This morning, I share some wonderful moments of love, just love, love that is not bounded by race, religion, sexual orientation, age or disability. This is a beautiful video. Please enjoy it and know that this is the world I want to live in.
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Vietnam Veteran & A Young Boy’s POW Bracelet
Vietnam.
All these years later, all the tourist brochures and sunny reports of a lovely country in Southeast Asia…that word, that name still conjures up the place where close to 60,000 American servicemen lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were wounded or ruined or both.
Some memories you never want to awaken but this morning, reading the story of Captain Guy Gruters, I was overwhelmed, heartened and once again, reminded, of just how many wonderful men who went to war and the wonderful people who kept vigils for those who were taken prisoner – like the man whose post I am sharing with you today.
His discovery of the POW bracelet worn, all those years ago and how he found the man for whom he prayed for a safe return make a beautiful story with a happy ending. I hope you enjoy their story.
Filed under Inspiring People, Life & Death, Religion, World Changing Ideas
Edward Abbey – The Voice Crying in the Wilderness
The Voice Crying in the Wilderness is one of those books that I have long wanted to read but never quite got to until this week. I wish I had read it when I was younger. I’m glad I didn’t start reading it until now.
Abbey was a writer of some repute authoring books like The Monkey Wrench Gang and The Brave Cowboy.
A naturalist, well-educated and well-read, Abbey was also a truth teller, a writer who pulled no punches, a man frequently described with a single word – iconoclast.
He was, also, a man who kept a journal for 21 years, jotting down thoughts, observations and ideas and eventually coalescing all into the small but powerful book of which I am writing, today.
This small volume looks like an easy read and it is. It’s also a deep, insightful, belly-laughing, terrifying and sad read.
Abbey saw, really saw his world, the world around him and the world we live in. Divided into categories like Government and Politics, Life and Death and Money, etc, Abbey’s book doesn’t just report what he sees, it shares what he thought, his philosophy, if you will.
But The Voice Crying in the Wilderness went a bit further because Abbey’s insights are, in some cases, more than 30 years old and yet, spot on for today. For example, the current and terrible economic situation – 1% of the United States population owning 42% of the financial wealth of this country, might resolved or at least ameliorated if we followed this insight of the author’s:
“If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule. That was the American Dream.”
Abbey’s predictive powers appear to be like those of the best science fiction writers, writers like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon, Sturgeon once told me that sci fi was predictive because it was based in science. Sturgeon called it “scientia fiction.”
In coming weeks, I will be sharing other Abbey insights that I find compelling, telling or just plain funny. Do you have a favorite Abbbey quote? Please feel free to share it, here!
Filed under Book Reviews, Death & Dying, Inspiring People
Write On Target 