I Want To Be...

I want to be a Deborah
     and lead when called upon.
I want to be a Hannah
     and dedicate what is given me.
I want to be a Gomer
     and return to the Forgiver.
I want to be a Mary
     and accept the Lord's decree.

I want to be a Rebekah
     and be chosen by God.
I want to be a Ziporah
     and to endure criticism.
I want to be a Ruth
     and blossom among strangers.
I want to be a Naomi
     and aid those who need.

I want to be a Martha
     and to be corrected.
I want to be a Priscilla
     and share in the ministry.
I want to be a Nympha
     and to be hospitable.
I want to be an Esther
     and do what is right.

I want to be a Queen of Sheba
     and seek out the wise.
I want to be an Elizabeth
     and be honored by a special visit.
I want to be an Anna
     and behold a miracle.
I want to be a Magdalene
     and be truly rescued.

But most of all...

I want to be me
     and find God's purpose for me.
I want to be me
     and learn His Plan.
I want to be me
     and never leave His side.
I want to be me
     and become all the good things of the women of the past.

I want to be a woman after God's own heart
With my own place and purpose in this world.
I want to be the me that God means for me to be
With my life's path leading to where I'm supposed to go...

I want to be the me that God sees.

What Is A Dragon? (a poem)

What is a dragon?
Is he a serpent with claws
and a gargoyle face
on a Chinese banner?
Is he a terrible monster
slain in his nest
hunted by Beowulf?

What is a dragon?
Is it a feathered creature
or one of telepathic mind
in the tale of Eragon?
Is it only a myth and legend
only a dinosaur -
its children on the isle of Komodo?

What is a dragon?
Is he one of many
one of a vast army
of countless species and names?
Is he alone
one of a dying race
hunted, rare, beautiful?

What is a dragon?
Is he sometimes evil
a youth's nightmare,
breathing fire in your dreams?
Is he sometimes good
kneeling to let you up,
as the cavalry of the sky?

What is a dragon?
Does he have bright scales
with reptilian eyes
and the largest claws in the world?
Is he the heart of a man
one who is bold
a great leader among men?

What is a dragon?
Myth or real all agree
the dragon was feared -
few challenge his might and power.
But what is a dragon?
Symbol of strength and fire -
fearless and proud, king of reptiles.

What is a dragon?
I am a dragon.

What to Write?

     I have been asked to keep writing. However, I find myself unable to do so. Have I lost my spark? No. Am I bored? No. Then where has my brain gone? I dunno.
     Perhaps it is because I'm not that opinionated of a person. I'm not a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck. I don't get so fed up about politics that I just have to speak out about it. Maybe I should.
     When it comes to relationships though, I have opinion. I have stories. I have analyses and beliefs. Theories and assumptions abound inside my head. I am a people person. Let me talk about people and their problems. And people will read it. They do. What do you think you're doing right now? I'm laughing as I write this. I'm a die-hard romantic myself. My favorite story in the Old Testament is the story of Hosea and Gomer. My favorite chick-flick is tied between You've Got Mail and Kate and Leopold. My favorite play is Cyrano de Bergerac. And yet I hate Romeo and Juliet or any story with a similar plotline. Ironic right?
     I know, I know. I could go on talking forever about romance and familial lifestyles. I could write books and books about people problems and what I thought was the psychology behind it. I could make a living off of it. Countless others have done it, so why not me?
     Maybe it's because I'm discovering my own "people problems". That everybody - including me - has to go through it. Everybody's got to grow up sometime. I'm not unique in that matter. I once thought that I was above it. That I already understood. I considered myself precocious. Yeah. Right. How wrong I was.
     I'll admit it. I learned a lesson the hard way. I shouldn't even say that. I thought I had learned it, then I went out and made it worse. Talk about stupid. And I had thought that I "knew this stuff". That I was too good to mess up. That I understood what it meant to be grown up. Let me repeat the age-old saying. Pride goes before a fall.
     That's right peoples. It was as simple as that, and yet infinitely complicated at the same time. I had gotten myself tangled in my own web of deceit. I even believed I was above saving. Man oh man did I learn a lesson. What's humiliating about it is that I thought I had already learned that lesson.
     To say one thing, and then to go out and do the opposite. It's called hypocrisy. "Do as I say not as I do." Politicians do it a lot. Parents do it sometimes. And I, well, I hit it on the nail...
     Ouch.
     Yeah. Growing up is hard. Painful. Humiliating. Hard. I tell you once, I tell you again. Kids, don't spend your days dreaming about Neverland. Adults, don't look down on those of us who are slow to learn. We try. I try. Really. It's just the same ol' lesson that everybody's gotta learn eventually. It's a lesson written over and over again in history. Can't you just lighten up for one moment?
     Easing off, you know what I mean? Some people learn faster than others. It's easy to say you won't do something. Then some trigger comes along and you find yourself doing precisely what you never imagined yourself doing. Regrets? Yes. Big ones? Yes. Lesson learned? I...um...I learned that lesson too. Never assume you know. I hope that I learned it this time.
     Hey, what do you know? I got talking again. It didn't take much apparently. Just let me rattle on and this is what you get. My thanks. To those of you who continue to push me to write more. And to those of you reading this. When I have something to say, I can write. When I know that there's someone who will read it, and possibly take home to mind and to heart what I have to say, it is a joy to write. Thank you. Thank you for giving me focus. Thank you for impatiently waiting for me to write again. I needed that.

Silver Line

What If Money Grew On Trees

(Economics In a Nutshell)

     The United States Mint is printing out more and more dollars. Stacks and stacks of those fibrous green things that everybody wants. Yet our economy is low. People don't have enough money to be prosperous, let alone pay all the bills. Huh? Where's all the money?
     Truth is, it's still there. And there's more and more of it everyday. Then why aren't business making enough money to raise salaries for their workers? Politicians will tell you it's because customers don't have enough money to spend it willy-nilly. They have bills to pay too. But that's circular reasoning. Where do you think the customers get their money? From working at another business (or getting government subsidies or food stamps but that's a discussion for another day).
     You see, the problem is all-encompassing. But a good chunk of it has been an ever growing problem since the 1960's. (Why the '60's? Because that's when the last of the silver coins and certificates went out of circulation.) The beginning of the money problem (not the people problem - which is also for another discussion) was when the Silver Certificates (one dollar that could be traded for an ounce of silver) were replaced with the Federal Reserve Notes (what we call dollars today). Why were they replaced? Because the government had printed too many. The Reserve did not have enough gold and silver to back the certificates if everybody suddenly decided to trade in their dollars for the silver they represented. The government had made too many IOU's. The government was in debt and needed more money. But the solution they chose was no solution at all. They put out the Federal Reserve Notes to replace the certificates and printed even more of them.
     Stupid idea. Why? Because of the fact that there is only so much gold and silver in the world and because gold and silver are precious metals, they will never lose their value. Dollars, on the other hand, are not precious. They do not even carry the promise of receiving that valuable gold or silver anymore. They have lost value. And the more and more there are, the more and more it takes to buy something.
     So. The problem is not about workers, customers, businesses. The problem is the fancy word of inflation. Too much currency in the system. Inflation is not rising prices or more expensive items. Inflation causes rising prices. The items we buy and sell have not lost value, the paper we use to purchase them has.

     Every year, the oak trees grow their acorns. If the old acorns did not grow into new trees or decompose, there would be more and more acorns every year. The squirrel community would get fat and lazy from all those extra acorns they would eat. But what if the squirrels used them for currency? What if they traded acorns for other things? Well, if the acorns died every year like they do, the acorns would be valuable because there would only be so many every year. But if the acorns were preserved somehow, then inflation would begin. There would be more and more acorns. The squirrels would feel very rich indeed. They would spend more. And spend more. But eventually the not-so-rich squirrels and the squirrel business owners would see this and raise the prices on things. The rich squirrels are willing to spend more so why not get more? But the wealth is an illusion. There are more acorns now. They're not worth as much anymore.
     But the acorns will just keep coming right? The trees will continue to "print" more. Hmm, sounds familiar. That's right: the U.S. printing presses and the Federal Reserve Notes. The bunches of government acorns. What do you know, money does grow on trees.
     You don't have to be an economist to understand this: if you have a lot of something (and I mean A LOT), it's not as valuable as when you only have a little of it. That goes for anything - collectibles, gold, other precious metals (silver, uranium, etc.), precious stones, old books, artifacts, acorns...
     So why doesn't the government stop printing money? Isn't that easy enough? Not exactly. Every time the government cuts it off, businesses and people no longer get their subsidies and food stamps and handouts. The "flow" of money stops coming from the government and flows only from the markets. People "have to get that dough" elsewhere. Stocks plummet. Businesses fire workers. Why? To get that cash they have because the money is no longer "building." Money becomes harder to get, more valuable, more precious.

     But isn't that what we want? Yes. But when the government is willing to pay for it by making more money...well, some people (individuals, businesses, corporations) had developed the habit of spending. Yet now with the inflation halted, they have to correct that habit. So they cut salaries, jobs, the TV he wanted, those shoes she liked, etc. When this happens, it is called a recession - or a depression - depending on how soon people start complaining to the government and it starts printing money again.
     Perhaps we can learn from the truth about acorns. They don't last. They decompose and get replaced the next year. Eventually the inflation, recession, inflation, recession circle will get worse enough that something is going to bust. We will face a depression again. But what we choose to do will affect everything. Either the re-inflation will become so bad that it takes a million dollars to buy a loaf of bread and the whole country will turn on its head and we'll have a revolution. (I'm sure that's a few years away, but such things have happened rapidly in other countries before.) Or we tighten our belts during the depression and watch our acorns, er, dollars and we'll come out okay if the government does not inflate again.
     But the country has a lot of whiners. If we're going to get through this, some of us have to tell the government NO MORE PRINTING MONEY more loudly than the whiners crying GIVE ME MORE.
     You know, it just might be time to observe the natural order of things and go back to gold and silver currency. Or maybe acorns.