The Parts of My Mother's Love

A gentle touch
That means so much
From the loving hands that cradled me…

Attentive ears
That shows you care
Listening to my every quest…

Eyes so full of wisdom rare
That sees beyond
Because you’ve been there…

Lips that kiss me “Goodnight my child”
Bringing the gentle winds
Of a loving smile…

And a heart so full of love complete
That nurtured me
With care so sweet…

With the outpouring of a grateful heart
That knows the gift of motherhood
As all the ways through which you show
Your grasp of Godly womanhood…
Thank you…Thank you mother dear
Here’s one more hug…To show how near
I feel to every part of you…
And one more kiss…That lets you know
That I love you…Love you…Love you so

From the book: "Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls.” by Roy Alexander Graham

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=574443144

Isosceles Realities... The Power of the Recognition of Your Wholeness

Two sides... Standing together
Equally... Against a third…
One reality... Seeking survival
Against two dissenting thirds…

A triangular truth... Examined…And found wanting

One side
That must decide
Itself to save from a certain crush
Discovered in its infinity
It does not need to be
One of three
To survive
And realize
Its hundred eighty degrees.


Excerpt From: Roy Alexander Graham's... “Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls.”

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=574443144

Update! A Nation of Immigrants... Our Origin and Destiny

The Obama Era Continues (Now let the Republican games begin!) 

This from Politico today:
"President Barack Obama will announce Thursday that he is shielding about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, according to sources familiar with the planning.

In calls to immigration reform proponents Wednesday, senior administration officials said the executive actions will cover 4 million undocumented immigrants who would qualify for deferred deportations by using criteria such as longevity in the United States and family ties, according to sources briefed on the discussions.

Another 1 million would receive protection through other means, two sources said.

Obama will promote the executive actions at an event in Las Vegas Friday."


"I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” Ronald Reagan (1984 debate with Mondale)

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 brought almost three million people “out of the shadows” of fear and exploitation into the hopeful daylight of American life. In contrast to the lamentations of certain conservative voices that the Act failed in its promise to stem the flow of “illegals” across our porous borders, we might look at its benefits to the economy and the fact that in the “land of the free” millions were liberated from the exploitation of those who prey on the vulnerable who had no status to demand any Rights. Since 1986 no less than another three million persons have received amnesty under various extensions of the IRCA.

Throughout our history people have come to this country in pursuit of a better life. Some come to escape wars and famine, others just in search of greater freedom and better economic opportunity. For whatever reasons...this is a land of immigrants, by immigrants, for immigrants. We come here and we give our talents and our blood and the blood of our children to build and to secure the “land of the free and home of the brave”. The absence of homogeneity is what makes us unique as a nation. We are more than “a people”. America is a product of the whole human experience, offering the richness of what it means to be a person to all who are courageous enough to venture into the formative splendor of its melting pot.

As Americans we have a duty to cultivate a vision of our society that is greater than that which is reflected in the convenient political opportunism that colors the ambitions of myopic individuals. Those who want to close the door behind them once they and their households are in will find that door constantly battered by the winds of human opportunity that brought the first ships to these shores. This country is a force of nature powered by the aspirations and the inspirations of the immigrant. Ours is a hope hinged on the hopes of those who dare to rise up against hopelessness.

According to our census experts there are close to 12 million people living illegally in the USA. They build our houses. They help us care for our children. They do our landscaping. They work in our restaurants and hotels. They do our dry cleaning. They work in our livestock industry. They raise and kill and pluck the chicken that is an irreplaceable staple of our daily diets. They do the work that many of us think is too hard. They are forced into prostitution. We underpay them because they are afraid to speak out against exploitation. They are forced to forego any recourse to Justice because of fear. And they are not the factor that they should be in the tax base that goes toward the building of a more viable society.

We are a nation of laws, but we must be more than that. Laws evolve. Let us be a nation of Justice. Let us author laws that nurture the hopes and dreams of the widow and the orphan. This nation must continue to be a refuge for those who seek safety from cruelty and famine. Let us be fair to those whose only transgression is seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

President Reagan knew in his heart that to maintain the status quo with regard to the undocumented immigrant was wrong. IT WAS WRONG THEN, IT IS WRONG NOW. We need to be guided now by the magnanimous-ness of Reagan's vision. We are called to abandon the blithe-full political rhetoric that reflects an impotent view of American possibility. Justice dictates that the time is ripe now to grant another amnesty.

TRUTH

She requires but a few words to serve her…
For she is forthright and of an open face
And knows not the guile of those
Who are wise in their own conceit…
She needs not the defense of any worldly conspiracy…
For she is content with her own company…
She needs no propping up
Since hers is the only sure foundation
Built to withstand the assault of every fraudulent reason
And the most aggressive ravaging of time…
In her essence she celebrates no emotion…
She neither laughs nor cries…
But looks with a level eye
On every condition of the heart…
One might say she hopes…
The kind of hope that holds that all
May find real balance in this life…
And if we say she is “relative…”
We may be right…
In that we are all related to her…
And she is the origin and destiny of all our quests…
But…she is no closer to us…
Than we are to her…
And when we know her…
She sets us free…
And is that not our desire…

From:  “Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls.” By Roy Alexander Graham ... Figtree Books
www.FigtreeEnterprises.com

Of Marx the Bogeyman, and Jesus the Savior

Let us be clear about the profound immorality of those who love to use Marx as the bogeyman in our time while they pay lip service to the life and work of a Nazarene named Jesus. Marx lived twice as long as Jesus and eventually died of pleurisy. While Marx was vilified by many for calling the workers of the world to unite, Jesus was murdered at age 33 for calling out the inequities of his day and those who perpetuated hem. We can theologically sanitize his murder all we want... He was NAILED to a rough wooden cross, which he was forced to carry on his back to the hill where he would be murdered, and allowed to hang on it till he was dead. His was the kind of fate that the theologian Bonhoeffer aptly described in his declaration that when God/Christ calls a man: "He bids him come and die." This for Bonhoeffer was "the cost of discipleship".

Those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo have never welcomed the voices that declare in favor of the poor and the disadvantaged. The silence of the Press in regard to the complicity of the rich in the downpression of the poor is the inevitable function of a system of patronage that is the raison d'être of the Press itself. Christianity as we know it is a reflection of the prevailing moral values in society. This being the case, prophetic voices are invariably isolated and targeted for elimination. The false equivalencies that we witness are nothing more than attempts to muddle the consciousness of those who are patrons of the daily discourse of charlatans "making a living". 

 Walter Rhett makes this observation about the obvious contradictions between the rhetoric of some of our political leaders and their political praxis:

"In South Carolina, 101 children died in the care of the state’s DSS in 2012; yet governor Nikki Haley opposes the Medicaid expansion in a state at the bottom of the national health matrix. Moral intelligence looks at what we do for others, what legacy we leave. It is time to look past budgets, the constitution, the ugly labels, the rising murders and madness, and point to the moral failings of a party that closed the very government the founders fought to establish; that passed laws to allow guns in church or to take the lives of neighbors and to say none of these were the original intent of the founders–and neither were special privileges for the rich."

And so the poor perish while political opportunists and their lackeys spook the people with their visions of the ghost of Marx. And for this "Jesus wept". 

The struggle continues...

Of Hate and Fear and Murder... And Civilization

What sickness is it that inflames a man's mind to the extent that he would praise Hitler? What is the source of the vain insanity that leads a person to the precipice of that bloody Hell where he sees his own survival only in terms of the annihilation of those he perceives as different? What is it that ails the racist, the white supremacist, the ethnic cleanser?

Look closely and see that whatever it is, is by no means empowering. Look closer and realize that the madness that drives the hater has its own self-destructive logic. The assumption of power that drives the victims of this existential asylum is just a delusion. Yes. Only a DELUSION. For it is not a sense of strength that drives the murderous inclinations of madmen, but a rather deep-seated sense of his own nonentity-ness. It is a neurosis... A wickedness that has its roots deep in the muck of a corrupted sense of "being". It is that vile reasoning that his existence is only validated in the destruction of those he perceives as the reason for his own sense of powerlessness.

Yes. IT IS FEAR THAT DRIVES HATE. The permission to murder that the hater gives himself is really just a function of his own perceived impotence. True power is ALWAYS expressed in the tendency to empower others. The fearful finds and rationalizes his impotence in the convenient projection of his existential dilemma onto those who are superficially or culturally separable. It is a deep-seated and essentially primitive instinct. Like chicken of one color in a dominant group, they seek to resolve the perceived threats to their survival and dominance through the subjugation, and ultimately the destruction of an identifiably "different" minority. That minority, in their estimation, must not be allowed to thrive since their expressed fecundity is a threat to the cultural cockiness of the hater. And so the threatened "chicken" feels he must de-feather that minority. It is not a far step between de-feathering a thriving bird and taking its life. And so the hater becomes a murderer.

The Achilles heel of the white supremacist ideology is a progressively civilized society in which moral consensus is backed by appropriate legal action. The hater ultimately depends on the inaction of society regarding his wickedness. He bets on the silence and/or complicity of a population that cowers in the face of uncivilized brute-force. A society and a world that agrees on progressively moral standards of Justice saw the demise of Adolf Hitler and his vile kind. That same impetus of Justice will inevitably be brought to bear against the moral and cultural deficiencies of the current and former "knights" of the KKK.... And it is the children of those they have victimized who will administer the prevailing codes of Justice against them.

Putin and the rule of International Morality

In his New York Times editorial, speaking specifically about the Syrian situation and the discussion of the threat of the use of force against the Assad regime by the United States, Putin states : "The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not." Of course he was talking about International Law and the fact that the use of force by one country against another is only justified in cases of self defense. 

Putin is not a disciple of the doctrine of "exceptionalism" and is obviously contemptuous of America's claim to it. To back up his rejection to any such claim he states : "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." Not only does he appeal to our own creed in objection to our doctrine, he also looks at the examples of our excursions in Libya and Iraq as showing that our actions have led to undesirable outcomes. Despite the unspecific 'bleatings' of those who believe that standing with our allies means marching in to their rescue with our heroic cavalry, Putin is on pretty solid ground in expecting that this will not happen here.

 As to whether sanctions will be effective as deterrence in our just pursuit of international idealism ...time will tell. We have no evidence of mass outrage against Russia among the Crimeans. What we have seen so far is celebration. The Crimean people do not need us to save them from themselves...or their leaders. As to our geo-political motives... Iraq is a witness AGAINST that. 

Much as I value the wisdom of my friend Walter Rhett, I do not see "the Mel Brooks effect" eventuating here. The reality of Russia's annexation of Crimea is that Putin is not viewed as "other" in the sense that the black lawman in "Blazing Saddles" was. We have forgotten about Libya. We would like to forget about Iraq. It is just a matter of time before the new geography of Ukraine/Russia becomes status quo. The rule of international morality will "be but a fleeting illusion" as long as some of us view ourselves as "exceptional" and others as objects in our back yards.