I Stand Justified

I Stand Justified
by Michael Doyle

God's grace rewrote my story
To be touched by His glory
By grace, I will testify
About the God that I deify

Greater things have yet to come
As we join linked to His kingdom
All that good that I can conceive
Becomes as possible as I believe

And I stand somehow justified
Despite the times, I've self-crucified
Seeking to kill all the wrong in me
The Lord guided me to new possibilities

In all the efforts that I have tried
There is only one path to be justified
Through the span of a thousand generations
Let our praise be given in veneration

That resonates across the ages
It is written across a thousand pages
His holy name is above us all
Remaining always worthy of recall

And I stand somehow justified
Despite the times, I've self-crucified
Seeking to kill all the wrong in me
The Lord guided me to new possibilities

As the Church, we stand separate and apart
Joined as we are to be holy inside our hearts
We are wiser than we are close to clever
But smart enough to praise His holiness forever

In all the times that my life has crumbled
I have somehow been held up as I tumbled
Blessed to be healed by the Lord's sacred hand
This life has shown me, and I've come to understand

And I stand somehow justified
Despite the times, I've self-crucified
Seeking to kill all the wrong in me
The Lord guided me to new possibilities

(c) August 7, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

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First Principles: A Dependence On the People Is, No Doubt, the Primary Control On the Government; But Experience Has Taught Mankind the Necessity of Auxiliary Pre Cautions

“A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” – James Madison (1788)

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Thought For the Day: A University’s Essential Character Is That of Being A Center of Free Inquiry and Criticism – A Thing Not Be Sacrificed For Anything Else

“A university’s essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism – a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.” – Richard Hofstadter

So then, if this former member of the Communist Party, USA, and highly regarded historian on the Left believed that, why do universities today cave to the Left and not allow conservative intellectuals to speak on Ivy League campuses? It seems like a very questionable practice, doesn’t it?

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Lost Plot

Lost Plot
by Michael Doyle

Everywhere I look, it seems forgot
Is it just me, or have we lost the plot
I feel it in the murderous laughter
The distant thunder is lost but chases after

Society's fracturing psyche is in trauma
As wordlessly we watch all the drama
Freudian visions shape society's rhapsody
Atonal as it is, where then is the melody

Let alone the harmony that lets us feel alive
When did the plot of this take its nosedive
There in the disturbing architecture is narrative
It's just quietly spoken yet still declarative

There is something to fantasy and hallucination
Let's keep enough structure to reach a destination
Otherwise, we are swimming in the loose impression
With nothing to share or bear any real consideration

As one of the audience who no longer cares to play
I still demand some sort of end to passing days
Doesn't anyone else feel the need for a cohesive whole
There is only so far surrealism expresses our souls

This becomes especially true when as we look around
Weird has become the summation of most things found
The horrors of it all are crouched, waiting to surface
And dreamscape logic alone fails humanity in its embrace

The present has become the future in retrospect
As our children and their children cry in neglect
No longer allowed to hope or to hold onto their dreams
Until Debussy's ethereal melodies fill our bursting seams

(c) August 6, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

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First Principles: We Start With First Principles. The Constitution Creates A Federal Government of Enumerate Powers

“We Start With First Principles. The Constitution Creates A Federal Government of Enumerate Powers.” – William Rehnquist, in United States v. Lopez (1995)

Biden’s recent proposals to change the law, specifically the United States Supreme Court, encroach on longstanding legal precedents and traditions. They are radical and dangerous to the stability and predictability of law in the United States. See also Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

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Thought For the Day: Stare Decisis Is the Preferred Course Because It Promotes the Evenhanded, Predictable, and Consistent Development of Legal Principles

“Stare decisis is the preferred course because it promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” – USSC Justice William Rehnquist

This is not some radical notion of law as Biden and his underlings argue in the media.

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How Much Law Is Enough Law?

How Much Law Is Enough Law?
by Michael Doyle

It is no secret that laws weren't to be numerous
Nor were our laws meant to be written as voluminous
Every one of our Founding Fathers made that clear
When they said as much and asked the nation to adhere

Ordinary Americans work their way through the maze
Poring over regulatory law that seems to openly graze
On the souls of those who had never casually expected
So much of their freedom and liberty to be rejected

All the facts behind the acts of the open human story
Reveal the rationale for what law shouldn't be for glory
But of the average man in such as way as to lend a hand
Never tyrannical in practice or simply by kingly command

Law has exploded and expounded across far too many pages
And in doing so has subjected the people to outrages
Outrages that while we must take the moments to explore
Must be tolerated seldom or not at all for any more

This should be our national goal and living aspiration
That we Americans should live for the freedom of the nation
That founded our republic all those many years ago
Qualitative and quantitative, it is the measure of our soul

It all comes down to measures of perplexing complexity
All in regard to matters that required utmost simplicity
No law should be more complex than the average understand
This isn't only needed but what we must truly demand

(c) August 5, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

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First Principles: We Must All Hang Together, Or Assuredly We Shall All Hang Separately

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin (1776)

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Thought For the Day: Do Unto Those Downstream As You Would Have Those Upstream Do Unto You

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” -Wendell Berry, farmer and author (b. 5 Aug 1934)

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In Beginning To Chill Hostility

In Beginning To Chill Hostility
by Michael Doyle

In truth, Christ came to save us all
Bringing us peace, as we might recall
Christ has already graced us as He's done
In the name of the Father, the Spirit, and the Son

In this world, hanging onto hostility
There's seldom a case study in humility
There is so much happening in controversy
That seemingly cannot help but be incendiary

Reaching for the surface are the conversations
That struggle with blowback and have derivations
Of holiness, which becomes harder still to reach
So that there is something to hear as we preach

That critical thinking seems harder to do
In the echo chambers that capture me and you
Prayer, then, is the start of being truly woken
Let our words be guided by God as these are spoken

It's better not to pretend the lip service
That doesn't align with our life purposes
We must put on our best sense of confidence
While binding ourselves into the hands of providence

If you want to know something good and new
Begin by studying the old and seek out what's true
Send out your arguments by seeking to understand
This is what our times ardently demand

Morality must find its surface in the best way
To take on corruption to make for a better day
We must stand in the public square in good repute
Unafraid to put the impure into reasoned dispute

It's odd to hear arguments made about intention
When the statements made evidence lack of attention
The rules of engagement have become insensibility
Christians must show God's ways through civility

In Christ's betrayal, He first shared the bread
Of His broken body to keep in His followers' heads
That mercy enfolds and holds us in its embrace
That we might know God's salvation and loving grace

So many times, we fall short in this season
Losing ground to our passions and forgetting reason
Yet, there on Golgotha's cursed barren tree
Our savior's death bought us our eternal liberty

(c) August 4, 2024 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

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