“We have met the enemy and he is us.” -Walt Kelly, cartoonist (25 Aug 1913-1973
Flickr Photos
Thought For the Day: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is us
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Enemy, Met, Pogo, Thought For the Day, Walt Kelly, We
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: The Greatest Threat To Our Democracy Is Not Trump Voters…But the Permanent Washington Elite Which Has Weaponized the Government
“The greatest threat to our democracy is not Trump voters or parents protesting at school board meetings, but the permanent Washington elite which has weaponized the govt and teamed up with corporate media to intimidate and silence those who dare to disagree with them.” – Tulsi Gabbard
First Principles: Dependence Begets Subservience and Venality, Suffocates the Germ of Virtue, and Prepares Fit Tools For the Designs of Ambition
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 19, 1781
Overcoming the Flesh
Overcoming the Flesh
by Michael Doyle
How then do we find our way
Throughout our present and everyday
What then will bring us to joy
Than in a buoyancy we can employ
It is to live as if fully persuaded
To live the Christian life not evaded
But living each day in its length
Living these through God's good strength
Even the strongest yield to temptation
Despite desperate nobility and dedication
Overcoming the flesh despite our perspiration
Comes only through living in God's inspiration
We find our way by surrendering emotion
Giving ourselves up to truest devotion
Open your ears and you will hear it
Surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit
It takes courage to ask God to reveal
The every aspect inside we cannot still
Errors and mistakes yield to God's will
To learn to do right and not just feel
Living by heart, soul, body, and lips
Within God's love, that can't be eclipsed
There in the ways of absolute submission
Is the way that surpasses our human condition
All this can only be given through trust
It's that place when we arrive as we must
That must be when we come to truly believe
All of the words in obedience that we receive
In wanting to live a godly life's contentment
We surrender at last and remove our resentment
Giving over even the final bit of our control
Allowing God to be the keeper of our souls
It's a matter of this best straight up math
That adding two and two keeps our feet on the path
Waking up every morning to first light's devotion
Giving ourselves to God's discipline through dedication
The blood of Jesus cleans us from our mortal sin
No matter how many times, again and again
As we live this waking prayer and in the light
Of seeking only to live our lives best and right
(c) August 23, 2022 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Believe, Buoyancy, Christian Life, Contentment, Control, Courage, Dedication, Devotion, Feel, Flesh, God's Love, Holy Spirit, Human Condition, Inspiration, Joy, Noble, Overcome, Path, Persuaded, Poetry and Poems, Receive, Resentment, Reveal, Soul, Still, Strength, Temptation, Trust, Waking Prayer
Leave a comment
First Principles: To Take From One…Is To Violate Arbitrarily the First Principle of Association, the Guarantee To Everyone the Free Exercise of…Industry
“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” – Thomas Jefferson (1816)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Acquired, Arbitarily, First Principles, Free Exercise, Fruits, Guarantee, Industry, Principle of Association, Skill, Spare, Take, Thomas Jefferson
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: O, What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice To Deceive
“O, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practice to deceive!” -Walter Scott, novelist and poet (15 Aug 1771-1832)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Deceive, First, Practice, Tangled Web, Thought For the Day, Walter Scott, Weave
Leave a comment
Ways of the Flesh
Ways of the Flesh
by Michael Doyle
There is nothing wrong with desire under subjugation
Healthy appetites are not cursed with God's rejection
It is when these things spiral out of all control
That these become harmful and damaging to the soul
As to superstitious sins that have become idolatry
These have a magical allure with a sense of sorcery
These things that stand between, however odd
Heavenly hope for ourselves and the presence of God
Lost within the actions of overt and cold hostility
However, this flesh craves, even if only covertly
There are so many different gods that live in our life
Taking us further from peace, headfirst into strife
There then are the social sins that become enmity
That is turning other people into our enemy
Serve as our undoing in live our lives of petty jealousy
Shred in the self-interests of our all too-human-history
Dissension and envy pushed by the pettiness of false desire
Are not the same as setting self-goals and having the fire
God has breathed to create those things as are needed
The difference between the two must always be heeded
These things accomplished do not mean we are perfect
When we avoid these and yet seek to live life correct
We will always remain creatures of perfect imperfection,
With tendencies that pull us yelling in the wrong direction
Weakness and fragility, then, are the human condition
And yet we remain forgiven through the cross's rendition
We are cleared from the wages of our craven living sin
No matter how many times we must yet begin again
(c) August 22, 2022 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Appetite, Begin Again, Control, Correct, Covertly, Craven, Cross, Desire, Difference, Enemy, Enmity, False Desire, Fire, Flesh, Fragility, God, Gods, Hostility, Human Condition, Idolatry, Living Sin, Odd, Peace, Perfect, PettyJealousy, Poetry and Poems, Rejection, Self Iinterest, Social Sns, Sorcery, Soul, Spiral, Subjugation, Tendencies, Ways, Wrong Direction
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: The Problem In Our Country Isn’t With Books Being Banned, But With People No Longer Reading
“The problem in our country isn’t with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. … You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (22 Aug 1920-2012)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Banned, Books, Country, Culture, Destroy, No Longer Reading, People, Problem, Ray Bradbury, Thought For the Day
Leave a comment
First Principles: Human Nature Itself Is Evermore An Advocate For Liberty
“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the ‘latent spark’… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?” — John Adams, the Novanglus, 1775
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Advocate, Differences, First Principles, Friends of Mankind, Human Nature, John Adams, Latent Spark, Liberty, Love of Truth, Novanglus, Principle, Virtue
Leave a comment
Called To Freedom
Called To Freedom
by Michael Doyle
Standing firm on Sunday morning
Living life as if a warning
Doing it as I can to my very best
Fasting and testifying as I confess
It grew toward a borderline resentment
Until I discovered what brought contentment
Called to freedom to serve each one another
Led by the spirit to serve each other
Led away from our craven idolatry
To bare the fruit of the spirit lovingly
Against such things there is no law
Yet, we crucify the flesh to become one with all
Our greatest troublemaker lies deep inside
The flesh from which we cannot quite hide
There is always something leaning toward sin
Desiring to do that wrong again and yet again
Sin nature serves as a sort of fatal distraction
Pulling us backward with its savaged attraction
No prayer or repentance will ever change this
If God's salvation, we continue to dismiss
(c) August 21, 2022 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Attraction, Best, Call, Confess, Contentment, Crucify the Flesh, Dismiss, Fatal Distraction, Freedom, Fruit of the Spirit, God's Salvation, Hides Within, Idolatry, Law, Poetry and Poems, Prayer, Repentance, Resentment, Serve, Sin Nature, Sincere, Sunday Morniing, Troublemaker, Warning, Wrong
Leave a comment
