Still Within Your Grasp?

        

As I was going through my old blog and collection of short stories I had put together since 2011, I stumbled across this "observation" I had stored in the unpublished or draft section.  I think at some point I may have published it as one of my daily or occasional Facebook post, just not sure.  What caught my attention was the fact I had given this a title, so was it meant to be a daily post or a short story?  As I read this, I found I had collected my thoughts in a short story attempt around February 25, 2015.  Here we are in 2017, just a few days shy of Donald J. Trump's first 100 days as president, and the colors of this nation have never been more defined.  We are slightly more red than we are blue, defined as liberal/conservative, socialist/capitalist, non-believer/believer and I could go on and on.  Regardless, a very heavy disdain for one another exist among all of us that we presently acknowledge is as polarizing as North was to South.  Yes.  Do you remember studying that one in American History?  I'm pretty sure it happened, but there are those out there that want to say the holocaust did not occur.  Yes?   So, as to appease these voices of social unrest, we allow the monuments of this country's dark history to be destroyed or taken down for what ever asinine reason any of us today were never exposed to.  Why are they not looked upon as a reminder that this part of our history united us once again as a country blessed by God Almighty as our fledging Republic threw off the bonds of slavery as an example for the entire world?  So let us fast forward 152 years and what say ye today as once again storm clouds gather posing another threat that may re-define our nations legacy?  As my ramblings below reflect, you, as did I probably remained silent up until now.  We did silently chose a side as our vote firmly spoke to those that opposed our core beliefs.  So here we are.  It is time to walk the walk and talk the talk and see if God will allow us to Make America Great Again.  So this is where my collection of thoughts were spilled for review in ASCII format.

     STILL WITHIN YOUR GRASP?

It was a cold, somewhat icy predawn at my river this morning.  Several things crossed my mind as I noticed my river was giving off tendrils of foggy tags reminding me the ambient temperature was colder than the water itself.  Scratched my head as my mind wandered off to Jackson, MS, all the way through Vicksburg, Monroe, Shreveport to Arlington, TX.  I was just thinking of people in my past, present, and forever memory and how they were dealing with this late February icy mess.  As I sat down in my office and brought up the internet to go over my news sources, Fox News and Facebook, the following picture hovered conspicuously on a friend's wall, imprinting into my mind.  Let me see if I can share with you my thoughts as I looked, looked again, and simply could not shake the following posted script: 


Things that I treasure that you do not mess with?   Well, that resonated quite well with me and I felt like I could share that with everyone on my wall.  However, for some reason it kept bouncing off short circuited intersections in my limited mental resources, and I could not help but think out loud. Let's start with the first thing of mine you should never mess with.

MY FAITH:  Has nothing to do with Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or any other spiritual concoction spawned in the mind of man.  My Faith is within me and consists of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit.  My Faith: I believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob created this world and put everything in it for MY pleasure, for me to have dominion over.  The only thing put on this earth for HIS pleasure was you and me.  We, people, were created by God for us to Worship Him, ultimately, for HIS pleasure.  Except now, we are being told our faith is substandard and only the ISLAMIC doctrine will be tolerated as an acceptable form of faith.  What?  Oh yes...  It's happening, right now on every news source we have.  And we remain surprisingly silent so as not to offend anyone while the proponents of Allah allow the slaughter of any other faith but Islam!  Yes, it IS happening!  Shut the hell up if you are that stupid!

MY FAMILY:  If you are my age (64) or there about, your roots runs similarly parallel to mine.  I think sociologists coined it the "nuclear family" somewhere back?  The Father, Mother, Children (how ever many we wanted), and toss in any number of dogs, cats, gerbils, lizards and an occasional pet rock? Wonder where this family model was first established?   Fast forward one 50 year span of time.  Heather now has two mothers and the father is simply referred to as my baby's daddy!  Its ok.  I found myself in my early adult years trying to liberalize my world by redefining religious guidelines and social mores and ended up trying to float a blended family.  On rare occasions it has been known to work, but usually it deteriorates along with the passage of time because that FAITH thing has obviously been so distorted.  Nah, it wouldn't have a thing to do with rock and roll or country music, television, Hollywood, or may the God I referred to earlier forbid, the unionized school systems.  Why don't you just tell me how effective that government modeled institution is to our youth today as "common core" is being forced down our throats!!   Oh, and please go ahead and worship as quietly as you can now, Church or organized religion, before Islam burns you to the ground.  Yup... We remain silent as that institution a long with education, slips into history to be distorted like everything else we once held dear.

MY GUNS:  Oh yes...  Guaranteed by the Constitution of the NEWNITED SKATES.  Inalienable rights, correct?  As John Adams stated many years ago, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  Without faith, family and moral values, those inalienable rights are now not so "alien."  We have them, sure, or do we?  We have sat back as a civilized society and allowed "laws" to restrict the use of such tools as they were designed to be used.  For crying out loud, do not go there with me!  In the hands of an honest and moral people firearms, will balance and persevere over those that do not know better.  For the first time in my LIFE, the very Constitution that everyone elected by a free society, raises their right hand to PROTECT from enemies FOREIGN and DOMESTIC is being attacked!!  Not just the second amendment, but the first, as well as the other 24 are under attack by the very government it was Divinely designed to protect us from!  Many of our elected officials draw encouragement from the bastions of liberal academia and would like to see nothing more than all 26 amendments   destroyed and reconstituted along socialist lines of thought.  YES!!!  This is where YOUR KIDS are going to COLLEGE!!!  Open your eyes and in the mean time, realize just how safe and secure you are because your daddy's, daddy's guns are in your closet?  Don't worry.  If your are wondering about the 27th amendment?  It was repealed.   Prohibition, remember?  At least now when they undo the other 26 "inalienable rights," we can all get drunk and not think about them Democrats and Republicans that we sent to Washingmachine, DC to represent us.  Still alarmingly quiet, don't you think?

MY FLAG:  Oh my word.  Our flag... No doubt that will not be trifled with!  Love the song by Johnny Cash, "That Ragged old Flag," where he says "the Native American Indian, the yellow, black and white men and women shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes!"  The blue Field of Honor with each state represented in pristine white stars as a symbol of us being UNITED!  But yet everywhere we look, there appears holes in the melting pot that was once America.  Flags from different nations pop up indiscriminately where ever those that choose NOT to be American stick them.  Even the Glory of this very nation has come under attack when some veteran wants to fly that Grand Old Flag  from his porch and some "neighborhood association" says it is NOW OFFENSIVE, therefore PROHIBITED!!! What??  Oh yes...  Shut up and call me a liar!  And that is exactly what we all do.  We shut up and remain silent to be politically correct as not to disturb the sinking ship we do not even realize we are existing in.

MY COUNTRY:  Many that know me have heard me share this from The Statue of Liberty:  Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free!  The invitation to become a part of One Nation Under God!  And because of the promise of the Constitution guaranteeing them Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, they came from different cultures, languages, attitudes, and beliefs.  Because this country was BLESSED by God Almighty, these people immigrated legally to the United States of America and gave up their native language and adopted our language.  They believed in this Country so much they gave their sons and daughters in war after war and two world wars to solidify their commitment to this republic!  Here we are today, asking the very God who once blessed us as a nation to step aside and let US govern ourselves.  Somewhere in the old testament, did not God's chosen people demand a king?  You know, like they didn't need Him?  Oh yes, for the indifferent amongst us, history does repeat itself.  If you are capable, observe what has happened to those once favored people we called the Israelites.  This is going to happen to this once great nation!  Our leadership continues to apologize to other Nations for who and what we are as we allow ourselves to become like the rest of the world.  We are becoming less of a guiding light, and more of a dim reflection of what we once were.  Now just A Nation, Without God, Divided without Liberty and Justice only for a Chosen few?  Go ahead.  Get angry...  lay across the bed and try to zip up those pants you wore last year!  That zipper ain't gonna lie, is it? 

MY LIBERTY:   Yes, we still have it.  Conditionally.  And we are still comfortable despite the constant erosion of "our liberties" as we once knew them.  What, you might be asking? Try putting your kids in any public school you want even if it is across the street from your house.  Wear an open carry firearm into the post office or better yet, walk into a police department asking for an accident report wearing one.  Oh my word, yank up one of your children and blister that backside because you just watched them spit in the face of one of their brothers, sisters, cousins or a friend of theirs from next door.  Don't you dare chastise someone else's child and be sure your vocabulary is politically correct!  Do you still pray in a public restaurant?  You probably quit that somewhere along the way and if you haven't, just give it a little more time.  Some Muslim or agnostic leaning carbon life form will complain and that will stop too, eventually.  And next time you pass by your local police department, smile when you see that huge MRAP or Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier sitting there.   Seriously, why exactly is it sitting there now?  And just how long will we sit here and be silent when a white, United Nations Vehicle occupied by folks with blue helmets start telling us just Exactly what we can, cannot, and will not do.  Today, I can drive across the Mississippi Bridge into that great sister state without restriction.  But what does my tomorrow really hold? 

          So as we beat our chest, exalt in our possessions and social standings, take the time to remember that with time, everything erodes.  Including those things you think are inalienably yours.  Think about it.