Category: Uncategorized

Wheeling Christmases in the Fifties

Trips to Downtown Wheeling at Christmas
to gawk, shop, cackle, and dream,
Back then we weren’t afraid
to laugh, shriek, and be amazed,
Storefront windows overstuffed
with dolls, dollhouses, train sets, and toy soldiers,
How could we not believe in magic–
things we can’t explain, and yet love,
Best at night when all was aglow,
but Saturday mornings were quite alright,
Stone and Thomas, LS Good, Cooey-Benz,
Stifel and Taylor, Reichart’s, and so many more,
We were there, saw it with our own believing eyes,
and best of all felt it deep in our hearts,
Santa reminds us it’s okay to dream,
look back, remember where we came from,
and what gave our hearts delight,
May this Christmas be filled
with our cherished childhood dreams.
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Power and Love

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. 

. . . What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967

On the Eve of My 68th Birthday

We reach a point in life, where
by the grace of God, we are spared
from ourselves and all self-judgment.

And by the miracle of life itself,
we discover that all we experience is
but a tiny example of our potential.

And in the midst of our wandering,
the desert and mountains come together, and
at sunset, the god of self-understanding appears.