ALOHA PROMISES FOREVER

Thought For the Day: War Is An Ugly Thing, But Not the Ugliest of Things; the Decayed and Degraded State of Moral and Patriotic Feeling Which Thinks Nothing Worth A War, Is Worse

Posted on May 25, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” – John Stuart Mill, in “The Contest In America“

In remembrance of this Memorial Day, perhaps you would like to read the text of this seminal work and reflect on the reasons so many of my brothers and sisters have given their lives that others may live in and enjoy the fruits of freedom and liberty. If so, you might choose to do so by clicking this link:

https://americanliterature.com/author/john-stuart-mill/essay/the-contest-in-america

May God bless each and everyone of you!

Posted in Thought For the Day | Tagged Decay, Degrade, John Stuart Mill, Moral, Patriotic, Thought For the Day, Ugliest, Ugly Thing, War | Leave a comment

First Principles: Our Obligations To Our Country Never Cease But With Our Lives

Posted on May 25, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” – John Adams

Posted in First Principles | Tagged Cease, Country, First Principles, John Adams, Obligations, Our, Our Lives | Leave a comment

Beasts of No Nation

Posted on May 24, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

Random thoughts on children confronting war form the basis of this poem.

Beasts of No Nation
by Michael Doyle

In a parliament of owls
It's easy to believe
And to keep busy
Certain only of the war

Dancing now while
We still can
As children in our smile
Life seems a picture show

Where the young are just that
And old men wish they were
Finding junked treasure in imagination
Television comes to rescue the nation

For the price of a few coins
Well spent they say
If only for the prayers of hope
Teaching draws life out

Learning even, they say, more
We do not know what to do
Yet, we find our way to do
Life has its unanswered questions

(c) May 24, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Beasts, Believe, Busy, Can, Certain, Children, Coin, Dancing, Draw Out, Find, Hope, Imagination, Junk, Know, Learn, Life, More, Nation, Old Men, Owls, Parliment, Photograph, Picture Show, Poem, Poetry, Prayer, Price, Questions, Random, Rescue, Smile, Spent, Teach, Television, Treasure, Unanswered, War, Way, Wish, Young | Leave a comment

Meditative Movement

Posted on May 24, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

In these last months, as if we haven’t been too sedentary in the first place, we have been almost nothing but stuck in and out of sorts with finding ways to keep moving. This is counter to what is best practices for leading a mindful life.

Meditative Movement
by Michael Doyle

In our present age, filled with angst and strife
A scientific path of yoga can add much to life
Doing much to decrease this lifestyle's disease
By putting mind and body in their natural ease

Closing our eyes to focus on our breath
An indicator of the physiology of life and death
Deepening our breath in all of its acute fullness
Adding more meaning and decreasing dullness

A gentle openness and then coming back to center
As a moving meditation, this is what we enter
Bringing our hands to near our heart's center
Again we take care in the state that we enter

It's there in the circulation and blood flow
Where we meet and are best and simply know
Feet firmly pressed into the firmament of ground
As an elongated spine becomes present as found

Neurological signals are sent in our observation
Twisting into a lengthening sense of convention
A natural stopping will become eventually found
Taking good care that our spines do not become round

With slight look over our shoulders
Carefully not pulling but just a bit bolder
Self massage can give good loving care
Circling around greater then subtly finding center there

Deep breath in as the deep breath goes out
Removing the angst and feelings of undue doubt
Adjusting posture as duly deserved and needed
And this then is the nature of things to be heeded

(c) May 24, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Angst, Best, Blood Flow, Bolder, Breath, Care, Center, Circle, Circulation, Close, Deep Breath, Deserve, Disease, Doubt, Dullness, Ease, Enter, Eyes, Feet, Found, Fullness, Gentle Openness, Good Care, Ground, Hands, Heart's Center, Heed, In, Know, Lengthen, Life, Life and Death, Lifestyle, Look, Meaning, Meditative, Meet, Mind and Body, Mindful, Move, Movement, Moving Meditation, Natural Stopping, Nature, Need, Neurological, Observation, Out, Photograph, Physiology, Poem, Poetry, Present Age, Pull, Round, Science, Sedentary, Self Massage, Shoulder, Spine, State, Strife, Twist | Leave a comment

Towards A Science of Yoga

Posted on May 24, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

More and more, my mind is increasingly turned toward the benefits and science of alternative medicine and self care such as meditation and yoga. To the degree that it does not conflict with Christianity, I cannot imagine where it does anything but benefit taking care of the temple of the Lord that our bodies are.

Towards A Science of Yoga
by Michael Doyle

Hatha yoga holds each of its postures
As something real not as an imposture
Just a bit of self care and therapy
That can help us heal into healthy

A movement of spine in multi-direction
Can stretch us and help with due correction
Useful in adjustments to help us gain
But, others that maybe some might refrain

Stress, pain and sleep in their management
Might help us to heal and aid temperament
The science of yoga provides great evidence
To show each of these are helped with providence

Slowing our minds with each subsequent breath
And helping us to delay what brings our death
It's healthful in bringing mind-body connection
To reduce and heal the lack of things in their detection

Useful in helping sleep and mental perception
There is a world of difference in this connection
Little breaks of earnest, peaceful meditation
Are useful in their energizing feel and in prevention

Of all the harm that comes our way
Being present with our breath every day
All of these moments are taken with ease
Each of these moments benefit and please

(c) May 24, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

https://flic.kr/p/rLtf7p

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Adjustment, Alternative Medicine, Benefit, Body, Breath, Christianity, Connection, Correction, Day, Death, Delay, Detect, Difference, Ease, Evidence, Feel, Gain, Harm, Hatha Yoga, Heal, Health, Healthy, Imposture, Little Breaks, Management, Meditation, Mental Preception, Mind, Mind Body, Moments, Movement, Multiple Direction, Pain, Peace, Photograph, Please, Poem, Poetry, Posture, Prevention, Providence, Real, Reduce, Refrain, Science, Self Care, Sleep, Slow, Spine, Stress, Stretch, Temperament, Temple, Therapy, Useful, Way, Yoga | Leave a comment

Thought For the Day: We Have Two Ears and One Mouth So That We Can Listen Twice As Much As We Speak

Posted on May 24, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus

Posted in Thought For the Day | Tagged Epictetus, Listen, One Mouth, Speak, Thought For the Day, Twice, Two Ears, We | Leave a comment

First Principles: I Must Study Politics and War That My Children May Have Liberty To Study Math and Philosophy

Posted on May 24, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, out to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons my have liberty to study mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons out to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine.” – John Adams, in Letter to Abigail Adams (May 12, 1780)

Posted in First Principles | Tagged Abigail Adams, Administration, Art, Arts, Children, Duty, First Principles, Geography, I, John Adams, Legislation, Liberty, Mathematics, Natural History, Negotiation, Philosophy, Politics, Science of Government, Sciences, Study, War | Leave a comment

Something In the Time

Posted on May 23, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

A brief reflection on life:

Something In the Time
by Michael Doyle

There's something wonderful to life
Full of patterns and rhythms rife
Skipping stones across wooded streams
And summer evenings filled with dreams

Beautifully seen through your elven eyes
Dazzling as they shine the light of night skies
It's like travel back into mystic time
Feeling as if brought into the sublime

Walked as it was into the eye of the storm
Caught up in the crumbles of the new norm
Where the norm is moving and quite fleet
The rising of each day's sun is a blessing to meet

Moments of suntanned summer's tortured indiscretion
When tongue tied, I couldn't speak of my fascination
Creeping all the corridors of my hopeful desire
Every whisper wanted sparking light into my fire 

(c) May 23, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Beautiful, Blessing, Corridor, Creep, Crumble, Dazzle, Desire, Dream, Elven, Eyes, Fascination, Feeling, Fire, Fleet, Hope, Indiscretion, Life, Light, Meet, Moments, Moving, Mystic, New Norm, Night Skies, Pattern, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Reflection, Rhythm, Rise, Skipping Stones, Something, Spark, Speak, Storm, Stream, Sublime, Summer, Summer Evenings, Sun, Suntan, Time, Tongue Tied, Travel, Walk, Whisper, Wonderful, Woods | Leave a comment

Woven Into A Delicate Tapestry

Posted on May 23, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

Faith and reason must work in combination with one another to approach the balance necessary to navigate the life of individuals and of nations around the world.

Woven Into A Delicate Tapestery
by Michael Doyle

Woven into a most delicate tapestry
Is a life that must be lived with mastery
Faith, reason, church and university
Must each be had in lending their diversity

Each must be inculcated in our youth
If we are to live in balance and truth
This then is the struggle for our civilization
To be reverently approached in this realization

To deny God is to deny the truest philosophy
For in seeking wisdom one must understand theology
Reason has limits that truth often exceeds
Once past these, there is the faith of godly needs

Though I am surely not an expert in psychology
I believe to deny this leads to sheer pathology
The bloody twentieth century's record is replete
With the evidence that without God, man is incomplete

Monotheism did away with the capricious pantheism
Bringing with it the path to reason's modernism
Replacing the arbitrary with rational creativity
Bringing an era of truth under our rational deity

Letting it become that truth may be known by all mankind
Apart perhaps from those who willfully stay blind
From the seeds of this self evident and holy kingdom
Were borne the roots of mankind's liberty and freedom

(c) May 23, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

https://flic.kr/p/vyd4Zs

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Balance, Blind, Bloody, Capricious, Church, Civilization, Combination, Creativity, Deity, Delicate, Deny, Diversity, Era, Evidence, Exceed, Faith, Freedom, God, Holy Kingdom, Incomplete, Inculcate, Known, Liberty, Life, Limits, Mankind, Mastery, Modernism, Monotheism, Navigate, Need, Pantheism, Path, Pathology, Philosophy, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Psychology, Rational, Realization, Reason, Record, Reverent, Roots, Seeds, Self-Evident, Struggle, Tapestry, Theology, Truth, Twentieth Century, University, Wisdom, Woven, Youth | Leave a comment

Pinkerton Lawman

Posted on May 23, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

The Pinkertons became the crux of what became the Secret Service. Their storied history is often looked these days.

Pinkerton Lawman
by Michael Doyle

A snake isn't hard to find
In the what that's left behind
When you flip over every rock
And God knows how silver always talks

A six gun preacher walks with intensity
Into the midst of a tent city
Boldly stating his stoic proclamation
That he has come in duty for his nation

A wanted war criminal will be hung
Until his strong neck will be wrung
Such was the ending nature of an uncivil war
For those still standing who would fight some more

With a trigger finger held ever lightly
The bad man refused to go to death quietly
And in so doing sealed his own fate
Quick as a wink, he met the reaper on this date

Never mess with a Pinkerton lawman
For justice will be served as only he can
Those too violently disposed too meeting their surprise
Will just as suddenly and fatally meet their demise

(c) May 23, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Bad Man, Behind, Civil War, Death, Demise, Duty, Fatal, Fate, Fight, Find, Flip, God, History, Hung, Intensity, Justice, Lawman, Left, Light, Meet, Nation, Nature, Neck, Photograph, Pinkerton, Poem, Poetry, Preacher, Proclmation, Quick As A Wink, Quiet, Reaper, Rock, Seal, Secret Service, Served, Silver, Six Gun, Snake, Stand, Stoic, Sudden, Surprise, Talks, Tent City, Trigger Finger, Violent, War Criminal, Wrung | Leave a comment

ALOHA PROMISES FOREVER

Thought For the Day: War Is An Ugly Thing, But Not the Ugliest of Things; the Decayed and Degraded State of Moral and Patriotic Feeling Which Thinks Nothing Worth A War, Is Worse

First Principles: Our Obligations To Our Country Never Cease But With Our Lives

Beasts of No Nation

Meditative Movement

Towards A Science of Yoga

Thought For the Day: We Have Two Ears and One Mouth So That We Can Listen Twice As Much As We Speak

First Principles: I Must Study Politics and War That My Children May Have Liberty To Study Math and Philosophy

Something In the Time

Woven Into A Delicate Tapestry

Pinkerton Lawman

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