For weeks, the phrase “Here’s to mud in your eye,” kept flooding my mind. Weird, huh? Because it wouldn’t stop rolling up against my cranium, I finally stopped and looked up the meaning.
Category: History
Oh, to be a Hermit…
… I always wanted to be one — in a modern sense, not the ancient idea — at least I don’t think so… Society today calls a hermit someone who just doesn’t want to be with people all the time — someone who draws strength from being alone and actually loses energy by being in…
Anti-Semitism vs Anti-Zionism
I believe that Helen Thomas’s remarks were anti-Semitic. Basically she called for the ethnic cleansing of the state of Israel. That call was purely racist. Any demand for ethnic cleansing is outrageous and should not be tolerated. Anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism in post-modern language. The media endeavors to soften the rhetoric by saying that anti-Zionism is not…
Freedom Tastes Like Courage
Today freedom will taste like turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie as we lift our forks in thanksgiving. We salute love of country, family, and friends. But at some point in history the liberty that America enjoys tasted like sacrifice, heartwrenching sacrifice… I am thinking about a couple of things this morning. One is the Mayflower and the…
Ice, Salt, and Lot’s Wife…
This looks like ice or snow on the water, but it is the salty crust on the Dead Sea. The beautiful mountains in the background are Jordan. It is amazing that the water is so aqua… I just the color of the Dead Sea. The clearer the sky and atmosphere, the bluer the water. We…
Stars and Promises
When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you ordained; What is man that you are mindful of him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands, You placed all things under Your…
Ready, Set, Believe
I wrote this poem after we had spent half a day with Tamara, our Russian guide, in Moscow touring the Kremlin, Red Square, Lenin’s Tomb, and the Russian Crown Jewels.
DNA Proofs
The wintry weather in Texas is making me think about the former Soviet Union and our life some years ago. I remember that period as the “best and worst of times.” I wrote the poem below in St. Petersburg.
Train Memory
In the barrenness and cold of winter, I traveled for the first time to Russia. I wrote this poem on a Soviet train as we wound through the Russian woods and farmland from St. Petersburg to Moscow. My first train ride through the former Soviet Union overflowed with the romance of high adventure, set against the winterscape of the…