tales of the asinine…Vol. I

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
Søren Kierkegaard

(the oddity of a tiki flaming pineapple in the heart of Atlanta, absurd or odd / Julie Cook / 2019)

According to Merriam Webster, the word asinine means:

asinine: adjective
as·i·nine | \ ˈa-sə-ˌnīn \
1 : extremely or utterly foolish or silly

Utterly foolish or silly…

I think I’ll opt for such words as utterly foolish, idiotic, absurd, ridiculous
and really really stupid.

My daughter-n-law and I were running a few errands yesterday when she asked if I
had heard the news story about the police officers, out in Arizona, who were visiting
a Starbucks and were asked to leave because another patron told management that the
presence of the police made them nervous.

I responded that yes, yes I had heard that story and it had to be just about the most
idiotic thing I’d ever heard…

Incensed all over again, I told her it was just one more tale in the endless sea of lunacy
in a long line of “the tales of the asinine”…

Her response was that we should start writing a series entitled “the asinine journals, or
perhaps chronicles, of our times…”

For you see, I’m the type of person who happens to feel safer whenever I’m out and about
and police, or any other first responders, happen to be patronizing the same establishment
I am.

As in…when I’m out, say, eating a hearty breakfast at a Cracker Barrell and
there happens to be a table full of firemen also enjoying breakfast–
all the while as the crackle of their radios with the latest breaking news
echos around their table, I feel safe in knowing that should I suddenly have a
heart attack or choke on my Sunrise Sampler or lest a fire breaks out in the kitchen,
it’s all good.

Cops getting coffee in a Starbucks says to me that no idiot is going to come busting in
hoping to pull off an armed robbery…and if they do, the trauma should be short-lived
as the cops would be on the idiot(s) like white of rice.

Just an added bit of peace of mind while venturing out into our ever-growing
crime-ridden world.

But no, instead we have to have some idiot who tells a coffee barista that they just don’t
feel safe ordering a coffee mocha latte while some police officers are doing the same.
And so the equally idiotic coffee barista tells the officers to leave.

And so now tell me something…
God forbid that later, the barista should have to call 911 due to some sort of robbery
or calamity, how would those same officers feel about having to respond?

My guess would be that because they are duty bound,
they would respond regardless of any slight or offense because that’s what cops do.

And for all those naysayers, snowflakes and Antifa folks out there…
yes, there are bad cops, bad soldiers, bad doctors, bad priests, bad lawyers, bad teachers…
as in there are simply bad people out there who do bad things to good people…

Just like there are good cops, good soldiers, good doctors, good priests, good lawyers,
good teachers…as in good people trying to do good things for other people.
Good people who try to do their utmost for those they serve or for those who they
simply interact with on a day to day basis.

We live in a balance of good vs evil.
Plain and simple.

Good people doing good things for and by other people.

So for some police officers to come into a Starbucks to get a cup of coffee or a
cup of tea or whatever, only to be asked to leave simply because they are cops who
happen to make one fellow patron uneasy, is in a word, asinine.

Yes, the Starbucks Corporation has since issued an apology.
The Corporation, not necessarily the individual store or community.

Yet does a corporate apology make this incident now better or okay?

These sorts of little incidences keep happening all over the country.

Police are being victimized and even ambushed and murdered simply because they are
police officers.

Just yesterday, a sheriff’s deputy from Hall County, a part of the city of Gainesville, Ga
was shot and killed by four teens as he stopped them for having stolen a car and for their
involvement in burglaries.

A 28-year-old young man, a deputy sheriff who was two years younger than my own son.
He was both a young husband and father.

From convenient stores to restaurants—when policemen, State Troopers or deputies come into
various businesses in order to buy something and are told to leave all because someone else feels
uncomfortable in their presence is, well, absolutely an absurdity.

Yet our culture has fallen into some sort of odd ‘guilty by association’ mentality.

A police officer is seen on camera hitting, kicking, shooting a suspect…in most cases
images that are publicized by our media of the suspect which is a black male.
And so we now have a tremendous backlash from the black community that they are being targeted.

This goes back to the fact that we do indeed have rotten apples, those known as the bad guys pretending
to be good guys.

But that does not ever mean that all officers are bad or monsters or aimed at targeting
any particular community of people…

Yet good luck convincing the progressive left and liberal media of anything other than.

And so we have a culture now screaming henny penny the sky is falling over
what should be common sense…as we find ourselves living in the time
of the asinine.

Shame on Starbucks and any other business that shuns our first responders.

Those same responders you pray will come to your aide when you’re trapped in an
overturned and burning car or should some crazed madman invade your home and
terrorize you and your family…you can only hope and pray the police will get there
as fast as they can…lest you lose your life.

The good becomes bad and the bad becomes good…
as a culture slowly loses her common sense.

Volume II of The Asinine will follow tomorrow…

For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
Proverbs 2:6

Prayers for Santa Fe, Texas

“The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Søren Kierkegaard

(Julie Cook / 2018)

I was a high school art teacher for 31 years.

I loved my kids and I struggled with my kids.

The gifted,
the complicated,
the defiant,
the quiet,
the creative,
the difficult,
the angry,
the arrogant,
the athletic,
the popular,
the shy,
the academic,
the immature,
the kind,
the thoughtful,
the thoughtless,
the selfish,
the forgotten,
the struggler,
the spoiled,
the average,
the happy,
the sad,
the hard to crack…

My heart aches for Santa Fe High School and her entire community.
For those who have loved ones who will not be coming home at the end
of this school year.

Once again we are a nation wrapped in our shock, our sorrow, and our grief.

There are no clear-cut answers or explanations.
Anger, resentment, hate, indifference, intolerance, evil…
these are not simple issues.
Issues with no apparent clear-cut single solution …

Yet before we point our fingers, rile in our righteous indignation,
demand change or drown in our own emotionalism…
let us remember the families who are hurting…
families who are going through the unimaginable weight of unspeakable loss.

Let us mourn with them and for them.
As their arms ache to hold those they love just one more time.

May we ask a God, who is far greater than ourselves, to help us find our way.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.

For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.
For if we live, we live unto the Lord.
and if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;
even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.
The Book of Common Prayer
Burial of the Dead, Rite I

we are our own victims

We must take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel

( a ripening persimon / Julie Cook / 2017)

There is a massive and unrelenting tidal wave descending over us..
It is the tsunami of all things news and the resulting title wave of
sensational headlines.
It’s exasperating just trying to keep up.
Especially if one works hard to shift through the facts searching in vain
for the truth.

However…in the end, I think we all really know what matters most…

That being…helping and assisting people to put their lives back together…
With just one example being down in Texas and Louisiana following the most
unwelcomed visit by Harvey as we all now find ourselves wearily eyeing the sky
as Irma makes her way to come calling…

That’s what’s important.

Yet we are inundated with and by the latest protests, demonstrations and clamorings
of the latest and not so greatest hoopla and brouhaha which stems from something
the sitting president has done or has not done.

Yesterday I read the recent posting by my friend Citizen Tom, ‘Left Holding the Bag’
LEFT HOLDING THE BAG

Tom was recounting the story of King Hezekiah’s response to the prophet Isaiah’s admonishment for a rather arrogant and prideful desire of which Hezekiah was granted.
And yet the king was going to have to live with the fallout from his selfish wants…
of which would now greatly impact those who had been entrusted to his governance and leadership.

Tom went on to relate the similarities of that time long ago to our own time today…
of the current situation we seem to be finding ourselves
in with North Korea and why it’s as bad as it is now.

Tom explained how previous leaders and administrations basically pushed the
ever growing knowledge of the DPRK’s advancing and expanding nuclear progress aside.
Particularly the Obama Administration.
For reasons that appear more selfish in nature than examples of selfless leadership.

Tom muses that King Hezekiah seemed to be more concerned about his own legacy,
to such an extent that he was willing to allow his “people,”
and their future generations, to suffer due in part to his selfish wants.

Just as it seems the former president was more interested in the stats of the moment
and what good things he could be remembered for doing while willfully ignoring
the looming facts and threats of a growing nuclear North Korea.
With the mindset seemingly being “let the next guy worry about it.”

And so now we turn our attentions to the more recent current event…
that being the ongoing immigration debacle and DACA.
Which has resulted in once again, more protests and demonstrations.

Yet as we’ve given such programs the names of our very essence…
names that have made us the nation we are…such as “Dreamers”…
And so we grow angry thinking about those who would dare want
to smash ‘the dream’….

When I was still in the classroom I taught a wealth of different kinds of kids.
Many of whom were here in this country illegally.
How do I know this you ask….
They told me.

I loved my ‘kids’, all of my kids, and the knowledge that many were living
in our community and in our state and in our nation illegally created a difficult situation in my heart.

Yet the bottom line, which I knew and still know, was always the same…
the word illegal.

The word illegal as defined by the Oxford Dictionary :
Contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law.

As in…the law.

We are a burdened society.

Our healthcare is a catastrophic nightmare with skyrocketing costs.
Our prisons are bursting at the seam while the monies can’t keep up.
Our public education budgets are stretched to the end.
Our public assistance programs are being pulled to their limits.
According to Forbes Magazine, “As of March 2016,
the U.S. government owes almost $19.8 trillion to creditors in both long and short
term debt.”
That was based on figures from a year ago, the numbers have only grown larger in that
year’s time.

But we are a people who are the victims of our own human nature.

By and large the majority of us are caring and compassionate people who want
both ourselves and others to be comfortable and happy.
We don’t like feeling uncomfortable and we don’t like seeing others uncomfortable
because their uncomfortableness makes us uncomfortable and we simply
don’t like being uncomfortable.

We like our friends…all of our friends..those who are citizens and those who
are not—those illegal ones amongst us.
We don’t like the idea of sending them away.
We see the tears and the torn families and our hearts become
empathetic and we just say “leave them alone and let them stay…”

But there are huge ramifications with such thinking.
And that is much of our trouble.
Staying only contributes to the already burgeoning burdens we’ve created.
There are simply not the funds, resources or abilities for such….

And so we have laws for a reason.
We try to have a lawful society.
It’s how order is kept.
It is how our society functions properly.

It may not always appear fair, but we have laws to protect ourselves
from ourselves.

People here illegally are just that, illegal.
No matter how much we love them or want them to stay they are illegal
and simply put,
there will always be repercussions for actions that are illegal.

There are laws and processes in place for those who wish to come here legally.
And for all those countless individuals who have done so, what a sham all of that
rigor now becomes as we are heard to now say
“let them all come and let them all stay.”

And what of our increasing burdens?
Those burdens that this stretched nation can no longer carry on under…
under the tremendous weight of resources that cannot and will not keep up…?

So whereas our hearts speak to the tears we see and the cries we hear…
our laws and our leaders, those who know that the laws are there for a reason…
laws which must be upheld despite all the seemingly unkind, unwelcoming,
uncompassionate byproducts and effects…they must be upheld for our own sakes.

And therefore we need leaders who can lead and who are willing to lead when
things become utterly difficult.
And right now, our times are just that, utterly difficult.

We don’t want nor do we need panderers.
We do not want nor do we need appeasers.
We do not want nor do we need those who care more about legacies,
numbers or even popularity…
Because being unpopular is often what is necessary.

But rather we want and need those who can say and do the more painful and unpopular aspects of leading despite the cost to self….
it’s what we need despite ourselves.

So whereas some leaders have been more preoccupied with self, others have not…
and yet how unkind it is that there are those who have had to pick up the pieces
left hiding by those who ignored the difficult and hard…

For truly good leaders understand the burden that is placed upon their shoulders.
Of which consists of protecting ourselves from ourselves…

So is our current president such a man?
At times it appears that he is…but only time will truly tell…
And what we can do in the meantime is to allow him his elected right to try.

Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
Isaiah 35:4

dubious

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers while the bad prevails.
Homer,
The Odyssey, Book VI, line 229. Pope’s translation

(a problematic flock of geese, Mackinaw City / Julie Cook / 2017)

Last night, as I was fast asleep,
with sleep being a relative term at this stage of age in my life,
my credit card mysteriously crawled out of my wallet and teleported itself
miraculously to Europe…
And of course with a few jaunts back and forth between the US, the UK and greater
Europe…all for good measure and long before I ever woke up.

It even made a stop in Luxembourg—

I’ve always wanted to visit Luxembourg.
I’m so glad one of us has gotten to go.

I discovered this near mythical adventure upon getting up this morning.

Bleary eyed from my usual tossing and turning, I stumbled into the kitchen to
start the coffee.
I picked up my phone and noticed a copious amount of messages regarding my
credit card.

Huh?

Rubbing my eyes and adjusting my glasses I grabbed my computer and pulled up
my email.

Sure enough…24 messages reporting suspicious activity on my card with
purchase after purchase being declined,
thank goodness…

A dollar here, a pound there and even a euro or two …
all of which was a dead trigger…

But then it became bold and went onwards and upward of $300 bucks to such places
as Domino’s pizza somewhere in Austria, some sort of FaceBook virtual store in Germany, nintendo of Europe, netflix somewhere in the UK….

As it seems as if my credit card was having a mid-life crisis and was attempting to
live someone’s youthful abandon all on another continent…
or perhaps in reality it was something more inline with sorry wonton
wastefulness….

I’ve ridden this merry go round before—seems like I just wrote a similar post..
but that was my debit card—this is now my credit card…
so we are officially 2 for 2.

And no, I don’t buy a lot nor do I order all that much on-line….

I called the nice folks at the credit card company.
She ran me through the gauntlet of security before I delivered my
tale of woe. And from her end, she could see just how busy my card had
been in its jet set ways.

She verified my last purchase—three books from Amazon…hummm I now wonder…
Next it was to all the latest 24 bizarre or so “traveling” purchases,
all of which had been declined, and were now seen for what they truly were—
stealing.

She canceled the card and has issued me a new one which will be arriving
post haste.

After we hung up, I continued receiving notifications that whomever was
out there playing me, hadn’t given up yet…
I don’t know, maybe it would take 30 tries before this idiot figured
declined meant declined.

For good measure I called the credit card company back letting them know I
was still receiving their fraud notifications—
of which they told me not to fret–
the card was no more and the notifications would stop when our rocket scientist
friend figured such out…as he, she, it would then most likely move on to the
next stolen card number…

In all the gallows humor here, there is a seriousness that really leaves me
angry because I loath those who steal…
particularly information, numbers and identities…
because if the truth be told, all of that is really lazy man stealing.

Sit on your arse as it were, hiding behind a computer screen,
trolling and taking….

Nice and neat, or so it would all appear.
No one is physically hurt.
Or so our arse sitting thieves would assume.

What’s a little free Dominos pizza somewhere in Austria or
some Facebook virtual-store crap in Luxembourg??
Or things I don’t even know of in New York???

So before I had even had my first sip of morning coffee, I was mad.

Like you, I try to live life as I would expect others to live theirs…
work, earn, pay….

But life is not easy like that.
Not everyone buys into doing the right things in life.

There are bad people, lazy people, violent people, bad lazy people,
bad lazy violent people…
People who would only sneer at my desire that we all do what is right
by one another.
Think psychopaths, think gangs, think MS13…

As in there are dubious and nefarious individuals who do not consider life
to be a gift, who do not hold love nor honor in their hearts and
who prefer only to serve a darker and more sinister side of life.

And as we now que those out there who will sing the song of lamentation
that this behavior is due to a poor childhood, a less fortunate history,
a lack of this or that, an unbroken cycle…….

The bottom line is choice.

A choice to do what is right and decent
or
a choice to do what is wrong and bad.

And it is those more sinister and heartless out there who scare me.

They scare me because they remind me that darkness continues to walk this earth.
That there is indeed a deep spiritual battle that rages all around us—
whether we are awake or asleep…it rages.

For despite my best efforts at keeping my little world nice and neat,
tidy and safe…
Satan and those who do his work, are busy.

We either choose to serve Light or we choose to serve darkness
It’s as simple as that.

Others would disagree.
There will be excuses…
There are things like victimhood…
and cycles, and disadvantage…
but in the end…
none of that matters because when we choose one over the other…
that choice is on us and us alone.

For no one is telling us which to choose…for the choice,
despite our circumstances is still up to us….
so perhaps then such poor choosing just makes us all victims does it not..?

A troublemaker and a villain,
who goes about with a corrupt mouth,
who winks maliciously with his eye,
signals with his feet
and motions with his fingers,
who plots evil with deceit in his heart—
he always stirs up conflict.
Therefore disaster will overtake him in an instant;
he will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.
There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Proverbs 6:12-19

Bear ye one another’s burdens

“It is easy to tell the toiler
How best he can carry his pack
But no one can rate a burden’s weight
Until it has been on his back”
― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

(memorial of St Christopher carrying the Christ Child dedicated to Willian Connor of the 1st Dublin Company, the Boy’s Brigade , located in St Patrick’s Cathedral / Dublin, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

In yesterday’s post I reflected on the abstract idea of thankfulness and gratitude—that sublime ability to feel and experience a personal and intrinsic sincere gratitude and thankfulness within ones life—Of which is just another piece of the puzzle to understanding the gaping divide between those associated with groups such as ISIS, Islamic or other militant groups set on death, mayhem and destruction.

And it should be noted that such a thought is not to be considered and taken as being overtly simple, idealistic or naive…as most would find such an observation exactly to be when comparing such violent groups quest for the general populace of whom seems to be their key target. It is but one small observation of the current state of turmoil which is circling around the world of the us and the thems…as it seems to be just one glaring missing component in one of the two divided camps—the true sense of joy, gratitude and thankfulness of simply living our lives that the majority of us feels verses the cold hearts of the thems…

And whereas it is easy to sit back with the countless numbers of officials and
powers-that-be who are currently grappling with figuring out / understanding the reasons and the whys—as in why are “they” so hell bent on causing misery, woe, mayhem, destruction and death for and to the rest of us…as in what is their angle, their desired end result…as don’t all groups who set out on some sort of quest have a desired end result…?

And as such thoughts have been coursing through our minds as of late, it is no doubt that we have all read or seen the story of the very sad and heinous tragedy that took place November 10th in Indiana—that of the young pregnant wife and mother…that the young, brightly smiling, beautiful young girl married to the young pastor who was the victim of a home invasion. She was raped then shot dead while her infant son was asleep in another room. As two others had gone to empty out the couples cash at an ATM. Not only was she victimized, brutally assaulted, raped and murdered but her unborn child was party to the brutality as well.
Two lives tragically, horribly, senselessly taken…

How are we to wrap our minds around such horrific events?

Yet we have not heard nor seen the sort of events as witnessed in other recent senseless tragedies following this such as…
National news teams have not descended upon this community.
No one has marched in protest.
No college football teams have refused to play.
No college presidents have resigned.
No police officers have been fired.
No cities looted, stormed or burned as a result.

An 18 year old boy was arrested yesterday, as two others are now being sought.

There will be those who will claim that these young men are victims as well, victims of a system that has marginalized them…
The same arguments will be raised that they are victims of race, socioeconomic positions, perhaps those from broken homes, or fatherless homes who never had the opportunities of others….
All of which–I simply refuse…I don’t buy such excuses….
For wrong is wrong and right is right and 99.9% of the time those who perpetuate such crimes are indeed aware of right and wrong—the caveat being that they simply don’t care…as their hearts are indeed cold—cold to life and cold to living, cold to justice and cold to Grace.

So rather than creating a resulting spinoff of chaos and madness as in the other recent events our country has witnessed, as if the death and loss are not chaos enough, this particular family and community are tragically left stunned and deeply hurting.

Anger is indeed the forefront resulting emotion when we face such horrors.
How could they?
How dare they?
Anger is our knee jerk reaction..

As now a young pastor and father is left to wonder, to wrestle, to question, to hurt, to ache and to grow numb…as he wrestles with his emotions…as he is left to raise his infant son alone…as he buries both his wife and unborn child.

How can a just God, a loving God, allow such…is the question we hear screaming in our heads.

And there is never a simple answer for such a question.

We live in a world of Light and Dark, Good and Bad, Holy and Evil

and we have been given a command…Bear ye one another’s burdens….

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Galatians6:7-10

Out of the darkness, has come a great Light

“…the people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”
Matthew 4:16

(entrence to the 9/11 memorial in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

The sound is almost overwhelming as the sickening thud of felled trees, one right after another, causes the entire earth to shake beneath my feet. The maddening buzz of saws fills the air as progress marches sadly forward on the property across the street. Once beautiful woods are now giving way to a muddy stubby mess as blue sky abruptly punctuates what was once a shadowy lush green canopy, all the while as worrisome thoughts of what is soon to be hangs heavy in the air.

Disconcerted and rattled with each crashing tree, my thoughts thankfully drift away, thousands of miles away across an expansive ocean, to a very different forest of trees.

Perched high on a hill overlooking the serene harbor of Kinsale, a colorful fishing town found on the southeastern coast of County Cork, Ireland, is an unassuming park. This park isn’t the sort of destination topping the list of must see places for those visiting Kinsale. Far from the shops, restaurants and fishing piers that make Kinsale a favorite stopping point for those visiting Ireland, rests a serene respite I was fortunate to visit.

We had spent the day driving around much of County Cork. We had visited the seaport town of Cobh which is steeped in history. It was in the city of Cobh which was most often the last piece of Ireland that many an Irish immigrant savored before setting sail for America during the infamous Irish potato famine. It is also in Cobh that the few remaining survivors, as well as the recovered bodies from the ill fated Lusitania, the passenger ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, were received following the sinking of the ship. Cobh is also the town in which the Titanic set sail on its tragic maiden voyage.

(a memorial to the victims of the Lusitania rests in the city center of Cobh, County Cork, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

Having spent the day stepping in and out of history as we enjoyed the idyllic coastal fishing villages around Ireland’s south easterly coast, we were ready to head on back to our hotel in Kinsale, to dinner and to calling it one more day rich in sights and wonders. But our driver and friend Paul had one more stop this day that he knew we needed to see and experience–this stop was to be much more current and personal in our lives as Americans then the sad exodus of immigrants or the tragic losses at sea.

Kathleen Cait Murphy was a local girl from Kinsale who spent forty years of her life living in New York working as a nurse. It was from her time working in New York that she both admired and befriended many a New York firefighter.

(remembrance to Kathleen Cait Murphy/ Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

Kathleen was a personal friend of firefighter chaplain Father Mychal Judge, who along with 343 fellow firefighters, lost his life on that fateful 11th day of September 2001.

Before her death in 2011, Kathleen envisioned a memorial to not only her friend Father Judge but to all the firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice that ill-fated beautiful blue sky September day in 2001.

(a small view of Kathleen’s memorial park / Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland /Julie Cook/ 2015)

Kathleen, with the help of family and friends, planted 343 trees, one for each fallen firefighter. The trees have now grown creating a forest of gratitude and love.
Each tree has a small marker with the name of a firefighter, his fire house and rank as well as an individual American Flag.

I stood in silence overwhelmed, as tears flowed freely down my cheeks, amazed and humbled by the image of the 343 American flags gently waving in the Irish breeze underneath a tiny forest of beautiful trees.

So often, as a traveler, I am on guard as I know that Americans are not alway looked upon favorably by others. Even our own Government has us feeling almost ashamed as to who we are as a Nation. Yet here on “foreign soil” as I stood awestruck, I was a tiny spectator of a poignant tribute to the very Country I call home as well as a tribute to a portion of her very brave and selfless sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice. I imagine those who visit Normandy feel very much the same, albeit on a grander scale than this, but humbling none the less.

It is because of such a tribute and memorial that we are allowed to turn our hearts…as we are gently reminded that we mustn’t hold on to the anger and hate, the rage and righteous indignation which so often fills our minds and hearts as we recall such a fateful day. Rather it must be to the hope and to the light cast from the sacred bond we share as human beings—It is because of these very humanistic qualities which make us more alike than different–those shared emotions of both joy and sorrow which bind us, unconditionally in love and to the shared respect we have for one another as human beings.

No, we will never forget that tragic September day which remains still very fresh in our minds and hearts, yet it is to the selflessness and compassion of Kathleen Cait Murphy that we may recall such sadness with a ray of hope, the bond of kindred spirits and a wellspring of gratitude that others share not only in our grief but in our hope as well…
Thank you Paul…

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
Isaiah 9:2

When life’s reflections, once far, become startling near

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

Canadian Goose afloat on the waters of the Boston Harbor / Julie Cook / 2014

This image is from a small portion of a memorial to the fallen soldiers of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq–upon stumbling on this makeshift courtyard memorial, just in the shadow of the historic North Church, I caught myself suddenly filling with an overwhelming feeling of emotion–the myriad of tags gave a startling and tangible image of what had been simply numbers—the massive amount of tags, which filled several wire filled walls, equalled suddenly and painfully lives, mostly young, which have seemingly needlessly come and gone—sons, daughters, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers. . .for a war on terror which only seems to be spiraling out of control.

These two images are from a power pole which is wrapped with a simple crochet reminder of the Boston Marathon Bombing. The crochet piece is wrapped around the power pole on the spot where the second explosion detonated. It has been lovingly placed by an individual in memory of one of the several victims of a senseless act of terrorism–on a simple side walk in front of a handful of restaurants on a single street in a massive city. Reminding us all that no matter where we may be, anything and everything can happen to change our world forever. May we be mindful that God has given us now. That is all we are promised. The next hour, the next day, the next week may bring life altering events beyond our comprehension and control—-it is today, at this very moment that we are to Rejoice and proclaim the Glory of God. For the God of all of Creation is Greater than any act of violence or evil which attempts to batter and beat our faith.

May we all remember that Love is indeed greater than hate.