Things Worth Knowing

"A poet is someone who is astonished by everything."- Anon.

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."
- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

"A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops."
- Henry Adams (1838 - 1918)

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens."- Thomas Jefferson

"Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth."- Benjamin Disraeli

"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."- Henry Van Dyke

"Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead."- Anonymous

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Trouble....Shoot!
Charlotte Reeves Bowman

Oh No!
Here comes trouble.
Get a gun boy,
let's go have us some home grown fun....
like pissing in the wind and walking away dry.

Shoot it,
loot it,
ain't that the American way?
Rob them and then make them the villains.
Feed it to the herd....
all these false legends
of scalps, bones, nuclear weapons.
These lies grown straight out of your ignorant patRIOTic soul.

Oh yes,
shoot um up boy,
hurry now...
before their ghost train comes this way.
You don't want a ticket to ride with those kind.
Right there lies all your trouble boy......
Now SHOOT!

M. Scott Peck wrote:
"Great evil has been committed throughout the centuries-and is still being committed-by nominal Christians, often in the name of Christ. The visible Christian Church is necessary, even saving, but obviously faulty.... "Crusades and inquisitions have nothing to do with Christ. War, torture, and persecution have nothing to do with Christ. Arrogance and revenge have nothing to do with Christ. When he gave his one recorded sermon, the first words out of Jesus' mouth were, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Not the arrogant. And as he was dying he asked that his murderers be forgiven."

Peck in the above quote sums up the fundamental problem I have with organized Christianity. I call it the misunderstanding of Jesus Christ teachings. Once a militant Christian friend of mine told me that I could not pick and chose what I liked from the bible and still call myself a Christian. So if that's the way it is then I guess I'm not a "Christian", but I do try to live each day of my life by the simple but loving teachings of Christ. I don't go to church because to be honest I've never felt spiritually moved by anything in a church besides the stain glass windows. My place of worship is found in the trees and rivers, dirt, sand, the sun the moon, my dogs wagging tails, in blowing bubbles with my giggling children....It is not found sitting on uncomfortable benches listening to white people with no soul molesting gospel music. Every couple of years I go to church usually because someone close to me has invited me and I think it's a good idea to keep trying new things....And none of them have ever come close to convincing me that spending my Sunday Morning in church gets me any closer to God than taking a walk in the woods.