The Block

The cedar break

As a Newly ordained youth minister in a fundamental baptist church in Texas - I found myself in need of a job. You know , one that pays for bills like food and clothes and electricity, rent , gas , things like that. I came to these 2 conclusions -- the bigger the faith the more freedom you receive. The more freedom you receive the more it cost.
I met a man - we will call him Red - ol Rev. Red. This man compared to me was short. Built like a chunky man , he preached with fire from his heart I had never seen. He was red headed and freckled and wore a mustache like Wayett Earp. In the struggle to find a job he invited me out with him one day to help him cut cedar. I was born in the city. He called me city boy. He grew up in a place in Texas I had never seen or even heard of. While I grew up on the streets, he grew up in the break. The break- a term used by those who "log" woodland areas of private property . Cedar is so --- free growing in Texas it's almost considered wild. People in Texas who own land generally dislike cedar - to the point that they allow people and some times pay people to come on their land and cut it out. To them it gets in the way. This is where I found my self - ol reds assistant. Cedars bushy and Kinna sappy and very flammable. It grows nearly every where and it tends for the most part to grow big fast and thick and strait. As a wood , cedar smells nice and looks pretty. Beautiful red wood mixed with white sometimes dark red. Being a city boy I stood in a old pair of jeans and watched my pastor begin to shave a post out. After what seemed a few jerks with his Orange chainsaw - there was a solid cedar post rising high where a big green bush used to be. " let's stack what we don't use in a burn pile " he said ... so i did. It would be a few days later we would go through all the piles and with a smaller chain saw - "fish out" the smaller logs and "staves" as they are called ( small -walking stick type of 5 foot sticks- in betweeners--- from fence post to fence post these were the fillers - you tie these to the fence wire to keep animals from crossing the fence , cows horse so on and so forth. Here's the deal- these cedar logs has to be 8 ft or longer for a cedar yard to buy em and they had to be, depending on shape , thick enough to use as fence posts. The thicker the post the more they brought. Cedar , in the ground will out last any metal as a fence post. So here, we are loading a truck with difrent size logs made from solid Cedar. I'm not gunna lie - them thing were heavy and solid. The old saying is "if you cut it you pack it" in real talk if you cut a log , your gunna have to cart it to the truck and stack it . Red could pick up 2- yea 2 post 12 long and 2 foot round. Dude was solid! Them something happen on the break - I fell in love with the land and the tree and the way. A love I still hold to this day.
I can still cut n pack cedar just like the first time. You never loose it - it's as much a part of me as I am of it. I smile some mornings and look on my home and notice the small stack of cedar to the side or in the driveway and it takes me back to the break.

With much faith comes much freedom and freedom isn't cheap. Some times freedom takes a few trips to the break. There in the break you won't find anything easy and no one does anything for ya. Is it dangerious - yup. Depending on how you leave it and how well you cut - they may not ask you back or even better, they may.

May the force be with y'all!

Me and my family are a Nintendo generation type of family - I am and they follow suite. I blame the 80's lol . Now - we have a WII. We bowl and tennis - ping pong- shoot- rock out and very frequently : drive. Mario kart is a very real thing in my family. It binds us , allows us to defuse and brings us closer together. I've played Mario kart so much I am a self proclaimed Mario kart master. Jk
During play , I've found hidden truths in the game I never thought possible. I often fight the wife and brother in law and friends for first place. On the wii , there is a blue turtle . It's got horns and runs past every one else and guns for the person in first place. This is its purpose. It even has a whistle all on its own. During the course of play and over time I've found some times you can't out run it . You hear it at the last moment due to every other noise crash banana dodging and red turtle going on. It can get chaotic at times. To the experienced gamer, there are tricks of the trait . I've found at the last moment , if I'm gunning for first with others right on my tail .... hit the brake let some one take 1 st and slide away . Boom . You can hit the brake and take every one else out as well leaving you sliding into first place again. Some times it works , sometimes it don't , some times the wife does it and I'm left inches away from the finish line as she slide in for the win... then the infamous saying happens -" that's Mario kart"
Another trick I learned is sometimes it's gunna be close. Sometimes it comes to the inches of seconds and sometimes if you take the blue turtle the right way - it throws you foward ... tword the finish line. I've done it several times. Stolen first regardless of what color turtle or intent hits me !
That's Mario kart at its best. A very good "evener outer. " ( equalizer) When you get a gold mushroom at the end and just blaze thru the water sand and blocks that keep every one else back.
Its Kinna what I see in life. Life is no way a game to be played to me but I see so many others quit ... right before and they could easily win if they just ... learned a few tricks or stayed a bit longer or even learned to take a hit or two ... in a difrent way.
My encouragment to this wonderful place is play again - ( put another quarter in- as we arcade "Ian's " say - I got an extra quarter and I got you ) get more experience points ! Do it again till you get it right and do it till you get the hang of it - after all this is Mario kart - this is life . No telling what's next . In all the toil- trauma- drama - red turtles blue turtles that always seem to come at the wrong times... keep playing !!!!! Keep going , keep driving ! DONT quit ! Each time you try - you learn somthimg new ! Pass it on, some one else might not know the blue turtle can be used , rather than feared!
Peace to all y'all ! Play on temple , play on!

A good Monday thought !

An excerpt from “ The World according to Mister Rodger”
By Fred himself
You don’t have to do anything sensational for people to love you. When I say “ It’s you I like,” I’m talking about the part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can see or hear or touch ... that deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which mankind cannot survive: love that conquers hate , peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.
So in all that you do in all your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which allow you and your neighbor to become the best of who ever you are.
...
2004 Family communications- Hallmark edition page 189


May the Force be with y’all my friends my neighbors and my Temple!
Maybthe force give you strength peace joy and what you need to make your path what it needs to be !

Have you thought about punlishing a book? These are quite wonderful

*blushing . . . Thanks pastor
Maybe ?

Taken from here


https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/open-discussions/121089-what-does-authenticity-mean-to-you?limitstart=0#319215


I love this discussion honestly . The next few statements are tword the modern day Jedist and to those who believe and make the active and try to apply the common core beliefs to a real life practice.
The human potential... the ability to say we are individuals ... the inherit worth of all... this belief creates “authentic” individuals or as we find - equally difrent individuals. Personally - I don’t think The Jedi practice isn’t so much as finding these individuals And the definitions ... (not in my practice ///actually , it may be difrent for others- give it a few seconds and it will be obvious) but —- and this is the big but in our faith I find - can we be with the rest of the world. ? Can we be us ... our own authentic self as others be their own authentic self? Can we support / not us / but some other authentic sentient being? Or does it make our existence - the others or the acknowledgement of others “ not “ like us and even not willing to harmonize with us —- make others not receive the freedoms our faith and or practice or idea or philosophy or what ever we call our Jedist path is ? Not sure if that question was clear or not. I find the hardest part of my own faith as a Jedist is to allow - not me - or not my ideas the freedoms my own ideas and practice gets. Authenticity - can we actually let it be outside our own definition?

In my very own practice ...

There is no greater place than that of equal. To give every avalible freedome I posess is the toughest thing I think I have faced since becoming a modern day Jedist. In my path as a Jedist there are no longer “enemy’s” or this side or that ... for
Me, it’s just another link another way a difrent color a difrent idea another road along side my own. (Equal) To see the world like this can change our actions in a significant way. Very significantly . It can change our view of things as well.

This week, I encourage us as a Temple
And as Jedists to take a few minutes and breath deep - feel the connection- and feel that the Force is as possible - mine ,
as it is yours and as much as you have I also can have as well as you can have my equal share. When views this way - then inherit worth of all can show a brighter shade. There is no compotition when we see things like this. Only receiving - only gifts only giving and getting ...


Isn’t that a difrent way to look at th world today ?
Be well and maybte Force we seek share and serve be with y’all!

Ps feel
Free to leave a comment. I leave in peace!

Good bread or bad bread ?

Bread - wheat - I’m amazed at the information we have and the ability google or research things to as far as we can. The origin of wheat is still unknown. (Tid bit)
Bread is shared by every culture. Every culture seems to have some form of bread around the table and it’s easly shared or easly hoarded. Doesn’t last too long and even better is it is best served fresh.
This weeks questions is this - if you light a loaf of bread and throw it in a crowd and it explodes - is that good bread or bad bread?! Second question- if you light a stick of dynamite and throw it in a rock quary and after the dust settles it reveal s gems or precious things - is that good dynamite or bad dynamite?
Same stick you light and throw in a mall- same result -boom! Still bad dynamite ?

So many times in life we light our fuse or let our fuse light and the end result is devastation, even to our own inner circle. Some of us ( myself included) light the fuse and watch the dust settle in the aftermath yet - we expect everything to be - ok when we’ve thrown our stick into a group of people or even lit our “bread” and watched it explode.
-Intent - application- purpose - focus -
These are things we can have before - waaaaaaay before we even grab the matches. If it turmoil and ground zero we seek than by all means - there’s no need to sit and think about anything - in will come easly. But - BUT - if we would like to be a bit different... maybe a diffrent approach and a diffrent focus and view can help.

Are we lighting our bread ? We watching our bread explode ?what - is - your bread ? Are we sharing ? What’s the intention of our bread ?
Don’t let your bread explode - share it !
Something to think about
Force be to y’all !

There can be many, many .. MANY things that can keep a Jedi from their path. Money time effort to name a few. Yet, if these things can keep - these can also free. How - that’s the kicker! Some master them, others disregard and yet others still overcome. Some have entirely different ways of dealing with things that would take us years. To be Jedi is not to say which is right or wrong but which can I use to help me.

Kinda changes things I hope as far as how we see things.

This week change the way ya see things maybe and get a new center or a new way to tackle - overcome or even grow something new from some where else than us. Totally possible !

Bitch
The female dog became a word of insult in Western civilization because of her ancient association with Goddess religion. Often the Goddess herself was called the Great Bitch, or her priestesses described themselves as her hunting bitches: especially the priestesses of Artemis/Diana, whose original people were the Alani, “hunting dogs.” The nurse of King Cyrus the Great was a representative of the Goddess, as Kings nurses had to be at the time. Her name was Cyno, meaning “bitch” in Greek, or Spako, meaning “Bitch” in the Median language.
The word lupae, “wolf bitches” used to be applied to harlot-priestesses in Rome; and Herodotus described the wolf-like howlings in the temple performed by priestesses of Athene. The divine queen of Troy escaped death by transforming herself into “one of those fearful black bitches that follow Hecate”. Similar Goddess-following, promiscuous huntresses seem to have kept a foothold in British forest lands, as the Arthurian legends indicate. The word “bawd” which came to mean a loose woman, formerly meant nothing more than a hunting dog.
“Son of a Bitch” became an insult because it used to be the equivalent of son of a whore, or perhaps even worse, a son of the Goddess—-that is a devil by Christian definition.
This is an excerpt taken from: page364/5 of “The Woman’s Dictionary of symbols and sacred objects” by Barbara G. Walker.

Just a tidbit of different information, in case you didn’t know, now you know.