Eternity

A viable theology, according to this knucklehead, must either be sensible or admittedly senseless.  Those flavors that can only muster some strange conflagration of both mind and spirit are destined to befuddle and bewilder.  The theological exhorter who is bound by both, must somehow prove the sense in the senseless.  Have you heard of such a successful exhortation?  

Every Christian theology book, of which I am marginally familiar, begets thousands of words to instruct us in how to bridge this conundrum by making the implausible, seemingly plausible.  Wouldn’t it be more plausible to accept the reality of eternity as a 100% senseless matter of faith beyond reason?  The problem with going to this place is that we must give up being right or better than other understandings, give up a provable righteousness. 

The God of eternity says to all of us, relax, I got this!

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Our National Savior

The American people would never have known the political conniving of the leftist Democrats had Donald Trump not volunteered to challenge them.  He and we could not have anticipated their ferocity or their disrespect for the law but we now have wised up to their threat.  He as well as we are awake to their desperate desire to make our democracy into a one party socialist country ruled by a few elite types who have no compunction to disregard the welfare of the people in order to maintain power, just like Russia.

Thank you, President Trump for being there when your country needed a savior, for the moment saving us from the tyranny of what we used to call communism.  You are our American hero!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca   

Boundaries

The most disputed question among we thinking humans is whether the familiar earthly boundaries will remain with us in eternity?  Let’s hope not but what can we expect to be different?  The stars are again twinkling.  The frequently expressed eternal vision is that there is only one boundary, the one between a positive eternity and a negative eternity, between blessing and curse, between pain and pleasure or as they say, between heaven and hell.  After all. some of us deserve eternal punishment and some of us have earned an eternal reward for being good boys and girls because we have respected the appropriate boundaries.  This vision of eternity is merely an expansion of the boundaries of this world.  It is Sunday School propaganda.

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

   

Good News

I have good news to pass along.  The stars told me that our human birthright is that each of us can expect a positive spiritual eternity regardless of our relative circumstances.  Regardless of who we are or who we know, to whom we belong or how we have lived our lives.  All of us, indeed, are entitled to this eternal future, each of us, the sinners and the saints, the powerful and the powerless, the religious and the irreverent, the rich and the poor, the sinners and those sinned against, the lovers and the haters, the honored and the despised, the winners and the losers, the honest and the cheaters, the young and the old, the guilty and the innocent, the sick and the healthy, the tall and the short, the gorgeous and the homily, the lawful and the lawless, and the fat and the skinny.  Death is not an end but a beginning just over that horizon. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA

   

Evil or Individualism?

Once and a while, I wake up to a revelation.  It has been a life long struggle of mine to accept, mentally and emotionally, a life view or understanding that fits our varied circumstances as humans. All the normal life pursuits have eventually taken a back seat to this quest, which has not been really voluntary on my part.  I have repeatedly tried to stuff the quest beneath the surface things of life, which only brought temporary relief but like a yo-yo, the quest again surfaces.  This is such a day.

Ignorant racism

Dangerous racism is spewed by those who slander others for the sake of political gain, the result being a growing divide among Americans.  Is the present divide worse than the sixties of my youth?  Probably not, at least from a factual basis, for those times brought needed change that made America a better reflection of the Declaration of Independence.

Our present day racial divide is not about facts and reality but about political control by the America haters.  As a result, each skin color is forced to dehumanize the other race and ignore our human and American commonality.  Should this continue, the damage to our national unity will mean our demise as a free and independent nation. The average Joe or Jane finds this nonsensical militant racism just plain ignorant and crazy.

Some years ago, we brought a pair of large Dewlap Toulouse geese to 1990 Gibralter Rd.  One of the geese died shortly after arriving because of my inexperience caring for such newborn fowl.  Herbert survived, mostly in the house in that first year.  Soon after her first egg, we recognized our mistaken naming of Herbert but we could not change her name midstream.  Gradually she adjusted to life among the elements and she greeted whomever approached with a challenging goose noise that the neighbors have to endure.

After a few years of watching her roam the grounds, seemingly content but alone, I decided to bring some of her relatives to keep her company.  This was mistake number 2!  The new arrivals were Large Dewlap Toulouse geese with a shared ancestry, identical color and plumage but they rejected and refused to befriend Herbert.  To this day, as Herbert approaches, they chase her away, refusing to include her in their little flock.  It is sad to watch as she roams the grounds still without companionship, separated by who knows what.

It would seem that we humans behave in a similar fashion without cause, each of us comfortable in our own little flock.  Who are we, thinking men and women or geese?

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca          

           

Pander mania

We killed Jesus.  We insisted on nailing him to a cross.  We being you and I as participants in the prevailing political socio-economic determinants of every age (power over others, territory, money).  We as individual human beings can make a choice to live free of these determinants but this possible choice is hidden from us in the fog of our own making, the fog of sectarian tribalism.  Jesus refused to be a participant in these determinants as we so readily do, therefore, we destroyed him and continue to kill each other.

Two thousand years later we have made such minuscule progress toward participating in the Kingdom of God, the kingdom that Jesus believed to be our future inheritance.  Will the God of the galaxies lose his cool and make the Kingdom happen by divine decree?  Does the Job like patience of God soon end in an apocalypse?  I believe not for our God, yours and mine, is waiting still for we humans to bring his Kingdom to earth.

 

Shall we stop our pandering to our smallness?  Can we? Will we?

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Bucket List

My bucket list is short, very short.  The only item on my list is to be informed definitively as to who killed President Kennedy.  It was my freshman year in college when the radio blasted the news during our Rook card game in the dorm.  Was it the Mob, Cuba, Russia or Oswald?  Was Oswald the shooter or was he the fall guy?  Fifty-one years later we still don’t know the truth.  The Warren Commission Report was an obvious whitewash denying any conspiracy beyond Oswald.  What about the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy shooters?  The similar facts in all these assassinations is that all these shooters are either dead or strangely silent.   Before I die, I want to know who done it!

Critical documents withheld from the Warren Commission and which may have the answers, are now on your desk, President Trump. The release of these documents to us is your decision, why are you stalling?  Why all the extra secrecy?  If the bad actors behind the assassinations were only foreign actors, the people would have been given the documents decades ago.  The only conclusion left to us is that at least one or more American political leaders were implicated to some extent in the assassination of President Kennedy.  This can be the only reason for continued secrecy.

Could there be such devilish, bad actors burrowed into our government?  You, Mr. President know the answer to that question because you have been the target of such bad actors.  Question, which is worse, a bullet to affect political change or conspiracy to affect the slow demise of a president in order to bring the desired change? The late 60’s was an economic boom time but there was a deadly conspiracy afoot.  The last two years have been a return to these boom times and to a governmental conspiracy to dump you from your podium as president of the United States.  Different times but similar scenario and I hope that in this time, the bad actors will get their due.

Please Mr. President, the people have been guessing in the dark for much to long, make the documents public.  Our country is not perfect but we can only achieve such greatness if the light is allowed to shine.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA  

Day 71

May is fast approaching and this spring is different.  The cold and wet months of February and March have changed the desert that has been almost the same for my eight years in Landers.  The old timers say they cannot remember such a spring for we now have an abundance of green weeds with their many-colored flowers.  April has also brought us an invasion of caterpillars and now there are butterflies everywhere with no apparent rhythm or reason.  Why?

One of the obvious answer is change, change is inherent to the world we populate.  Everything seems to have a cycle or process whether or not it is apparent to the naked uninformed eye.  My Biology professor was informed as to the processes of nature and the life cycles of bugs and plants but I was not into the workings of such things to any great extent.  The timing of nature was his thing while I have long forgotten such things except the fact that change is the friend of our physical world order.

   

We humans are uncomfortable with change but just wait, change comes upon us like the weather.  The philosophers tell us that there are two eternities, one being the physical cosmic eternity that most of us think of as temporary but is it really?  The form and function of the galaxies change, sometimes dramatically, but we can be certain that they will reform and again start the process anew.  Life on our planet may be someday be wiped out but there will be another beginning however small.

 

The second eternity is the spiritual realm or dimension.  This is the classical eternity that all we living human beings hang our hat on.  The accepted understanding is that this eternity is static, a paradise that will compensate we humans for the vicissitudes of life and where we can relax without the fear of change. One might ask, is this a good understanding?  Where science has informed our physical eternity, could our spiritual eternity also be a dimension of change?  We all should hope that this may be the case for most of humanity, at best, has only scratched the surface of our spiritual potential.

The paths of the two eternities have at times crossed.  When this has happened, a spiritual spark is ignited in our world.  All the religions of our eternity began with a spark igniting one individual to set aside the humdrum of life for an adventure into the spiritual realm.  We only hear about the influential names like Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus and Mohammed.  There have been thousands of others, less influential individuals who, when ignited, made the decision to explore their spiritual eternity.

 

The history of the Jewish people experienced such an intersection of eternities 4000 years ago.  A change was about to happen and is recorded in the book of Exodus, chapter 2, 23 to 25.  (KJV)

“And it came to pass in process of time, that the King of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage.  And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob.  And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.”

Let the fireworks begin!

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA                           

Day 70

You fill in the blanks  (which religions and when)

Faiths bound by ethics ………..  ???

Faiths bound by doctrine …………  ????

Faiths bound by politics …………  ?????

Fluid faiths ……. unbound by earthly concerns   ?????

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 69

Political revenge.... the great immigration roundup of 2021.

G. Goslaw
Landers, Ca

Day 68

Mathew 5:17 to 20

     

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.   Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (NIV)  

The Law and the Prophets began as the spiritual adventure of one flawed man in an obscure land four thousand years ago.  Abram listened and responded to a voice, some believed to have been an inner voice or others believed to be a voice from the heavens, telling him to move his family to an unknown land.  This inner and outer adventure continued through the lives and spiritual struggles of his family, led by himself and his sons, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.  Finding the promised land inhospitable for a time, the family settled in Egypt where the Pharaoh quickly relegated these adventurers to slavery building bricks for four hundred years.  Life became hard and short lived.

God had a plan to preserve the family by raising up Moses to bring his people out of slavery and out of Egypt and back into the promised land of their forefathers.  This adventure is awesomely documented in the Bible, books, movies and story tellers through the centuries.  The people reluctantly trade Egyptian slavery for a probable death in the desert but the invisible God comes to their rescue in the nick of time, time and again through the faith of Moses.

    

Despite the repeated demonstrations from the heavens, the family demanded more from Moses than the simple fluid faith adventure that was the Law and the Prophets on the heart or inner soul of the family.   Instead of, or in addition to, the fluidity of faith, the people demanded a predictable religion that ministers mostly to the visible outer man.

In desperation Moses climbs a mountain to meet with God.  The people waited and Moses returns with stone tablets written by God with the words of eternity.  Again, the family was not happy, Moses got angry, dashing the stones to pieces against the mountain. The people were not ready for the whole story.

After cooling off, Moses returned to the mountain for a copy of the broken tablets.  Moses again returns to the family with version two of the Law as given to Moses.  Were the two versions of stone tablets written with the same words, were they somehow different?  I would like to read those original words from the first set of stone tablets but, then, we all would and eventually we all will read them.  For now, Jesus was sent by God to tell us the rest of the story which should not diminish the beginning.

There is a logical inconsistency with the words of Jesus as recorded by Saint Mathew in his gospel, 5: 17 to 20.  Jesus preached that right living or righteousness gained from a spiritual relationship with God, exceeds the righteousness of the written Law handed down from Moses to the ethically motivated Pharisees and turned into religious doctrine by the teachers of the Law (Sadducees).  However, the words of Jesus warn us that we must still respect the written Law and not set it aside while giving spirituality the focus.  The consequence for such disrespect is that we shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.  If one is respectful of the written Law as given to Moses while searching for the spiritual Law, this one will gain a reputation for being the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

The logical inconsistency is that no matter your respect level for the religious Law or the spiritual Law written on the heart, all parties are within the kingdom.  If Jesus was a spiritual crusader inviting all to drink from the fountain of God, why is spirituality presented in such an optional manner?  This is hard to wrap my head around.  Even more confusing is verse twenty in which Mathew records Jesus as saying that unless your faith is greater than the Law, you certainly shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.  One might ask, which is it, the Law or the Law written on the heart that qualifies one for the kingdom of Heaven?  Is it either or both?  I wish there was a Bible expert out there that could fix this seeming inconsistency but as yet I have not heard back so I shall advance my own amateurish opinion.

Fully recognizing that adding to the words of Jesus is overtly dangerous, I believe that a few words at the end of verse 20 will untangle the inconsistency.  The verse would then read, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” in this life. Those three little words at the end of the verse, “in this life”, are so necessary that they can almost be assumed clarity.  Chances are that during the 1000 years that the Bible was hidden in the church and repeatedly copied by hand, these three words were accidentally left off and lost to us.

Early in his ministry, the attitude of Jesus toward religion, the religion of his birth, seems to be, if you are not against me, you are for me.  This says to me that Jesus understood God as being inclusive and God honors anyone who walks a God path.  Religion alone, however, is about qualifying people for the journey as was the case with the religion of Israel at the time of Jesus.  In spit of this reality, Jesus had a positive expectation that “we are all in this together”.  Such an optimism is difficult to understand considering the turn that religion was to take in the coming months of his walk.

 

Despite the turn that became dramatically adversarial, Jesus never picked up the sword even though he was tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This high road decision was and is more than most of us can muster, giving up our own personal defense, trusting the God who gives us the credentials for the kingdom, both now and forever.

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA    

         

Day 67

Some of us are exhausted with the our current immigration injustice.  Thousands of central Americans flooding into our country and our politicians are powerless to stop it because our laws are a free pass.  The Democrats will not fix the injustice or our laws so it is the Democrats who are terrorizing we the American citizens.

Democrats, you have won the fight with President Trump in the short term, congratulations.  As politicians you have decided to run errands for the open borders base of your party but that intransigence is very dangerous for your party long term.  We may have to endure caravan after caravan of illegal aliens for the next two years but katy bar the door after the elections in November 2020.

Should President Trump win reelection, should the Republicans extend their majority in the Senate and should the Democratic majority be run out of the House of Representatives, the people, we the American citizens who are paying for this insanity, will have clearly spoken our will.  The people will be in full revolt mode and a massive roundup of illegals will begin.  There will be no mercy, for the illegals or the open borders politicians.

Democrats, let your gamble play out!

 

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 66

One jackass doctor is as good as another jackass doctor.  Heal you or kill you, no matter!

G.Goslaw
Landers, CA

Day 65

The prophet Isaiah expected a change in the desert.

The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,

the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;

they will see the glory of the Lord,

the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the feeble hands,

steady the knees that give way;

say to those with fearful hearts,

Be strong and do not fear;
your God will come,

he will come with vengeance,

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts were jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness;

it will be for those who walk on the Way.

The unclean will not journey on it;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

No lion will be there.

nor any ravenous beast;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

and those that the Lord has rescued will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35  NIV

Day 64

If we Americans step back from all the political hype and emotional hysteria, we can only laugh until the tears flow.  The Democratic presidential wannabes are now the righteous arbiters of American morality?  Hey you guy’s and girl’s, put that on Saturday Night Live and the show will again be a hit.

G. Goslaw
Landers, Ca

Day 63

Jesus showed up among us not as a religious icon but as a God directed and inspired spiritual crusader. Religion is what we settle for. 

G.Goslaw
Landers, CA

Day 62

Our desert has turned green this spring.  After six years of living brown in Landers, the cold wet winter and spring have yielded green weeds two feet tall.  My neighbor says that she has never seen our desert so alive in her twenty years of residence.  The beautiful green weeds yield flowers, yellow, violet and white.  The desert fauna has come alive in 2019 and the change is unexpected and welcome but those beautiful weeds will not last.  I shall repaint my house green for the weeds will disappear quite soon.

G.Goslaw
Landers, CA

Day 61

The Republican political establishment that recruits and finances new politicians for Washington has never had the middle class working taxpayers in their radar.  As Lou Dobbs has stated for thirty years, politics for them is all about pleasing the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Round Table.  Therefore, keeping middle class wages low or lower is their sole, honest interest of the Republican Party led by Senate Majority leader Mitch “the Hitch” McConnell.

The hard working lower third of American income earners hate the Democratic open border policy but we should hate the Republican political leadership even more.  Politicians of both parties have given the country power puff immigration laws that have invited the invasion from the south.  The invasion is here and all our politicians are, understandably, sitting on their asses.

The result is that they are punishing us for their get rich greed.  They are robbing Peter (we taxpayers) to pay Paul (the business establishment).  The Democratic and Republican politicians are exposing us to crime, drugs and educational and financial burdens that do not reach the rich folk.  They are immune and the villains.

President Trump is our Robin Hood and our only hope for economic justice.  Trump policies have raised our wages and put more of us to work contributing to the well-being of our families and the country.  However, Washington is doing a good job of hog tying his efforts to bring economic equity to America.

 

My opinion, there are no good politicians, self-interest is their only concern and as a result, the America we love is doomed just as the Roman Empire committed economic and political suicide 600 years ago.  Déjà vu!

 

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca     

Day 60

Google is selling itself as smart news?  And they think we’re stupid!

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 59

The life choice is not between religion and atheism, this is a false dichotomy.  It is a lie.  The life choice is to accept our spiritual nature and to identify how best to honor that heritage in our own lives.  The true dichotomy is between spirituality and no spirituality.  The life choice is the choice as to how we want to live, anticipating an eternal spiritual future or the choice only to live in the “dust”(biblical term), a choice that the wind will blow away.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 58

President Trump, you blew it!  When the liberal, no border Democrats created the hysteria about separating families illegally crossing our border, you surrendered.  If I break the law, I get separated from my family, why should the fate of the illegal crosser be any different.  If an adult conspires with their children to break our border immigration laws, why are they not subject to separation.  You have caved, listening to the whiners.

The border is now more open than ever before, the criminals and criminal families, are pleading for your agents to arrest them.  Please, please, arrest me, give me a court date and then release me into your country.  Of course, I will return for my court date.  Si, Si!

If you believe that you and half of America are stupid.  Adequate housing seems to be the problem and the reason for the releases, so we are told.  This housing is extremely expensive, why should the American taxpayers be burdened with housing South America?  The treasonous game the Democrats are playing is obvious and the only short-term solution is in the White House.  The only solution is the court given authority for the president to deal with immigration and national security issues.  Money from Congress seems to be the primary hurdle.

Congress will not produce meaningful change so your executive action is the only possible solution.  Round up all the illegal aliens and fly them, families intact, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Give them adequate food and housing at minimal cost to our taxpayers.  Send the judges to Guantanamo and then return them to their country of origin when they are found not to have legal reason to enter America.

Should they so choose, let them crawl under the fence of Guantanamo.  Si, Si, CUBA!!  Poetical, don't you think, Mr. President?

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca

 

Day 57

The human brain and the computer are fascinating technologies.  I woke up this morning to a phrase or lyric repeating in my head, as if a long-ago memory was trying to swim to the surface.

    

   “We got a long way to go and a short time to get there.”

Had it not been for the computer, the memory would have remained in the fog of meaningless verbiage. A few clicks on google search and I got educated to the old days.  The phrase is from a song, a truckin’ song by Jerry Reed, “East Bound and Down”. The chorus repeats,

         “East bound and down, loaded up for truckin’

           We’re gonna do what they say can’t be done.

           We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.

           I’m east bound, just watch ole “Bandit” run.”   
 

It has been forty years since that kind of trucking was a part of my life, why now?  There was a time when the rules did not apply to the job.  Back in those times I used to run California moving families from here to there with out filling out a log book for months at a time.  Those were the days when trucking was fun and truckers were respected and trusted.  Then the powers that be, tightened the screws making the profession more complicated and a mere job.

The screw tightening was not about safety and more about government control and raising money.  I must confess to an aversion to rules.  Religion can be defined in the same manner.  The church in which I was raised had a long list of rules written in the church constitution from the very first days of its inception in 1906.  

If God is all about making us somehow fit for eternity, this God is boring as are the rules.  Could that be one reason why religion has cooled in our country?

G.Goslaw

Landers, Ca   

 

Day 56

The choice is not between religion and atheism, this is a false dichotomy.  It is a lie.  The life choice is to accept our spiritual nature or to reject any human need for a spiritual track among we humans.

 

Spirituality does not necessarily mean religion of any strip.  Jesus had no religion but said follow me to exercise your spiritual potential (my redaction)!

 

What does that mean for you and I?

G.Goslaw

Landers,CA

Day 55

Friday, March 22, 2019 …. Muller is done and the special prosecutor recommends nothing, an empty result after two years of investigation of the man who spanked the britches of the Democrats in the 2016 presidential election.  Empty is an accurate description of the gray matter between the ears of every Trump hater who has degraded themselves by their infantile behavior and politically motivated accusations.

 

Thanks to President Trump for your steadfastness and patience with we juveniles who have betrayed the well-being of the American people.

Thanks!

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA  

Day 54

What ever happened to Jeff Sessions?  His track record as the Attorney General was a two year self-inflicted humiliation.  That is how he will be remembered, a plant by the Democratic and Republican conspiracy to get President Trump.  All his 2016 campaign shenanigans in support of President Trump were a ploy to be a turncoat in a possible Trump administration, should that become necessary.  Thankfully it did.

Sessions was a get Trumper from the get go, double minded, enjoy your retirement, Mr. Sessions.  Most of us have forgotten you already, history will not!

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

Day 53

John Mc Cain was an American military hero as were the thousands of young American men drafted by our politicians to die in the jungles of Viet Nam. You be the judge, who best deserves the central place of honor?  My opinion is that those who lost their lives in service to their country should be honored as the best of America.  The surviving war fighters receiving continuing honors do so mostly because they are alive and able to collect.  This may be more about the short attention span of we the judges than the honors due John McCain.

Post war, the political career of John McCain was marked by the same personal quality that preserved him through many years of captivity, a dogged individualism.  He was not a team player.  My best guess is that he relished to a greater degree the pivotal podium than to be a team player.  As a team player, the one becomes one of the many.  

John bucked heads with every president and ducked between the Democratic and Republican teams, seemingly fancying himself as a bridge builder.  You be the judge, what were the motives of his political life?  I would like an audit of his personal finances surrounding his pivotal vote in defeating the Republican Healthcare bill just before his death.  Why did he dish out that defeat?  Was he motivated by the never Trump establishment or was it money to set up his family after his death.  

There is nothing heroic about either scenario. 

Goslaw

Landers, CA  

Day 52

Looking back from my recliner, how could I have been so young and dumb?  The big issues are water under the bridge but it is the little youthful dumb moves that nag at me.  For instance, my first flight in a small plane.  I have never been good at accepting advice but when my Navy pilot training buddies advised, take a barf bag up on your first flight, I consciously or not, refused to listen.  A barf bag is for sissies!

Wrong oh, bobo, is the reality I soon experienced.  The instructors took advantage of the first familiarization flight to do a little dog fighting with other instructors in the T-34.  We newbies would be just sitting passively in the front seat taking the g’s and this newbie was getting dog sick.  That feeling of being on the edge of barfdom was and is the worst feeling known to man or woman.

The feeling reminded me of our childhood cross country trips to see relatives in California.  The family Buick was the pastor’s Cadillac and my father and mother put a lot of miles on a succession of Buicks.  We kids were contained in the back seat but after a succession of accidents, Mom went to the back seat and I got to think about something other than being sick from the front seat. It seemed to work for the most part.

Back to the T-34, everything was in my throat.  In desperation at the last split second, without thinking and with sweat running down my forehead, I unzipped my flight jacket and relieved myself, immediately zipping the zipper back up.  My instructor must have smelled the situation, expecting a mess in his plane.  He could then have fun at the expense of this newbie by ordering a cleanup.  I am sure that was the plan but I fooled him, we shook hands and I thanked him for the flight, admitting nothing.

I look back on this experience with almost a sense of pride but now have accepted the fact that most of my decisions in my youth were sadly deficient.  I seemed to be floating through life letting others be in control of my future without a passionate goal to which I could order and give myself too.  

Would that someone, at a critical moment, had sat me down and tried at least to wake me up.  No telling if I would have listened but my life would have been more pleasant, had I.

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

Day 51

A talking head on the tube said that the idea of a transaction fee on stock market trades has been around for fifty years.  Who knew?  Thank you for the info, Fox Business News.  I have been around for fifty years and the idea somehow slipped through my brain matter, so what gives?

 

I shall readily admit that my gray matter has holes but would not a serious proposal have been public info?  A proposal, that if enacted, would have solved at least one national issue or crisis, be it medical coverage or the national debt. Such a transaction $1 fee, per share purchased, seems like a no brainer.  The fee would be easy to collect and deductible on your federal IRS return.  To the long-term investor, such a fee would not even be noticed but the revenue gained to the country would be very significant.

 

So, where’s the rub?  You guessed it, the Wall Street political lobby that dishes out campaign contributions to our political leaders in Washington. The fee would have a negative effect on the big trading houses when they buy millions of stocks every day but why is that a negative for the working American?  The big traders will have to adjust their business model.

A rational solution to so much of our national angst has been buried by our politicians on the dole!  Why should the American stock market get a free pass when government has become so costly?  

Please ask your politicians about a stock market transaction fee.

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA 

Day 50

Every religion is imperfect and different.  Some are mere snapshots of the relationship of God to man, while others may be a sitcom or a drama of one hour.  Another may be a documentary, a drama series or a late-night gab session.  Any religion that claims to have won the religion game by having all the marbles, has drunk the Jonestown cool aide.

The issue before every religion is, are we willing to look ourselves in the mirror?  And then we must question ourselves, is what we are doing working?  Is getting hostile in the face of criticism building our understanding of the God man dynamic?  Some believe there is no room or need for such self-inspection in a religion that may have been around for thousands of years.  Surely such a religion would have dealt with all the questions.  Well, answers have been given but the more likely scenario is that they have been buried and ignored.

It doesn’t take a genius to state the obvious.  In the twenty first century, the decision that matters the most is not which religion will be embraced but does modern man need any religion?  Every culture on earth is becoming increasingly secular, making decisions in our personal and group lives, devoid of any divine consideration.  The enemy of every religion is no religion at all, believers of every stripe must join arms to address our common enemy, secularism.

The question that bothers me the most is whether religion is a sugar high for the poor uneducated masses?  That one is being buried very deep in the face of secularism.

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

Day 49

Religion and the words of Jesus get all mixed up.  All my books are packed away because my grandson is borrowing the study for a few more months but even if they were available I am not sure I could adequately document a solution to the mix up.  The confusion is so entrenched in religious group think that clarity is extremely difficult.  Finding a thread of thought within religion that provides a way forward may be out there but it is buried by layers of acceptable dogma.

Jesus is searching for other voices who will trumpet the good news that we humans are, indeed, spiritual beings with a profound spiritual mission.  A mission that will not be exercised without voices shouting at us from beyond the land of the religiously correct.  Religion did everything to stifle the words of Jesus and the religion of Christianity is too often complicit with those same efforts.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA 

    

Day 48

An America that celebrates our differences is a strange new land. There was a time not long ago when we celebrated that which unites us as a people and a country.  That day is gone for many of us.  There is a stain on the ceramic tile floor at my bathroom throne and that stain gets worse with every dribble.  This slacker does have a poor aim coupled with poor housekeeping skills but is it not also true that we all pee?  All of we human beings ingests nutrients and have the same way to expel waste so why can’t we celebrate our sameness.  Instead, we choose to celebrate all that other stuff, like race, religion, relative wealth and all that supposed free stuff.

Bottom line, we are all brothers and sisters.  As Americans, we can share a national identity, we can share a history choosing freedom above all other interests.  Four hundred years ago when the people were birthing our unique new nation, freedom was celebrated above personal security and economic interests.  What is the difference, why is America leaning to be different, then and now?  The answer to this question is simple and obvious, the gift of freedom means that we are willing to live within a competitive life situation, it means that we are willing to earn our respective life situation.

Healthy competition has become unpopular in our new America.  Our politicians have no stomach for telling it like it is, in the short term their future depends upon their relative expertise at lying.  The promotion of a mommy society that gives out personal security according to its own priorities is the end of freedom.  Such a top down society is to promise everything and deliver only what is necessary to maintain control over the people.  Can any reasonable American call any such system freedom?

The competitively squeamish scream, competition isn’t fair!  Grow up, life in this world has never been fair, fairness, what is that?  Why do millions of American gets so worked up over a football or baseball competition?  We do so because we are competitive beings, for millions of years we humans have had to compete for our next meal, it is who we are as humans.

Competition means that there are those who appear to be winners and those who appear to be losers.   Appearance are deceiving, none of us wins at all times and in all areas of life, we win some and we lose some.   I was a truck owner operator most of my life and the only win I can claim was that I loved what I was doing and I managed to financially stay afloat.  There was no big payday at the end of that rainbow but as the saying goes, it is better for me to have loved (tried) and lost than never to have loved (tried) at all.  I am blessed to be an American with the freedom to try whatever I may choose.  The rest of the world knows only some form of top down government control. 

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA   

Day 47

Abortion, the destroying of a live human being in the womb, is a female dilemma and an abortion is a socially acceptable excuse that allows the female to kill her own child.  The male DNA in question may not be wanted but the baby also has your DNA, for you are the mother.  The new life is yours, you willingly spread her legs, you chose sex without protective measures, you are responsible and you will suffer the consequences resulting from your imminent decision.

 

Is there forgiveness, of course, but forgiveness is not automatic, repentance must precede any forgiveness?  No repentance, no admission that abortion is a degenerative act and an affront to our own humanity, then there can be no forgiveness.

No other human being is qualified to evaluate the depth of repentance within another human, only our own innate moral center can be the judge.  The Bible describes this moral center as our gut or innards.  We, in our day use the word conscience or heart but regardless of the words used, this place is a functioning part of our individual humanity.

Do you, the ladies of America, want to live with a knot in your gut or do you want to live free?  You can stuff and deny the dilemma but you will be moving on with a festering knot in your gut! 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

Day 46

Liar, liar …. pants on fire!  The word liar is the most incendiary of words these days.  It is now more fashionable to use the word liar than thinking or communicating, let alone listening.  “You are a liar, therefore I don’t have to listen!”  The problem with all this liar stuff is that the truth gets lost in the heat of the moment.  We don’t even bother digging for the truth anymore, it is more expedient to just accuse, berate and demean.

The favored political term of 30 years ago was the spin.  When being asked about an issue or concern, the respondent would attempt to turn the issue away to some form of polite disagreement.  The tactful us of spin in our political discourse has gone away but hopefully it has not been lost forever.  To disagree is our American heritage, to trash any who disagree with you is not American. The question must be asked, from whom must any meaningful change originate?

 

The answer is all of us.  As a political tactic however, the first and most ardent offenders of an overuse of the word liar is the hard core political left that has overrun the Democratic Party.  Rather than advocate for the truth, these folk attack, regardless of the truth.  They are political bullies who resort to name calling, deceit and deception to advance a progressive, socialist agenda and to them there are no rules and no truth, only political power.  They came so close to robbing America, by every means, of our democratic heritage in the 2016 presidential election and are now angry and resentful.

Calling our president, the American liar in chief is to the left the ultimate insult.  As Americans, have they no self-respect?  When they bag on their president in this manner or remain silent in the midst of such attacks, do they not trash themselves?  Is politics really a street fight?

 

President Trump does exaggerate at times opening himself to criticism but this not a lie.  Like the rest of us, we act and speak upon our hopes even before they are completely realized.  Some of us call such believing in our hopes a matter of faith.  

Finally, the long recognized saying about lying means that those who flippantly call others liars have their own, grossly more serious, honesty problem.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA      

  

Day 45

Fox News is an important part of my days and I remain grateful for their truth saying.  This morning they had one of those so-called experts on the boob tube using that 10,000,000 illegal aliens number.  

The expert and Fox News are liars, at least on this occasion.  I was a Lou Dobbs believer 20 years ago when the number quoted was 10,000,000 and for 20 years it has been a constant flow of illegality.  Our politicians are the most illegal persons for allowing a nonexistent border and Mr. Dobbs has lead us.   

Anyway, I would like to hear from Lou Dobbs, Lou is the number 10,000,000?  Should that happen, maybe I will rethink the gravity of the stink in Washington or at Fox News.

G,Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 44

Our president made a comment on February 20 that is blatantly confusing.  President Trump compared the antics of former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe to those of J. Edgar Hoover, the long servicing FBI director of sixty years ago.  Hoover used the power of his office to affect the politics of our country, starting a multitude of investigations to do damage to those whom he considered a threat to the USA, as he envisioned our country.

 

The comparison with FBI acting director McCabe is obvious but is that all our president was communicating? President Trump is privy to the classified evidence about the assassinations of President John Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy who at the time of his killing was running for the democratic nomination for president and our civil rights icon, Martin Luther King.

For some strange reason, early in his presidency Donald J. Trump extended the 50-year classification period for the Kennedy assassination.  Why?  We can only ask the question and then surmise.

The murders of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King are strangely similar, all involve a patsy rouge shooter who is either silenced or is inexplicitly quiet.  The Russians were blamed, the Cubans and the Mob, all have taken the public heat but what if it was J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI, all along.  Hoover may have been the brains behind the assassinations. 

For the last two years we have been aghast at the string of revelations about the fraudulent FBI investigation instigated to displace our president.  As these details are revealed the common reaction is that our country has never been there before, our governmental powers have never been so arrogant.

Probably, under FBI director Hoover, there was a time when our bureaucrats were even more arrogant.

Please President Trump, no more secrets, give we the public the real story, as degrading as that may be to our idealized national identity.  Such a truth action would be a future deterrent, making treasonous actions by out of control bureaucrats less likely.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA