pete and repeat, on and on it seems to go…

Child #1 “Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence.
Pete fell off.
Who’s left?”
Child #2 “Repeat.”
Child #1
“Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence.
Pete fell off.
Who’s left?”…

What the people need is a way to make ’em smile
Line from the Dobboie brothers

(a city sign perches in the city center of Highlands, NC / Julie Cook / 2021)

Do you remember when “they” told us “get the vaccine and you don’t have to
wear a mask”????
Do you remember that????

I’ve had Covid.
I’ve had the vaccine (the two shots vs the one)
I now feel fully double whammied…maybe that’s like
more of a doubled immunity.

So imagine my chagrin this past weekend when we pulled into this
particular little mountain town retreat in which we chose to spend our
38th anniversary celebration.
“MASKS ARE MANDATED INSIDE OUTSIDE SIDEWALKS”

GEES LOUISE!!!!!!! was my initial response as we rolled into town.

“Oh you selfish person you” scream the woke cupcakes over this
initial reaction of mine.

But you need to know something…you need to know that I will always honor
a business’s personal concerns for their own establishment and employees.
My husband was a small business owner for the last 50 years…
so yes, I get that.

But I draw the line outdoors.

It is still very much the summer here in the South—hot, hazy and humid.
Mountains or no mountains…we be hot!

Try breathing through a mask—filtered hot contaminated air coming in,
carbon dioxide going out via the mask…of which means residual C02 remains or
comes right back in…
a perfect wet humid mix of bad air breathed in and out.

Oh how our Italian friends would very much find fault in these bad vapors.

And now let us add in the trash residue…

And so as I labored breathing, watching the other empty masked faces…
suddenly I heard a long forgotten song playing out in my head…
a song by the Doobie Brothers–

Listen to the Music–
Don’t you feel it growin’ day by day?
People gettin’ ready for the news
Some are happy some are sad…
Oh… we got to let the music play
Umm-hmm
What the people need is a way to make ’em smile
It ain’t so hard to do if you know how
Gotta get a message, get it on through…
Oh now mama don’t you ask me why

Yesterday I mentioned that the US had left behind 90 million dollars worth of equipment
in Afghanistan—I mistyped…that was meant to be 90 BILLION dollars in equipment.

That 90 billion is tax payer monies simply abandoned by a sitting president.

It was not as if we were being overrun and had to make a hasty retreat…we
did not. The hasty retreat was of our own current president’s doings.

So if you’d like a free Black Hawk helicopter, maybe a humvee…
all you need to do is to sneak across the Afghani border and claim
your helicopter and or vehicle of choice and fly or drive that puppy
right on out of town.
You are a taxpayer and therefore you are part owner…
and if we are simply leaving such behind, by all means, please, go get yours!

Let us remember that we impeached Richard Nixon for truly a much lesser offense
then that of President Biden.

Nixon obstructed justice and abused his power…
Biden has lied and failed American interests at home and abroad…
think loss of lives,
Biden has abused his power as well as having been negligent in the handling
of American troops.
He has aided in the documented deaths of 13 Americans as well as countless
Americans who have been left behind…as in, stranded.

There has been a blatant abandonment of American citizens…
purposefully and knowingly leaving Americans in harms way.
Bypassing his duty to serve and protect the American people and her
interests both home and abroad.

Impeachable offensives.

Far more egregious than those counts brought against President Trump.
There was no blood on the hands of Trump.
Merely falsified Russian collusion and a falsified pro quid pro.

Blood and the loss of life with intent is far more damnable.

So we wonder…what type of president do we want.
An emboldened go getter or a weak reactive man who claims he’s not
the one in charge.

It seems to be our choice.
So what say you…
Pete, or repeat?

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy
that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life,
and those who find it are few.”
Matthew 7:13-14

Defense or offense

Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own,
and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred.
He is willing to risk his life in its defense and is conscious
that he gains protection while he gives it.
Andrew Jackson

If I were a high school coach, I would put my best players on offense.
The best athletes on my team, I would give them the ball and score points.
I wouldn’t play them on defense.
I would play them where they can get the ball and score points.
Nick Saban

( Law enforcement canvases London’s streets / photo courtesy 570 News, OT, Canada )

Which do you want to play…
Defense
or
Offense?

Nick Saban is a coach who knows a thing or two about playing offense and defense.
He knows football.
And he seems to think offense is the way to go.
Because Coach Saban knows offense scores the points and wins the games.
And isn’t that the goal…
to win the game?

When a team’s defense spends the majority of the game on the field,
it usually means they’re not winning.
The game is probably now lopsided and the defense is spending entirely way too
much time working to keep the opposition from running up the score.

Player’s hands are seen resting on hips as they are bent over in the huddle winded.
Arm tackles take over the more successful full body tackle because players are tired.
Mistakes become blatantly apparent as play becomes sloppy in the fog of fatigue.
And if the truth be told, the players just want the clock to run out so they can
blessedly just finally get off the field and end the bleeding.

Offense is goal oriented not goal stopping.
Offense is sitting in the driver’s seat while working to capitalize on scoring
and winning.
As that’s the key to any game…winning.

But it seems to me that Western Civilization has been playing defense.

The above image of masked law enforcement canvasing streets should not be the face of
what has become the new normal….
Not the cost that politicians flippantly brush off as to living in larger cities.
Fear of crowds, fear at sporting venues, fear at concerts, fear at historical landmarks,
fear of dining in popular neighborhoods, fear of flying, fear of riding on trains,
fear of walking across a bridge…

Defense can only do so much.
And obviously our defense is not working…

Then David said to Solomon his son,
“Be strong and of good courage, and do it.
Fear not, be not dismayed; for the Lord God, even my God, is with you.
He will not fail you or forsake you, until all the work for the service
of the house of the Lord is finished.
1 Chronicles 28:20

fruits and umbrage

“Whenever anyone has offended me,
I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.”
René Descartes

The Bible, that powerful book, has many effects:
it comforts, counsels, instructs, and brings us into the presence of God.
But trying to erase offense as one of its functions is a fundamentally misguided task.
Frederica Mathewes-Green

The first and most essential means of making peace with those who offend and
persecute us is to pray for them,
according to the commandment of Christ.
–Saint Leo of Optina

(my first fig from my small tree / Julie Cook / 2016)

We are known by our fruits, just as we may know others by theirs…

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 7:16-20

Meaning…
It is to the goodness and the positive…those good deeds, exploits and actions we do for
which we will be remembered and recognized…

And yet sadly on the opposite side of all of this, many of us are actually recognized by the bad fruits and the negative things that we do.

As we are more likely to remember one bad offense while forgetting the 99 good—

All of which is human nature I suppose…

And as I have stood watching all of this election business of ours..
the good, the bad and the very ugly…
Just as I have watched this racial unrest or ours,
This polarization of ours,
This ever deepening and widening chasm of ours…
splitting this Nation of ours in half…
All with both amusement and alarm,
sorrow and bewilderment,
disdain and even wonder…
I am left to ponder as to the fruits that we are to recognize in our fellow man / woman
That of which we shall see and be drawn to and remember….

I’ve never seen anything like all of this growing spectacle of ours.
This debacle of democracy.
It’s grown into something so laughable and so ridiculous,
that I want to stop everything and just ask one simple question…
can we simply start all over??

As we are about to have to decide between the two people who are currently
seeking the highest office in our Nation…

One has proven herself to be a liar who…
has spent a lifetime covering up so very much…
conveniently forgotting so much…
all the while…
living with spilt blood on her hands…

The other one lacks tact, decorum, civility and often decency of thought and word…
all the while forgetting to shut his mouth lest he shoves both feet in for a snack.

And yet I am being chided into voting for the woman of this pair for the mere reason that I too am a woman…

As when Madeleine Albright so ridiculously and even threateningly stated that “there is a special place in hell for women who will not for vote for a woman…”
It was shades of Dante’s Inferno…
however her motives were not nearly as pure or just as our dear Dante…

Is that not just another way of saying vote white because you’re white,
vote male because you’re male,
vote black because you’re black,
vote latino because you’re latino….

As ludicrous as that all is–that is exactly how many out there are coaching fellow
voters to in turn vote….

And yes, I have taken grave umbrage with such…

Why?

Because I am a woman and I can vote…
that is in itself the very reason why I can vote for someone other than a woman…

And at this rate, Charlie Brown is looking pretty darn good….

We’ve definitely got a mess on our hands and there is, I’m fairly certain,
neither divide nor doubt about that from either party or side.

So here’s the thing…
We can either honor God and His covenant to us, His children.
We can either honor the Nation of Israel, the land of God’s chosen inheritance
We can either turn back around from our wicked, yes wicked, ways…

or…

We can continue down our path of destruction…

So what are we to do?
Who are we to vote for….????

We pray……..

The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue.
The God of Israel has spoken;
the Rock of Israel has said to me:
When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
“For does not my house stand so with God?
For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure.
For will he not cause to prosper
all my help and my desire?
2 Samuel 23: 1-5