http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/r...-jihadi-groups
http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/
http://mes.hudson.org/
http://crf.hudson.org/
Historically speaking - same song - different arrangement - new dance hall...
WTBN* -
Who'll be the next monotheistic idol? 
As for me - I believe in the
laws of nature and nature's God,** toughness, steeliness and even meanness.
I learned these traits from my father. Toughness came first. I am the first-born and the son who could run faster than my brothers, the one who played all day with an injury or broken tooth. I'm the one who thought my Dad was the toughest man around — and I wanted to be just like him. He rarely missed a day of school, worked as a field laborer to pay his college tuition, survived the PTO in WW2, and toiled as a carpenter for over 30 years to reach the love of his life - farming and ranching.
My dad also taught me steeliness, an unwillingness to surrender one’s important goals. Steeliness helped me attain the goals I've set for myself in life, kept me alive on any number of occasions, and is an underlying current running through my frame. People recognize the steeliness and mention it - which often surprises me as I don’t notice it at all. But sometimes even toughness and steeliness aren't enough - and I also believe in meanness.
I am not a giant by any means, but at 6'4" and 230 pounds, I have a natural presence and stature. As a second-career educator and high school administrator, I often teach people who aren't always eager to learn - and I'm the mean teacher. I like to push students harder than they want to be pushed. Some of them don't like me at the time, but they usually end up appreciating me later on. I know because they often return to tell me so - even when I've expelled them.
Hate me now, love me later is a motto I can live with.
But I'm even mean with myself. Sometimes it's meanness that gets me out of bed in the morning, like after a night of drinking too much or to exercise. I generally go to bed at 2230 and get up at 0400 to exercise. I'm not nice to myself — I don't give myself permission to stay home. Some of my best teaching days have been the result of my refusal to make others suffer for my poor self-discipline. Meanness with myself keeps me accountable.
That tough and steely will my father gave me helps me bear his loss - and the loss of many others. I watched my father die of cancer, but he never gave up on wanting to live. Perhaps it would have been easier on both him and the family had he given in to the
bones roller, had he not fought to the absolute last breath. Although I do not have him in my life anymore, I got to see him as himself to the very end of his. I understand the poet Dylan Thomas, who pleads with his own father to
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
We are usually encouraged to be more gentle, understanding, sympathetic. But when life has tested me the most, I believe it's my toughness, my steeliness and even my meanness that get me through...and will continue to do so.
MOO - and my point - this nation and its ideals reflect that nature of my personality - and that of its citizens, in general. And this I believe.
YMMV
Richard's $.02
* World Theological Bullying Network
** Declaration of Independence
Linear Mode
