David A. Farrell At-Large

– Who will voters elect President in November?

– The American citizenry has changed!

– Always remember Proverbs 11:14 and 11:11.

Picayune, Miss. Dec. 31, 2011 — There is one thing for sure as we wait here for the year to change tonight: And that is, No one can tell you at what historical spot we will be at at this same time in 2012.

We know that the changes, whatever they be in 2012, will be momentous. Never before in U.S. history have we had a more clear-cut choice of what direction we want to travel. You might favor Obama and his administration, or you might despise him, but he has changed the entire political equation for U.S. voters.

You will have a clear choice come November: Do you want bigger government, or do you want to start cutting and trim the U.S. government down? The Republican and Democrat candidates (and there might be a third party one, too) will offer voters a clear choice, it seems right now.

We also believe that at some point there will come a debt reckoning in the U.S., a point of no return when events will move beyond the control of bankers and politicians and take a course of their own, uncontrollable economic forces. If it does not happen in 2012, it surely will happen sooner than later.

We will always believe that the answer to America’s problems will not come out of the government or out of Washington, D.C., that some as of yet unknown leader might appear and lead us out of the wilderness. It has happened before, like in the case of Abraham Lincoln, or George Washington. But things are different now; the American people are different, too. Things change. They do not remain the same.

Always remember Proverbs 11:14 — “Without wise leadership, a nation is in trouble; but with good counselors there is safety.”

And 11:11: “The good influence of godly citizens causes a city to prosper, but the moral decay of the wicked drives it downhill.”

• Read Parts 1 and 2 first.
• The stage is set for Trueblood’s major work.
• After two world wars, Korea, and facing the Cold War, people were looking for an answer.
• The dry 1950s, followed by the rebellious and revolutionary 1960s.

PICAYUNE, Miss., Nov. 19, 2010 — One must remember the cultural melieu in which Trueblood labored. Although America after World War II, was a materialistic wonderland, it was dry and empty and boring, in some ways. A generation that had made the ultimate sacrifice wanted to forget the war and just enjoy living the goodlife: Thus arose the bland 1950s and the administration of Dwight David Eisenhower.

But behind all this calmness and stability of the 1950s loomed the Cold War, a predicament that always reminded mankind of his weakness, faced with a Mexican standoff between communism and capitalism, the statist and Western man’s hope of continued liberty. People were ripe for what Trueblood had to say. They were bored. There was an arid dryness adrift in the 1950s. People were empty. The hollow men of the West were searching, afterthey had found out that material proposperity, although wonderful, did not satisfy way down deep inside.

When I discovered Trueblood, when I understood what he was saying, in the 1970s, I wasn’t much removed from the 1950s. As a matter of fact I had been reared in the 1950s and spent my teen-years in the early 1960s. So I was dry, empty and searching, too, when I read Trueblood in the mid-to-late 1970s.

During the 1960s, everything was challenged, and philosophers and pundits began calling the years after the 60s, the post-Christian era. Something definitely happened during that decade; things changed. Just recall: What do you remember of the 1950s? Little or nothing. What do you remember of the 1960s: Kennedy’s death, Robert Kennedy’s death, MLK’s death, the Vietnam War, riots, Watts; and we could go on. Ask yourself: Why such different decades back-to-back? Trueblood wrote “Philosophy…” right before the start of the 1960s, right in the mid-1950s.

I have often asked myself exactly what Trueblood’s book did for me. And I have come to some conclusions. Granted, it might not have the same affect on some people, but for me, a product of the skeptical educational system that has prevailed post-World War II, it struck a cord.

First, it set a foundation under me, that allowed me to determine what I could know for certain, and what we must take on trust, hope and faith. If it did not give me the answer, it at least clarified the issues, and I knew what I was up against. Secondly, I realized, after reading and studying Trueblood, that I was in good company. Many great men, scientists and theologians, have been men with grave doubts, but they did not throw out Christianity because it had some problems. As Trueblood said, we, as Christians, might have some imponderable questions before us, but when we consider the alternative — atheism, darkness, confusion and despair– we are better off. In addition, some powerful minds were theists and believed in a true God, even in the pagan tradition. Take Plato for instance. And there was no other more brilliant mind, who underwent an evangelical-type conversion experience, than Pascal. And there was Newton, Bonhoeffer and, of course, Trueblood and Lewis, themselves, who lived during most of the 20th Century. These men will be read as long as men walk Planet Earth.

“There can come a fullness of time, with its unique opportunity,” wrote Trueblood. “For better or worse, this is the time to try to make my major contribution.”

The New Testament says that Christ came along “in the fullness of time.” The times were ripe for what he had to say and present to the people. And so was Trueblood’s “Philosophy” in the mid-1950s. A large part of the Christian community was searching, and a large part were also educated well-enough to digest what he had to say. I thoroughly believe that unless a person hungers for truth, he will not pick up on what a philosopher, or mainly a religious philosopher, has to say. They called Christ a teacher, but he was much more than that. He was the Son of God, God in the Flesh. But he said, that even though he was speaking truth,  people of his day had ears that did not hear and eyes that did not see. I believe we have that today; again I say that to say this: I was ready for what Trueblood had to say, and I believe millions more were, because his life became a testimony to millions that the struggle for truth, especially religious truth, was worth the struggle and life was not meaningless and empty. We might not fully know what it all entails, and see now through a glass darkly,  but we can get a glimpse that is marvelous to our spiritual eyes.

(More to come)

• Read Part 1 first.
• Who was David Elton Trueblood?
• What did he have to say that should concern you?
• Christianity’s main enemy today is skepticism and hardcore, militant  unbelief
• Most today really don’t believe what Christianity says about man
• Trueblood: “. . .we must have an adequate answer. . .”

PICAYUNE, Miss., Nov. 18, 2010 — David Elton Trueblood was one of the greatest 20th Century religious philosophers and teachers. Some would call him a theologian, but he was much more than that. He wrote a number of books reconciling Christianity, or theism, some would say,  with what was going on in the world during his lifetime. And there was a lot, mainly two world wars that slaughtered millions, and dirty little sidewars and atrocities that claimed hundreds of thousands more. His basic idea was to try and prove to a skeptical 20th Century world that there was a God, and that God was the loving God of Christianity, a loving God that really does care about, and is deeply concerned with, what is going on on Planet Earth.

One of the main complaints by some liberal Jews during and after the Holocaust was, “Where was God when this horrendous evil tragedy was happening?”

Said one Jewish lady who survived, “One day I saw a German soldier pick up by the legs a young Jewish child,  who had fallen off a truck. He slammed the little child’s head against the truck and blood flew everywhere, and then he tossed the child into the back of the truck. That is the time when I stopped talking to God.”

Over a million dead Frenchmen died in the trenches of World War I, and similar numbers were racked up by the Germans and English. Whole generations were sheared away by the new death technologies of war in World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and even up into the last few years of the 20th Century. Man’s genius at producing new ways to terrorize and kill his fellowman outpaced his capacity to “learn war no more.” His weaponry was modern, but morally man was still in the Stone Age. The social gospel and the belief that man was getting better and better morally, widely prevalent among intellectuals in 1900, was held only by a few leftist wingnuts by mid-20th Century. World Wars I and II had put the ax to that theoretical construct. In the first 50 years of the 20th Century, Northern Europe and much of the surrounding nations, literally destroyed themselves. The land of Luther was laid low by the World War I private with the funny-looking mustache. A whole nation followed him to their utter destruction. The erudite, intellectual, urban, civilized Europeans, who inhabited the center of the world’s civilization, almost blew themselves into utter extinction. If the Japanese had not surrendered unconditionally, there might be a remnant of about a couple thousand on display in an observation camp somewhere, undergoing a study of how to be re-established as a people and maybe a nation.

It is scenes like the little child, and the awful tragedies and massacres that emerge, usually out of wars, that challenge our faith and give skeptics the ammunition they need to fire at Christians and attack the Christian conception of the moral order and the Christian view of man. They say how could a loving God permit such atrocities to continue on Planet Earth if he is all-powerful and in control? How could he stand by and do nothing? Where is God? they ask and shout. We hear nothing but silence, they shout at Christians. Christians usually have no retort or reply, at least one that will satisfy. If there is a God, say the critics, he is a “mad clown who toys with mankind in bloody, horrendous games, and is nothing like the God portrayed by Christians.” Based on what we see here on Planet Earth, he can’t be the loving Christian God!

Trueblood honestly and forthrightly squared off and faced these tough questions and tried to answer them. He wrote that a faith that is not challenged is usually found wanting in strength and fortitude, and usually fails the person who tries to depend upon it. But a faith that is tested grows strong and is burnished like brass and gold, becoming purer and brighter. Trueblood wrote that what we want is a faith that allows us to be “intellectually honest, but at the same time sincerely devout.” Pagans and atheists really don’t have a problem; well, maybe they do, but the world is exactly as it should be if there is no moral God — confused and violent, the tooth and the claw, survival of the fittest; the problem rests squarely in the Christians’ lap: How do you reconcile a loving God with the tragedy, sadness and abuse that we see among our fellow travelers on Planet Earth? We Christians postulate a loving God, but where is he?

Wrote Trueblood: “. . .we must have an adequate answer to all those who dismiss theology as meaningless and irrelevant.”

Trueblood had impeccable academic credentials, having degrees from Harvard and John Hopkins, and after a successful tenure at Stanford, he chose to settle at the small college of Earlham in Richmond, Ind. He had been born on Dec. 12, 1900, on a small farm to Quaker parents in Iowa. He died on Dec. 20, 1994. His life spanned all but six years of the violent, deadly 20th Century. He first came to prominence in the waning years of World War II when he wrote and published a little book entitled, “The Predicament of Modern Man.” People were looking for meaning and purpose in life after years of meaningless loss and deaths of loved ones, generated by war casualties, and they turned to Trueblood’s book in droves, seeking answers. His theme in the book was that America and the world, for that matter, had been trying to fashion a “cut-flower civilization,” which could only be built upon a foundation of true religion and that it had collapsed because it didn’t have a basis built upon religious truth. We were only arranging flowers in a vase and the flowers could not be kept alive when severed from their root system that sustained them. It was inevitable that the system die. The same was true of American culture, he maintained, and the individual.

 As a Quaker, Trueblood was a pacifist, but World War II changed his views on that; he eventually came to the viewpoint that America was justified in taking up arms against the evil Nazis and militaristic Japanese. When his writing career was over he had written and published 33 books. He became the confidant of  four presidents: Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Dixon. However, it was hard to pigeonhole Trueblood; he was a liberal, but he supported conservative causes. He supported at first the Vietnam War because of his dislike for communism, which he called a “secular religion.” In fact, in his 1957 “Philosophy of Religion,” after diagnosing that communisn was actually a secular, atheistic religion, with its own mantra and rituals, he predicted its final demise and collapse, 32 years before it actually occurred in 1989. He said it would fall because it was based on a falsehood about man.

The moment I began re-reading Trueblood’s “Philosophy of Religion,” I realized that this was a man you could trust, that he would take me as far as he could, based on reason, and then even further in the halls of revealed religion and faith. His sentences are carved not written. You can read over and over his paragraphs and gain more insight with each reading. One thing comes across, this is a man with a clear mind, and clear vision, and an honest intellect. He does not whitewash and try to cover up man’s problems and predicament, and especially not what it takes to evince faith in practicing and living by the Christian principles. He knows man’s intellectual capacities and understands that religion, revealed truth, is different and mostly needs devotion and commitment and a love of its subject rather than the cold hard analysis of the intellect. However, he follows the intellect as far as it will carry him, but he knows that the heart has reasons of its own. In short, he never overlooks man’s religious side, his bent toward the numinous.

His golden mean is, as we said earlier, “intellectual honesty” and sincerity combined with an attitude of devotion. He wrote that faith is not belief in the absence of proof, but trust based on commitment and deep devotion and concern for matters pertaining to religion. Just Trueblood’s explanation on the difference between reason and faith helped me. I really discovered that when I read “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” in the Scriptures, I really did not understand what belief, or faith, was. It can be described more like devotion to a beloved object, trust, commitment, dependence; the Greek word “pistuo” in the New Testament carries much more meaning and weight  than does our English translation of it as “faith.”

He not only took on communism, but other isms, like that promulgated by Frued and French Positivism. Segmund Frued and Christ can’t both be right. There can be no compromise between their different views of man. Either one or the other is in error, wrote Trueblood, and he goes on to point out the inconsistencies in Frued’s arguments. Like so many brilliant Christian detractors, Frued’s arguments are rife with biased stereotypes of Christians and what they believe.

“Philosophy of Religion” was Trueblood’s magnum opus. It brought everything together for him.

(More to come)

• We usually don’t encounter the real world until in our 20s we enter the workforce.
• Most want to only live a life like the ‘happy pagan’.
• The last thing we want to do is get involved in a religious discussion and have to think about dying

PICAYUNE, Miss., Nov. 18, 2010 — I propose to set down here a review and analysis of two books that have changed my life, or I might even say, renewed my being and helped revive my faith in God, after it took a disastrous downturn in my mid-to-late 20s. The books – David Elton Trueblood’s “Philosophy of Religion,” and C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” — literally salvaged my faith after all the religious and philosophical props had been knocked out from under me, after I realized that all I had been spouting for years is what I had been force-fed and had blandly accepted without question in a small Baptist church in which I had been reared. I had been indoctrinated and not really established in a Faith. My Bible teachers meant well, and were loyal and faithful souls, who loved God, their family, their church and their country, but what they taught was not to be questioned, and was to be accepted “by faith” alone. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God,” the Scriptures say, and I eventually came around to that belief, but it was a belief and attitude that I garnered through hard, tough battles. I made it mine because I seized it and willed it, not because I found it easy to accept and not because it comforted me. I found belief hard and gritty and difficult to hold on to. As Lewis once wrote, he was dragged into the Kingdom of God kicking and screaming.

It is not unusual that I would be of this sort, religious and moody, and stubborn. Researching on my mother’s side, the Henleys, I learned that most of them, besides being farmers, were also preachers, the type who would go out and found their own church after disagreeing with, or breaking up, another fellowship. Mother herself was a devout Christian lady. My first memories are of her reading the Scriptures to me and my two sisters, Roberta and Linda, and then leading us in prayer before we crawled into our beds at night. I remember hearing her pray at night and plead with God like a little child over some problem she was wrestling with. I thought to myself I could never be what she was and live up to her high standards. And I was correct; I couldn’t, I found out. She was like a little child and God was her true Father. My earthly father, who was as honest as the day is long, always accused her of trying to make a preacher out of me. And I guess he was right. He went to church one time a year, on Easter, (the rest of the family went every time the doors were open) had made a profession of faith, but all he did all his life was work. He was faithful providing for his family, and I guess he did as much of God’s will as mother did, because he always was a good provider. He once told me that he worshipped God while communing with nature, and he always kept a garden, a large one up into his 70s, until his health would not allow him to work so hard.

I attended Mississippi College in Clinton, a good, solid Baptist college, during the early-to-mid-1960s. There was a lot of ferment going on in the nation during the “Rebellious 60s,” and I was searching and asking questions, too, not so much politically as religiously. I thought all politicians were crooks. I found out when I got out there in the world, that the real world is a lot different from the protective home that I had left, where my dad and my mother protected me and encouraged me. Out here in the real world are people who, I found out, would take advantage of you, and use you, for their own selfish ends. My God, I said, it’s true, the world is going to hell. I discovered that most men, not all, cared only for their wallet and genatalia and would just flat out lie to a faithfull wife or girlfriend. I knew friends and relatives who led lives of quiet desparation. I met women who were in marriages, trapped, who wanted out and couldn’t get out, and were slowly dying emotionally. I eventually said that Christianity might be working for some persons who really believe it, but it was not working for me and a lot of people I knew. I found I was like Paul the Apostle: What I wanted to do, I could not do, and what I said I was going to do, I wound up doing the exact opposite. I prayed and nothing happened; the heavens were brass. All I heard was silence. The good people suffered, and the evil, bad people prospered with plenty of money and had fun all the time and healthy kids. As you can see, I was fully mixed up and did not know what I believed.

I could not, and to this day still can’t, bring myself to accept atheism and say or proclaim that there is no God. I might not have known him, or knew what kind of God he is, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God, I would say to myself. I can’t prove it to you, nor can you prove to me that there is no God, but I could not imagine a world in which there was no ultimate meaning. I could somehow struggle through life, even if it were an unmitigated mess, if I knew there was a God and there was some meaning to this mess down here, but to struggle through and then, click, out go the lights, forever, I could not accept. No God, insanity; God, at least a chance of sanity and meaning. But God was silent and withdrawn to me. If people inquired about my religious beliefs, I would tell them I was an agnostic. I would not say there is no God, but I would also say that if there is you can’t prove it, or know it, and I would just take a pass on the controversy and discussions, although I later found out that you can’t take a pass on it; as Pascal said it is a forced option. To do nothing is to chose in the negative, said Pascal. More on him later.

I was at one time, especailly in my teen years, a believer, a follower. If the Bible said it, it must be true and should be accepted without question as God’s word. I was what the liberal establishment or believers would call a fundamentalist. I even studied to be a minister at one time, interpreting my deep religious longings as some kind of call from God to “preach the Gospel to a lost and dying world of sinners.” I say this not to make fun of fundamentalists, since I think there are fundamental beliefs that we must hold to in order to make it through this cruel world we face. But there was an aspect of the faith that was never addressed, just ignored. How was a Christian supposed to overcome the world of sin that was so attractive and alluring. There was No. 1 money. I always had a desire for it and what it would buy, and then there was the biggy,  concuspiscence. What I am saying is that there is a battle to be fought against what the Scriptures call “mamman,” and I was in no way prepared for it. The churches might teach how to deal with it now, but in the 50s and 60s, they didn’t, or if they did, I missed it.

So the stage was set. I was thoroughly not interested in debating or trying to retrieve some part of what I had evidently lost. But did I really lose anything; I probably never had anything to start with, although I thought I did. I was comfortable just getting along doing my job, going to the bars and drinking and having a good time. You know, the regular old American routine: work, eat, sleep, mate, drink, party, watch football, try and forget anything that smacks of controversy or that would make you uneasy when it comes to the ultimate questions of life, like, is there really an afterlife, and what will happen to me when I die? Just live the life of the happy pagan! I was lucky, though, fortunate is the word, however; I was healthy, my family and kids were healthy, and that freed me up to be even more of a miscreant because I could put the world’s troubles and crises out of mind, out of sight, and do my thing. But for one of my sisters it was different and that had an impact on me collaterally. More on that later, too.

So, as I said the stage is set. I went to work for the “Jackson Daily News,” in the Capital City of Jackson as a reporter. Jimmy Ward was the Editor of the newspaper, which was the state’s evening edition owned by the Hedermans. The “Daily News” was once the evening paper and the “Clarion-Ledger” the morning paper.  Facing the building on Pearl Street, the JD was on the right and the Ledger on the left, and the AP in the middle. They later shut down the Daily News. I lived with my aunt and uncle who lived in a upscale neighborhood on Briarwood Drive in Jackson while I worked at the newspaper. I came home to Picayune each weekend where I still maintained a home. I met many famous people and interviewed many interesting people while I worked for the major evening paper in the State Capital. I was in my early 30s while employed there. By that time the Daily News wasn’t what it was once before in the 1950s under a firey owner, who sold out to the Hedermans.  The Hedermans were not what you would call “crusaders.” They were more “establishment” media. However there were some good reporters there.

When I first left my home in Picayune to go to Jackson to work, I walked by my bookshelf and saw Trueblood’s book on the shelf. I had read it once long ago, and understood little of it, since it seem so heavy and turgid, talking about all those philosophical questions that religion raises. The book was used as a text in a course I had taken in my senior year at Miss. College. I remembered little about the course. Why I pulled that book off the shelf I have not idea, but for the next three-to-six months, I would read and reread this book, drink in what it had to say, and it would change me way down, deep inside.

And, Oh Yes! The third book: The Bible.

(more to come)

PICAYUNE, Miss., Nov. 17, 2010  – I have heard it said that children are God’s gift to us. I believe that to be true, but I know from experience that they can be a great blessing and also a great pain, depending on a lot of twist and turns that life will take over the time it takes to rear them, and then watch them as they make their way through life.

You will see them make the same mistakes that you made, and you will offer a bit of advice based on experience, but you really don’t believe that they will take it, because, just like you, they have to get burned to learn. Experiences in life are our real teachers.

You never know where blessings will come from. My daughter wanted to go back to school, so that put a little more responsibility on me because I wanted to help here. So I keep my grandson, Sy Devin Harbeson, during the week sometimes when I am free. Believe me, it is a blessing and a learning experience.

Each little tike is different. By three or four they begin exhibiting their own personalities. Each is different. What a miracle: There are probably six billion persons walking planet earth right now; no one are the same. They are all different, having their own one-of-a-kind personality. Is there a God; you bet your life there is. His main interest is, contrary to what you have been told, is people: having them born, and reared and then joining him in another universe, where they will spend eternity. This is not the real world. But I digress. Back to more earthly comments. Just think: we are born, we mate, we produce children, make an attempt at raising them, and then we die.

Sy Devin is an extremely currious little kid of four-years-old. Take him to some place new and he begins exploring. He mainly is searching for new toys. And if there is one around he will usually find it. He leaves no stone unturned. He looks in closets, under sinks, in cabinets, even in the trash, he even goes outside and covers the yard and garage, looking for a new discoveries of gadgets he has not seen or new toys. He will inevidently be some sort of super-mechanic or engineer, like his dad, Stephen.

I am what you call an indulgent “Paw Paw.” Unless he is in danger of hurting himself, I let him explore when he comes to my house. That means, too, extra work for Paw Paw because I have to clean up when he leaves. But I really don’t mind it. I missed so much with my own children, but with him, I am very observant of his every move. Kids are four-years-old only once, and it passes quickly and you can surely miss the best part of their lives if you are not careful. All I remember of my kids is a blur, I was working so hard. I wish I had not worked so hard and spent more time with them. But that is another story.

Sy Devin usually wears jeans, a sports shirt and tennis shoesor boots. But exploring in my closet the other day he discovered a starched shirt, dress sports coat and tie, and dress pants. He pulled them down and started trying to put them on. I noticed it was all too big for him. Now the average old mean Paw Paw would have got on to him and gave him a tongue-lashing for pulling down his fresh starched and ironed dress clothing. But not me. I wanted to see what he would do with it, what he was up to. Everything he does interests me; I like to just watch him discover the new universe that he is in. I am bored with it, but he is not. It is all new to him.

“Paw Paw, will you help me,” said Sy Devin.

“Yes Sir, I sure will,” I replied.

“Is this your stuff, Paw Paw?”

“Yes, it is.”

So I dressed him and took pictures of him. He was drawfed by the adult clothing, but he looked cute in it. Then the thought sprang into my mind: “Sy Devin, would you like some dress clothing like that that would fit you, your own?”

“Yes, Paw Paw, I sure would!” he tells me. Believe mehe kid really talks this way, like a grown-up. He is very lucid at  only four.

“Okay, we go to WalMart tomorrow,” I said.

He beamed. He loves to go to WalMart. He knows there are tons of toys there, and videos, especially of Bat Man and Spider Man. His dad and mother take him to WalMart and he is very familiar with the store and what it stocks.

The next day I pick him up from nursery school out in Leetown. He goes three times per week in the mornings. I had forgotten about the promise. He had not. “Are we going to WalMart?” he asked. “Wow, Sy Devin, I am glad you remembered it; I had forgotten it,” I replied. He never forgets anything.

So off we went to wonderland for kids, WalMart.

So we arrive at WalMart.

He immediately says he wants a video. I tell him no, we are here only to buy him a suit if they have one?

He agrees with me and doesn’t protests, which surprises me.

I scan the huge floor and spot a sign that says “Boys.”

We go there and to my surprise right on the first row next to the isle is little boys suits, pinstriped at that, just what I was looking for. Shirt, vest, tie and pants are $19, and coat and pants are $29. I buy a vest group and coat and pants, $48 plus tax. But I have to fit him. I guess a six. I hold it up to him; it seems to match.

We do to the dressing room. He removes his street clothing and a dress him fully in the suit. When I am just about through, he says, “Are we going out there?” He means am I going to march him out of this private dressing room out there in front of whole world in this new suite. People will be looking. I discover that he has a bashful side. “Yes, what do you think I am buying this for,” I protest. “I want you to wear it out in the public so people can see you, and to your upcoming birthday party. By the way, this is my birthday present to you,” I tell him.

“I am not going out there,” he protests. I expect a serious confrontation here in the dressing room, because I know how stubborn he can be. If he gets it into his mind that it has to be one way, then the show is over. I usually give in.

So after I dress him, I open the door and walk out and start toward the front. He follows me and says nothing. However, he follows behind me and hovers real close on my heels. I slow down so he can take the lead and he slows down. I know he is sort of embarrassed.

We pass one lady, and she exclaims, “Oh, what a cute little boy; that suite makes him look just like a little man.” Sy is embarrassed and shrinks behind me more. I am proud and I feel my chest stick out just a little.

We make it to the register and another customer brags on him. He is a little less embarrassed this time. I pay for the suit and clothing and we begin to walk out. “Oh, what a cute little boy in that suit,” an elderly lady sitting on a bench tells us. She pats him on the head. This time he turns and looks straight at her and lets out one of his shiny, big grins. His face lights up. So he’s getting into this, I think.

Through the double doors out into the parking lot and customers are still bragging on him, and my chest is getting bigger and bigger. I am enjoying this as much as he is, maybe even more.

We go back to the house, and he poses for pictures. He’s a movie star, and one day he will be in lights.

At the end of the day, I think, “What an exciting day I had with Sy Devin, today.” Just think if I would have discouraged him from pulling down and trying on my clothing. I would have missed all of this. Life, especially with a precocious four-year-old, is a new adventure every day.

(Pictures to come)

By John David Farrell, Guest Columnist

PICAYUNE, Miss. July 4, 2010 — America was born 234 years ago today. We are a relatively young Republic. Rome lasted over a thousand years.

What is unique, new about America, though?

You only have to read the “Declaration of Independence,” adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, to find out. It plainly tells us in simple words.

Prior to that “Declaration” men had considered acquiring  any type of freedom or legitimacy for instituting a governmental rule over men as deriving from a King, or from a group of men like a  Parliament, in case of the English, who had settled the Eastern Seaboard of the American continent.

But the new Americans who rose up in rebellion against the English nation looked in another place for that authority and freedom.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. . .”

What the Founding Fathers postulated had never been postulated by man before: That our rights don’t come from a King or other men, or a legislature of men; they come from God, the Creator. They are endowed, in other words, are a free gift from our Creator, and they are unalienable, that is, they can never be taken away from each one of us by anyone, or by any government, including our current government.

In other words, no one, no group of people can take away our rights! Our rights are ours, a gift of God to us for eternity. In fact, all that goverments are instituted for is to protect those God-giving rights.

In fact, if this government of ours right now does not secure these rights for us and maintain them, we have the additional right to rise up and change that government, or abolish it and start all over.

Dear Fellow Citizen, that is the difference; that is the reason we are different; that is our birthright that we must hold to no matter what happens, no matter how far our leaders stray from the original idea of self-government propounded by our Founding Fathers.

After this current damage is done, we will, as a free people, have to right ourselves and reassert our God-giving rights. It might be by replacing every single representative that we now have in Washington, and passing new Amendments to right our ship of state from the broadsides that have almost sunk her.

But if we hold to these founding truths, we will hold together and we will survive; it has always been the case, that when our Forefathers faced terrible odds, they held to our founding principles and those truths saw us through our crises.

Are we a Christian nation? We were founded on Christian principles, but America has always been big enough to embrace all faiths, and no faiths at all. But our nation is built upon a theological construct that postulates a Creator God who rules supreme in the universe. No God, no rights.

Yes, we are different, we Americans, and we will always be different and unique as we regain the control of our Republic.

We will take the first step on the journey of retaking our government in November.

Happy Birthday! America! You will have many more!

By John David Farrell, Guest Columnist

PICAYUNE, Miss. July 4, 2010 — We sometimes wonder if we are on the same planet and reading the same press as out illustrious politicians.

Former president Clinton excused the late Sen. Byrd from being a member of the KKK in his early career by saying he had to do it to get elected. If that would have been a conservative Byrd, they would have skewered him, like they did Lott and Thurmond.

Pelosi said, when they were passing the health care legislation, that the Congress had to hurry up and pass it so they could find out what’s in it. Chris Dodd recently said the same thing about the financial reform package.

Pelosi came up with a doosy this week by saying the best stimulent for the economy and best job creator is “unemployment checks.” Yep! That’s what she said.

Am I on Mars or Planet Earth? Please tell us.

Am I an idiot, or are they the idiots? Please tell us.

I am confused. Everything seems upside down.

The Bible said that ancient Israel became so evil, so corrupt  and so impotent, that “children ruled over them.”

Are we now at that stage? Please tell us!

By JOHN DAVID FARRELL

Guest Commentator

PICAYUNE, Miss., March 24 — How much longer will we the people stand by and let the “progressive left” destroy, or damage, our country? Our country is, no doubt, a center right country. So why is it that we can’t muster the power to stop the USA from becoming the USSR.

We have been lied to from the beginning of this administration; however, like I said, we are a center right country being lied to by the left. We need conservatives to get a spine and start a major digital and ground campaign. I know that conservatives have waged a good fight against this healthcare bill, but we must push on to the finish line. 

This is the fight of our lifetime; we will never get another chance. We are in a battle like that George Washington faced. If you remember correctly, Washington lost every battle except the one that counted.

So with some optimism, I say that this is just the beginning of the war. We may lose some battles, but there is no way that we can lose the war. We have things that the left does not have. We have things such as faith, numbers and all the reminders that the Democrats have given us to remember. Also we have the Churchill Factor: “We will never, never, never give up.”

I have to say that I don’t know if I agree with Republicans running on the repeal of healthcare. I think that it should be part of what we run on, but we must include property rights, liberty and the spirit of the American capitalistic way of life. We can’t let ourselves become complacent; we must keep the torch lit for our children. 

So from my humble key pad, I call you to arms, the arms of ideas. We must win on the battle field of ideas. I call you to educate, alert and stress to all your friends to stand up without fear of  being branded not politically correct and tell the truth, correct the lies and also call out the liers.