Yes, I do Choose

Yes I choose, but sometimes the only choice is to endure.

Sometimes thoughts unbidden cloud my mind, and leave no choice rather than to let them fly their course. And feelings, un-invoked, wash over me sometimes like a sea. I am not an island, so self contained, that some choices cannot be forced upon me, some choices are no more than a Hobson choice. Yes I choose, and I think, and I feel, but I am not always the genesis of thoughts that runs through my mind.

Satisfaction , like comfort, is always fleeting. No more then obtained before it is gone to be sought again. I eat until I am satisfied, then hunger leads me to once again seek satisfaction. I find my comfort in my bed, but toss and turn all night leaving the spot that has become uncomfortable to seek it elsewhere. What suited us at one time is no longer the attraction it was, and we look to change things more to our suiting. The only thing certain in life is change.

I would rather do this than that, but circumstances conspire such that I must do that and let this go the way of an unfulfilled desire. I love her, but she does not love me, she loves me but I do not love her. Frustration not of my choosing, but of my choices. But really, do I choose who to love? Is that a freedom given unto men? Or is it the arrow in Cupid’s bow that decides?

I don’t like my job, it is a job I chose, and I can choose to leave it. But can I choose not to pay the rent, make the car payments, buy the groceries for my child? Must I not, at more times then not, do that which, if left to my rathers, I would choose not to do? The road before me chooses the way much more than I do, for I can only choose between the choices put before me. And each decision casts a long shadow into the future.

A decision to go to college or not, to marry or not, to be a Doctor, Lawyer, or an Indian Chef all lays out a different path. To choose is to determine what choices will be placed before you. So what freedom do you have been what you would want to be? A child born to a coal miner his path will be different then the path of a child born to a movie actor. Yes, some coal miner’s children become movie actors, but how many movie actors’ children become coal miners?

You are shaped and formed by every experience in the path you walk. Hard times, for some, shatter them into thefts, or welfare dependents. Easy time is the ruination of others. Those same hard or easy times yet for other build a foundation for success. Maybe not in a way they would have chosen if the choice had been theirs to make, but one that they, and those who know them, are proud they have found. This is where the adage, “The man does not pick the job, the job picks the man” comes from.

What is the difference between the doctor/lawyer and the theft/welfare cheat? This is not to say that all those who are on welfare are undeserving of the charity they receive. Well let me rephrase that, for no one is deserving of charity. To deserve one must fulfill a bargain, the worker is deserving of his pay, the employer deserving of the labor he pays for, but the man watching the work is not deserving neither the worker’s pay, nor the employer’s money.

Both, however, should be free to give to the non-worker if it is their free decision to do so, that is their choice. But when the government takes if from both the employer and the worker and give it to the non-worker, that is theft. For the only choice given to the employer and the worker is to give to the non-worker or go to jail or die in resisting the government.

But back to the question, what is the difference between the different outcomes, between the one who becomes a carpenter respected for his labor, and the decision he had made when the choices were put before him, and the bad check writer who decided that his need and wants are greater than the bank’s whose money he defrauded? They both start out on a path not of their choosing, they were born to whom they were born, and where and when they were born. Choices that they did not and could not chose were presented to them.

Nature or nurture? Your genes or your environment? What of the brothers that both were loved, went to the same school, and killed their parents? When next door all the children lived model lives. And consider President Clinton and his brother Roger, what explains the difference? Genes are demonstrable not the answer. Just as sure, as the Coal Miner’s Daughter shows, the environment is not the answer.

The answer must lie within the mind, the soul if you will, of the individual. According to their personality they chose between the choices presented to them, and react to them in the manner that their heart leads them. One to stay in school, another to sell drugs on the street. One to quite selling and using drugs, another to kill to keep his business. One to do their homework, another to think that school is a waste of time.

As we go through live on the path that God has put us upon we are shaped by our experiences, and it is our experiences that lead to or away form God.

Jeremiah 18-19:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good which I had intended to do to it.

Romans 9:19-21

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

There Was a Child Lost Today

There was a child lost today, Sixteen and dead,
Overdosed on pain pills she whored herself for.
She would do anything to get high, to get by.
Her mother was in jail for drugs
Her father sold crack to get his hits.
She had been out on the street
Since she was twelve,
Buying and selling herself and drugs.
She didn’t have a chance, and now she is dead.

A mom and dad hooked on getting high
Her mother sold her for ten rocks
When she was thirteen, told her to grit her teeth,
That it would not hurt much, and not last long.
She did, and it didn’t, and she learned
Better to be high then not, mother knew best.

Oh she could have been this
And she could have been that,
But she is dead, and none of that.
There was a child lost today.

Her mother is consoled,
But should have been dammed.
Who will speak for the child dead today?
Her father had to go home early to make a score.
Aunts and uncles knew, but no one cared.
If the school teachers didn’t know
Then they didn’t care either.

The friends she got high with
Left the funeral to get high,
The boys she slept with to get pills
Left to find another girl who will
Be bedded for pills.
There was a child lost today, Sixteen and dead.

His Image and Likeness

More times then not I find it hard to accept what I am not. For I would be that which I am not and striving to be that which I would, falling short time and time again. More kind, more forgiving, more perfect.

Sometimes it is no more then a dream, a concept. Yet other times almost achieved. But now it seems that I have came to this ends that I must begin again what it is I wish to be.

I, and only I, get to decide each step, but the path before me is laid by God or fate, and I only get to choice the choice placed before me. You came into my life through these words I send to the world, and the meaning is imparted are those that you choose to give them .

One, two, a hundred, or a thousand it matters not for I am me and you are you, if you exist. I know, “If I prick you, do you not bleed?” Well let me prick you and let us see. Are my words enough to bring forth anguish? Or must it be my slings and arrows?

I have lost myself inside of me time and time again. Have you not done the same, and go searching around inside of yourself to find you? You know you could be me, just another fascist. When you drop back deep within yourself do you not find a part that never changes? A part that is always the same, the part that picks and chooses, says yay or nay.

Its likes and dislikes that change, its attitude that changes, its understanding that changes, but the it that is I stays the same and always observing. From the time I was a child this has been true for me, and I believe that it is true for you as well. It is this in us that I believe to be the Breath of God, the part in which we carry His Image and Likeness.

Good Advice

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Good advice,
We give it all the time.
But then,
More often then not,
We ignore
That sage advise.

Going into the book section
In the airport
Before out flight,
And what is it we look at
To decide which
Book to buy?
Why the Cover, of course.

We walk into the dance hall,
And watch them come in.
Too fat, to short,
Bad taste in clothes.
On and on it goes
Judging by the surface
And not the deeper person.

Why, pray tell,
Do we,
Time and time again,
Ignore what we know
Is right,
And do that which
We know is wrong?

Time! Time is the answer
My friend.
We just do not
Have the time
To read every book
Know every person
Well enough to judge.

So we do the best we can
With what we have.
Making snap judgments
On the fly
All the time.
And it for ourselves
That we make that admonishment:

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
For we know that we are
Deeper then we appear,
Wider, by far,
Then a brief introduction
Could ever
Reveal!

Sometimes Felling Sad

Sometimes felling sad is
better then the alternatives,
Sometimes feeling sad
is the place to be.
Just sitting around thanking it over
Just like picking a scab
When you know you shouldn’t.
Ahh, that sweet pain
That stab of pain that
Streaks across your mind
When you tear to deeply.
Bringing tears to your eyes,
Blinding you to here and now.

Sometimes felling sad is
Just better then anything else
That you can bring yourself to do.
Remembering the loss
Brings back the pain
Stabbing into your heart,
But you cannot forget.
And yet you wish
That it had worked another way.
In a way that would have
Brought you to a different day,
A day in which there would
Have been no lose, no pain.

But sometimes felling sad
Is all that is left.
Just remorse and condemnation
For decisions made unwisely
In a misguides search for happiness,
When a heart was given
But not accepted
Because of the strings
Tied to that heart.
Even though it broke your heart
To walk away, you walked.
Wishing with all your might
That there was a different way.

Sometimes, lost in that sadness
You dream of the happiness lost,
Lost before it ever really began.
And see the world through wet eyes,
Through sad eyes that color your world.
Drowning all hope of a brighter day.
Threatened to trap you in remorse,
And leave you in despair.
Deluding you into believing
That your only hope for
Happiness has passed.
But "don’t lesson to him Dan
He is a devil not a man."

A Famous Man Died to Day

A famous man died to day.
He was the same age as I,
But he made something of himself,
And I only made it to here.

A famous man died to day.
In time his fame will fade
Until in the end
He will be no more famous then I.

A famous man died to day.
He fought the good fight
Helped to change the world,
But he will find the same worm as I.

A famous man died to day.
Used to be he would have went
To join the majority,
But today the majority lives.

A famous man died to day.
Every day men die
And except for friend and family
We seldom note their passing.

But a famous man died to day,
And the flags are at half mast.
His passing mourned by more
Then our passing will be mourned.

A famous man died to day,
But I say, “let us rejoice”
Instead of mourning, for we all are
As the due on the morning grass.

Letter to a Lady

Time is not mine to give, but it is yours to take, so take as much as you like. I know that nothing is instantaneous, even love at first sight (I am sure it happens all the time) takes a split second.

While I would love to be in love again, to have that feeling that I had way back when, but I realistically never expect it but still look for it. Life jades and its hurts dull the heart’s desire to venture down such a path again. Too may primroses paths in the past that only led only to disappointment. Too many promises of forever that found there death with the rise of a new interest.

I venture forth now with no more desire then to find each day as the Lord give it to me. I never expect again to make the good friend as I made as a child. And I never expect again to make the hard enemies I have made in the past. While I have days yet before me, I have many days stretched behind me that laden me with memories.

I remember my first kiss from a girl. I remember my first kiss from a woman who was not my mother. I remember my heart breaking from her leaving. Leaving me for another that had more to offer. I remember the thrill of driving my first car, also the terror of wrecking my first car. Oh so many cars and women since then.

I imagine that you are like me, looking for what you want, but not quit sure of what it is you do want, hoping that you will recognize it when you see it. You say to yourself that you will not settle ever again, but then you look to the years you have left and ask if you can afford not to. Most of who we call friend are not friends anymore, they are just acquaintances. Fair weather friend that cannot be reached in hard times, but say hi with a smile and ask how are you with out the lest concern of how you really are.

Ah, a friend, a lover to whom you can depend upon to care for you, and you along. Someone who yearns for your body along, and would never betray you with another. Someone who would drop any and everything to run by your side in times of need. Well as someone told me, if you want all of that, get a dog. We dream of a prefectness that does not exist, only the young find the perfect one for them, and then they loose it when time open their eyes to the imperfections they were blinded to by young love.

I am not saying that happiness is not with another, what I am saying that when it is a settlement is made, a deal is reached, compromises are made. These compromises are not always with the other person, more often then not they are with oneself and the other person know nothing of them at all.

I know that I have lots to offer, but just as well I know that some things I cannot offer. I will never be young again. Short of the Lotto I will never be rich. I will not live in a city. I will not give up my horses short of death, and the money spent on them cannot be spent on the one who comes into my life.

My expectations in life come down to this, and that is I expect to do the best I can with what ever life sends my way, be it happiness or sadness. The happiness I will cherish, the sadness I will morn. To neither will I cling, but let the memories that visit me in the times my mind is not otherwise busy linger for a while.

I would love to have you in my life, To be able to hold you, to kiss you, to make love to you. But I am not sure, only hope, that I could ever be the one that you are looking for. Oh that binding, blinding love that will not let you think of anyone else, that will not let you consider any but a forever with that love. Juliet to your Romeo you dream to be, a one and only not to be shared or have to share.

That too is which I look to find, that binding, blinding love that once lived in my heart. But my eyes have been open the imperfectness that we all carry which some can only see in others and never in themselves. This awareness in myself limits my ability to believe that it exist in any person. Since the one I dream of cannot exist I am led into the world of settlements, Just what will I settle for?

Things I can settle for: Physical attraction, compatibility, an interest in some of the things I find interesting, likes to touch and be touched, will accept my help, will offer to help me, want to be with me, oh, and must love to dance and like horses.