Posted on 04/16/2004 6:37:21 PM PDT by Mo1
Life! Cut us some slack - we're old and we're tired...is a couple of days without incident too much to ask?
Cheers, all.
It was a busy morning, approximately
8:30 am, when an elderly Gentleman, in
his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his
thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an
appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs and
had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour
before someone would to able to see him.
I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I
was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate
his wound. On exam it was well healed, so I talked to
one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove
his sutures and redress his wound.
While taking care of his wound, we began to engage in
conversation. I asked him if he had a doctor's
appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.
The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the
nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife.
I then inquired as to her health. He told me that
she had been there for a while and that she was a
victim of Alzheimer Disease.
As we talked, and I finished dressing his wound, I
asked if she would be worried if he was a bit late.
He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that
she had not recognized him in five years now.
I was surprised, and asked him. "And you still go
every morning, even though she doesn't know who you
are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said. "She
doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."
I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps
on my arms, and thought, "That is the kind of
love I want in my life."
True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True
love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will
be, and will not be.
Good friends are like stars..You don't always see
them, but you always know they're there.
Acceptance - it's an agape love.
Society's "tolerance" is such a poor substitute.
Looks like the rain won't be letting up any time soon:
http://www.weather.com/weather/map/USTX0001?name=southcentralussatellite_large_animated&day=1&par=yahoo&site=www.yahoo.com&promo=img
Loddy, that is so true. Thanks for that story.
That's nice Woliff..
It's been a sad day.. Lot's of tear filled eyes for a lot of people here.
Cheney's eulogy was wonderful.. but you know how much I love that man.. ;)
The text of Cheney's eulogy tonight
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Reagan%20Cheney%20Text
Ark building time in CenTex - wow.
Sada cheers, friend.
Good to see ya here.
I'm gone for the night...Mañana, maybe....
.....Westy.....
The musical CATS is coming to town next week:
Memory
Daylight, see the dew on the sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses wither away
Like the sunflower I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day
Now Old Deuteronomy, just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different jellicle life
Memory, turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in
If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin
Memory, all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
Burnt out ends of smokey days
The stale cold smell of morning
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning
Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
Sunlight, through the trees in the summer
Endless masquerading
Like a flower as the dawn is breaking
The memory is fading
Touch me, it's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me you'll understand what happiness is
Look, a new day has begun
Earlier this year NewsMax Magazine published the special report "Reagan and God," based on newly discovered papers of President Reagan and the findings of scholar Paul Kengor in his book "God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life." NewsMax is republishing part of the NewsMax Magazine report in honor of President Reagan. For more details on this report and Paul Kengor's book,
Part one: Forewarned of Shooting. Part two: Mother Set Example. Part three follows:
When Reagan arrived in Hollywood in 1938 on contract with Warner Brothers, Hollywood was far from the celebrity-crazed, hedonistic Tinseltown we know today.
Nor was it one of the quaint Puritan towns that dotted America’s midsection, such as Dixon, Ill., where Reagan’s childhood unfolded. He quickly joined the Hollywood Beverly Christian Church, which belonged to Disciples of Christ. He was not a regular church attendee, however. In fact, Kengor discovered that despite being quite religious, Reagan never thought going to church every Sunday was critical.
In an article he wrote in 1950 titled “My Faith,” he admitted not attending church “as regularly as I should. I suppose it’s true that a man can be religious without going to church.”
But his commitment to his church was underscored by the fact that, though he moved from the Beverly Christian Church, he remained a member of its congregation and financially supported the church his entire life. Kengor notes that even today, “Nancy Reagan still sends a monthly check to Beverly Christian in their names.”
Honoring his parents was a central concern for Reagan. Soon after establishing himself in Hollywood, he bought his parents a home in Hollywood and supported them financially.
Nelle didn’t retire. She did what she always had done: helped the poor and needy. Kengor said she volunteered at a TB sanatorium “and at least three other medical treatment centers. She also continued her prison fellowship.”
Communist Threat
Though Reagan was not political in his early Hollywood days, the growing communist influence in the movie industry captured his interest. During a speech to a group in Los Angeles, he spoke of the growing threat of fascism. After the speech, a pastor approached him, saying that communism was an equal danger and needed to be addressed.
Reagan did address the issue, and his criticisms of communism made him many enemies.
“To Reagan few passages of his life had been as grueling as those years when he faced physical intimidation, including a threat that he would be splashed with acid, ruining the big screen face he depended upon for income,” the author recalled. “He began packing a .32 Smith and Wesson pistol, holstering the gun on every morning for months and wearing it until he stepped into bed at night.”
The pastor’s comment sparked a passion for exposing communism that would dominate Reagan for the rest of his political life and would lead to his own crusade to bring down the Soviet Union.
Spiritual Odyssey
Reagan’s faith and spirituality are difficult to pigeonhole. Many critics have dismissed his frequent references to God as throwaway lines made by a politician to appeal to religious voters.
On the other extreme, foes have categorized his religious faith as fundamentalist, that of a Bible-thumper. Such was the fictional depiction of Reagan in Viacom’s recent Showtime movie “The Reagans.” The screenwriters falsely portrayed Reagan as uncaring about AIDS victims as he quoted the Bible: “Those who live in sin shall die in sin.” Of course, Ronald Reagan never made such a statement.
Other critics have accused Reagan and his wife of hypocrisy. The couple didn’t attend church regularly. Mrs. Reagan had consulted an astrologer. And the public problems with their children suggested that the Reagans were not your typical Christian family.
But, as Kengor explains in one detail after another, Reagan’s faith was deep, personal, formative to his politics, and much more complex and embracing than a fundamentalist’s faith.
In “God and Reagan,” we discover how Reagan’s faith manifested itself. Here are just some of the traditional and non-traditional ways that Kengor reveals:
Belief in an afterlife. Reagan firmly believed not only that death does not end one’s existence but also that sometimes those who die can communicate with the living. He had such an experience at the funeral service for his father.
He recalled that he was terribly sad and then he heard his father’s voice: “I’m OK, and where I am it’s very nice. Please don’t be unhappy.” Reagan turned to his mother to share the communication and said that his sadness disappeared.
Dreams. The Bible shows that God sometimes talks to people in their dreams.
Reagan believed that, as the Sieffert anecdote indicated. But he also had a dream that recurred throughout his life: “He had always dreamed that he was living in a big white house.”
He told Peggy Noonan that the dream “just kept coming back … that I was going to live in a sort of mansion with big rooms like this one. …” Christ as savior. He believed that acceptance of Christ as a savior is paramount to salvation. He accepted Jesus as his savior as a teen-ager and continued to profess that belief throughout his life.
Reagan was concerned about others doing the same and worried for years that his son Ron Jr. had not “found Christ.” As a teen-ager, young Ron had refused to go to church. His father accepted his son’s decision, but was never happy about it. Young Ron’s apparent atheism was a source of angst for Reagan, and in one summit meeting he even complained to Mikhail Gorbachev about it.
The miracle after the assassination attempt. Reagan believed that he survived the 1981 attempt on his life only by divine intervention. Not only did the bullet Hinckley fired miss Reagan’s heart by inches, but also the Devastator bullet Hinckley used inexplicably and miraculously failed to explode.
Soon after being shot, Reagan had a vision while lying in his hospital bed. He was startled to see “figures in white standing around him.” He wasn’t sure he was still alive, so he scribbled a note to Nancy: “I’m alive, aren’t I.”
He wrote during his recuperation, “Whatever happens now I owe my life to God and will try to serve him every way I can.”
Interestingly, Mother Teresa believed Reagan’s survival had a higher purpose. She told him privately that there was “a purpose to this.” She said the attack had helped him to “understand the suffering and pain of the world.”
The power of prayer. “God and Reagan” makes it clear that Reagan not only believed in the power of prayer, he also was in almost constant prayer.
Biographer Edmund Morris said his firm memory of Reagan was the president sitting alone mumbling to himself. Morris was surprised to learn that he was talking to God.
Reagan once admitted to his Cabinet that he began the meetings with a private prayer. In telephone calls to the families of servicemen who had died, he would ask if he could lead the family in prayer.
He believed that prayer could work in practical ways. As a youth, he knew his mother’s prayers were deemed so powerful that some viewed her as a faith healer. He believed prayer had saved and repaired his own health on more than one occasion.
Prayer also helped Reagan with his fears. One was his fear of flying. For decades he refused to fly and took cars and trains to travel across the country. He overcame that fear through prayer, and began every flight with a silent prayer. His daughter Patti, once seeing him pray before a flight, asked if he was requesting that the plane not crash.
“No,” Reagan responded, “I pray that whatever God’s will is, I’ll be able to accept it with grace and have faith in His wisdom.”
For more details on this report and Paul Kengor's book, "God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life," .
WOW!!!! ... and I mean WOW!!!
Great sunset
Sweet Dream West
I was just watching the reairing of the Reagan State Funeral Ceremony on C-span
We are so blessed to have giants amids us I pray for PGWB that this refresher will continue to give him strenght among the unslot of chatter.
The most important message of PRWR is that we are to also pick up the ball and run with it!
PRWR made the heartland realized their roll in preseving Freedom we must interact.
If its means tuneing out mainstream news and give no creedence to the doom and gloom, nitpicking, backbitting crowd!
Great sunset Westy have a goodnight!
Did they change or rearrange the lyrics?
Midnight not a sound from the payment
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the Lamplight the withered leaves
Collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan.
Memory all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then,---
I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
Let the memory live again.
Every street lamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning.
Someone mutters and a street lamp gutters
and soon it will be morning .
Daylight I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn’t give in.
When the dawn comes tonight
will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
The street light dies another night is over
Another day is dawning.
Touch me its so easy to leave me
All alone with memory of my days in the sun
If you touch me you’ll understand what happiness is
Look a new day has begun
I'm not going to tune them out .. I'm going to take them head on .. and any other jackass liberal that continues to spew lies
Did you see that crowd today??
WE THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN .. AND DAMN IT .. WE WILL BE HEARD
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