http://blog.stonetosser.comQuick Blogcasthttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2011/04/12/a-dialog-i-never-had-but-wished-id-had.aspx#comment-7784060Ken had the most beautiful smile in the world. When he truly laughed his eyes crinkled and everything around him sparkled for that moment in time.Janet Theus2011-04-14T13:54:22Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2011/04/12/a-dialog-i-never-had-but-wished-id-had.aspx#comment-7548164Thanks, Uncle Gerald. It was a bit emotional to write but overall it brought him closer for a few minutes. Someday I'll see him again.Dana2011-04-13T00:40:18Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2011/04/12/a-dialog-i-never-had-but-wished-id-had.aspx#comment-7546478Heartwrenching.GA Rodgers2011-04-13T00:24:12Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2011/04/09/dinner-at-our-house.aspx#comment-7424393A poignant memory painted with words that pierce the heart. Your dad Ken and I shared a childhood that was also sparse in emotional nourishment and satisfaction. I found that missing nourishment and satisfaction in the Fatherhood of God who sent his Son to ransom us from the futile emptiness and bleak despair of this world without love. Strangely enough, in spite of our father's (your grandfather's) failure to express that love in his relationship with our mother, the Gospel of love that he preached from the pulpit and his genuine attempts to demonstrate it in his relationship with his children and his parishioners was the source of my own salvation from a life of hopeless despair.G.A. Rodgers2011-04-11T02:03:46Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/09/09/loving-the-warriors-and-the-haters.aspx#comment-3594022I remember that day that looked so much like today, with fewer clouds in the sky. At first I couldn't believe that anyone would intentionally do this. I thought it was an air traffic control mistake. I remember having to explain what happened to my six year old when I didn't understand it myself. I remember walking to my children's school and offering to help. The man sitting next to me spoke with an accent and said, "I left my country to get away from this." I stood next to another school volunteer whose wife was on an airplane that morning at Dulles. He still didn't know what plane had hit the Pentagon. Fortunately she was on a different plane, stranded on the tarmac, and has become a friend of mine.<br /><br />Two days after the attacks, I stood in front of a class of 45 students, some soldiers, some seventeen year olds, some retirees finally pursuing their degrees. In the class sat two women in head scarves. As students struggled to discuss the stress they had experienced one young man in his early 30s stood and looked around the class. His dark eyes reflected fear ande determination at the same time. "This is not Islam," he said, "This is not Islam!"<br /><br />I was pregnant with my oldest when Timothy McVey blew up a daycare center in Oklahoma City. He was a Christian. I don't blame Christians, and I don't blame Muslims. I try daily to understand the suffering and hurt that drives people to hate others enough to not only make sacrifice themselves, but murder others. It is not even the haters I pray for, it is the world that cares so little, it allows suffering to create the haters.Kate2010-09-12T02:24:03Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/09/09/loving-the-warriors-and-the-haters.aspx#comment-3592896Nobly conceived and beautifully written. Here are some thoughts of my own:<br /><br /> Most, if not all of us, in America today regard religious wars as abhorrent. But the fact is that today we are engaged in a religious war. The reason many of us are saying this war is unwinnable, is because we don’t know how to fight a religious war. <br /> There was a time, not too long ago, when Americans understood that they needed God to fight their battles--that He is not only a God of love, but a God of war, a God of judgment (Rev. 19:11-15; The Battle Hymn of the Republic). The words of most if not all of our founding Fathers reveal this understanding. They may not all have been "fundamentalist" Christians but they understood, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, that “God rules in the affairs of men.” The greatest expression of this understanding from an American politician can be heard in Lincoln’s wartime speeches and writings, summed up most beautifully in his Second Inaugural address. The length and ferocity of the American Civil War, and the mountains of casualties it exacted on both sides, can only be explained by the religious commitment of both--ironically to the same God.<br /> Today we are engaged in another religious war. This one, however, is between the adherents of different gods--on one side Allah, the unforgiving god of Muhammad and the suicide bomber, and on the other side a strange melange of gods and anti-gods, who can never seem to agree on who or what they are fighting, or even if they are fighting for anything worthwhile.<br /> To succeed in a religious war--a war between gods, or between men and God--we need to assess the power of the forces we are fighting both for and against. In the long history of Islamic jihads, Allah has proven himself a power to be reckoned with. For long centuries, up to and including our own, he contested the power of the Christian God, as well as other gods, with significant victories. During recent centuries of Christian (and anti-Christian) dominance and rivalry, he fell on hard times; but he is once again making a serious challenge to the faith (and unfaith) of rival gods and men. It would be a serious mistake on our part to misjudge the power of this challenge.<br /> Lincoln succeeded in his struggle against the God of human slavery by his reliance on the true God whose “truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) Lincoln believed, with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington in the Revolutionary War, that “God rules in the affairs of men.” We would do well to follow his example.Unc. Gerald2010-09-11T19:24:36Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/01/24/emily-and-esmeralda.aspx#comment-2930501Thanks!Dana2010-03-21T12:37:05Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/01/24/emily-and-esmeralda.aspx#comment-2930276Never stop writing, dear Dana. The years of feeling put into words will always be felt by those who care.Janet2010-03-21T06:35:24Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/03/05/writers-lament.aspx#comment-2888792Thanks for your prayers, Uncle Jerry. I think you misunderstand the icon, actually. It is a reminder of the importance of the toil that keeps the wheels moving in life - to support other important things that I value: raising children, living comfortably and supporting that which is important to me. I willingly prioritize such labor over the flitterings of poetry and I'm happy to do so. But that doesn't mean that sometimes I am not just a little sad that I cannot be all things at all times. Life is long and there will be time. This poem is testament to the fact that the Sisyphusian nature of parts of my life is not squelching my creative nature entirely. And it is that creative nature that keeps me close to God, in this life and the next.<br><br>My life is already full to the brim with unspeakable joy and glory. A little sadness here and there only points this up to me more clearly. I suppose that means perhaps I am already born unto the Spirit of God. Thanks for reminding me!<br>Dana2010-03-07T07:20:35Zhttp://blog.stonetosser.com/2010/03/05/writers-lament.aspx#comment-2888788thanks! me too. I think of it each time I do the dishes while words flitter around my mind unwritten...<img src="http://blog.stonetosser.com/emoticons/smile.png" border="0" /> such is the fate of the middle aged parent, eh? <img src="http://blog.stonetosser.com/emoticons/wink.png" border="0" /><br>Dana2010-03-07T07:15:06Z