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Veteran’s Day Lament

Every national memorial since WWII has been secular in nature. No reference to God, conspicuously absent scripture, missing national documents referring to God, zilch about our servicemen’s faith.

I know that in my hometown of North Richland Hills, in a park dedicated to the ideal of liberty, LIBERTY PARK, there is not one reference to God, not one scripture reference, not one mention of liberty as endowed by our Creator, no inscription of our national motto “In God We Trust,” not one cross or Star of David. Nothing.

As you consider that cold reality, please contemplate the following message:

Countless thousands of the men who fought for our country died with the name of God, or Jesus, or Christ or  Mother Mary on their lips. In WWII alone, a hundred ministers died on the battlefield with our brave men..  Priests and ministers ran into the war zone and gave them their last rites and they died along with our heroes.

  • heroes who gripped tiny crosses and New Testaments as they slipped into eternity;
  • champions in battle who, with trembling body, held on to the chaplain’s hand;
  • wounded warriors who listened in  desperate trust to their band of brothers’ tearful and solemn prayers of “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,”
  • defenders of our liberty who hastened up to memory Psalm 23 “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…

Yes we are a religious people, a God-fearing and Bible-believing people, but we are afraid to show it in our public parks, afraid of government censorship, or the ACLU, afraid of mixing church and state. But — we’ve allowed state to silence religion, and that was the fear of our founding fathers.

I tell you, timidity and liberty cannot long be friends. Liberty is born and sustained by courage.

We should demand a symbol of our faith every park dedicated to our servicemen. This symbol should be

  • Engraved in granite and in marble with the tool of historical accuracy
  • struck in stone and cement with the blows of faith and national heritage,and
  • pressed into the very earth with steel, unrelenting resolve.

    Because . . .

We cannot hallow any ground without acknowlg the Hallowed One

We cannot make something sacred without the Sacred One. It’s impossible!

The words “In God We Trust” should be forever emblazoned in our memorial parks. In addition, the words “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness” should scream out to every passerby.

If not those, then a quote by President Reagan:

“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”

Or Thomas Jefferson, who said….

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

Why do we think God gave the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel written in stone, but for

  • their preservation,
  • their permanence,
  • their testimony
  • their supremacy and
  • their application

to every succeeding generation.

What we are giving in these sanitized memorials to succeeding generations are

  • lofty ideals with no absolute guarantee
  • inspiring words with no Source of Inspiration
  • lasting symbols w/ no everlastg authority

These marble stones and granite structures will outlive us, but what will they say to our grandchildren? Will they think we have no God? That freedom is not endowed by Him? Will this make them think of God’s guidance, God’s blessing, or the sanctity of blood sacrifice? The greatest sacrifice of all?

We must let them know that we are

  • a chosen nation
  • a blessed people
  • a destined America.

And who has called and blessed us and destined us, if not Almighty God? Who will we turn to in a time of crisis?

How long can we safely ignore HIM?

I end this soliquoy with these true words by JC Ryle:

“Begin with not honoring God’s day, and you will soon not honor God’s house; cease to honor God’s house, and you will soon cease to honor God’s book; cease to honor God’s book, and by-and-by you will give God no honor at all.” ~ J.C. Ryle

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http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4310969/Jesus_Christ_verbs_etc

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Vrindivan

I come to Vrindivan

not to live, but to die.

My head is shaved,

my jewelry sold for rice

and a white sarape.

 

I am one of ten thousand widows here.

They say those who die in Vrindivan will not return

to live again and suffer.

I want this deliverance

Next to rice

it is my greatest desire.

 

I remember my old life in the village

I had my home and a husband

my mango tree

Ponds, all full of fish.

I had everything

Now, I am forgotten

But I have my dignity

I am worth a hundred of my relatives

I am happiness itself

Happiness is my other name.

O Lord, help me

Hare, Hare Krishna

What am I to do?

 

 

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Ceres Prayer

I must love you my God more than sin, more than secret lies, more than false relationships. Launch a probe into this mystery cloud of nebulous humanity that is me, neutralizing every signal of carnal energy emitting from the force of ego. Change my time-warped insides and make space for you. I open this dark lost ship to your search party. I’m sending out a beacon in this prayer, a homing signal to Abba, my God and friend.

. . . boarded, somewhere in the asteroid belt.

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The bus stopped near the train station in Warsaw, Poland. As I struggled to carry my toddler son and an umbrella stroller while navigating through the exiting crowd, someone behind me slipped my wallet from my pocket. My credit cards, license, cash– all gone.   We went into the train station with only a US quarter to our name. I had to go to the restroom but had no money to use the sink to wash my hands.  I was breathing in trust, breathing out hope.  As I was leaving the bathroom I saw a metal bucket on the floor, catching drips from a leak in an overhead pipe. I stopped to stick my hands under the transparent living flow–falling in freeze-frames from heaven–and looked up just in time to see the Holy Spirit do that slo-mo swan-dive.

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Prelude to Prayer

No one I know was born today, none met their fate. No war started nor any treaty signed. No one sworn into an office or invented or created a thing–that I know of.

But today marks a place in time and in my personal history where I stopped. To listen to God. To contemplate the highest good and deepest truth, the purest speech from the most assured source–and weakly ask for change, to be awakened to it all, or to any worthy part, a kernel to plant in my heart. A stirring, a blowing, a brush of His finger across the brow of my soul.

I wish I could be real, for once, completely and irreversibly bare and naked and childlike–and totally longing before my God. Christ was stripped, poured out, abandoned for me, but . . . for my pitiable safe, cool response?

Save me! If I were crucified beside him, would I then feel, and understand? If all I could say is “remember me,” could I say it with a crushed heart? Why, my dearest God, can’t I?

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Tired

Sometimes I dont have energy. Im too tired to put in apostrophesandsometimespushthespacebar.

I feel like a deflated balloon, pflupflupfwtruuuulllllpluhoop. Augh, I must put the lid back on the jars i opened, push my shoes up under the bed, change from my Sunday khakis into my summer shorts. I’m too tired to eat a chip, so I let it turn to mush on my tongue. Maybe it’s not me, it’s the heat. It’s 104 in Texas today. What’s 4 more than 100? Phhffft! I can take it. When it gets so hot, you’re conscious of every move, every turn of the head, every labored breath.  The grass is dying here. I remember a phenomenon called rain? The heavenly stuff that can form beads on my car and glasses. No wind, no air, it’s a vacuum here. My Kia is sunburnt and peeling, the grass turns a strange aqua color before dying, the irrigation system spurts and gasps, afraid to expose their sprinkler heads. They used to go ‘chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-ckk-fdrrrrr-fdrrrrrr-fdrrrrrrr-chk-chk-chk. Now they just go flp-fl-f.

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THE LOST-AND-FOUND CORVETTE

Today a man with the water dept was working across the street. When he saw me he yelled out “Do you want to sell that corvette?” I couldn’t believe that he had recognized my son’s 77 midnight purple Corvette 90% of which was hidden underneath the gray cover and the random things I had piled on it. There’s a reason he recognized it–he was the guy who sold it to my son eight years ago. I cleaned off the car, took off the cover, and he stood there marveling at his long-gone treasure. “I’ve never seen another one like it anywhere,” he said.

That’s how God sees each of us today. Under the careless deposits of things left unfinished, things tossed, maybe forgotten, lies a self-made defensive cover over the priceless irreplaceable treasure of a devoted life. It is something we’ve protected from the dust of disappointment, and the inactivity of lost opportunities. But someone still sees and values it. It’s God. He can recognize it even from a small exposed corner by its color, its contour. He recognizes it because it is the design of his dreams.

Men, underneath the embarrassing load of non-related things piled onto our dreams lies a reserve of head-turning, explosive, tree-uprooting power. Underneath the garage dust of spiritual neglect is the hard shiny luster of the true extension of our personalities – a spirit-empowered true warrior, or darkhorse, of God. My wish and I believe God’s desire is that we will all find our true passion again and rehearse it every time we meet together as men, by the way we honor and respect the real man of God who may be undercover.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when His is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

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I want to own
a piece of the river where I grew up,
just so I can be on my own land
near the water’s edge.
There, to touch the smooth stones,
to listen to the water breaking over the dam
and cascading into waves and suds.

I want a build a cabin, a retreat near that river
where I can be a child again.
This time I’ll be care-free,
and rediscover its wonders.

What is drawing me back to that river
in a homely nearly-abandoned town?
Once I’m settled in
this longing may pass.
Then I may yearn for the place of my birth,
to go back there
and see the grasses blowing in wide fields
resting, held fast by orange clay.

There is no river, only springs
my father once told me about-
Coffee springs was the name.
Perhaps the water is brown
like the name of the county
‘Coffee County’
But for now I have no sentiment
for Alabama.

I want to go back to Deep River
and feel its pulse in the heart of North Carolina

That’s how old the child
trapped inside me is right now.
But, the child is getting younger.

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Deep River

I just got my book DEEP RIVER: The Little League Years into print. It’s available at http://www.lulu.com for about $17 including taxes and shipping and handling.

You can also call my cell 817.247-2215 and request a copy

or email joneshowell@yahoo.com

Pay me by PAYPAL or a personal check.

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