The Best Welcomes Have Theme Music

Welcome back, friends! My last post was quite a long time ago--in blog terms--so I offer my deepest thanks to you for giving my lil ole blog your time and attention. Life has been a wild, crazy ride over the last few months, in good and bad ways, and I'll fill you in along the next few weeks. Change is a function of growth, and this blog's growth in this next quarter-year will shine a light on my personal growth. I've lost some "weight" where it matters most: INSIDE. My mind and heart have gained some "extra muscle" along the way. We'll talk about life in America here, but you'll need to hold one thought close to heart as you follow along: LIFE is beautiful even when it's ugly. I'm talking all about the pretty-ugly-sweet-funky-amazing things that life brings and that life coaxes from me, from us and from the world. Speak your mind; this is the Hall of Free Speech--with an emphasis on FREE. I plan to grow with every comment, to build from every conversation.

Thanks for listening before and for returning now. Enjoy my little "gift" to you.

The best welcomes have theme music, I say. Enjoy mine.

A Phoenix Rising... From the Ashes

My wife and I talked over lunch about the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony and its effects on us personally and on societies local and global.  What she said struck me so powerfully that I had to quote her:

"This is the opposite--this is the antithesis--of 9/11.  What I mean is that what I felt that morning, the thought that history was changing, that American history would be marked pre-9/11 and post-9/11; and that the way the world and all Americans see this country would shift in some amazing--and even scary--ways.  This day is the opposite of that, in a way.  It's...like a phoenix rising from the ashes."

I formally invite DJ Jay Smooth to expound on the thought (and no, I don't agree with each of his points, but the overwhelming theme is on target):

Why I'm Happy, Why I'm Not Satisfied

We have permission to be happy while maintaining our practical perspective.  America has signed a treaty with her children, a promise to learn from the cornucopia of our past blunders by walking in Dr. Martin Luther King's--and, for that matter, my mother's--dream to live as humanly and as humanely as we REALLY can in our country's grand area.  Our problems are far from over in many ways, but we--America--are walking our talk again.

Let freedom ring.  Keep walking your talk.  Love somebody just because God loves him or her as much as He loves you.  Talk about tough topics with people--instead of setting people up to look like racists because they don't understand your perspective or your culture.  Open your mind enough to see another human's perspective, and you might change your mind about a few things.  The work IS a part of the dream, believe it or not...

God bless you.  Vaya con Dios.  Salaam 'Alaykum (السلام عليكم).

If I have misspelled or misused the beautiful words of your parent language, forgive me and correct me.  It's my pleasure to learn.  That, as it turns out, is another part of THE DREAM.

Scenes from a Moving Picture

Happy Thursday.

You're only a day away from Friday, working world.

Enjoy something beautiful in this oft-ugly world.