Freedom of speech

It is not enough to have freedom of speech if we are not brave enough to speak what our heart feels and our mind knows. Politicians stand in front of the door of free speech, with all their puffery and false bravado, but they know they are  protecting a vacuum of ideas. They don't have the courage to make sense of events. They are the ambitious class vice-presidents and presidents we voted for in high school, whose mindsets and acuity have never progressed beyond that scope of understanding.  They understand freedom of speech. They just don't understand that freedom of speech is meaningless without the courage to speak.

The evanescence of a smile

The evanescence of a smile

Nothing lasts forever, although we know, as well, that nothing disappears; energy is simply transformed, recreated in new and different forms. So it happens with people. Of course, our progeny is part of that energy and, as it goes on, infinitum, nothing in death is destroyed. But there is more. There is the energy that brings a smile to our faces. It happens in a sunset, a concert recital, the flight of a hundred voyaging birds. It happens because something within us recognizes that we are witnessing an event, a phenomenen, that awakens the spirit deep within us. So it is with a smile that brings us hope, that brings our own smile to celebrate the enigmatic but enormous possibilities. And then that smile disappears, as if it were washed from the window of our perception. We turn away distraught. Time passes. And, then, walking down a street, sipping a cup of coffee or tea, reading the mail,  the smile comes back, it rises within us, it is there after all, nourishing us, adding just a little more light to our eyes. Nothing is destroyed. Thank you, Scott J Foster