What will you choose?

(originally posted 111/23/2010)

Hey there, hi there all; still haven't had a chance to catch the tail end of the Board meeting...but it keeps nagging me, and so eventually, I will -- and, of course, share it with you.  But there's no meeting this Wednesday, plus there's the holiday and all; so something else has taken a higher priority for the moment -- that would be Air Travel.

To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't flown anywhere since returning from New York in 1999; indeed, I've had little opportunity to even visit an airport.  




I was deeply impacted by 9/11 -- as we all were -- but friends, this is simply how it is:  there's much more to that disaster than any of us can even imagine -- and I personally believe that little to none of it was caused by foreign terrorists and/or airplanes. This has been my belief since I watched the towers come down; a belief that's crystalized over the past decade.

I have watched America change from the land of the free and the home of the brave...and morph into the homeland of the timid and the tamed...country of the corralled and the quiet.

Cows moo and low, and it's said they're easily toppled; sheep baa and bleat, and unwittingly let themselves be led to their own slaughter.  Neither exercise any choice regarding their shepherd, or their shearer...or their butcher.  

But we...we are not sheep. What, then, has happened to us -- as a people, as a nation?  Why do we capitulate so effortlessly?  Why do so many of us obediently follow the crook of the questionable shepherds?*  

Like frogs in a pot brought to a gradual boil, we do not even realize that all around the water's roiling...too numbed by distraction to feel the heat and steam of deceit.

We look unrecognizingly into the smiling face of Danger.  We have become blind -- willingly blinding our selves with falsehoods -- hoods designed and tailored especially for us, and handed to us, and taken by us, and worn.

Do you see what I see?  


Do you hear what I hear?  


Do you know what I know?

The alarm is sounding -- good friend, open your eyes!  Brother, sister, wake up -- our house is on fire!!  We are no longer safe here!!!

Listen...Listen To Me:  things like pride and freedom are far more worthy of inconvenience than standing in line, waiting to pose nude, for free, for the Air Gestapo!  

Do you feel safer as a result of these ostentatious precautions?  Do you really think it will stop at the airports?  These pseudo-cops are already making their presence felt at train stations and bus depots -- soon, they'll be there at the skating rink and school board meeting...all for our "protection."


You know...I'm well aware of the looks with which God blessed me, and I've always been a good dancer; I have always known that if I wanted to...if I *needed* to -- badly enough -- I could strip for money...and probably make plenty of it.  

But I Never Have...and the reason why is that I'M NOT THAT EASY...OR WILLING TO TAKE THE EASY MONEY.  If someone wants to see me naked, then that fool better work for it; I had better be willing, or the seer had better be wily, or strong enough to make me -- and believe me, if I wasn't willing, it sure wouldn't be an easy thing...to make me.


And don't even get me started on whether I'd acquiesce to having some paranoid and intrusive peeping stranger ogling and taking naked pictures of my mother, my daughter, my son...!?  Please -- there would be Hell to pay.  






A trip to Hell comes at a steep and terrible price, and the road there is paved with good intentions.  Do we want to go there?  Do we want to go to Hell??

Lives were lost, and blood was spilled to liberate us from tyranny.  We must ask ourselves:  at what price freedom -- not just your own, but that of your forebears, and that of your offspring?  









It will require a brave heart, a steely mind, a strong backbone, a resolute spirit, and a readiness for sacrifice...but we can no longer afford to feign ignorance, look away, close our eyes or bury our heads in the sand!   

They say that you cannot rape the willing; will you choose to go along, simply to get along?  Will ye not band together, stand tall, and fight the good fight?


I have chosen to follow the Good Shepherd, and He lights my path...and when it comes my time to go, I shall not go quietly.  If God so wills it, then I pray that you, too, will find the fortitude to be the thorn in the side. 


Opting out is civil disobedience...a type of protest advocated by such leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi; disobey, civilly, and in accordance with the United States Constitution.  

Be safe, and have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving.

* a crook is a shepherd's staff with a hook at one end.