MY MADONNA

I haled me a woman from the street,
  shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
  And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
  I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
  If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.
  then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
  "Tis Mary, the Mother of God."

So I painted a halo round her hair,
  And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
  where you and all may see.

Robert Service

That Damned Confederate Flag

Thank God that damned confederate Flag is finally being removed from the South Carolina capitol and elsewhere. It's comforting to know that racism will finally be ended by pulling down this flag and blacks will now be free to live the American dream; free to keep their families together, free to value education; free to support their own children, free to stop murdering each other, free to graduate from high school, free to get married before having babies, free to stop crime in their neighborhoods. Now we can all rest easier knowing that those problems caused by that flag have ceased to exist.

Capacity to Believe

This capacity to believe is the most significant and fundamental human faculty, and the most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being. This is the thing that makes him what he is; the thing that organizes him, and feeds him, the thing that keeps him going in the face of untoward circumstances; the thing that gives him resistance and drive. Let neutrality, confusion, indifference, or skepticism enter this inner place, and the very springs of life will cease to flow.

Hugh Stevenson Tigner

I enjoy reading  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,  Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington,  Einstein, Twain; the list goes on and on of great thinkers and I have learned a great deal from each and every one of them. But when it comes to the depth of my being; I believe with all my heart in the message of the New Testament ( the Christian Bible) with no neutrality, confusion, indifference, or skepticism.

Advice from Socrates and Jesus of Nazareth

"The secrete of happiness is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature." 
 Socrates

"You cannot serve two masters: God and money. For you will hate one and love the other, or else the other way around. So my counsel is: don't worry about things - food, drink, and clothes. For you already have life and a body and they are far more important than what to eat and wear. Look at the birds! They don't worry about what to eat  they don't need to sow or reap or store up food - for your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Will all your worries add a single moment to your life?" 
 Jesus of Nazareth,  (Matthew 6:24 - 27).

The Greatest Battle

Chess has been represented, or should I say misrepresented as a game - that is, a thing which could not well serve a serious purpose, solely created for the enjoyment of an empty hour.  If it were a game only, chess would never have survived the serious trials to which it has, during the long time of its existence, been often subjected. By some ardent enthusiasts chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither, but its principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight. Not a fight, indeed such as would tickle the nerves of coarser natures, where blood flows and the blows delivered leave their visible traces on the bodies of the combatants, but a fight in which the scientific, the artistic, the purely intellectual element holds undivided sway.

Emanuel Lasker, World Chess Champion (1894 - 1921)

Mental Elbow Grease

"As the Swede fellow says, the saws and  chisels in your tool chest Von't yump up into your hand. And books on your shelves aren't going to crawl down and get inside your brain. It isn't the number of books that counts in your mental development, but how you read and re-read them. Books don't give their inner secrets to the man who snubs them and isn't friendly with them and doesn't try to coax out their confidence. The proverbial old-time country doctor's library, just Shakespeare and the Bible and Gray's Anatomy, contained plenty for the man who dug out every word as though it were a golden nuget."

Sinclair Lewis, from his novel, "Gideon Planish". Copyright 1943.

I HAVE SOME FRIENDS

I have some friends,some worthy friends,
and worthy friends are rare:
These carpet slippers on my feet,
That padded leather chair;
This old and shabby dressing-gown,
So well the worse of wear.

I have some friends,some honest friends,
And honest friends are few;
My pipe of briar, my open fire,
A book that's not too new;
My bed so warm, the nights of storm
I love to listen to.

I have some friends, some good, good friends
Who faithful are to me:
My wrestling partner when I rise,
The big and burly sea;
My little boat that's riding there
So saucy and so free.

I have some friends, some golden friends,
Whose worth will not decline;
A tawny Irsh terrier, a purple shading pine,
A little red-roofed cottage that
So proudly I call mine.

All other friends may come and go,
All other friendships fail;
But these, the friends I've worked to win,
Oh they will never stale;
And comfort me till Time shall write
The finish to my tale.

ROBERT SERVICE