She thanked me for the blessing today

My best friend ask me for a priesthood blessing on Memorial Day. We have struggled together these last few years. We struggle with our demons together. I received a short text from his wife. She thanked me for the blessing.  I felt inspired to write and send her this small poem.  I hope you enjoy it too.


She thanked me for the blessing today,
She, the one who believed not in god.
was it the one to her husband,
or the one she received today?
She thanked me for the blessing today

Memorial Day 2020 and the Coronavirus

This is Confederate Corner, a portion of Arlington National Cemetery set aside for the reburial of Confederate Soldiers. These men died believing they were defending their wives and homes and rights as American Citizens, life, liberty, and the right to choose their leaders.

Many of them believed in the southern cause, most just wanted to live and love and own their own homes and property. They thought they were defending themselves in a War of Northern Aggression. Arlington Nation Cemetery is built on Robert E. Lees Virginia plantation. This cemetery is built on land overlooking Washington D.C. on land his wife inherited from her grandfather George Washington. As a needful war measure it was seized by the Union Army at the start of the war to prevent it being used as a place to plant cannon overlooking The District of Columbia, and the nation’s capital. The Union Army began to bury its dead, first in the rose garden and then in the surrounding plantation, as a way to ensure the Lee’s could never again enjoy using their home. There were many court battles over the years, but the courts finally forced the Federal Government to purchase the land from Robert E. Lee’s Children. In the early 20th century a movement began to reconcile a nation, divided by the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression. One of these early movements was to raise funds to rebury The Confederate Dead in a place of honor at Arlington. Men in fox holes do not fight to defend their nation. They fight to defend men in foxholes, living beside them. We now live in a time of great division, like the nation was deeply divided before the War to Free the Slaves, as Lincoln lead the war to become. Can we now work to defend our homes and families? To defend them from this virus. We now live in foxholes, before this war we called them homes. We now work, and feed our families, and worship our God in our homes. As you remember to defend your neighbors in their foxholes, take a moment to think of Confederate Corner and let it give you the strength to help heal our land, today.