then there are the inevitable consequences.

But somewhere along the lines we grew selfish, we grew impatient, we grew egotistical, we grew grossly independent, we grew desensitized, we grew hungry for things and experiences which would hopefully satiate the growing need within our inner core. Our psyches were / are in need of a deep “fix” of sorts and we are desperate to ease the ache. Somewhere along the line we grew puffed up with self and of our own sense of self importance which trumped the empathy required of living on a planet full of other people in need.

The roof was calling, self control was lacking and the sense of adventure coupled with the anticipated sense of accomplishment of having tackled a major chore all on my own glistened in the very bucket of cleaning solution I held in my hand.

But my husband said “don’t” for a reason.
It doesn’t matter that I’m an independent modern sort of freethinking woman.
My husband said “don’t.”
I could easily be hard headed and fool hearty, knowing that I’m old enough to make my own decisions and choices, selfishly disregarding how my actions could negatively impact those around me.
I could be impulsive, act now, go for it, shrugging off the potential for danger thinking, so what I fall off and break my neck. . .
I could be brave tackling a problem and perhaps save us from having to hire someone.
or
I could let better judgement prevail.
I could acquiesce to my husband as a Christian wife, who does look to her husband as the head of the household.
I could wait until I had help and not feel as if I had to prove my independence to say, the squirrels.

So rest assured this very soon to be 55 year old woman yielded to the better of the two mini mes— opting not to climb out onto the roof. Reminding myself of that very freethinking independent southern woman, Scarlett O’Hara, who so famously quipped, “I’ll think about that tomorrow for tomorrow is another day, fiddlededee.”

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

That, however, is not the way of life you learned—when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:18-24