I am afraid it has been too long since I have added anything to the blog.  Part of it is time constraint, between the show and the real estate business, I haven’t had time to scratch my….er….nose.    But that can be an excuse.  I am sure I have found the time to do some things that were a complete waste of effort….like virtually anytime I sit in front of the TV for example.  Nuff said.   Well, its a three day weekend and I thought I would try to catch up on a few things.   The website being one of them.

 

So here we are.   Priorities are what they are, and this weekend I at least wanted to have on my priority list to think a bit about why this is a three day weekend at all.   We have a tendency in our culture to bandy words about without really thinking about their meaning.   Catastrophe, crisis and cataclysm have been the “C” words d’jour for politicians and a news media eager for money and ratings respectively.  

 

Sacrifice is another such word.   What truly does that word mean?   Entertainers use a phrase “give it up” for so and so, meaning show some appreciation and applaud, or cheer.    I am reminded that on this weekend, we are to remember those who truly “gave it up”.   I sit and write this on a Sunday afternoon in the freedom of my personal world because a lot of folks sacrificed it all for me to have that freedom.   To say what I want, to do what I want (within reason of course) and to make choices for my life and not have choices made for me.   Freedom is not free, as the saying goes.   But I didn’t pay that price.  Someone else did.   Think about the opportunities for evil in this world over the centuries.   In my parents lifetimes, two great foreign evils were vanquished, Naziism and Communism.   In the generations before, other evils like slavery were also ended.   But these breakthroughs of Freedom cost dearly.    Whatever we think about the world today, we have the freedom to express those thoughts because of what someone else did for us in the generations that preceded us.    

 

Evil will always be lurking the shadows waiting for us to forget……for us to become complacent and fat and fool ourselves into believing that we are entitled to blessing, instead of the real truth, which is that there are no entitlements.    We were given a gift.     We did not have it coming.   Today, and tomorrow on Memorial Day, I thank God and those who came before me that “gave it up” ……who gave it ALL up.    Think about it for a bit sometime this weekend between beers or songs on the AZ MUSIC CAFE show, and make it a point to tell someone else where freedom comes from.    

 

Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day!