Madness...

I am controlled by no one and I am controlled by everyone ( ? ) Yes!
I will decide tommorrow who will control me and who wont.
What price personal liberty ? I will grant permission to the kind-hearted, the
exploiters, the compassionate, the cruel, the sensitive and the bullies
to control me in bits and pieces, in moments or...
I could change the granting of that permission. If I do,
then those who formerly controlled my world must explain my independance
as a sickness perhaps or a flaw to others, because there is no way
around it. Such freedom requires a new security or insanity.
Insanity is good and it works, but in the long term I would not be taken seriously.
Taken seriously ? Why would it matter ? It matters...There are people who need me.
What new security then ? Perhaps this question is the biggest test
of how we see ourselves in the eyes of God. If we have REAL confidence in
HIS approval being the only thing that matters ( ultimately ) then we would live lives of true freedom.
That is how I want to live, because his will is that I am kind, compassionate, strong...
not to gain favor with others, but HIS will. Perfection ? Forget it ! Agknowledging my flawed state
and allowing God to use whatever I have ? Much better...
Tommorrow , I will grant permission to God to use me.
The approval from the rest of the crowd ? No, you are flawed like me. Forget it.

Check out the author of your existence or spend your time explaining to the rest of your colleagues this wonderful " Madness" that has gripped my heart and that of a few others.

Principled...At what price ?

Have you noticed that the people who talk of the need for
"taking a stand"..." being an example to others " and " standing on principles "
depend on the price it will cost them ? Yes , I truly only recognize it because I've failed myself.
If the price costs us personal success in the eyes of others, it mostly doesn't happen.
But...sometimes it does.

In 1947, David Preston was an ex World War 2 paratrooper who was running long-distance for the
University of Toronto. He was told through his many successes and laurels on a National level that he would be on the Olympic team representing Canada to the world in the 1948 summer Olympics, but something was bothering him.
He knew that there was corruption in the coaching ranks of his team. When the National trials came up, David ran against the best runner, won the race and, walked off the track . He didn't go to the Olympics because of the corruption he knew about and never looked back. The price was high, but the principles held.

David Preston was 76 when he died a couple of years ago. He used to watch me run by him as he went out for walks and he would tell me that I would ruin my knees for running if I continued to use that style. Of course I scoffed at this blunt , surly, older man with heart disease out for his walk. Two years after David died, a specialist told me that my knees were shot and that I shouldn't run anymore . Hats off to you David Preston . You were right about my kness , and more importantly, you were always a principled man who paid the price.

Enough About " Liberty " and American Ideals...

I realise that this particular blog could cause a reaction that will insight suggestions to me of a litany of all the
things America has done for us ( win ww2 for Canada, etc. ).

For all of the revolutionary, democratic, zeal that the American government might suggest are their origins,
history tells us a different story. The power behind the American Revolution were
American merchants who were angry because the crown got in the way, through taxation, of the money they wanted to make in the new world. Hence the Boston Tea party and their funding of the revolutionary (it's our money not yours ) army.
It is truly an economic revolution of the money aristocracy of America against the royal aristocracy of crazy King George.
At that time, as well as today, political messages were given to common folk to set up a false rationale about why the revolution needed to take place. ( Oppression by the King, loss of basic freedoms, the British Yoke , etc. ) Wait, does this tact sound familiar ? How about... Terrorism is based in Iraq, therefore the American Military must enter therein. The real reason ?
Haliburton, Oil, American military suppliers, Dick Cheney. He is no better or worse than the original " patriots" He is simply looking for the freedom to make a buck as he pleases... the inalienable right ? Freedom...hmmm. Great Britain outlaws slavery 100 years before the United States. The Alamo was a last stand by wealthy slave owners against an abolitionist state: Mexico.Yet these are the Heroes of America. No Sweat about the money thing , just be honest about what you are and where it all came from.