In spite of evil.

In spite of evil.

I’m not a big fan of politicians and party crap whether it’s the right or the left is of uselessness. If there is a group of people in the world doing this or that is of little argument to me. Yes the world has some people who act by themselves in wrong doings. As a whole there remains to still be so much good being done by people who don’t ask for the rest of the world to see what random acts of good and kindness that they do. By spreading the negative of the negative a person adds to the wishes of the Dragon himself. We were asked some time ago by a wise thinking man to spread the earth with a flood (Elder Bednar). Whether you choose to spread good or not so good is a personal choice but for the most part I will choose the good. It makes no different if it is just a good email or postings on as many of the social media circle that are available to the world. Consider the effect of the drops of awesomeness we can add to the flood of very good if we share only one positive each day. If you share one message each day and you share with six hundred friends and maybe they share the message with six hundred of their friends. I’m not a math person but in two shares there is a possible reach of three hundred sixty thousand. So in a world where the old Dragon is at hand good people must act to ensure that he does not win a battle with the hearts of men. Spread good even just a drop or two combined with drops from other peoples good will be this flood. If you are not of my organized faith affiliation do not feel that you are left out by any means. Most of you have Christian and family values that can and should be added to the flood for the Light of Christ is given to all men to Light the world and displace darkness and evil. Share all my Friends all the good that you can and fight the Dragon. We can and should inspire the world to rise up and be better.

Fences, Barbwire, and hung up.

Fences, barbwire, and hung up. Some summer in Provo.

They say great fences have good posts, good field mesh, and yes barbwire. Summer time fun was always a trip or two to the pond. You can bet we didn't walk the road like most people would have. Over the fences and through the woods to the play ground with the rope swing. We went there often and things where a blast. You never expect things to go wrong when you're about to have a good time. The first fence is never a problem but everything changes with the last one. Half way over the top my foot made the choice to leave the cross post and drop me on the top wire. By now I’m thinking going under the fence like I had done many times before may have had better results. Some of you country folks could probably relate to a few ingenious predicaments of your own. Yes as you could guess headed to the pond I was adorned in swim’n get up too. So I’m yelling for help and hearing the laughs of the others as I hang there. At this point I know I have those mean barbs grabbing my shorts and shirt but at least once had my upper leg. Doing my best not to let the others know I’m not a wimp and start the crying thing. All the while doing the desperate wriggle to find that cross post with my unwilling stupid foot. After more wriggling than a snake racing for a hole to hide in my foot makes contacted with the post. I look down at the wire and my leg, UGH! I grabbed the fence tight as my head started to spin out of crazy. Carefully I worked to get the mean prong out of my leg and the thought came to me what are you doing. Then it hit me people bleed to death in the middle of nowhere land. The others attempted to help me free the shirt and shorts all the while telling me you don’t looks so good. After sitting down for a good spell I considered the situation and that the pond was not a great idea for this day. Patting Lucky on the back those mean thorns grazed a few other spots but didn’t impel but once and missing some serious spots by a few hundredths of an inch. Made my way back to the house thinking how lucky that was.

Some after notes for sure for the fence adventure. Don’t get distracted when you’re about to hop the fences of life.  It’s that time of distraction that things happen and things reach out and grab us. Even good fences have some meanness to them and need to be treated with an element of caution. Not every step we use to get over the hurdles in life is good and put us in the best place. Some of those steps we use or take leave us hung out to dry. Barbwire is great for encouraging livestock to stay in place but not human body friendly. That we often are used as accidental entertainment by others that don’t realize the extent of our pain at the time. Scars are reminders for the next time that not all bad situations are deadly. Always keep control of your emotions in the heat of the situation but when you get free of it let it go. Always hope those with you are capable of helping get un-hung or out of trouble and back on good ground. When things go wrong and they will, breathe and roll with it because things do happen. Changing direction or ways over the fence do come with new challenges and they will always change us. Prayer is a key element of change and God kind of likes to help us when things aren't going well and we are caught on the barbwire in life.

Battles of within.

Battles of within!

The story of the wolf.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

We fight many battles inside of our souls that are what makes or breaks us. Many of those battles have a way of making us either soft hearted or bitter. But we have that choice to decide what side we will live on. How do you best make that choice how you live? Do we fight that wolf or dragon that will possibly destroy our soul of the goodness that makes us human? Many times we throw things away in our lives because we are not willing to fight at all. Many battles are of faith and fear. As much as we do not like to admit it fear is a very strong motivator. It may cause us to change for good or to shrink and hide.

 Some of the battles are of what we think others think of us or don't think of us. I have yet to fully understand this myself and like many things that have need for a bit of improvement I battle it each day to some degree or another. I question people that try to tell me there are no battles that they fight because it may not be a  big one but a battle just the same. Sometimes we can change how big the fight is that we must wage by the choices we make each moment of our lives. What kinds of choices do we have each day? Reminded of someone in the news choosing to fight a bear by putting his arm down the bear’s throat to save himself. Admittedly a risk but yet a payoff of a battle. When to battle only one person can choose for themselves. Fight or flight only you can decide but remember there can be a price to pay either way.

White washing the world

White washing the fence.

Back in the day, paint and painting had some real “stick to ya stuff.” Similar to the old story of Tom Sawyer, with the picket fence, is a story of my brother (the one just younger than me) and me doing a painting job. It was a wooden three board rail fence and my parents thought that we could handle the painting of it. Yeppers. We had good intentions, but were very poorly skilled workers. It was a hot cooker of a day, so having long pants and a shirt were not happening. I was about seven and my sidekick was about six. Back in the day, paint was not as user-friendly as it is today with the easy wash-up with water variety. With the area we needed to cover, we had been issued large brushes to speed the job up some. In the country setting, the bugs, flies, and gnat's were out in full force and buzzing around our heads. Seriously, what can ya possibly do to rid yourselves of the small pests? Yeppers. As you can fully guess, that large brush was as handy as a horse’s tail. Ya can't really blame someone when those little critters, especially the biting ones, were mean, to say the least. It was turning into quite the show, so much so that even the karate kid would have been jealous. The fence was done and we were also. But what about clean up? This is where it got crazy and wild. Generally, you would have something around called paint thinner or mineral spirits. Nope. We had to improvise. Gasoline it was. Not a good idea of fun, but a gas bath was in order. Thus was the story of the white washing of the fence. 

Breaking the Norm.

10-4-2015

Yeppers it’s “normal” or so they say. Every person I know out there in our world are all different. So with that being said how do you know if someone is normal? Is there a standardized test of normal? Or is that something that is almost normal? But really the big question is how do you test for normal? I have asked these questions about myself many times over the years and I have figured out I’m not normal because there isn’t a person that is normal. The only normal thing I know of is the settings on some appliances. And even the normal setting on some appliances is not really that normal. I might add that many of the things people say is normal today are indeed so far out that they are not normal. So that being said who then is the judge of normal and are they themselves normal? So with that much said how do you act normal? How do you respond to someone when they tell you to just be normal? As for me I will just be me and forget the normal thing. Being me is much easier to do and no one can say that you’re boring. Besides “I need to be me”. Ya might say I’m a square peg and forced to be in a round hole. So break the “NORM” and do the thing that makes ya happy.