Just Let Me -- G -- Indoctrinate You!

Thursday, May 26, 2016

It's a Day to Pray Unceasing Thing

Dear America,

so really, we haven't talked about the whole trans/bathroom thing...
and really, don't really want to start.  really.
  

However -- let's take a leap of faith together and get through it, shall we?  And even having said that, I giggle...for we have not enough time in the day to actually get through it, right.  We just might very well get right smack in the middle of it, and get stuck, not knowing which direction to turn or quite truthfully, have half a chance of getting to the end of the discussion.  But let's just talk about it for a wee bit and see where we go.

Let's begin with taking a look at one approach --  a group of OKLAHOMA republican lawmakers are


And that's where I was, exactly, when everything came to a screeching halt...
that's as far as I got before my computer was assaulted, violated in every way,  and begged for mercy...
that, and the Geek Squad.

IT took days for them to get rid of it.  Days!  And you can only imagine how truly important a day is around here, where just a girl aims to carry on about a day in the life in America with reasonable continuity and amor patriae ante meridiem.  (That's love of country sometime before noon).

So whatever, right.
Here we are, on this day, now May 26th and it's a Thursday -- one of my favorite days of the week.

And given me thinks it's best to finish a thought before starting a new one, let's do it.

In Oklahoma,  yes -- indeed -- that Oklahoma -- where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains, a group of state lawmakers are seeking to impeach President Obama over the White House "directive" to allow transgender students to choose the bathroom/locker room of gender identity.  As well, they "introduced a separate measure that would allow students to use religious grounds to have separate but equal bathrooms to segregate them from transgender students."

This is good.  It is being honorable and equally fair to the students now feeling rather disenfranchised of their natural gender rights to privacy.

And yet, in my humble opinion, would it not be a time to consider something even bigger for once and for all?   Why does the Left get everything they want while the right gets nothing?

Let's go one step further.

How about we go back to the egg, so to speak -- if only to balance the scales of power and it's effects upon cultural transformation....because that is exactly what this "directive" handed down from on high, the president, is all about.

Every conservative -- and every American of faith, any faith -- must demand another "directive" (the same kind held to the terms, kinda like a blackmail, of the federal education funds).  This directive should call for a Moment of Silence in every classroom, every day, in a return of honor of the Divine (or not; the choice is yours! as they say, how grand!).

It's just a Moment of Silence, and whether the student uses it for prayer or a minute of reckless, rudderless, empty thought that is attached to nothing; it is purely independent, individual choice returning to it's rightful place.  A Moment of Silence can be endorsed by the whole  without endorsing the Source of all Good, by leaving that decision -- the free exercise thereof! -- fully elective.  Not only that, the moment itself is entirely gender-free to be... irrelevant, really.  How beautiful is that?!

If the Left wants this, the right wants that....even steven.   Every time the Left asks for something, the Right should make a deal in return.  Fair is fair, right?!

What amazes me though -- given the width and breadth of the limitless capacity to change America via Leftist Ideals -- is the endless supply of hypocrisy, apple to apple.

So on the one hand, the Left is determined to protect the Transgender's right to choose by how they feel, in accordance to the gender inside, with opening the door to a mix and match approach in the public arena; and yet, when it comes to being an ILLEGAL and transgender -- the Left protects the Transgender, giving them  a safe place to be detained and fully separated, segregated even!


Preferential treatment.  Their own facility.  And actually -- it is a special facility for the entire community of Gays, Lesbians,  Bi-Sexual  and Transgender.  Oh the shame!

And don't let a little thing like hormone therapy stop the madness -- let freedom ring!

“With respect to treatment while in detention – the medical care standard – the standards guarantee a right to hormone therapy for individuals who need it for treatment,” Landy continued, “and even in facilities that are not covered by that standard.”  

That is ICE official, Kevin Landy, confirming the existential reality -- a Los Angeles Detainee center exists for the express purpose of the LGBT community, catering to their every whim, no holds barred. Catering seems to be the perfect fit, no?  In every liberal sense of the word, even the sensational and provocative, the American taxpayer is being taken advantage of, beginning with the erosion of American sovereignty at the border and continuing through the perverse actions of an administration hellbent on bringing America to her knees.  

Welcome to America in a new age -- the age of existential threat by transformation.  It's everywhere and our new reality.

And no matter now, but shocking is the age of the article itself -- found on Western Journalism and posted by B. Christopher Agee; it date backs over a year.  Who knew?

So if a separate facility is not only good enough -- but required, actually --  after personal assessment of the needs and vulnerabilities of the lowly illegal immigrant and card carrying member of the LGBT community, who after crossing the border illegally -- BREAKING the LAW -- is eventually detained in one of these facilities catering to their every need and fancy........just why isn't a separate bathroom and locker room good enough in our public schools?  In public offices?  And what not?   No mess, no fuss.

Apples to apples, the Left is treating the LGBT community with pure agenda-driven discretion.  It's all about two terms, multiple personalities and agendas, summing up one transformation.

For the purpose of articulating just what that is -- let's go to a comment from Tim Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association:

These people, led politically by President Barack Obama and his administration, are basically at war with 1) traditional Americans, 2) the Judeo-Christian value system, 3) common sense, and 4) millennia of history. Progressivism is a worldview fundamentally based on the philosophy of humanism. Humanism is based on atheism or agnosticism. That is to say, there is no God to govern the individual or the community on planet Earth. Or, if there is a God, He has no concern for human affairs. Therefore, it is up to humans to make our own rules for life. And we make those rules up as we go along. 


It explains so much in no uncertain terms.

The cultural mores and values of America were born in a day beholden to the Divine Providence that made us -- the Creator being an Absolute.  The progressives continue to whittle away at our foundation for they realize that without one, nothing stands.  And when nothing stands, transformation has ample room -- an entire country, really -- to remake itself.

The thing is, can we agree that a body needs a right hand just as much a left?

This is why our government, according to original intent, was designed to limit the power of the government, in order to preserve the peace and power of the people, the governed.


It's time to put our hands together and pray for an answer more suitable to the betterment of the whole, whatever that may be; reckless edicts, "directives,"  federal guidance tied to federal funds, handed down from a president, not only characterizes an abuse of power, it is unconstitutional.  And needless to say, it is just not right.

Make it a Good Day, G



Tuesday, May 17, 2016

It's Me Making Magic with my Maker Thing

Dear America,

Happiness 
is an activity 
of the soul 
that expresses complete virtue. 

Aristotle, 
Nichomachean Ethics

...and it expresses this complete virtue,
through our own actions day in and day out...ultimately cultivated over a lifetime.

And to that end, this end result -- this happiness -- can only be fully recognized when we are done, finished, having come to the end of our now complete life.  Taking this long look back, we can then ask ourselves, what did this virtuous life thing bring?  Was it worth every do-good-er thing and thought -- completely tethered to a higher purpose and purity of moral responsibility, of course -- for the greater good of one and all?  How did we benefit? How did society benefit?
“As far as its name goes, most people virtually agree [about what the good is], since both the many and the cultivated call it happiness, and suppose that living well and doing well are the same as being happy. But they disagree about what happiness is, and the many do not give the same answer as the wise.” NE 1095a17-21

Granted -- this thing called happiness comes and goes in life.  It fluctuates -- within the day, even an hour, over many moons and years.  One minute we may be jumping for joy, and the next in tears.  As any reasonably intelligent human being may divine and conclude, our days are inconsistent, at best. 
  
It often feels fleeting, this happiness; and yet, sometimes, this happiness engulfs us, as if it takes over every cell of our being and overfloweth in delight.  And what we find -- really, discover in ourselves --  is that this true happiness is much more than a feeling.  It's more like a deep satisfaction, a gift from our Maker, a sensation affirming our unique reason for being is in our grasp, or at the very least, awfully close.

But the thing is -- this making of happiness -- depends solely upon ourselves.  Here's a lovely page to read for more on that...

and while all this is being said just to begin a day,  all there is to add is, oh wow... giddy up, girl...

I love how people are chatting about the Hillsdale Commencement ceremony for the 164th graduating class, featuring the great, the wonderful, the rather quiet soul that sits upon the bench of the highest seat of justice in the land, the Supreme Court --  the Honorable Clarence Thomas.

Being on the Imprimis [in the first place] mailing list, a monthly Hillsdale publication -- a weekend alert to watch the whole affair, complete with a live stream, did not go unheeded.  What a joyful thing, I thought.  

But lo and behold,  what began as a splendid idea, turned into a whirlwind of emotion, totally unsuspected.  

Now, perhaps the tears were just from exhaustion.  Perhaps the release was all the live long week, rocked with all the usual suspects of petty ups and downs and running ragged finally coming into their own, and feeling rather entitled, celebrating a chance to come to a flourishing finish...who really knows what it was, or where it came, or where it went when it was all done with me, right?  What goes up must come down.

I just couldn't stop crying.

It was as if I was trying to feel every word; taking everything to heart and becoming completely overcome, this neat little care package via the magic of apple and enjoining all things Americana, collegiate, our origins, and the great hope of our future was brought to my door -- the entire world, really -- bearing the gift of new life.  As in, what is truly old is obviously the new new.  Can I get a witness?

Larry P. Arnn, the twelfth president of Hillsdale College, opened the ceremony defining the "age old activity" of learning and its benefits (and paraphrasing as best I can,  I will try to be quick about it....tee hee):

  1.  the activity itself, to learn, is joyful; the stuff humanity is made for, and of, to become more like our Maker
  2. freedom -- for the learned soul cannot be enslaved
  3. for the improvement of character...brave, moderate, and just
  4. to enrich the connection with God, this being especially true at Hillsdale and an attribute required of gaining a complete education.  A connection with God is highly supported, encouraged, and even favored, while believing the right for everyone to worship as you please.
Now much of the message from Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas may be easily described as going by way of The Golden Rule, in both natural law and life.  Highlighting things his grandfather taught him [being almost entirely raised by his grandparents], Thomas said things like this, 'if we didn't work, we didn't eat; what we don't plant, we don't grow'...'lead by example'...'love thy neighbor as thyself'...'right is right'....these are the ideas a young Thomas was fed as a boy.  And just look at how he turned out...

He also reminded us of the words of President Kennedy, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."  indeed

Thomas continued making his remarks and his beliefs UNapologetically made known, including telling a short tale of the modern age, and making up an instance based on a What If....And basically proposed, what if spring breakers returned fully exhausted from their reveling demanding the redistribution of grades with the students who stayed, studied, and got their fair share of an A, well deserved?  What kind of an injustice that would be, right?

Indeed, and all to make a point -- "if we continue to consume the benefits of a free society without making deposits...we will run out of other people's sacrifices..." 

 "Today, of course, there is much more focus on our rights as citizens and what we are owed...
It is not often that one hears of our obligation or our duties as citizens, unless of course there's talk of our duty to submit to yet another new policy being suggested or proposed...
At the risk of understating what is necessary to preserve liberty and our form of government, I think more and more that it depends on good citizens, discharging their daily duties and their daily obligations..
In addressing your own obligations and responsibilities in the right way, you actually help to ensure our liberties and our form of government."
this is how America was designed to work, literally.

We gave of ourselves, freely, in the support of liberty for all, by 'addressing our own obligations and responsibilities in the right way' dutifully -- we did not ask anything from town and country, but ultimately benefited town and country through living and working a virtuous and good life all the way around.  We were raised not to take from America, but give; and in turn, as luck and values and virtues work, we learned to benefit in the living of a complete and happy life, more or less.

It was duty and delight coming in contact with one another and making magic, imprimis.

Oh my word, I just found a new website!  It's called The Art of Manliness!  This link actually takes you to a wonderful post on Latin Words and Phrases Every Man Should Know.  It's just fabulous!  And ironically, it is written by a Brett and Kate McKay, so you can just stop the hate mongering, k.

The motto of Hillsdale, Virtus tentamine gaudet -- strength rejoices in the challenge -- is what brought me to the pages of manliness, for in my feeble attempt of taking notes during the commencement ceremony, my tee's were not crossed and my i's were not dotted, and that led me all over the place for just a wee bit, and mostly just for kicks. but surely, I digress.

Strength may indeed rejoice in the challenge, for this sort of rapture only comes with perspective.  What value is there if all things are just handed out like participant trophies for everybody?  Satisfaction comes, happiness comes, and perhaps can only come,  after we have met the challenges of working hard at something, for something.  Perhaps a Bachelor of Science or Philosophy ir something... 
“Each function is completed well 
when its completion expresses
 the proper virtue. 
Therefore the human good
 turns out to be the soul’s activity
 that expresses virtue.” 
Aristotle, NE 1098a15-17

“[V]irtue of character 
is concerned with pleasures and pains. 
For it is pleasure that causes 
us to do base actions, 
and pain that causes
 us to abstain from fine ones.
 Hence we need to have had 
the appropriate upbringing—
right from early youth, as Plato says—
to make us find enjoyment 
or pain in the right things; 
for this is the correct education.” 
Aristotle, NE 11049-13

PUT GOOD IN, GET GOOD OUT!

“[N]either virtues nor vices are feelings.” 
Aristotle, NE 1105b29

No matter how we feel today, tomorrow, yesterday -- we must recognize the big picture and  all that is truly divine in the making of a day.  The Law works in equal portion for everyone, if we dare ask, align and agree to the terms, working with IT! -- the Universe says yes when we move our own two feet.

A simple day, the making of a life -- happy or sad -- it is ours to make or throw away, whether steeped in ignorance or knowledge.  It just is.   Enough with how we feel; let's get back to what we do!

And one thing's for sure, things are generally dulcius ex asperius...sweeter after difficulties.

and then of course, there's this:

flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo
...if I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.  hehehe   
[This phrase being perfectly embodied by Winston Churchill, right?]  
But as the Age of Manliness duly notes, it happens to be a phrase from Virgil's Aeneid...and just one more silly Latin thing this girl learned in a day...bon appetit (yeah, that is French....so?)

Gloria in excelsis Deo

and to think...you get all of this delight pro bono.  badump ba.

and now that you have arrived at the end of a day,  here's looking at you, kids.

This day is finished -- and as it ever was, where it stops nobody knows... it turned into a day in total, complete praise -- as in, magna cum laude to the max -- of Hillsdale College, Clarence Thomas, Aristotle...and me making magic with my Maker. amen.  It's just what we do in America, one day at a time...As Clarence Thomas declared, we began as a "flawed nation" but it IS our "last great hope."

semper fidelis,
Make it a Good Day, G

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

It's Radicals without Rules Thing

Dear America,

"I WILL NOT SAY 
THAT YOUR MULBERRY-TREES 
ARE DEAD.  
BUT I AM AFRAID 
THAT THEY ARE 
NOT ALIVE." 
 in a letter of Jane Austen

there is a commercial that proclaims somewhat the obvious, making a short quip linking modern day drama and age old common sense  -- 'the issues that you don't tackle, tackle you.'  and don't even ask me if I can remember what the ad is for...that escapes me, lost in a sea of better things to remember bobbing to the surface and drowned for all of eternity -- or at the very least, until I see it again, maybe tomorrow.


One thing (out of many!) that is rather magnificent about life, is that eventually we become someone that wasn't born yesterday.  With a little bit of luck and by the Grace of God, we grow up.  We begin to see things before they happen, plan for things unexpected, and learn to guard ourselves against the plethora of evils that may or may not come our way.  Things like, taking the car in at the first hint of a rattle unknown, a condition unsound, and anything else that makes our intuition go hmmmmmmmmm... 
what is that, pray tell?

We learn that some things, we just can't ignore.

Welcome to middle age, G, so glad you are here (and isn't it lovely, timely even, that you have taken up crochet...as the universe giggles from it's belly, fathoms deep, and laughs). 

At about the midway point of Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky (as if you didn't know that already), we are sent on quite the voyage of enlightenment from the experience of a leftist's travels, and come the chapter entitled, "The Education of an Organizer,"  we glean a sense of the elaborate plan we are living right smack in the middle of today.

Just love this part (not really), reveling in an organizer's understanding of how the world operates, when Alinsky gives us this:  "Essentially, life is a tragedy; and the converse of a tragedy is a comedy.  One can change a few lines in a Greek tragedy and it becomes a comedy, and vice versa."

wait, there's more...

"A sense of humor enables him to maintain his perspective and see himself for what he really is: a bit of dust that burns for a fleeting second.  A sense of humor is incompatible with the complete acceptance of any dogma, any religious, political, or economic prescription for salvation.  It synthesizes with curiosity, irreverence, and imagination.  The organizer has a personal identity of his own that cannot be lost by absorption or acceptance of any kind of group discipline or organization,  I now begin to understand what I stated somewhat intuitively in Reveille for Radicals almost twenty years ago, that 'the organizer in order to be part of all can be part of none.'"

wow.  pretty deep, huh.

Going even deeper, understand that this is how Obama was made, almost from the very instant his itty bitty 'bit of dust' was conceived, birthed and given a name -- Barack Hussein Obama.  His destiny came rolling in to meet him, making quite sure his blend of being white and black, Christian and Muslim, growing up alongside an education and experience combining a hybrid of Marxism...
Capitalism...
Environmentalism...
Revolution-ism...
and thoroughly evolving over the years into what we see now as Globalism,  a conglomerate of a brand spanking new mad, mad world of a certain and highly organized proportion.

What began as one man's son, grew up into the man we see sitting in the Oval Office, community organizer and all --  rather, a beautiful specimen, a shell, of that which is part of all and none.  it's a miracle, really.  how lucky can one man be?

and don't get me wrong...similar, but different, arguments can be made right about now of Donald John Silly Putty Trump.  he has organized himself to be just about anything we want him to be, and more.  just my opinion, eyes wide shut, alright.

Alinsky continues, "[W]hat keeps him going is a blurred vision of a great mural where other artists -- organizers -- are painting their bits, and each piece is essential to the total."

But not likely winning high marks for motivation -- when we hear a little something go a little something like this:  "That's a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realize they've been lucky.  That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude "

now,
on it's own, this is a very unfortunate phrase..."it wasn't nothing you did," he said.

If only he outlined the truth back behind keeping that lucky duck afloat, and just maybe getting everything he wants (or close to it) -- for old Chinese proverb says, good luck is preparedness meeting up with opportunity.  quack quack that ain't no jack

At what cost, true cost, comes with all that preparedness?  hmmmm the world may never know that answer; for that story is different for each and every one of us times e pluribus unum times 300 million times seven billion times the power of one or all or no one.

 And really, are you really going down the road that says God is blessing some people and not others -- "that God may have blessed them; it wasn't nothing you did?"  Seriously?

Attention Howard U and everyone else who cares to listen:  You know that little tick deep down inside you that makes you do something -- everything from your homework, to showing up in life for yourself and quite possibly a family, and just maybe, from time to time, even take the car in for service  -- that little birdie is God making you do the work!  Tick Tock time to rock.   It's called preparedness for all good things that may OR may not come your way!

God gave us free will to do with whatever we please; jokes on you if you don't get it.

But this Howard University commencement speech -- it displays just how blended, like a whirlpool, this president really is.  Here, read it for yourself, right now.  In some ways, it's the greatest speech I have ever heard; and then again, it's not.

Let's look at what Obama said just before and just after the little luck bit, shall we?

...We can’t meet the world with a sense of entitlement. We can’t walk by a homeless man without asking why a society as wealthy as ours allows that state of affairs to occur. We can’t just lock up a low-level dealer without asking why this boy, barely out of childhood, felt he had no other options. We have cousins and uncles and brothers and sisters who we remember were just as smart and just as talented as we were, but somehow got ground down by structures that are unfair and unjust.

And that means we have to not only question the world as it is, and stand up for those African Americans who haven’t been so lucky -- because, yes, you've worked hard, but you've also been lucky. That's a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realize they've been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude. But we must expand our moral imaginations to understand and empathize with all people who are struggling, not just black folks who are struggling -- the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender person, and yes, the middle-aged white guy who you may think has all the advantages, but over the last several decades has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change, and feels powerless to stop it. You got to get in his head, too.

isn't it amazing...
how this guy operates...
blending things and agendas together like an island of mismatched socks and broken toys.

But then, quickly,  he kicks in a community organizing rule to snap the audience out of its self-inflicted doldrums:

Number three: You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I'll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes.

aw this man manufactures magnificent magic, doesn't he?

what a masterpiece.  in all of its confusion, bit by bit, the abstract becomes modern day brilliance.

the thing is --

and this may seem like it is coming out of nowhere, as in left field, like a wicked storm, whatever...

but looking at my republican party, the GOP, the land that conservatives frolic and play -- we have been out-skippered for so long, not only can we not see dry land, we can't see anything close to a horizon; we are being bombarded from every side and taking on water.  What was once a fine schooner reveling in and of itself, and, its common sense approach to life and liberty, is now tattered, torn asunder, almost like something has died, or at the very least, is very much not alive nor well.

The radicals really don't follow the rules at all.  They are pirates.


and this is just another sad sad day in a mad mad world

Make it a Good Day, G


Thursday, May 5, 2016

It's a Public Thing

Dear America,

WE DON'T HIDE CRAZY 
WE JUST PUT IT 
ON THE FRONT PORCH 
AND GIVE IT A DRINK

so in this context, how about we just pause for a wee bit and use a modicum of caution from here on out, shall we?

... it's only been a day, and already alarms are ringing, dogs are barking, and heads are spinning.

Welcome to making America great again, whatever that really means.

He's now, “open to doing something with” [minimum wage...per a conversation with Wolf just yesterday!] .... “I’m actually very different from most Republicans,” he adds.

Really?!
can someone please direct this dude to some fundamentals of keeping and respecting and managing a limited government?

This is crazy --  for how can any true conservative entertain the thought of playing with free enterprise as if it's a reality show challenge?

NO, Mr. Trump -- conservatives are NOT open to doing something with the minimum wage.  And having said that, please tell me you understand why, or do we have to send you back to the drawing board?   Is this really how you answer to the threat of the rise of Bernin' Love and his 'creed of ignorance' -- not to mention the 'inherent virtue of the equal sharing of misery'?  And that smattering against the building blocks of socialism, my friends, is duly noted, in part,  from the plethora of Winston Churchill-isms that continue to enlighten the world (that is, if you are into that sort of thing, of course).

Flashback -- 
It was only last fall when every GOP candidate came together to agree on something along the dotted lines of a minimum wage hike.  And the answer: a resounding NO.   At the time, circa November 2015, Trump even made the point that "our wages are too high."  

 huh.   

And Rubio said this:“If you raise the minimum wage you’re going to make people more expensive than a machine."

The thing is, there is absolutely no comfort aligning with a candidate who flips on issues, especially the easy ones; it's got legs like a rabid dog off his leash and makes cray cray look like a field day.



just letting it all spill today

there is no time to edit

Whoa.  Wait a minute.  Scratch that, and allow me do a back flip.  Nevermind what I just said, there is a time for everything, right?  

This is a time of venting; the time of venting comes just after a time of boiling (you know, given the level of steam bottled up with a destiny to blow).  And while I was well on my way to crazy town with the events of this wacky primary season, this girl came to a rolling boil upon the declaration of the "presumptive nominee Trump" on Tuesday night.  I mean, maybe not like Mark Livid Levin, or GlenLivid Beck, but it was pretty close... Right, Nate?

So, Dear Mr. Trump -- 
we can't continue like this, okay?   
I beg of you!  Figure this out!  Get your head in the game and understand what you are saying each and every time you open your big bad-ass mouth.   Ask yourself -- does this align with the conservative country principles of which I say I am ideologically in cahoots with, and pragmatically willing to use as a jumping off point, or not? 

And Read THINGS.  Read good things about how this country was made and understand the difference between left and right.  It's really that simple.  Really. 
And above all --  please don't make The Right regret this. The American people of the Grand Old Party could have picked any of the seventeen, but in the end -- by the process of elimination, mind you -- landed on you with a kind of dumb luck nobody saw coming.
 How crazy is that?
May you heel, heed, to everything this means for the future of this Republic. [And here's a great video to explain what it means to be a republic].
 God Speed and God Bless, G
 so that's my day and i'm stickin' to it

there's more to say, indeed,
but lucky for you, this is where I leave you.
sit.
good dog.

Make it a Good Day, G


Tuesday, May 3, 2016

It's How a Garden Grows Thing

Dear America,

so this morning, an old Persian Proverb happened to hang over the edge of my tea cup, and it said:

"He who wants a rose must respect the thorn."

and it made me giggle.

Whether we are venturing to gain the highest office of the land, or perhaps gain anything of any real value -- part and parcel of the process is intimately rooted in the integrity of our actions, the painstaking patience required to cultivate growth, guard against a slew of nefarious forces, all in order to ultimately prevail and pluck the award-winning rose.  But just maybe, more than anything else, as we metaphorically mosey picking posies all the live long day --  we must be mindful of the relationships we keep....friend or foe.

But oh, to collect a few roses along the way, what splendor!  The fragrance of satisfaction can fill a room.   Something good has come along....and it was so worth it.

And along that same vein -- given the width and breadth of human experience and environment -- to bloom wherever planted becomes an internal struggle of Darwinian proportion, as every virtue and vice is illumined, a possible rise or fall is eminent at every rising sun,  and from bud to blossom we fight for our life, calling for great courage and strength, as well as a great deal of guidance from above and below. 

The thing is, as this girl struggles to even listen to the ridiculous presidential primary potshots back and forth, observes protesters blocking the streets to free speech, and finds her heart simply breaking over children dropping f-bombs against a candidate, Trump, and yelling during a Cruz stop, "you suck" -- the outlook of America's future is disconcerting, dismal even, if this is the stuff  we are made of right now.

Does everything have come at the level of tabloid fodder nowadays --  or can we just stop, and ponder perhaps, just how all this looks to any old passerby, whether they come from the left or the right.

The garden needs a little help.

it's a sad day, really.
and it makes me cry.
America is in weeping, along with the willows and the birds and the bees, from the roses in the west to the lily of the valley in the east.

But let's not end on that note....yin meet yang...

My girl is coming home today -- officially, now a junior in college (yippy skippy!); and unofficially -- someone brand new.  It won't be long, and she will bounce through the door having grown into herself just a wee bit more.  [And it's kinda funny...as it feels like I almost have nothing to do with it anymore...tee hee.  Key word: almost]

All I want to do is plant her somewhere for a spell, and breathe her; all I want to do is look at her, admire her natural peacefulness that becomes her, and wait.  Eventually, the stories will come, the quiet will be replaced with tales of everything under the sun.  And both her garden and mine will find the rapture of blooming, together.

Make it a Good Day, G