Saturday, November 14, 2015

Paris Attack Mark of ISIS Cowardice Offers Strategic Hope

Unworthy of even the acronym of terror, the famed ISIS group has claimed the Paris attacks of Friday the 13th as their prize.  Additional statements and Twitter tweets suggest the best blood is soon to come - American blood.  The global threat from cloaked cowards have been upon us for some time now.  What is the solution?  Is there a solution?  What is the damaging affect on the rising generation?

I believe there is an answer.

You can never be fully or too prepared for grave hardships that can befall upon a nation.  The Paris attacks were the deadliest since World War ll.  Go back to the events of that war.  Think of the Holocaust and the twisted minds that sealed those acts in the chapters of human history.  We've come a long way and paid a heavy price for the freedoms we have today.  Still, we lag behind in solutions to problems and the applying the true applications of liberty into our daily lives.  Truly, a change from within is required to continually realize liberty unto happiness.

As you and I sit in front of the computer or television and lament the heinous acts that have taken place in Paris, what are we now prepared to do to maintain not only freedom but also hope.  As adults hope wanes with not much thought put into it.  However, think of our children......... Hope is what drives them into brighter futures.  Hope is what forms their character as they raise their own families.  If terrorist attacks diminish the hope and heart of those with age then imagine what this is doing to the young.  How does their impressionable hearts receive daily doses of death?

We are getting hurricane force winds right in our face and we aren't even holding our arms up in protection.  These blatant acts of horror, which can only be best described as deliberate infarctions against humanity by diseased wild mad animals, are the clearest examples of good vs evil.  When a man is beheaded practically in real time on your screen is that not evil??  When a man is burned alive or tortured in a manner for all the world to see is that not evil??  Agreeably heavy hearts tend to lack hope and the power to act decisively in response to evil forces.  However, I trust that every sentient conscientious human being has that degree of anxiety in the heart and wants to act in some manner.

Attacks from those who fear showing their faces should never happen, but we must learn from them and learn to act decisively both for the protection of the people and for the preservation of liberty unto happiness for the self.

I believe I have the answer though it will never be popular with media.  Obviously, building up the military machine is essential every bit as much as protecting the borders for any nation.  Having said that I'll leave that alone because any further ideas down this road are obvious and clear.  I want to get into the "less" obvious solution that I believe has infinitely more power to it and lasting affect.

What is it that took us to the Moon?  After Pearl Harbor what led us to victory in the Pacific?  What leads men to greatness as they grace our shores as immigrants with new hope and new ideas?  What is it that leads you to cup a child's cheek when he or she is suffering?  By what power does a community rally to support a child with cancer?  What resolve protects the sanctity of a funeral of a fallen soldier?

All these things and all things that have built true greatness of a nation involved something unseen - an idea of hope.  Technology obviously aided in taking us to the Moon, but it would've all been for naught had it not been for the faith in the hope that it could be achieved.  Pearl Harbor stripped us of security but it was the faith and hope in the nature of the Stars and Stripes that girded up our loins and led us to victory.  If we didn't have that unseen empathy we would never have it in us to console a sick child.  There is power in numbers as time and time again it is demonstrated in communities that rally in support of one of it's own.

The answer, aside from the national military, is in positive reinforcement from the individual level on up.  Selfless service allows one or many to draw upon powers that rest in hope.  Selfless service allows one to see new perspectives and inner strength to add to their environment.  I believe that it is through that change of heart, and by extension the change in a nation, that we'll realize a power strong enough to keep adverse forces at bay.  Sure, we'll still be hit from time to time, but as "new" creatures of hope we'll know how to deal with these situations.  We'll know how to properly support our troops and various tools we have that fight against those that delight in such dark days as the Paris attacks of Friday the 13th.

In the realm of selfless service I advocate the first full week in December as Selfless Service week.  Make it your own test.  Commit yourself to serving your neighbor and see how you feel at the end of that week.  If you have complaints or concerns about your City's projects then commit to selfless service and see if you have any new contributory ideas or perspectives to offer.  If you have a family member in serious need then commit to selfless service and see what powers have been invoked on their behalf.  By further connecting to your fellow man you'll find a common communion of energy with them.  You will care!  When you engage in the service of another your thoughts of your own problems tend to be put aside for a while.  When you get back to them you'll find that either they've been solved or you'll know how to find the solutions for them.

There's no need to carry the yoke terrorist attacks or other local or personal problems to the point of no hope or foresight of happiness.  We are all in this together, and in drawing upon our acts for the betterment of the temporal and spiritual welfare of one another, we'll find that unseen power that eventually placed that shoe print on the Moon after the landmark edict, "The Eagle has landed."

Join me the first week of December for Selfless Service week!  Do it in support and remembrance of Paris.  Do it in support and remembrance of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Do it in support of the Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 that was brought down by terrorists.  Do it in support and remembrance for thousands of lives lost and affected from the 9/11 attacks on the East Coast.  Do it in support and remembrance of lives lost and affected from the Holocaust.  Do it in support and remembrance of the daily struggles in Israel from terrorist activity.

Most of all do it for yourself that you may find the power to help others yet maintain a brightness of hope in yourself, your family, your community, your nation and even the entire human family.

Take the Selfless Service week as a challenge!  Dare to prove me wrong.  If you have positive experiences from it then I strongly encourage making that monthly opportunity to reinvest in your neighbor that your energies may be properly balanced and not always turned inward.  Let's support our fighting men and women in uniform that they may be guided knowing of our affection for them.  Let us do our part as civilians to uplift and strengthen our neighbors and communities that we may invoke a positive favor strong enough to protect us in times of deep trial.

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