Herschel for President!!!

“Not to question you, Mark, but do you know what the organization stands for?
Besides saying, Black Lives Matter.
Because I say one of the things that we have to address is Americans’ lives matter.”
Herschel Walker

(Herschel Walker circa 1981/82 / UGA / Julie (Nichols) Cook)

HERSCHEL WALKER FOR PRESIDENT!!!
It was a chant often heard ringing throughout Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia on any
given fall Saturday during the early 1980s.
It was a time when both football and Herschel were each king in my small world.

I actually took that rather grainy little picture of Herschel…
it was either the spring of 1981 or 1982, I can’t exactly remember.

My sorority was hosting a 24-hour rock-a-thon in order to raise money for
the international medical organization Project Hope.
We were rocking all night, having raised various pledges for our time and effort spent rocking.
Campus celebrity Herschel Walker came by to sit and rock awhile in hopes of boosting our pledges.
Hence the picture.

If you’re any sort of college football fan, then you know the name
Herschel Walker.

His time playing football for the University of Georgia is the stuff
of legends.
He won the Heisman Trophy his junior year and he helped the college
win a National Championship in 1980.

Athletically, Herschel was a track star, a football player, an NFL player,
a United States Football league player, an Olympic bobsledder as well as a boxer…
and it should be known, he’s still not finished.

So I won’t go into his lengthy and legendary biography here, but just know that
I have the utmost respect for Herschel.

And I have that respect not because he’s from my home state.
Nor because we went to college together.
Nor because he was and is an incredible athlete.
But because Herschel, like many of us, had demons.
Herschel fought those demons through his faith in Jesus Christ–
he has been very public about his battle and his victory through Christ.

I caught a news story yesterday that Herschel and Mark Cuban had got into a bit
of a tit for tat the other evening during a FOX news special hosted by Harris Faulkner.

Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and has been very
vocal in that he will paint Black Lives Matters on his basketball court
and will allow and support his players in expressing themselves however they may
so choose during the coming season.

Herschel, however, questions the logic behind such as he wonders if Cuban,
as well as many others, truly understand what Black Lives Matters actually represents.

Herschel noted that “One of the problems I think that we have
is a lot of these sensitive topics we don’t want to address,
you know, we don’t want to address these sensitive topics
so what we try to do is water them down and try to shout people down,”
Walker told host Harris Faulkner on the special
“The Fight for America” on Sunday night.

“To say that you’re going to put BLM [Black Lives Matter] on the field or on a jersey,
well some people may not believe in BLM,” the Heisman Trophy winner continued.

“For myself … there’s no doubt BLM is important,
but American lives are important. …
The organization of BLM, I’m not sure what they stand for.
And so how could an NFL say we want to support BLM or we’re going to do this here
without having the players to say what they want?
Because you cannot put that on a player who may disagree with it.”

Cuban disagreed with Walker but I for one agree with Herschel.
Do those such a Cuban, who are jumping on the bandwagon, truly know and
understand what BLM means or what it stands for?
Do they realize it is a violent organization rooted in Marxism?
Or do they really care?
Is placating the mob more important than exercising real knowledge?

I for one do not want sports to be so politized.
The National anthem and flag brouhaha was just the starting point…
now we have more anthem issues with the addition of a “black” anthem
and we have teams, players and owners who want to politize their
sport…

Sports in the US has always been a unifier and not a
divisive tool.
So now we might as well just say so much for simply loving the game
for the mere sake of the game.

The notion of games, fun, hard work, competition, bragging rights, etc have
been traded in for something much more sinister.

I’m just glad that we still have a few steadfast voices such as those of
Herschel, along with those other voices of average men and women,
each who question the bandwagons and the pushing of agendas down the throats
of both players and fans despite the fact that not all stand in agreement
with the current direction, we seem to be headed.

So yeah, thought-filled and thoughtful rather than angry, emotional, and reactionary.

Yep, Herschel for President…

https://www.foxnews.com/media/herschel-walker-mark-cuban-black-lives-matter-nfl-nba

“A drop of ink may make a million think”—(A rerun)

(image, www)

Yesterday, a fellow blogger and pastor known as Slim Jim,
(https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2019/12/26/what-is-your-favorite-post-that-you-wrote-in-2019/),
asked his fellow bloggers what was their favorite post from the year.

Not which post may have generated the most views or likes or comments…
but rather what post did we enjoy writing the most or felt as if we’d hit the mark the best…?

Maybe it’s because I was in the middle of dismantling the Christmas tree and was feeling
my typical sense of melancholy and discontent or maybe it was because I had not eaten all day
and was feeling somewhat brain dead and hangry, but I just couldn’t bring to mind any one particular post
from the past year that stood out…

However, I did remember a few from the past previous years that stood out.

I’ve also noticed, from time to time when looking over my stats,
what previous posts have received a high number of visits despite their
having been written several years prior.

There was one post in particular that I actually noticed yesterday,
from way back in 2013 which was shortly after I started this blogging business,
had received several views.

I often wonder what brings multiple viewers to a years-old post.
Was it a random search?
Was it the sharing of something found by one, offered to another?
Who knows how people find things…but find they do.

This particular post was one that I actually recall with a sense of satisfaction…
in that I liked it, I felt it said something and I still find it relevant.

I pulled it back up, cut and pasted, added a few grammatical corrections…
and so without further ado… let’s look back to 2013…

The title of today’s post by Lord Byron, albeit a bit poetic,
certainly prompted me to think–as in I imagine that was Lord Byron’s point.

Just mere ink on paper…forming letters then words has, down through the ages,
changed lives,
changed governments, changed nations…
From the Talmud on ancient scrolls, to the Magna Carta, to our own Declaration of Independence,
ink and paper possess tremendous power.

Men and women die defending ink and paper.
We fight one another over ink and paper.
Ink and paper have sadly caused people to take their own lives.
It’s all a rather overwhelming combination when you actually think about the simplicity
of the two as single entities, and yet when combined together,
how staggeringly strong and powerful the two become.

Nathaniel Hawthorn, the early 19th-century American novelist,
reminded those of his day that:
“words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary,
how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

This statement coming from a man who wrote the Scarlet Letter—-
the powerful tale we all read in High School. A tale about a single red letter.
The red letter ‘A’ which was literally forced upon a young woman, as a mark about her life.
She was to wear this scarlet letter for all to see… a visible sign of a private indiscretion
made very public.
A single written letter, worn and changing lives forever.

And when I think of a small rather pitiful man who took pen and paper to write about
his “struggles” in Mein Kampf, and how that combination of letters which formed words,
became a psychotic manifesto of a single disturbed individual which worked an entire nation
into a frenzy of death and murder…I am amazed.

Or what of another angst-ridden man who put ink to paper, forming a doctrine of living
which in turn sent another nation to revolt against it’s ruling czar,
changing the course of history and our own lives forever—

It becomes so overwhelming…
Because it all started out so simple…
It started firstly with ink added to paper, with the forming of letters and finally words…

Sadly today so many of us casually, and even callously, throw words around,
never taking time to ponder the consequences or outcome of those words…
words that are now so easily clicked off on a computer or phone.

From toxic and viral e-mails to emotional ranting tweets—
words and their piercing effects are almost unemotionally thrown out toward individuals,
thrown out with the intentions to hurt, to mock, to belittle–
allowing the offender to hide behind them—

No longer is it really ink on paper.
Letter and words now form on screens—be it the screen of a computer or a screen on a phone.

And so I wonder…
Did we think more clearly, more carefully, when we were actually having to take a pen or pencil
in hand to a sheet of paper?
Thinking more thoughtfully before today’s rapid-fire texting?

Did we consider our words more carefully when we were actually writing slowly,
letter per letter, word built upon word?

Were we kinder, more thoughtful, more determined, more committed?

Perhaps or perhaps not—but what if we were more thoughtful of our words
and of the choice of those words…..what then???

So on this Monday morning, a new day to a new week, consider the words you write…
the words you type—the words you spit out during the course of the week—
Think about how powerful are they.

What is their true intent?
Do you wish to harm or to help?
Do your words represent who you truly think you are?
Be that a kind and benevolent or rather a caustic and trite individual…
My hope is that we may become more mindful when combining letters into forming words—

And thus the question remains…what shall your words be…?

Two sides to every coin

“If it pains you to discover that a Nice Man can be a crumbum, Tom, it’s life you’ve got to object to, not Percy in particular.”
― Ellery Queen

Give me liberty or Give me Death
Patrick Henry

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire

(a two headed Roman “Janus” coin)

Responsibility as defined by Merriam Webster:
: the state of being the person who caused something to happen
: a duty or task that you are required or expected to do
: something that you should do because it is morally right, legally required, etc.

Moral obligations as defined by USlegal.com:
Moral obligation is an obligation arising out of considerations of right and wrong. It is an
obligation arising from ethical motives, or a mere conscientious duty, unconnected with any legal
obligation, perfect or imperfect, or with the receipt of benefit by the promisor of a material or
pecuniary nature. Moral obligation springs from a sense of justice and equity that an honorable
person would have, and not from a mere sense of doing benevolence or charity.

Freedom as defined by Oxford dictionary:
The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or
restraint

Rites + freedoms + liberties = responsibility.

Freedom to:
defame
blaspheme
belittle
mock
desecrate
offend. . .

The freedom to be satirical, to be outspoken, to ruffle feathers. . .
To irritate
To heal
To soften
To entertain
To insult
To defend
To inflame
To incite
To quell
To antagonize
To redeem
To be mean
To be kind. . .
The freedom to be thoughtful
To be thoughtless. . .

The freedom to draw, to write, to sing, to dance, to paint, to soar. . .
The freedom to be expressive regardless of what others may think or feel.
Will you inspire or will you be despised?
Will you be a bridge or will you be destructive?

The freedom to be honorable towards others.
The freedom to believe.
The freedom to turn away.

The responsibility to honor and defend life
Or
The freedom to take life

The freedom to dishonor.
The responsibility to respect.

What is your responsibility?

The freedom and responsibility to defend Freedom
Yet what then is the responsibility of freedom?

“All of Creation is made by the Holy Trinity acting in communion as an outpouring of Love and Grace.”
Excerpt for January newsletter from St Isaac’s Orthodox Skete.