“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.” – William Faulkner
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Thought For the Day: Never Be Afraid To Raise Your Voice For Honesty and Truth and Compassion Injustice and Lying and Greed…It Would Change the Earth
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Afraid, Change, Compassion, Earth, Greed, Honesty, Injustice, Lyring, People, Raise, Thought For the Day, Truth, Voice, William Faulkner, World
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First Principles: My Concern Is Not Whether God Is On Our Side; My Greatest Concern Is To Be On God’s Side. For God Is Always Right
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” – Abraham Lincoln
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Concern, First Principles, Go, God's Side, Our Side, Right
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What Is To Be Will Be
What Is To Be Will Be
by Michael Doyle
As the day of celebration approaches,
My thoughts turn to the prayer that encroaches
On every other day and on all my ways.
It is as important as Christmas Day.
The Lord's Prayer is, itself, a revolution.
It teaches our path of spiritual evolution.
I ponder on each line as a separate teaching,
And I pray for all the souls that it is reaching.
The heart of Jesus's mission is the Sermon on the Mount.
If you pay due attention, it reveals what it's about.
Each line is a phrase that is not overly demanding.
If you pour your heart into it, there is understanding.
Walking with aspirations of right attitude,
The believer approaches the rise of the Beatitudes.
Long ago, on this hillside, Jesus began to teach
Seven lessons in one, in the hope that they might reach
The jagged hearts of a crowd of willing believers,
Hoping they might embrace and become conceivers
That our holy Father offers this family freedom
As He invites each of us to belong to His Kingdom.
In Egypt, the Israelites lived in slavery and dread,
And still, hard as it was, they multiplied and spread.
The Nile River's bondage oppressed in its narrow place.
God heard their cries and, as a father, opened His embrace.
The Sinai unraveled Moses' part of this holy story.
A burning bush spoke the truth of God's eternal glory.
Staring into the flickers of the sacred flame,
Whatever will be will be was revealed as God's name.
The focus shouldn't be on a label, but what God can do.
A label is temporary; what unfolds is what is true.
Redeemer, Father, rescuer - wrapped into one.
This is how the Lord's Prayer is begun...
(c) December 18, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Approach, Aspration, Attention, Beatitudes, Beleiver, Burning Bush, Celebation, Christmas Day, Day, Dread, Egypt, Embrace, Encroach, Family, Father, Focus, Freedom, God, God's Name, Heart, Hillside, Holy Father, Israelites, Jagged Hearts, Jesus, Kingdom, Label, Line, Moses, Narrow Place, Nile, Path, Phrase, Poetry and Poems, Poner, Pray, Prayer, Reach, Redeemer, Rescuer, Revolution, Right Attitude, Sacred Flame, Sermon on the Mount, Sinai, Slavery, Souls, Spiritual Evolution, Teaching, The Lord's Prayer, Thought, To BE, Unerstanding, Walk, Ways, What Is
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First Principles: Behold the Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sin of the World
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” – John the Baptist
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Behold, First Priciples, God, John the Baptist, Lamb, Sin, Worl
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Thought For the Day: A Painter’s Got A Canvas. The Writer’s Got Reams of Empty Paper. A Musician Has Silence
“A painter’s got a canvas. The writer’s got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.” – Keith Richards
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Tagged Canvas, Empty Paper, Keith Richards, Musician, Paiinter, Ream, Silence, Thought For the Day, Writer
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Dancing Shoes
Dancing Shoes
by Michael Doyle
Christmas brings back faded memories,
Mostly of how we love our family.
The thing is that most of mine are dead,
And still there is what needs to be said.
I gather myself by the gravestone,
Self-aware that I'm on my own.
Thinking on how much of my life consists of smiles,
In between birth and now, I've logged a lot of miles.
Along the way, I have seen quite a lot,
So many tiny miracles that aren't forgot,
Like my oldest daughter turning to me at the ultrasound,
And the places her sister, her, and I have found.
We often hit the open road to explore,
Sometimes playing cows without keeping score.
Everyone's a winner when you play for love,
Keeping this in mind, with God looking down from above.
Life plays out as it does without any alibis.
When you live by truth, there is no need for lies.
But it's funny how life slips on by,
And before you know it, you've given your best try.
Life hits us with the recompense of our capability.
Doing its best to teach us a lesson in responsibility,
And maybe along the way, we find our pleasures,
All the things we have kept in our fullest measure.
I remember my ballerinas as they learned to dance,
Starry eyes and dreaming of princes and romance.
It felt like just another miracle along the way.
I will always treasure their younger days.
Raising children often involves little white lies.
They are often the cure for ailments like butterflies.
We'd take in the beauty of all that we had seen,
I often said silent prayers for my two beautiful human beings.
This Christmas feels just a little bit lonely.
I know a little girl all grown up, and I wish she'd phone me.
I sit here looking at a pair of old dancing shoes,
And realize this is just another part of paying life's dues.
(c) December 17, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Alibis, Ballerinas, Christmas, Cows, Dancing Shoes, Explore, Fade Memories, Family, Gravestone, Life, Love, Miles, My Life, Open Road, Poetry and Poems, Self-Aware, Slips By, Smiles, Tiny Miracles, Truth, Ultrasound, Writing
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First Principles: Conceiving God To Be the Fountain of Wisdom, I Found It Right and Necessary To Solicit His Assistance For Obtaining It
“Conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it.” – Benjamin Franklin
Thought For the Day: Mark the Season of Advent By Loving and Serving the Others With God’s Own Love and Concern
“At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God’s own love and concern.” – Mother Teresa
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Advent, Christ, Christmas, Concern, God, Love and SErvice, Mother Teresa, Others, Season, Thought For the Day, Warm Heart
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Second Guess the End
Second Guess the End
by Michael Doyle
There's a lot of right
In learning through the wrong.
There's a lot of hanging tight
In finding where I belong.
It's been a hard road to living,
But that's what I've been given.
The movie is never as good as the book,
But it usually has a sharper look.
20/20 seems the intellectual hindsight.
I'll accept the odds as just about right.
I just wanted to hold my love tight,
And find the way to follow the light.
With a kiss like Judas, I'm betrayed -
All these times, I've felt played.
You never get to Heaven through the Christmas snow.
Or by pretending to forget all that you know.
I took the drink that stole my youth,
Strangling my grasp on the simplicity of truth.
All of my disappointments know their ghosts.
But of them all, I miss you the most.
20/20 seems the intellectual hindsight.
I'll accept the odds as just about right.
I just wanted to hold my love tight,
And find the way to follow the light.
The angel of my soul came to set me free.
She told me of my redemption yet to be.
It would be found in the echoed end of days.
Satan's hold would slip, and I would change my ways.
For my love of you, let my vanity be gone.
I need the mercy of Son set on the throne.
Let Heaven reign down its love on those like me,
And shine our Father's grace on all of humanity.
20/20 seems the intellectual hindsight.
I'll accept the odds as just about right.
I just wanted to hold my love tight,
And find the way to follow the light.
(c) December 16, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged 20/20, Belong, Betrayal, Book, Christmas Snow, Disappointment, Drink, Find, Follow, Forget, Ghost, Given, Grasp, Hanging Tight, Hard Road, Heaven, Intellectual Hndsight, Judas, Kiss, Know, Learn, Light, Living, Love, Miss, Movie, Ods, Played, Poetry and Poems, Pretend, Right, Second Guess, Sharper Look, Simpolicty, Stranglehol, The End, The Way, Tight, Times, Truth, Wrong, Youth
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Thought For the Day: To Acquire the Habit of Reading Is To Construct For Yourself A Refuge From Almost All the Miseries of Life
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” – W. Somerset Maugham
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Acquire, Construct, Habit, Liffe, Misery, Reading, Refuge, Thought For the Day, W. Somerset Maugham
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ALOHA PROMISES FOREVER 