A tale in the telling....

A line from an old western that is a favorite of mine goes "...and don't be keeping all that savvy to yourself...". Savvy being an old west euphemism for the sum total of crap a man's experienced. Those familiar with farm or ranch life will know that some times the best product produced is a bi-product, or call it the "waste" of life lived, it makes things grow. In essence it means don't be afraid to spread around what you've learned (or churned).
So here we go....I've never written a blog before....truth be known, like most my age I suppose, until recently I couldn't have told you what a "blog" was. I read somewhere that it is a new word created by scrunching a couple of old words together to explain some tracks never seen before. I've done a little writing in the past...mostly personal notes on personal issues that have "emoted" me...(a new word?) and best relegated to my personal files. Where they remain, though often perused by myself, largely unread by others. I have a close friend of some fifteen years (who, Ripley's or not, I just discovered to be a second cousin) I was talking to a bit back about life, his, mine and ours, who suggested maybe I should write some things down. I explained to him about my personal files and how they were mostly just bitching to myself about some of the bumps in the trail I had lived. He suggested that if he didn't love me so much he might say it sounded an awful lot like I was whining and that this new scrunch of a word might be an alternative outlet for me to express myself. I've done a good bit of reading in my life with a lot being someone else's scrunches (I promise I'm finished with that word) and I've finally convinced myself that maybe (just maybe) someone else might benefit from any savvy I might possess.....(remember where that comes from).
I believe in Christ, in Him being my savior, in Him being the Light and in me being a dull surface to reflect It from. That isn't self recrimination, it's just cold hard fact. I love Him. I love what He has done for me. I love what He has given me. I just don't always like who I am and what I've done in spite of all that knowing. It has been said often times that we are our own worst enemy. I know often that I am mine. More often though I consider that He is my friend....and with friends like that, who cares about the enemies?!
If you started at the beginning you know that I'm married....almost thirty years worth. TC is the up to my down, the white to my black, the in to my out, the right to my wrong, the life to my death. I say none of that lightly either, no tongues in no cheeks. God surely knew what He was doing when He burdened her with me. If He hadn't, I'd be lost...."gone like a freight train" as the song goes. She probably would be president of the worlds women's federation or mom of the millennium or sitting at the left hand of God the Father....
We have four kids. Pher, 'Chie, Ty, and JRay (I may tell you their real names someday once we've gotten to know each other better). I would not trade or change one single thing about any one of the four. I have no favorites...it'd be like trying to pick between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and their mother (the kid's). Saints they are not, but they are living proof that God loves me....I know this because they love me...you just can't hide that.
I've lived or worked in forty four of the continental forty eight. Spent six years attached to the US Marine Corps and a lifetime of watching over my family with the conviction of a man who knows his God and yet also knows he can only control his immediate environment with the gifts he's been given. I stick with those who stick with me and believe that you should never leave a man behind...ever.
I think the world today is probably no more or less dangerous than it was a thousand years ago, and for all the same reasons. Stupid people do stupid things that more times than not others have to pay for. I also believe it would be a safer and more fulfilling place to live if more people would take responsibility for their immediate sphere of influence. If more people would express their convictions in actions rather than words. Mostly if more people would realize that morals are not relative to the environment they live in but rather based on simple truths only available from One source.
Enough said for a first time out.........