For Rachel

Please Say Their Names

No longer are we asked how are we doing.
Never are the names of our children mentioned to us.
A curtain desends.
The moment has passed.
Lives slip from frequent recall.
There are exceptions:
close and compassionate friends,sensitive and loving family.
Still look. Still ask. Still listen.Thank God for them.
For most,the drama is over.
The spotlight is off. Applause is silent.
But for us the play will never end.

The effects on us are timeless.
What can be said, you ask?
Please say "their names" to us.
Love does not die.
Their names are written on our lives.
The sound of their voices replay within our minds.
You may feel they are dead.
We feel they are of the dead and still they live.
Their ghost-walk our souls, beckoning in future welcome.
You say "they were our children", we say " they are".
Please say "their names" again.
It hurts to bury their memory in silence.

What they are in spirit stirs within us always.
They were of our past but they are part of our now.
They are our hope for the future.
Please understand we cannot forget.
We would not if we could.

We know that you cannot know, yesterday we were like you.
Understand that we dwell in both flesh and spirit.
We do not ask you to walk this road.
The ascent is steep and the burden heavy.
We walk it not by choice.
We would rather walk it with them in the flesh, looking not to spirit worlds beyond.

We are what we have to be.
What we have lost,you cannot feel.
What we have gained, you may not see.
Please say "their names" for they are alive.
We will meet them again, although in many ways we've never parted.
Their spirits play light songs, appear in sunrises and sunsets.
They are real and shadow, they were and they are.

Please say "their names" to us and say "their names" again.
They are our children and we love them as we always did.
More each day.

PLEASE, SAY THEIR NAMES

Author Unknown

The Ten Commandments For Today

I. - There is but one God, you can call me anything you want, but I am it.

II. - Don't be a hypocrite, don't say you love Jesus and act like Satan.

III. - Don't fight anybody and use me as your excuse.

IV. - In the grand scheme of things you will not be on the Earth very long so I suggest you make the most out of it.

V. - Instead of coveting what your neighbor has, work harder than them and make them covet your stuff.

VI. - Leave your neighbors wife alone, you probably have enough problems with your own.

VII. - Don't thank me when you win a sporting event or blame me when things go bad. I am way to busy for you.

VIII. - Evolution Vs. The Bible, how do you know I didn't do both.

XI. - Don't say you don't believe in Capitol Punishment but abortion is ok, or the reverse, killing is still killing. Don't do it lightly because I will probably make you pay.

X. - If you say I don't exist that is ok with me, if you say it on your deathbed I might take you seriously.

Is it just me or

has cell phone usage gotten completely out of control. I have a Blackberry with Bluetooth capabalities and I find it very convenient, but I don't use it on the walking trail, at the gym, in line at the airport, in the movie theater and I never hold a phone to my ear when I am driving. What kind of idiots do we have here, if talking on the phone is that important to you then do that and not some other activity. Let's try something new, hang up and turn off the phone, trust me, you are not that important. If somebody wants to get in touch with you they will. Surely you can put in an hour at the gym without your life falling apart, if not you shouldn't be at the gym you should be fixing your life. Have a great day!

The Best Time Of The Year

First I must confess, I am and will always be a baseball fan, I believe a live baseball game at almost any level is a thing of beauty. The sights, the sounds and the smell, there is nothing like it in the world. With that being said I must finally acknowledge what most of you have known for sometime, Football has surpassed Baseball as America's pastime. For the next five or six months every Friday, Saturday and Sunday will contain at least one football game, every major holiday will host some games, in January the bowls start. This is what I like about football, the competitive juices that are stirred in almost anyone who ever attends a game. We all have our favourite teams, be it the team where you went to college, the team from your home state or the team you grew up watching as a child. Football players are the modern day gladiators, they commit their mind and their body in the pursuit of excellence. Baseball has allowed itself to be controlled by big business, labor unions and players whose ego rarely matches there accomplishments. Not that football does not have these same problems, they just don't control the whole game. I believe that is a due mainly to a strong commissionar system who places the game before the politics. I love basesball, there is nothing better that a walk off homer or a double play to end a close game, but today's baseball is not the game I grew up with and for that I am sad.

The Greatest War Time Leader of the 20th Century

said this about war. It doesn't matter if you are for or against U.S. foreign policy surely can we can learn something from a leader like him.

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill

The Difference Between Women and Men

I have always marveled at the inability of some people to publically acknowledge the difference between men and women. The root core of this inability I believe is because they percieve "being different" as something bad, on one hand we insist that we respect other peoples diffences and diversity, yet when it comes to men and women we insist on conformity. I absoulutely beilieve these differences are hard wired, in some instances these feelings can be brow beat into submission, but when push comes to shove they will always surface.

"Dare To Be Different"

The poems below are a joke sent to me and it is what got me thinking on this subject.

WOMAN'S PRAYER
Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep.
One who's handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long.
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to "how big is my behind?"
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.

MAN'S PRAYER
I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with huge boobs who owns a liquor
store and a golf course. This doesn't rhyme and I don't give a shit.