LD Sledge

Admiration
I once read the brown skinned people in other countries felt that they had the attention of the environment. That trees, animals, and even inanimate things were attentive to them, and that made them comfortable as being constantly acknowledged of their presence and beingness. I am sure you have read of the American Indian thanking the deer or buffalo for offering themselves as food so that the human may live, and the tree or stones which provided shelter or protection were thanked as well. Man was never alone, and was surrounded by friends who provided for his needs.

White man, on the other hand, never felt that anything but his kind was worthy of anything but to use. That made him an only one, alone, and fearful. That meant, in order to get attention and acknowledgement he had to accumulate things, gold, weapons, property. Then he could be admired, or his substitute self, his stuff, could be admired. This put him in a state of anxiety constantly about getting and then keeping it once he got it. Brown people had difficulty in understanding this.

Who is better off?

The brown people were constantly admiring those things that gave them attention. It was an exchange of admiration. Somehow, he knew there was more to it than just he and those things, that there was really no separation or gulf between them and somehow he was making it all happen. He has never really been able to fathom how that works, for it was just the way things were, and it wasn’t broke. So he admired everything, finding beauty in all things. It worked fine, and he was as happy as man could be in this universe.

Suppose one day, when things are going badly, or when you have some slack moment in your day of acquiring and protecting things, (isn’t that what you find yourself doing 24/7?) just look around and find something that you admire. Then find something you don’t admire and admire it. You know it is hard to cause trouble for someone who admires you. Admire your enemies. Admire your troubles. Really admire them. Flow something like “love” at them. Love is such an indefinable thing and is so overused and misused, that it shouldn’t be used here, but most people’s idea of it defines admiration somewhat.

Think of something you really like, how you feel about it. Use that same feeling about something else, flow to it. It is said that admiration is the most powerful particle or force (it is the opposite of force really) in the universe. We all have it within us. We may have forgotten how to do it. It must be genuine, not with any thought of self. Gently with heart. The magic only works when it is done for others only.

See what happens. See how you feel about things, about yourself. Your whole life may change. Remember everything is trying its best to survive, struggling really, so admire the effort. Know how hard it is–what heroes they are for making things go right. People are having a hard time usually, though they may not admit or even know it, difficulty has become so “natural”. You can better their day letting them know they are admired. Real acknowledgement. Smiles work. Before long you will be admiring everything, for everything is admirable, you know. You may become invulnerable. It’s yours. All of it. You may get a little back. It works that way.

I was at home, staying away from the office, getting needed time and space to work on an upcoming jury trial, when my wife came into my office saying “the world trade center has been attacked.”

I had to shake the woolies out of my head and shift gears, for I was deep in the facts of the case, and had no clue what she was talking about. I carried my materials with me and sat down in my LazyBoy in front of the TV in the bedroom. One of the twin towers was smoking about two thirds of the way up, and the announcer frantically chattered about a plane running into the building.

I thought it was novel that an airliner had gone off course and hit the building. My legal mind immediately thought of the damage lawsuits of the people on the plane and those injured in the building—and the claim the building owner had against the airline.

There was lots of talk, but no knowledge of anything about what really happened. I continued concentrating on my case, interrupted from time to time by the announcer giving updates, with the picture of the buildings continued on the screen. At the time, there were no available photos of the plane approaching and striking the building. That came later.

Then another plane hit the other building. That got my attention, and I am sure it was then that those who should know about such things sat up in red alert. This was no accident!

I had most of my attention from then on riveted on the TV, watching the two fantastic buildings with ugly smoking wounds in their sides, trying to visualize what was happening there. This was not commonplace news!

There before my eyes, building number one seemed to shrink downward for a moment, then, in seconds, it simply folded in on itself and collapsed in a smoking heap. I felt something hit me in my gut. I couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was a physical shock within me. I had no idea what had happened, except that thousands were dying, all at once, and there was a simultaneous cry of the dying in that instant that hit me like a blow. It hit me spiritually, but it felt like a physical thing.

We are all connected whether we know it or not; our de-evolution makes us think we are lonely islands, but beneath we are joined. Not since Nagasaki or Hiroshima have so many humans lost their lives all at once. I felt an immense rush of surprise, fear then sadness coming from that crashing building. One person dying is one thing. Thousands dying at the same instant, not having a clue what is happening, is another. It was a cry of despair that could and should have been heard around the world.

Later, after the second building fell, when I felt the same thing, I realized what it was. I recalled Obi-Wan-Kinobe in the Star Wars movie, when the peaceful planet Alderaan was totally destroyed by the Death Star. He doubled over in intense pain, sensing the death of millions all at once—saying there was a disturbance in the force, instantly knowing that the planet was no more and all the beings on it were dead.

If I had not been totally convinced of the fact that there is a connexity in the brotherhood of man, of man the spirit, then this was ultimate proof. Many others felt it too, and had no name for it, and it generated fear and anger rather than understanding of the nature of the loss. It generated anger in me too, a gripping futile anguish of the descent of man into an abyss of despair.

Then there was a coalescing of the human spirit like I have never seen in my lifetime. Americans came together as one. Flags sprang up everywhere. There were marches. TV spectaculars with celebrities singing patriotic songs. I remember a stage filled with celebrities singing America The Beautiful, with Willie Nelson right in the front with his laconic nasal twang—and I could see America shining through, rising from the ashes, being one. I actually cried, and cry again in the memory of that coming together, which we should and can do even now.

We are approaching the anniversary of that horror. Again we should stand tall, we should come together and link our living spirits with a dedication to be one as Americans and know who and what we are. We are free yet. We can pull ourselves out of the despair that was born of this event. We sensed vulnerability for the first time as a nation. For at no time since the revolution have we had incursion on our shores of a foreign power, and in this case a totally foreign philosophy.

Once again I want to feel that surge of pride and power that I felt ten years ago when we came together and sang America The Beautiful. And this time I feel we can, and should, on the brink of a chance to change back to American values that we have lost during these past ten years, bow our necks and say “enough.” I am an American.

When I was in high school I had an after dinner speech that I won first prize two years in a row in speech tournaments called “I am Proud To Be An American.” I spoke with six different dialects and impersonated six singers—Vaughn Monroe, Billy Ekstine, The Ink Spots, Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine. I told how precious being an American was through the voices of those new immigrants. That was a time when being an American was a given. It was expected. We were all thoroughbred Americans in 1952. Over the past fifty years we have become something else, something that welfare and political expediency and political correctness have eroded our ability to speak, our pride and our patriotism. We must now rise again and hold our heads up as Americans with a grim determination not to lose our precious gift of freedom.

The polling booth is our weapon. Lock and load: Ready, aim, vote!

As an author I write about winners, American winners. Two stand tall, get in your face, make it go right, kickass American winners are Jack Chandler, of Dawn’s Revenge,and Riggs McCall, in Command Influence, heroes in two of my novels which will be available immediately at this site. Read two chapters from each book free now. Plan to buy and read these books. They will make you proud you are an American.

Ed Connelly lurched and stumbled along the marble hallway, grimacing at the effort of walking and holding the heavy books in his twisted and gnarled hands. He fell into a chair in my freshman law school class, his tongue between his lips, fumbled with his notebook and finally got it opened, then gripping a ballpoint pen in his fist made big jagged marks on the page for his notes. The whole class watched his struggles.

He looked up, his eyes shining at his recent victory at being able to make it from the parking lot, up the stairs, and down the long hall to the classroom. He was positively merry! My heart melted.

Ed was born with severe cerebral palsy, as bad a case as I have seen and still be independently mobile. You couldn’t watch him eat. Every move he made was headed in the wrong direction until he forced his rebellious body to somehow finally get the spoon somewhere near his mouth, or to stop one foot from ramming into the other as he fought his way along.

He smiled and laughed in a choking sort of way when he was not trying to rein his willful body into behaving. He barreled along life using what he had to work with, and made it very well.

He finished law school and set up his own private practice in 1960, and the last time I saw him was in the late eighties. He was still practicing, and seemed as happy as anybody else. Ed is a prince among men.

It’s all about winning.

Jim Girard, a fraternity brother, and one the most handsome men I have ever seen, had no use of his legs. They were literally rags. His upper body was Herculean, and he could walk on his hands faster than I could run. He overcame, married, has children and is and doing well.

Stephen F Hawkin, total body paralysis; President John F. Kennedy excruciating pain every day; Franklin D Roosevelt, crippled; Michael J Fox, Lou Gerig’s disease; Christopher Reeve, quadriplegic. None gave up. How many more could I list?

It’s all about winning.

William Ernest Henley was in the hospital for over a year in horrendous agony, having his leg removed from tuberculosis of the bone. He suffered all of his life in grievous pain, yet he wrote Invictus while he was in the hospital:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

What is the difference between these men and others?

They deal with it. They ride over it. They know they are not their bodies and that they are spiritual beings. They have something to do and a reason to do it and will not let anything stand in their way.

There is a winner in each of us.

It’s all about winning. It is not about not losing. There is a huge difference.

Jack Chandler, in Dawn’s Revenge; Riggs McCall, in Command Influence; and Nimrod Woodbine, in Nimrod’s Peril, are faced with challenges that would cow most men. But they are winners and refuse to give up, realizing that win or lose, the only way out is the way through. To read about these three winners, mouse over the Novels menu tab at the top of the page, and read two free chapters each.