Crying Wolf: Not Everything is an Assault on Our Liberties, Choose your Battles Wisely

A problem that distracts from the real problem; everyone is a victim. This post is about the TSAs, I saw several youtube videos on their abuse of power and although I was ready to be disgusted, I wasn’t.

One of the videos was about a young girl who was beaten and bloody and although I didn’t know the full story, I thought it would be hard to justify her being singled out.

The others were people looking for trouble and finding it, in my humble opinion.

First, in the world now, although our government seems to be uneasy with the term, there are terrorists that want to kill us. However this happened and whoever is to blame is irrelevant, we are in a dangerous global phase of American life and it’s an ugly place.

All of us need to realize there is a problem and we all need to work for some solution that doesn’t make us sheep at the mercy of power hungry TSAs nor victims looking to be victimized by government workers simply doing their jobs. Can we all just get along?

What I saw on the videos were government employees who were trying to make the best of a bad situation. It’s common sense, if I mess with a police officer, ask them inappropriate questions and verbally antagonize them, I will probably end up being roughed up or causing the officer to show his authority. If you look for trouble you can always find it.

I see a negative stigma to the whole herding of people into the airport, not that I know how to change it but if anyone goes through security checks, it can feel humiliating. I think this is what causes the attitude of some individuals to push back, their feeling of being herded like sheep makes them react back with resentment and hostility, the exact attitude the TSAs are watching out for, to protect all of us.

I have never had problems going through, I greet the TSAs, I make it easy for them much like I do when getting stopped by a police officer, I make it as painless as I can for both the TSAs and myself and I think most appreciate that and treat me with respect.

I am not a proponent of the government especially in its current state but I feel if you call foul when it is not appropriate you water down the times that it really is a problem. I believe we need less government interfering in every aspect of American life but the examples I saw did not justify the outrage.

Probably by watching videos that didn't merit my disgust wasted time I could have spent watching videos that do truly capture a real problem with a section of the TSAs that are perhaps abusive with their power. This is exactly what I mean by watering down the real problem.

What’s wrong with watching the news?

A beautiful day outside,

you sit in your chair,

muscles relaxed

Your back sags

Deep into the leather restraints

You remain

News cast warns, impending storm

They’ll show you every death and every bit of destruction

But don’t be alarmed

Close the blinds, protect yourself

Turn your chair away from the door

All you need to know is what they feed you

But there’s more!!

There’s violence in the streets

and they’ll deliver every bit

truths,  half truths and lies,

You sink in your chair

As you slowly go blind

The light in the room dims

You pull closer to the television

Turn up the sound

While beasts with great shadows

Stream across the wall,

Mosquitos, flies, criminals

Be afraid of them all

Zica, west nile, you keep your windows closed

Can’t go outside

For fear of the heat, or the bacterium

Sure to infect

Be assured the news is there

Be still as they protect

You sink, deeper into that shrinking chair

The front door is unsafe

You linger there

Shadows cover the walls, flooding the floors

But wait, there’s more

Don’t eat, don’t drink

Don’t do this, stay

And watch the app

Stream live

We’ll be right back

Stay tuned

Close to an image of the world

You’ll never see

Stay in your chair, shrink

There’s no place else you need to be

A Little Faith: Can we talk politics and religion?

I think it's sad that in a country where we are supposed to be free to speak, two of the most passionate aspects of our lives we need to keep to ourselves or share only with like-minded people. I believe diverse thoughts and ideas are what make this country great.

The United States of America has become the divided states of the offended. This post is actually not about the thin skinned or the easily offended it's more of a comment on how we talk with each other and how politics and religion should not be a divisive conversation, instead we should be able to learn from each other.

I can speak with anyone about politics and religion and the only reason is because I don't need to change their opinion to share mine. I don't need to show the other person with a differing view how foolish they are or try to convince them how wrong and off base they are.

Even if you feel so strongly against the others' opinion, I perhaps naively, believe there is some common ground most of us can meet on.

It comes down to a basic mutual respect, share, converse and show different opinions and leave with a better understanding of how others you may totally disagree with feel. We need to be passionate, open and full of thoughts and ideas while still allowing respect for those that differ.

This is what makes our country great and I wish we could welcome instead of grimace ever time religion or politics is mentioned.

A Little More Faith: Prayer and Focus

I have been in an endless loop for weeks now. I'm beginning to think that depression and anxiety are an important process in the creative mind. Not the best thought to embrace but I'm embracing it. I think there are many processes happening in the brain when inspiration becomes something more kinetic, there is an intense feeling of everything, a screaming of all your senses at the same time which is not easily deciphered. This is just from my experience.

Now for the good news, I have no radio in my car, yes I have an iPhone, but I have a rule for myself, no music, phone calls or distractions in the morning. The drive to work is for prayer. I actually say three prayers out loud and try to focus on God alone.

Unfortunately when I am in a severely depressed or distracted state, it's hard to even concentrate on the prayer itself. Well, in the last four days, after a weekend of calm and relaxation I finally had a breakthrough. Not only does prayer connect you with what ever your source for strength and healing is, for me it also eliminates, even for just a moment, the anxiety that comes with depression.

The last four days, I have not only felt a presence of God, I have also experienced people that have shared things with me, strangers in line, friends, family. I have realized a connection and understanding with complete strangers that is hard to explain.

In the midst of all of this prayer, ideas have become concrete. Clear images of what I need to paint, ideas that have been so vivid and complete I had to pull off the road and write them down. This is the first of a series about a strengthening of my faith if not simply a reconnecting with it.

In the last four days, I have a children's book that is written and illustrated in my mind, a collection of paintings of favorite garden plants, two cartoon characters to create and accompany comic strips that have been dormant for many months, ten new blog posts about religion, three new posts about leadership and current events. I have also begun painting a series that is still in the works.

Sounds a bit manic I know, you can connect it to what ever purpose or reason that makes sense to you but I believe in divine intervention. Many time he is there, I just don't see him or acknowledge him. With the way current events are going, I think we could all use a little more faith.

Happy Fourth of July: Be grateful, be proud, be united.

People have died for an idea, a lot of people, they fought and gave up their lives because they wanted something better for their families. They faced hardships, starved and met great obstacles to start something new and daring. A place where you had freedom to choose your own destination, religion, opportunity: America was born.

Over time, our perspective changed, what was right and wrong challenged and again people died for freedoms that we all share. They died to keep a country united, they died because they believed in something.

The following years there were people who rode the bus against the rules, dared to speak when they weren’t welcome to, dared to imagine being equal, being free. They fought, they died for an idea, so their families could know freedom and justice.

In our current complacent state, there still are wrongs, there still are injustices but we have come too great a distance to see our country being divided by the same government that is supposed to unite it. We have a media that speaks the same language the government speaks and insists the victims are victims and insist they deserve something, even at the risk of crippling them.

We have candidates insisting they will make everything better, again, little hope that we, America, could stand and be America again. I don’t see us as a country full of victims but if you listen to the news you would think that’s what makes America.

Police are criminals and criminals are saints, sounds like an old familiar song. The same freedom soldiers died for allows us to step and degrade the very flag that allows us the freedoms we don’t, by right, deserve. We are lucky to live in this country, we are lucky to be able to complain about how hard we have it, I would suggest instead thank a soldier and thank God we live in America.

Let us Make America the best it’s ever been!! Together, not divided, one nation of people, not colors, not creeds-we Americans. Happy fourth of July.

Eclipse

You are light

But I stand in shadow

I look at my heart

My passions

Hollow

You’re the aggressive vine

Grasping all my support

And precious time

I can barely fathom myself

And yet I wouldn’t trade you

For anything, anyone else

You are my greatest work

In God’s design

All your colors, all your beauty his

All your damage, mine

I can barely orchestrate your path

You break out of barriers of expectation

You’ve grown too fast

For me to keep contained

The distance grows, duty remains

As my clarity dissolves

All words seem insignificant

And all your riddles unsolved

You will become

As you become

And you will do wonderful things

Despite all control I keep

I was the light, the sun

But you, my son, have eclipsed me

An Absence in the Garden

The garden stands as it promised

From passionate seeds, color in a colorless world

And I am color blind

Walk along the edge of order

And chaos

Feel as the fragrant jasmine insists

It exists

See the richness of flames of tithonia

And coneflower

They wait until I wake

Wait until I’m present

Out of this state

But the green seems pointless

And the shadows seem only dark

Waited for the threatening limbs of a dying tree

They’ve come down

They’ve given in to the heat, to the light

And I am standing in the stagnant air

Cicadas callously sigh

The heavy weight, I can barely breath

Worms are working tirelessly in the ground

The hole seems silent

But it always gapes

And I can feel every wound

The lack of feeling is the scar

Walk among the shriveled weeds

Hope I haven’t gone too far

As the structure grows above the gardener

And the gardener sleeps in a  mushroom ground

The birds with songs they can’t remember

Fade with little sound

It’s summer, the grey earth, the parched seed

And I am just an absence in a  garden

Another petulant weed.

http://artbygordon.com/?page_id=475

Check out the new images of the 2016 wildlife garden