William James on Faith

Now, there is one element of our active nature which the Christian religion has emphatically recognized, but which philosophers as a rule have with great insincerity tried to huddle out of sight in their pretension to found systems of absolute certainty.  ... 

..... I mean the element of faith.  Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible; ...

...and as the test of belief is willingness to act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance. ...

... It is in fact the same moral quality which we call courage in practical affairs; 

William James, "The Will to Believe"

On being an Obama Lover

To all of those who cannot seam to disagree without being disagreeable.  Black and white or blue and gray or red and blue thinking is by its nature polarizing.  

Polarizing thinking has lead to a civil war and race riots and the  murder of a civil rights leader and even the assassination of a presidential candidate.

 "For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep,

pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart,

until, in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom

through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

(Robert F. Kennedy, Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered 4 April 1968, Indianapolis, IN)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6mxL2cqxrA

Would to god, that I might be considered  more like that deity to whom I claim to worship. 

 He hung on a cross to bring an atonement to the soldiers who placed him on that cross.  

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

Would that I could follow the advice of Rodney King. This man was beaten by a pack of policemen.  This beating lead to a race riot.  And still he ask the question. 

"Can't we all just get along."

If I were....

... then I could become both 

an Obama lover and 

a Romney lover. 

Let us all tone down the rhetoric a little and remember we are all American's who love our country though we may have different aspirations for her.

" With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." (Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1865)

Lee in a Union Uniform

I am pretty certain Lincoln was referring to both 

blue and gray widows and orphans, 

That we might also be ,
Obama lovers and 
Romney lovers.

Must we always be red and blue states 

as they were blue and grey.

My thoughts on Mitt Romney

I have to ask myself what evidence I have seen that Mr Romney has taken a unpopular a stance on a position.  He is good at changeing his views to meet his audience.  That is a thing all politicians since time immemorial have done.  I cannot fault him for that.  I am sure George Washington pandered to a few audiences in his time.  I just wish to see him stand for something he really believed.  He was pro-life when he was a L.D.S Bishop and Counselor in the Boston Stake of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints;  He was pro-choice when he ran for office in Massachusetts. Now is the presumptive Republican Nominee he is pro-life again.  

His father George Romney was not afraid to promote what he believed.    He stood with and supported Martin Luther King Jr., in a time when that position angered an apostle of his church,  the  L.D.S. church.  He received a letter from Elder Delbert L. Stapley advising him not to pursue a civil rights agenda.   Elder  Stapley  even implied in his letter to George Romney that God might destroy him for his support of civil rights.

‘When I reflect upon the Prophet's statement and remember what happened to three of our nation's presidents who were very active in the Negro cause, I am sobered by their demise.  They went  contrary to the teachings of the Prophet  Joseph Smith—unwittingly , no doubt, but nevertheless, the prophecy of Joseph Smith ,  “… those who are determined to pursue a course, which shows an opposition, and a feverish restlessness against  the decrees of the Lord, will learn, when perhaps it is too late their own good, that God can do His work, without the aid of those who are dictated by His council, “ has and will be fulfilled.’  (Delbert L. Stapley letter to George Romney , January 23, 1964)  ...

.... I think time has shown that George Romney was right is taking his stand with Martin Luther King Jr.  

I would just like to see Mitt Romney to take a similar stand on something.  He  appears to be  unable or unwilling to take a stand that could risk his prominent position.

I here admit to a point of personal bias.  I did vote for Barack Obama in the last election.  I can remember standing in the voting booth and just staring at the ballot for the longest time.  I did not feel a strong inclination to vote for either candidate.  I  made my choice  hoping that Barack Obama would be able to reach across party lines.  Sadly my hopes were not realized.  I have seen no real leadership from the candidate I supported.

Is it too late for Mr. Romney to take a real stance for what he believes?  Does he now have too much to risk and lose?

Can I hope again that if Mr. Romney is elected, he may grow in office, into a man of real convictions.


As a side note Elder Stapley was wrong his is views on Joseph Smith.  Current historical studies show Joseph Smith supported the ordination of Negroes to the priesthood. 

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/24/delbert_stapley.pdf

http://reflectionsofashallowpond.blogspot.com/ ,THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2012

on being a sixpence richer

Then comes another discovery.

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God.

If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already.

So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God,

I will tell you what it is really like.

 It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice 
and proper,…

 …but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now. We can now go on to talk of Faith in the second sense.

 (Mere Christianity Chapter 11, C.S. Lewis)

On being a small boy

I won't forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand

I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check.

I learned to fly, I learned to fight

I lived a whole life in one night

We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck.

And I remember that night

When I'm leaving a late night with some friends

And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe,

someone should help me

I need to find a nice man to walk me home.

When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,

Climbed what I could climb upon

And I don't know how I survived,

I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.

And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike

Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.

My neighbor come outside to say, "Get your shirt,"

I said "No way, it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."

And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more

More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me

That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat

When I was a boy, See that picture? That was me

Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees

And I know things have gotta change,

They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in,

they've got implants to remove

But I am not forgetting...that I was a boy too

And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep

Except when I'm tired, 'cept when I'm being caught off guard

And I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way

To catching fire-flies out in the backyard.

And so I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived

And I say, "Now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won"

And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see

When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked

And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.

And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do

And I have lost some kindness

But I was a girl too.

And you were just like me, and I was just like you"

"When I Was a Boy" as written by Dar Williams

Lyrics © BUG MUSIC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5YzRr9yPo&feature=related

I remember Logan Jr. High in 1977 when small boys where not permitted to take Home Economics ...
 ... so I was assigned to a Wood Shop Class.

I had an uncle who loved to watch football while wearing a moo moo
 and knitting a pot holder. I use to laugh at him......

   ... now I wish I was a little more like him. 
He was a big man and was built like a football player
 but he never permitted the little girl in him to die.
 He worked as an orderly in a nursing home
 and all of the patients loved him.

Here is to all of the l little boys and girls in us.

Further thoughts from Lincoln

Washington, D.C.

September, 1862

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

(Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.)

Found in Lincoln papers after his death, 
never intended for publication.

September 17, 1862:  Sharpsburg, MD

on fighting older battles

Fellow-Countrymen: ...

   

  ..."On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. ....... Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.  

  One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, ......These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. ... 

                                                   ....To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, ...

           ...while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.  ...

                                             ... Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. ... 

                                                        ...Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. ...

                                                                                         ... It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, ...

... but let us judge not, ... 

... that we be not judged.  ...

• The prayers of both could not be answered. 
• That of neither has been answered fully. 
• The Almighty has His own purposes. 

'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.'  

...

 Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."    

(Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1865)

 Lincoln is quoting (Matthew 18:7)

    

on being educated

"No man who worships education has got the best out of education; no man who sacrifices everything to education is even educated." ...... "What is wrong is a neglect of principle; and the principle is that without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete."

The Superstition of School by G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

on faith and increasing levels of uncertainty

In Sunday school a few days ago,

 I shared with the class, a thought that,

as I age, 

I have increasing levels of uncertainty.   

This increasing level of uncertainty is not an expression of doubt 

or lack of faith ,  

I am uncertain this thought was well understood or received.  

I know that my increasing level of uncertainty

is a sign of my increased awareness of my own ignorance.  

This increasing level of uncertainty drives my hunger to become more.

 I have faith that their is much more to learn and know. 

 This leads me to further develop my ability to do.

On taking Literature seriously

THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL

Street Art Washington D.C.

"I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can

love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this

book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or

rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they

stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were

handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our

commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been

handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their

imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too

vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think

of, except dynamite.

Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had

no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard

to be frivolous. Let any honest reader shut his eyes for a few moments,

and approaching the secret tribunal of his soul, ask himself whether he

would really rather be asked in the next two hours to write the front

page of the  Times, which is full of long leading articles, or the

front page of  Tit-Bits, which is full of short jokes. If the reader

is the fine conscientious fellow I take him for, he will at once reply

that he would rather on the spur of the moment write ten  Times

articles than one  Tit-Bits  joke. Responsibility, a heavy and cautious

responsibility of speech, is the easiest thing in the world; anybody can

do it. That is why so many tired, elderly, and wealthy men go in for

politics. They are responsible, because they have not the strength of

mind left to be irresponsible. It is more dignified to sit still than to

dance the Barn Dance. It is also easier. So in these easy pages I keep

myself on the whole on the level of the  Times: it is only occasionally

that I leap upwards almost to the level of  Tit-Bits." 

(ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, G. K. CHESTERTON)

two men, two republics, one nation and her dead.

Robert E. Lee (note Union Uniform)

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, 

we could find in each man's sorrow and suffering 

enough to disarm all hostility."  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

(Driftwood, 1857)

Virginia Declaration of Rights

May 15, 1776 The Republic of Virginia is declared with the adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights by the Virginia Conventions.  

“A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

SECTION I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

The men who created this document helped give birth a new Nation of 13 independent republics.

John Parke Custis (1754–1781) married Eleanor Calvert on February 3, 1774. They purchase and move to Abingdon Plantation. This plantation is on Arlington Heights Virginia. In the future this plantation will overlook The District of Columbia;  home of the the capital of the United State of America.  John Custis is the son of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington. This plantation along with George Washington’s papers are inherited by his daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis  who married Robert E. Lee.  

At the outbreak of the American Civil War or as the Southern State prefer to call it “The War Between the States”, Robert E. Lee is offered Command of all the Union Forces by Abraham Lincoln.  Robert E. Lee declines the offer and resigns his commission.  He becomes a military advisor to newly formed Confederate State of America.

May 1861 Union Forces capture Arlington Heights to prevents its being used by Confederate

Montgomery C. Meigs 

 forces to fire on Washington D.C. Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, quartermaster general for the Union Forces, uses the newly capture plantation to create a “Potters Field” to bury the unclaimed dead of the Union Forces.  Over the next decade he continues to see that the plantation is used as an honored burial ground to insure that the Lee’s again never enjoy the use of their home.  

Out of one man's sense of loyalty and another one's sense of duty and enmity a sacred place is created for the nation they both loved

Maybe Abraham Lincoln stated it best when he dedicated another military cemetery. 

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

... and I must add I have hope that President Lincoln was addressing the great loss on either side of the Mason Dixon line;   both parties paid a terrible price for this conclusion, 

"By the end of 1901 all the Confederate soldiers buried in the national cemeteries at Alexandria, Virginia, and at the Soldiers' Home in Washington were brought together with the soldiers buried at Arlington and reinterred in the Confederate section. Among the 482 persons buried there are 46 officers, 351 enlisted men, 58 wives, 15 southern civilians, and 12 unknowns. They are buried in concentric circles around the Confederate Monument, ...."

To this Day, Arlington Plantation, holds a renewed nations honored dead.  

Arlington House

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Battle-of-Arlington.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia#Statehood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_(plantation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon_(plantation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee#Marriage_and_family
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/visitorinformation/MonumentMemorials/Confederate.aspx

On his first views of Hell

Gustave Dore illustration  Paradise Lost Book I

Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night 

To mortal men, he with his horrid crew 

Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe 

Confounded though immortal:...

... But his doom 

Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought 

Both of lost happiness and lasting pain 

Torments him;...

... round he throws his baleful eyes 

That witness'd huge affliction and dismay 

Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate: 

At once as far as Angels kenn he views 

The dismal Situation waste and wilde, 

A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round 

As one great Furnace flam'd,...

... yet from those flames 

No light, but rather darkness visible 

Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, 

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades,...

John Martin, Paradise Lost - Satan on the Burning Lake (Book 1)

... where peace 

And rest can never dwell,... 

... hope never comes 

That comes to all; ...

...but torture without end 

Still urges, ...

... and a fiery Deluge, fed 

With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd: 

(John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book I: 50-69)

Goethe, On Proverbs and Reflections

"Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action."

"Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error."

Sprüche in Prosa (Proverbs in Prose, 1819) 

"Very often when we have found ourselves forever separated from 

what we had intended to achieve, we have already, on our way, found something else worth desiring."

Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

... his death as a minor side note.

Saturday April 28th 1849.   This morning I understand that the Party of Indians who passed here on the 20th inst.  Under the Little Chief attacted Wanship's party somewhere on Ogdon's Fork and killed some (& amongst the rest the lad which we took prisoner in the Utah Valley on the 5th of March. [crossed out])  They also killed some 40 horses and took the rest   The Little Chief and one of his men were also killed.

To day the Legion was organized according to the appointment last Sunday.  There was two Regiment formed one of horse & one foot constituting the First & Second Cohorts.

Daniel H. Wells Major General.	Willard Snow   Major 1 B. 1 R. 1 C.
J. M. Grant   Brigr Gen First Cohort	Ira Eldrege   do   2 B. 1 R. 1 C.
H. S. Eldredge   do   do   Second   Do.	A. Lytle   - do 1 B 2 R. 2 C.
John S. Fulmer   Col 1st R. 1st C.	H. Herriman – do 2 B. 2 R. 2 C.
John Scott   Col 1st R. 2 C.

There was Companies organized.  I fell into 2 C. 2 B. 1 R. 1 C.  Benjm F. Johnson Capt   Having the honor of being first Lieut my-self.  This is rising some in the world.  Because when the Legion was organized in 1840 I held the office of Second Leut whereas I am now promoted a little.

One circumstance took place today which I never saw before   John Pack & John D. Lee were each put in nomination for Majors by regular authority & both most contemptestously hissed down.  When any person is thus duly nominated I never before knew the people to reject it   But on this occasion it appears that they are both a perfect stink in every body's nose   The reasons of which is not needful to relate.

To day about two o'clock P. M. Alvin Horr, one of the Presidents of the Eleventh Quorum to which I belong, died of Dropsey.  He had been afflicted a long time & came here from the bluffs for his health leaving his family

(Journal of Hosea Stout)

Memories of Momma

When I was a kid I didn't have a cell, laptop, internet, XBox, or Wii, but I wanted a TRS-80.  I didn't have a bike, or a curfew.  My toys were the outside world, rain or shine. I could not eat what Mamma did not make. I would have liked to tell my Momma "no" but she was not home.   It was a not a good life... and I survived.

No one would say my Mom was a saint, but she was not a devil.   She was a girl that married too young and grew up with her children, I grew to love me Mom.  

On being a cracked pot

English bluebells in spring of Ashbridge Park, Hertfordshire. (photo: UK Garden Photos/Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0)

“Back in the days when pots and pans could talk, which indeed they still do, there lived a man. And in order to have water, every day he had to walk down the hill and fill two pots and walk them home.

One day, it was discovered one of the pots had a crack, and as time went on, the crack widened. Finally, the pot turned to the man and said, ‘You know, every day you take me to the river, and by the time you get home, half of the water’s leaked out. Please replace me with a better pot.’

And the man said, ‘You don’t understand. As you spill, you water the wild flowers by the side of the path.’ And sure enough, on the side of the path where the cracked pot was carried, beautiful flowers grew, while other side was barren.

‘I think I’ll keep you,’ said the man."

(Keven Kling)

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/19950139131/the-story-of-the-cracked-pot-by-trent-gilliss