June 29-2015               I Believe Creed

I Believe in Respect

I Believe all people/all things deserves respect

I Believe in respecting others unless proven otherwise they do not deserve

I Believe that respect is earned

I Believe in order to earn respect you must give/show respect

I Believe there are many who are not respectful

I Believe that we can all be more respectful.

I Believe you don’t have to agree with someone to show respect

I Believe respect is taking into consideration other peoples beliefs of culture, traditions, religion etc.

I Believe in respecting others choices even if they don’t agree with mine.

I Believe  respect is agreeing to disagree without argument
I Believe that my mom taught me what respect is.

I Believe I haven’t always been respectful

I Believe I believe I have learned to be respectful 

I Believe respect is a part of my creed

Lucas

June 29, 2015             Lesson 4.1 Fluency Blog-Day 5

I have juggled, tossed, turned over and over, thrown on the floor and stomped on ideas and thoughts  for days now on what to write about for this weeks I Believe  Essay assignment. There are so many things that one believes in become so automatic that go without a second thought as to why we believe that way. But what is evident, everyone has beliefs and they came from somewhere. Not everyone’s beliefs are the same. Many are quite different depending on our culture, traditions, etc. Does having a different belief make any one person’s beliefs right or wrong? Does that give anyone just cause to tell another they are wrong because they don’t believe exactly how they do? Who determines what is right or wrong?

In putting thought to these questions is it not each belief that makes us the unique individuals we are. I don’t want someone telling me what I should or should not believe because it is their belief. So why should that same belief not apply to me. So, after all this juggling, tossing and turning over, throwing on the floor and stomping I’ve been doing, it finally hits me…it’s all about individual choice…our rights… freedom of religion, speech, etc… and it’s all about RESPECT. Respecting that I can have a different opinion than someone else, and they can have a different opinion other than mine. It makes neither of us right, or wrong. It just means we think differently. One can agree to disagree. And, once we can determine that, then respect can be established with no need for argument. That is what is supposed to be about. Somewhere people have lost respect for other people’s rights.

A person that demands respect rarely gets respect. You can’t push your opinions or beliefs on someone else and get respect. Respect is not a God given right, it must be earned. But respect is deserved and should be given to everyone and everything. This I believe. 

And I believe I have just found my creed!!!!!!!

Lucas.

June 28                                                  Lesson 4.1 Fluency Blog- Day 4

I HATE SNAKES

I believe that God has a purpose for everyone and everything, but one of the things that is a continuous mystery to me is why God created snakes. 

Here I am, what I consider myself to be a fairly “macho” kind of guy…crap, I’ve been through hell in my short lived life and I’ve made it back to where I am now. I’m not afraid of much, but there is something about those things…those creatures  that slide around on their bellies, hiding in the most inconspicuous places waiting for me to reach down or step on them, that reminds me of the Devil himself lurking in the darkness waiting to drag me to hell. I just flat can’t deal with ‘em…I don’t care what kind they are, and I’m not going to hang around long enough to find out either.What was God thinking?

I remember on the farm, kicking over a long piece of lumber which had fallen off the stack that my dad had to redo the floor of his trailer. There he was…I swear he was ten foot long, (even though I’m sure he was only about three) the biggest, fattest, ugliest copperhead all coiled up under it. I knew he was just waiting for ME…couldn’t have been anyone else; not mom, dad, or my sisters, he had to be waiting for ME. It wasn’t because I wasn’t smart enough to just stand real still or to back off really slowly, but my heart was in my throat and my feet and legs were frozen where I stood.  I could see him glaring me straight in the eye with this tantalizing look of contempt…..then he slowly slithered off.  My legs were shaking and I was weak in the knees, but I ran like hell back to the shop where dad was working to tell him. Of course the snake was already gone and not much he could do about it then but tell me to keep my eyes open. Damn right I’d keep my eyes open. Not only that , I would dream about that monster at night with my eyes open!!!

We used to go down to the creek down in front of the house and behind the shop to catch crawdads. They were plentiful down in our creek. We’d done it from the time I was really little…mind you I was only five or six when my folks split up and we moved from that place…so when I talk about this I wasn’t but just a toe head little kid anyway…but that summer the crawdads had seemed to disappear. There had been a lot of rain kind of like it has been this year and we figured that was why. NOT…guess what…we had a momma cottonmouth down there with a whole nest of babies…and those crawdads sure made good eating for them or be scared off.Did you know that a cottonmouth will flat chase you? Oh YEAH!

There were several other occasions, like when I was helping my sister get hay out of the back of the shop to feed the horses. She reached up to grab a bale of hay and there, with its ugly, nasty head sticking out of the bale, dared us to grab it. I could go on.

Then there was the summer we’d gone to Linden on the 4^th to swim, fish and do fireworks. My mom’s cousin and his kids were with us and he had brought a net so we could catch some minnows for bait. When he pulled it in there was a baby snake..about the size of a big night crawler. OK..disposed of…no biggy. Yeah sure!

 But the next day mom was off  work and didn’t have school that day, so we went back to swim. He were are, my sister and I swimming in our favorite spot, mom sitting in her lawn chair sunning, reading a book and listening to music. No one around because it was a work day…We had the place all to ourselves. We notice all this stuff floating in the river…looks like little cotton balls that have fallen off the trees bobbing up and down as we splash and carry on…no biggy...NOT!!!!!!…it was hundreds…and I do not exaggerate…hundreds of just hatched baby cotton mouths. Mom told us to quietly and quickly get out of the water…we packed up and we haven’t been swimming down there again. Again, nightmares for a week!

I’m reminded of this, and bring this all out, because the 4^th is coming up this weekend.  My fiance and my daughter are going to be here, we are making it a family affair with my mom, my sister and her husband, and even my dad is gonna tag along. I want her to know some of the same joys I had as a kid, going to the creek, shooting off fireworks…and I’ve been thinking where we could go to do it. I thought of Linden. We swam down there for years, my mom swam down there when she was a kid…people have swam down there for several years now after the “bobbing babies” as they came to be called, and I’m sure they will swim down there for many years to come. So, I guess I’ll just buck it up and try to man this one out, take my kid and the family and head to the creek in hopes we don’t meet up with one of those “devils waiting to drag me to hell.”

Did I mention I HATE SNAKES!!!!

June 27 2015                    Lesson 4.1 Fluency Blog Day 3

How to Mark a Book

In How to Mark a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D., he tells us there are two ways in which one can own a book. “The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it…. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.” (Adler)

He goes on to tell us that “Confusion about what it means to "own" a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type -- a respect for the physical thing -- the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers -- unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books -- a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many -- every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.)” (Adler)

Lastly he tells us why marking up a book is indispensable to reading.  “First, it keeps you awake. (And I don't mean merely conscious; I mean awake.) In the second place; reading, if it is active, is thinking… If, when you've finished reading a book, the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively.”(Adler)

Now, I know I did a lot of quoting here that I’m sure we all read during the assignment, but I was refreshing your reading as well as my own thoughts. My point here is, I haven’t wanted to mark in any of my books so far because I wanted to sell them back and get the top dollar for them being in good condition.   I guess you could say I have been like the second kind of book owner, one that “would probably like to make books his own but restrained by a false respect for the physical appearance “. I can remember when my mom was going through college. She always had a notebook and at least a yellow highlighter. Her books were marked all to pieces. I couldn’t understand why she was doing that when she could sell them back and get at least a part of her money back. But she wasn’t interested in that. And, I think she still has nearly every one of them.

So here were are, I start reading through Greitens’  The Heart and Fist. Before I’m through the first chapter I found myself with a highlighter marking passages as I read.  I didn’t go to the extent the author probably would by writing in the margins or at the top or bottom of each page, I merely highlighted as I read and absorbed the passages, and so that they would be easier to find again. 

By the time I finished up the book last night, highlighter still in hand, I see that there are many pages with those yellow marks…some pages almost completely yellow. I marked the crap out of that book! Then all of a sudden it was kind of like Adler  reached out of his paper and slapped me up side the face….”LUKE….yeah you, LUKE!  SEE!!!   What did I tell you!” I WAS right, wasn’t I? ... You GOT it! Good for you!"

The Heart and Fist  will become one of those dog-eared books that I now have no intention of selling back, even before I knew what I knew, that will become a part of my new library.  I can now say that I actually OWN my first REAL book.

June 26 2015              Lesson 4.1 Fluency Writing Blog-Day 2

TGIF…. It has been a really long week, but at least I’m off tonight and for the weekend. Maybe I can finally get caught up. I got up this afternoon with several things I needed to do…so off I go headed to town to get them done. All is good, then, BAM!…I stop to find out how much it’s going to cost to have a ring sized. A hundred dollars!! I think not. So I drove all the way to Springfield to check a couple other places I was told might be a little less… and find out I’ve forgotten my billfold.  Damn. I don’t have my driver’s license, I don’t have my debit card, I don’t have anything that I need and its twenty minutes, at least, back home, not to mention the gas. Wonder what else is going to go wrong? Now I’m getting ticked. My frustration and negativity is starting to surface. OK…OK…guess that little test we took is showing what it knows about me. At least I’m aware of it now. That’s a positive, right? Deep breath!

I’m behind on my reading this week. The hours I work make it hard for me to keep things balanced. I’ve been so tired. I’m thinking about “Hell Week” in our reading this week. I work out nearly every day; I eat healthy, and take all these vitamins and stuff. I’ve been through hell in my past and now I’m back…I’m pretty tough, or so I think. I wanted to be a Marine. I think I would have made a good one. But what these guys go through…could I have made it through that or would I have found myself ringing that bell?  NO! I’m going to do the Hokey Pokey. I’m going to “shake it all around…and turn myself around. THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!”  College is a walk in the park compared to what they had to go through. I can do this!

But first…I hear the ice cream truck playing its little jingle coming down the street. Man, its been a long time  since I chased down the ice cream truck. It’s been a long week, it’s my weekend, I deserve a treat!