“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.” – Samuel Adams (1775)
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates
The Ecology of Hitchhiking
by Michael Doyle
When you think of it in terms of ecology,
Hitchhiking has very little to do with the economy.
From my own experience, it's about relationships
Perhaps even sometimes about brinksmanship.
The people that are met on the open road
Are full of stories that are dying to be told.
Then again, this reminds me of the danger
That comes with accepting rides from any stranger.
The thing is that if all strangers are friends, unmet,
Are the odds really stacked for or against regret?
For myself, while I have met few with any real glory,
I have never met anyone who picked me up without a story.
It's the heart of life when it comes time to fly,
Very few extended thumbs are not worth the try.
Caught rides when thought of in the collective,
The wide open road tends to add to one's perspective.
Those who have studied the hazards find them few.
The ratio of harm to fun should offer a subtle clue.
But urban myths play it up for the factor of fear,
Most of us would rather emphasize pleasurable cheer.
The cheer of knowing that we truly are not alone,
In-person conversations beat speaking on the phone.
Hitchhiking has had somewhat of a new emergence.
Fellow travelers speak in terms of a resurgence.
Maybe America and its traveling companions can begin
To trust each other and to know each other once again.
Hitching rides with strangers can plant God's seed
Of knowing that trust is as common as we have need.
(c) April 28, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives.” – Ulysses S. Grant
Getting It Right With God
by Michael Doyle
A lot can be said and with enormous passion
For Jewish and Gentile people with compassion.
In the obedience of faith, we live God's story,
All for the sake of our Father's glory.
We are new creatures in this family,
Wearing the garments of God faithfully
We are to give away all this grace.
The goodness of all this we embrace.
Paul spoke to his brethren of the need for restoration.
Doing his best to remind all of the Jewish nation,
But like a lullaby effect without any question,
We know what we want to know without any hesitation.
Asking questions beyond the sins of self-deception,
We betray ourselves with comfortable misconceptions.
All of us walk between our faith and unintended tension
Across the discomfort, as we learn to redirect attention.
Self-betraying is the ownership of what we do and need.
We ignore the unexpected demands of being freed.
Like a driver no longer steering but moving on ahead,
Adjustments are missed as we hide inside our heads.
We get lost in walking rituals of blind-sighted worship
When what we need is to find our way to right relationship.
God so loved the world that He gave us the ability,
And now we must grow into our best capability
The eyes of our hearts need to see the holy light
In the the world's darkness as we fight the good fight.
Disturbance comes to call us ever higher
As we reach to comfort others, not our own desires.
Options considered are the way we learn to grow.
The mercy of God is to learn what we might know.
Bookended by discipleship and evangelism,
We are on the mission of God's profound optimism.
There is a world that we find all around.
It needs us to reach out as God's love abounds
Developing a heart that feels for the lost
No longer insular but willing to sacrifice the cost.
The cost of loving others as is the Lord's will.
To live the life that God freely reveals,
We live our latter years as if at our start
Sharing with others straight from our hearts.
The world outside us waits for us to share
Jesus, as our savior, who truly cares.
Out of our abundance, we are to freely give
The pathway needed for others to truly live.
(c) April 27, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
” Jesus lived in Judea, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and had followers who were persecuted for their faith in Christ.” – Tacitus (56-120AD)
“Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” – Romans 9:5
Of War and Valor
by Michael Doyle
The things of this world come in complexity.
What some face causes others frayed anxiety.
When we versify in earnest, we find the truth.
It can be as frustrating as an elder as it was in youth.
It was this way for me week among friends
Who hold counter-opinions frayed at their ends
About deeply contested issues brought to light
And as for myself, I'd rather hike than fight
What in war, we too often confront and see
Is not that which it is that we want desperately.
There is very little love and too much brutality
And yet, both of these are the way of humanity.
Idealism speaks of citizen soldiers and sacrifice.
The truth is that doing one's duty manages to suffice.
It gets more complex in the hues of a divided nation.
Sometimes, these quandaries defy reasonable explanations.
It is suggested that it is sweet and fitting to die
For the well-being of others, and I choke on my reply.
If this were really true, the generals should go first
If this valor leaves them dry-mouthed and with thirst.
Go ahead, then, good general, please show us how it's done.
As you go into battle for glory, tell us when it's won.
Let the scales of justice define moral integrity
And let this be cone with the strictest impartiality.
For with the fall of virtue will come our fragility.
Otherwise, decay, betrayal, and hubris will burden our humility.
There, in the fallow battlefield, lays a tragic wasteland.
Where when death comes, no one is truly fit to command.
(c) April 26, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
“American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.” – Edward R. Murrow
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