A wife, of an old friend who had recently died, came into the business. I introduced myself. She vaguely remembered me. We began to talk about her late husband. She began to cry as we talked about him. She remembered my cousins and younger brothers. I spent 12 years of my life as a schoolmate. And after all these years of not seeing him, I missed him. It’s funny how that works. You would think that after a while it won’t make a difference. But it still does. From our birth, all memories and experiences are stored in our heart, whether we use them or not. They are at our beckon call. Some people can call them back faster than others. But once you do you have to deal with those memories. You would think that dealing with the future is hard enough. Then having to deal with the past, sometimes can be overwhelming. The holiday season is here. Thanksgiving is 2 days away. There will be plenty of food. And most of it I will eat and enjoy. The past seems to be reaching out to me. But I won’t let it stop me from enjoying myself. I am listening to the song, “Linus and Lucy” from a Charlie Brown Christmas. If you don’t remember the song, play it on U-tube. You will get a kick out of it. If only we could be a free as those children. Make some new memories this holiday, some good ones. And share it with your family. Happy Thanksgiving.

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There was a man named Charles Schulz. He didn’t finish high school. He was an artist. He drew primitive style cartoons. After serving in WWII, he was a regular cartoonist in the Sunday paper. He had applied to the Walt Disney studios, but was rejected because his style was too simple for them. So, he drew his own cartoons and became very successful. If you don’t know who I am talking about his cartoons were the Peanuts gang, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy and the gang. His message was simple but real. When people talk about their lives, they will say that they wish their life would be simple again. We try to make our lives too complicated, thinking that it is better. We strive for the easy life, but not the simple one. The simple one, though it is not complicated, it is harder to live. To live the simple life, you have to be truthful with yourself and others. There can’t be any walls of pretense. I try hard not to pretend in my life. Keeping up with the Jones’ is a pitfall for anyone who tries. Living a simple life exposes you to the world. People can see who you are. And everyone will not like or care for you personally, including yourself. Which is such a personal disaster for anyone, Duh. There is a song from a Charlie Brown Christmas called “Linus and Lucy”. It is where all the kids let go and dance the way they want to. And you should agree your life is a dance that you should be free to dance your way. You see simple is better than easy.

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It is easier said than done to begin again. I was telling someone today about losing my house and things to the flood. I began to feel the anguish again. It isn’t easy although it is sometimes necessary. Many things that I thought were important in my life turned out not to be. It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have kept them, but they were destroyed by the flood. So, I have to begin again. I am not starting at scratch again. I have all the memories and knowledge I have acquired along the way. I have been using that information to write this blog. One the 1^st things I asked God for was wisdom and understanding. He let me see things and understand what was going on. I didn’t always want to see the truth, but it is there. I’ll tell you a truth, that it is a pain in the rear to begin again. We sold our house and are looking for a new one. All I can say to that is, God have mercy on my soul. Talking to real estate people, listening to their pitch and telling them maybe, is well painstaking. I was a real estate agent once and didn’t like it much. Although, I know that I needed to begin again, I didn’t want to. You see there is a plan for our lives that God reveals to us a little at a time. We don’t see the big picture all the time, because we would try to take it over and screw it up. God shows us a piece of the puzzle and lets us deal with that for a while. It is where faith and trust come into play. If we don’t have both faith and trust in play, our lives fall apart. I have walked with God for 40 years. I have found that the more I believe and trust Him, the better my life is. And so I begin again.

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Everyone has issues. No one is perfect. No matter how well they were raised, there is always something wrong. It isn’t that I’m pessimistic about life, but things go wrong. Depending on a person’s temperament, each person deals with these issues differently. If you need an example just look at the presidential election and the protest afterward. My views and issues are a little more conservative than that. I am not optimistic that man can solve any problem that he has. Man has been in control of his destiny for over 6000 years. And it seems that on a regular basis, he tries to burn down the world because someone made him angry. When there are no more wars, talk to me about how far man has come. Technology hasn’t improved the temperament. How many companies or individuals are trying to steal everybody else’s discoveries. The US government is talking about getting rid of currency, dollar bills and coins. The Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicle’s tried to do just that by not taking any cash for any transactions. The outcry was immediate and their congressmen told the DMV to reverse their decision. Once that happens for real, the government has complete control of our monies. Then we will no longer have a say so. I have only found one place where man can live peacefully. It is where man surrenders his will to God. Allowing God to make the rules and choices for us. it doesn’t solve all our problems but provides for an authority to mediate all disputes peacefully. Otherwise, it is back to the wars to settle disputes. Aren’t you tired of fighting everyone to get ahead. Don’t you wish for love, joy and peace in your life? And to have a place to live without fear in your life? It has always been there, staring you in the face. And all you have to do is ask God.

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It’s a beautiful day. The weather is mild and the sun is shining. Someone told me if they complained about the weather, they wouldn’t be grateful. In south Louisiana, beautiful weather comes twice a year, in the fall and spring. All other times it is hot and humid. I have lived in different parts of the country. Some were more than beautiful than others. But I always came home to Louisiana. There is no place like home. Maybe if I say it 3 times and click my heels, it will change. It is my home. if I leave it for too long, I get homesick, hot weather and all. But I am grateful for the mild weather. Years ago, I went to Colorado looking for work. I stayed at my cousin’s house. They lived on a dude ranch in a box canyon in Evergreen, Colorado. It was December and the snow was 5 feet deep. There was a creek running through the property. It was as scenic a site that you would ever want to see. But it was up in the Rocky Mountains and below freezing. I stayed for a month. Getting use to the cold weather took some time. Today, another cousin from Louisiana lives in Colorado. He has been there for several years. He sent me a picture of the 1^st snow in his backyard. They will have a white Christmas. If you have never gone to Colorado, you need to go one time. The view from a top the Rocky Mountains on the Continental Divide is breathtaking. Now getting back to south Louisiana. The French people who settled the area were a very hardy people. They were self-reliant. They learned to use what food they found here. Cajun cooking is all the rage across the country. And it is the simplest cuisine of all. To most people’s surprise, Cajun food is seasoned not peppered. You start with the basics, onion, bell pepper and celery. My family isn’t Acadian French. My family is protestant French, Huguenots. They came to Louisiana before and after the American civil war. My family were cotton farmers. Of all the crops in the world, cotton is the hardest to grow and harvest. It attests to the persistence of my family. But through it all, they trusted God and believed that all things work together for good. My family has been in America for 400 years.

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One of Napoleon’s generals won a battle because as he told his troops to march to the sounds of the guns. American General George Custer believed the same thing. He won many battles during the Civil War. It has been my battle cry since I began. I would never look for trouble, but when it showed up I faced it head on. I have been in so many battles that no one has ever seen or heard. The battles I fought weren’t bloody like D-Day, but saved as many lives as I could. I have faced enemies large and small. They have always done one thing for me to make me angry. As a wild boar would turn and rend the person, so did I did to the devil and his cohorts. I would run head long into the battle, because God promised me I would come out on the other side. And even if I didn’t I still would have stopped the devil’s plans. The devil isn’t all powerful. If the devil wants to do something he has to go to God and ask permission. The only way he can defeat us is if a person gives him permission. Our faith coupled with the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword dividing asunder soul and spirit. If you want to join the battle, you are going to have to train in the word of God. You start by trusting and believing God Himself and let Him led you into battle.

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After a forest fire in the 1950’s, forest fire fighters found a bear cub up in a tree. The cub survived the fire barely. He had climbed in the tree to escape the fire. It was badly burned but survived. The little bear recovered from his wounds and eventually ended up in the National Zoo in Washington D.C. They named the bear Smokey. The US Forest Service took the bear as mascot. They began an advertisement campaign to prevent forest fires. And in all the commercials Smokey the bear would say, only you can prevent forest fires. Because of the large amount of fires recently in the western US, they have revived the Smokey the bear commercials. This time he says, only you can prevent wildfires. Yet I know people that start fires daily just by what they say. The unfortunate thing about that is that they can’t take it back. A person asked how they could take back what they said. The answer was take a small box of feathers to a mountain top and release them in the wind. Then go and get all the feathers back in the box. It is impossible. And the damage can stay for years. As it says in the bible in James 3:5-6 “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” (KJV).

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With all the chaos in this world, I sometimes wonder how man has made it this far. I look at the world and don’t see the stability I saw years ago. And yet when I look back at the past, I find the same instability we have today. Which asks the same question, how has man made it this far without destroying himself and the world? When Jesus lived on this earth in Israel, there was an occupying army controlling His country. The world embraced Christianity until the dark ages. Then war and disease nearly killed off all the population. Then more wars were fought over whatever. Until the reformation came. Christianity made a resurgence. Then wars were fought over religion. Which by the way are still going on. All of this has to do with what you believe. If you believe that man’s way is correct, then you will still fight more wars. And if you believe that God’s way is correct, you will find a way to live peaceably. There isn’t more chaos in the world than before. It is that people aren’t believing that God’s way is right. And their lives are turned upside down. I never had hope that anything would change until I met God. He showed me how I could live a life of peace in the middle of chaos and thrive. Even if I choose to sin, I still can ask God to forgive and restore me. This has made all the difference in the world. When your hope is founded in God, it isn’t easily shaken. It isn’t like people who believe that the only way they can get ahead is through war.

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Last night there was a super moon. The moon was closer to earth than it has been since 1948. It was big and yellow. You know why it was yellow? It is because the sun’s light reflects off the moon. I was talking to a young person last night about the effects of the moon. The moon affects tides and weather. The barometric pressure builds up from full moon to full moon. It is released at the full moon. This is why so many things happen at the full moon. The moon is an important part of our lives. The sun gives light during the day and the moon at night. The full moon comes every 29.5 days. Therefore, the moon is used in so many calculations in science. It is exact. Why do you think that it is? When you look at the world and all its elements, you have to wonder why God did this for us? God created the earth and the heavens for us. The sun and the moon and stars were given to us to measure time and seasons. The measurement of time is so that we will understand that we are finite. There is a season to our life. The only person who is infinite is God. Yet God did this for us. All of creation reveals to us who God is. You understand why He did that. It was so we couldn’t say we did know about God and what He stood for. God tries to reveal Himself to us in every way. So, at some point in our life, we will accept Him and become part of His family.

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I have been on Facebook for quite a few years. I have been blogging for about 4 years. Everything has changed and has remained the same. I have watched people for most of my life. Seeing what they are or not doing. What is interesting is that human activity is predictable. It is the same as it was before and yet it is different. Let us call it being normal. Everyone wants to be normal. They want the things that life holds. Such as a home, job, family, children and wealth. And when a person gets into trouble, they know where to go to try to get out of it. Most people don’t want to live there, but will go there for help. It seems that people don’t believe that living in the presence of God is normal. But you know it is the only place in the world where you can be normal. The life we have was given by God. The drive to have a home, job family, children and wealth was given by God to us. This world was created by God. He put everything into motion. And without God there is nothing. That is why you know that God is the only person who can help you in any situation. Just so we wouldn’t forget, God wrote His laws and commandments on our heart. So, that we could easily access them when we need them. And guess what, there isn’t a time or season that we don’t need them. So, what season are you living in?

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