Posted on 09/12/2002 11:41:03 PM PDT by daisyscarlett
![](http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20020913/lthumb.1031884343.bush_dsm121.jpg")
President and Mrs Bush walk down the steps to greet and address leaders during a United States Reception at The World Financial Center in New York, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002. Raising the specter of war, President Bush told skeptical world leaders Thursday to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or stand aside as the United States acts. Hesitant allies asked him not to go it alone. ( AP Photo/Doug Mills)
I'm just about out of here for the day, so I'll rinse the coffee pot and make y'all a fresh pot.
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God Bless America, land of the free, home of the brave. . .
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Sunrise - Anahuac, Texas
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A Message for Our Time
By the American writer William Faulkner upon acceptance of the Nobel prize for literature, Stockholm, Dec 10, 1950.
... the basest of all things is to be afraid ...
I decline to accept the end of man.
I believe that man will not merely endure: He will prevail.
... because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
AMEN! And AMEN!
And now, to my dear friends who have asked about me (and new friends I have yet to meet, and thus have not! *G*), thank you for thinking of me and for remembering me in your prayers. I will write more tomorrow -- later today! *G* -- as my eyes are tired, and I see three of everything at the moment!
I have not been faring well, and have been dreading the one-year mark. . . . I lived through that, and now have only to make it through brain surgery next month. I am scared more and more with each passing day. I still remember the pain (I still deeply remember the pain) of the first brain surgery, and I feel unready and unsteady about going back for more so soon. True -- it has been postponed twice already, but now it's a reality, and it's getting ever closer. In the still of the night, when (almost) all the world is sleeping, I think to myself --
"What?! AM I NUTS?!"
That point can be debated later. *G* My nystagmus (the muk that screws up my eyesight) gets really bad when I'm tired. If I get this posted without making huge boo-boos, I will be stunned.
I'm doing as well as can be expected. I think of you often, and I miss you terribly. I recently discovered that October 16th (the date of my surgery) was the original date of my surgery -- an exact year later. Twilighty, huh?!
I will talk with you all soon, I hope. You all are extra special, and I'm so glad I know you.
Mush love,
Beep
Greetings, my FRiends. I am so happy to be back, if only on a limited basis.
As you learned, I have been seriously ill. I am improving, by God's grace, and slowly gaining strength. I hope to post an occasional thing or two. Since I usually get here after the basic conversational part of this thread, I am prevented from participating in that fine, warm, friendly part of this forum.
I want to thank each of your for you prayers and interest. It meant so very much to me knowing you were behind me while I was so sick. I am sorry if I worried you, but I was unable to let you know myself. You all are truly the Finest Freepers and FRiends.
This is on my heart today and I would like to share it with you:
I hope to return later to respond to any comments.
Thanks again to each of you.
Oh, happy day!
Prayers going up for both of you.
BEEPBEEP!
More love,
Beep!
;-}
Love ya Mama_B!
=^)
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