Last Poem To My Dad

My Dad's favorite place

Fort McHenry

Psalm 46:2 ~ Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

I cannot stand...

I have our heartfelt memories

Stored inside my heart

I cannot stand and watch you

Being slowly torn apart.

There is a soft wind blowing

A fragrance in the air

Heaven calling out to you

I cannot stand to bear.

I cannot stand and watch

The lighthouse falling down

Brick by brick dismantled

Without its shining crown.

I cannot come and be there

To stand right by your side

I’m in the best place for you

And that is right inside!

I stand along the shoreline

And watch your light go dim.

I see the angel’s calling out

In a radiant glorious hymn.

I love you, Dad!

Quotation Saturday ~ Memorial Day

Fort McHenry

Baltimore, Maryland

WAR

“We the people, in order to form a unified world must stop to fact check before posting lies to diversify. We the people are the victims of a ‘click-bait-share’ system. Anger, rage and misunderstanding are all the causes of internal wars. You, my friends, are the ones so eager to share the lies without seeking out facts thus causing and feeding into the war of the races. You are the ones who start the wars.”
~ Joni Zipp

“Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched."
[My Uncle Sosthenes]” 
~ Guy de Maupassant

“In war, the first casualty is truth.” 
~ Terry Hayes

“Wars today seem to occur at a more precise point in time but deep down they are permanent.” 
~ Bernardo Carvalho

MISUNDERSTANDING

“We're all born with selfish desires, so we can all relate to those feelings in others. But kindness is something made individually by each person...so it's easy to misunderstand when others are trying to be kind to you.” 
~ Natsuki Takaya

“They have the unique ability to listen to one story and understand another.” 
~ Pandora Poikilos

“The common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now!' And God responds, 'If you'd listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.” 
~ Criss Jami

SEGREGATION

“All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!” 
~ Rudyard Kipling

“To become a true global citizen, one must abandon all notions of 'otherness' and instead embrace 'togetherness'. The world is no longer white, black, yellow and brown. Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another. Therefore, practical wisdom should be used to abandon any cultural, social, religious, tribal, and national beliefs of alterity altogether. This is the only way mankind will truly evolve. Segregation is a word of the past. Unity is the key to a peaceful future.” 
~ Suzy Kassem

“Ignoring the evils of our history will only cause them to reoccur.” 
~ R.M. Donaldson

“Having the liberty to have freedom of choice is the greatest thing that each and every one of us has because that makes us who we are. Do not however, use this as an excuse to discriminate, segregate and stereotype mass amounts of people on the basis of a small group of individuals who have either the power or the spotlight to do bad things” 
~ Calum Alexander Logan

MEMORIAL DAY

“The atrocities of war are only overshadowed by the heroism of their dead.” 
~ Todd Stocker

“As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.” 
~ Criss Jami

“We'd like to think that it is not our fault that great men and women died fighting for the security of our nation and safety of our communities. But we know this not to be true. They committed their lives for us in instances where either we were too afraid to do it ourselves or failed to find alternate solutions on our own. We enjoy the fruits of their ultimate sacrifice and owe their families a heartfelt thanks and apology every day.” 
~ D'Andre Lampkin

“You are silent now who once stood on battlefields ravaged by destruction unimaginable, holding in those desperate places the line of freedom for others you would never know, and who would never know you. And being one of those you never knew, I would give all I have to clasp your hand one single time, look into eyes that witnessed the bloodied carnage that results when freedom refuses to bow to chains of any kind, and simply say 'thank you.” 
~ Craig D. Lounsbrough


Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day weekend remembering this:

“-We need more love, to supersede hatred,
-We need more strength, 
to resist our weaknesses, 
-We need more inspiration, 
to lighten up our inner mind. 
-We need more learning, 
to erase our ignorance, 
-We need more wisdom, 
to live longer and happier, 
-We need more truths, to suppress deceptions, 
-We need more health, 
to enjoy our wealth, 
-We need more peace, to stay in harmony with our brethren 
-We need more smiles, 
to brighten up our day, 
-We need more hero's, and not zero's, 
-We need more change of ourselves, to change the lives of others, 
-We need more understanding, 
to tackle our misunderstanding, 
-We need more sympathy, 
not apathy, 
-We need more forgiveness, 
not vengeance, 
-We need more humility to be lifted up, 
-We need more patience and not undue eagerness, 
-We need more focus, to avoid distraction, 
-We need more optimism, 
not pessimism 
-We need more justice, 
not injustice, 
-We need more facts, not fiction,
-We need more education, 
to curb illiteracy, 
-We need more skills, not incompetence, 
-We need more challenges, 
to make attempts, 
-We need more talents, 
to create the extraordinary, 
-We need more helping hands, 
not stingy folks, 
-We need more efforts, 
not laziness, 
-We need more jokes, to forget our worries, 
-We need more spirituality, 
not mean religion, 
-We need more freedom, 
not enslavement, 
-We need more peacemakers, 
not revolutionaries...with these, we create a heaven on earth.” 
~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Quotation Saturday ~ Fourth of July!

Fort McHenry - Baltimore Maryland

Acts 22:28 “And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.”

FOURTH OF JULY

“The most elusive and ultimately impossible act of liberation is freedom from sin and self, and no document or declaration of man regardless of how exquisitely penned can do that. Such an astonishing act of liberation could only have been penned in one place: the cross.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Years ago, a group of good, wise, brave, God-fearing men stood up to claim and defend the human right for independence. Those men are now dead. Their work is not. But if good, wise, brave, God-fearing men fail to stand up in their stead, that independence will cease to exist.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“Freedom is the atmosphere in which humanity thrives. Breathe it in.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“To celebrate the Fourth of July meant something definite in those days.”
― Carol Ryrie Brink

Annapolis Maryland

PATRIOTISM

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.”
― Bertrand Russell

Texas

FREEDOM

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons

Fort McHenry - Looking at the Francis Scott Key Bridge

INDEPENDENCE

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.”
― Lauren Oliver

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice."
[Stanford University commencement speech, 2005]”
― Steve Jobs

Texas

CELEBRATION

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Source: The Wisdom of Heschel”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Celebration is an act of impressing sadistic someone residing in you.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“Life is a celebration. Free your mind to find the liberation.”
― Debasish Mridha

“So much of life is in the smallness of moments...but they are harder to mark. So we need the grander celebrations and occasions. People like to feel significant”
― Ally Condie

Annapolis State House