The Soldier's Lay

The man was born,
His destiny wrought;
To fight the battles,
That others could not.

To fight the darkness
In his heart;
To battle the blackness
In the deep.

He trained with sword,
He trained with shield,
To fight the enemy
Without yield.

To fight the darkness
In his heart;
To battle the blackness
In the deep.

When the man, as he trained,
He came of age,
These words of wisdom,
Gave the sage:

To fight the darkness
In his heart;
To battle the blackness,
In the deep.

The man left for battle,
His heart full of mirth,
From the celebration,
Of the day of his birth

Yes, the celebration was grand
And gaily alight,
For his family knew,
He must go forth and fight;

Fight the darkness
In his heart;
And battle the blackness
In the deep.

The skies were once arrayed
A beautiful blue,
Now the mountains lay, mantle,
For a black and grayish hue.

For the war had arrived,
And all the people heaved a sigh,
For the battle drew closer,
Yes, the war, it was nigh.

To fight the darkness
In their hearts;
To battle the blackness
In the deep.

As the man joined his comrades,
In the defense of their land,
The enemy came forth
On boats to the sand.

They had many soldiers
And engines of war,
And through the first wave,
The enemy tore,

But none were as mighty
As the man, in his prime,
For now was his hour,
Now was his time.

He took a regiment,
Arms and all,
With one goal in mind,
The enemy to appall.

He unsheathed his sword,
Deep in the battle he fought,
For no one could stop,
This powerful man's onslaught.

And in the end,
Though the battle was won,
There was one task left,
For the soldier, one.

To fight the darkness
In his heart;
To battle the blackness
In the deep.

As he walked the field
Where only the battle won,
He looked on toward,
The waking sun.

And as it slowly rose
And covered the plain in it's light,
As should the L-rd
Cover our hearts.

With this the man discovered
That though he was brave,
Compared to the awe of the L-rd
He was merely a knave

That he needed the L-rd
In his heart today,
To help him fight
the rest of the way.

To destroy the darkness
In his heart,
To end the blackness,
In the deep.

And he won.

Your friend,classmate, and comrade,


P.S. (pun of silliness) Are you in good hands? ;)

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A short summary for a short play....


Greetings, classmates. The title says it all for our subject today; for, I'm sure, you've all heard of William Shakespeare, and his many plays and sonnets. Beautiful works of literature, including the following: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and the one I recently read, A Midsummer Night's Dream. A Midsummer Night's Dream is about four lovers, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena. The play begins. Depicting the palace in Athens, it shows a scene with the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Queen of the Amazons- whom Theseus hath wooed with his sword-, Hippolyta. Theseus promises that tho he had wooed Hippolyta with his skill with the blade, he would wed her with a grand celebration that would last until the wedding ("with pomp, with triumph, and with revelling"). After a bit of talking back and forth between the two, Egeus, a citizen of Athens, strides into the room. Following him are Hermia (his daughter), Lysander, her lover, and Demetrius, her father-chosen betrothed. Egeus complains profusely of his daughter's love of Lysander rather than Demetrius, whom he has given full permission to wed his daughter, and demands the law to be acted out on his daughter because of her atrocity. Theseus reprimands Hermia telling her to expect to be sent to a nunnery or put to death.
After Theseus, Egeus, Demetrius, and Hippolyta take their leave, Lysander schemes with Hermia to meet her near his Aunt's house (who dotes on him as her son) saying "The course of true love never did run smooth".
After this happens, Hermia's friend, Helena, walks into the room. Helena was once betrothed to Demetrius, whom she still loves deeply, but, upon meeting Hermia, Demetrius left her. Confiding in Helena, Hermia and Lysander tells her of their scheme to escape the law and be wed. This turns out to be an act of foolishness, for, in hopes of winning back his love, Helena tells Demetrius of their plan.

So there you have it, classmates, another wonderful work of literature by the even more wonderful man, William Shakespeare, with out whom we would not have our modern English.


Your friend, classmate, and comrade,

A Question Of Honor.

And how it used to be important...


Hello again, classmates. Have you ever felt honor-bound to do something, like protecting your siblings, obeying your parents, helping those in need, etc? If you have, then you've experienced something very amazing indeed.
Way back when, in the days that we now call ancient, there was this amazing factor called honor. It lead people to help others, protect others, and resist sinful temptations. If they did those things then they were honorable. Funny, it seems we've forgotten where that word sprang from hm? Yes, indeed, our Father in heaven is honor itself, so shouldn't we all be honorable?
I've trimmed the edges of this subject enough. Are YOU honorable? To know that, you must first know G-d. The L-rd is more than a specter of our imaginations to whom we give credit for the creation of our world. He IS the creator, and deep down, we all know it. What is honor? Honor is material isn't it? It's a way of saying "I am good, because I did what's right"; it's almost conceited in a way. But what is G-dly honor? G-dly honor is doing what G-d tells you to, doing right with others, and doing right by yourself. G-dly honor supersedes any other form of honor you might think of.
Does this mean we should all be G-dly honorable?
Yes it does.
If we ignore the fact that G-d is honor, then saying we're honorable doesn't get us far with him does it? So maybe THAT type of honor that the knights and crusaders and kings used back in mideval days doesn't give them as much credit as those fairytales let on. Because they did it for face value, not for G-d, and in that they were terribly wrong.

So there you have it classmates. G-d is honor, and acting out his commandments makes us the only form of honorable that has any real value: G-dly.

Your friend, classmate, and comrade,

Around the World in 80 Days

For, what better reward can there be, but happiness?


Hello again, classmates. Have you ever done something HUGE? Something overwhelmingly complicated and obstacle-ridden? And then realized that you gained nothing from it at all, but happiness? If you have, let me ask you this: was it enough? Of course it was, because it's not what we gain in the end that truly matters. The friends we make, the obstacles we overcome, the sights we see, and the wonderful things we do in between the beginning and the end- That's what truly matters right? Well, read this book and tell me...

The book's name is "Around the World in 80 Days" and it starts off explaining the meager life of a cold, calculating man named Phileas Fogg, in the year 1872. Phileas Fogg was a member of the Reform Club, and lived much excluded from the rest of society. He hires a new servant named Jean Passepartout, a thirty year old Frenchman, who immediately takes a liking to his new master. One day, upon and argument between two members of the Reform club, Phileas Fogg makes an extreme bet of twenty thousand pounds that he can traverse across the world in 80 days. In that time a thing like that was almost unheard of. The next day, having packed through the night for they're journey, Phileas Fogg and Passepartout headed for the docks. Unknown to them, they were being closely trailed by a detective named Fix, who was certain that Phileas Fogg was the bank robber he had been trailing, and that Mr. Fogg's fortune was actually stolen banknotes.
Impatiently, he waits at the station where Mr. Fogg and servant were to board the Mongolia, the fastest steamer in the docks.

The story continues so forth with many adventures, rescues, betrayals, and allies. Read this book to the end and you'll be very happy you did. For, in the end... Isn't happiness worth any good thing?

Your friend, classmate, comrade, and whatever else you wish to call me (within reason),

40 Days Turned To Years

And why...


Greetings, classmates. Have you ever, outright, asked yourself, "Why, God, why?". Well he isn't the problem, he isn't to be questioned, his judgement is perfect in every large and minuscule way. The problem is you. Karma very much exists, though it really isn't "Karma". What you do wrong WILL come back to haunt you one day, and for what you do right G-d will bless you. Look at it like this: there are Angels and Demons. For everything you do, for the L-rd and others, an Angel is made; for every sin you commit, a Demon. This G-d-made "Karma" is made to teach us that for every action there is a reaction, and whether that be a positive one or a negative one is up to the manner of the action, which is, thusly, up to the creator of the action. In this case it's you.
To give you a good example we'll talk about the Exodus.
We all know the story of how Moses rescued the Israelites from the hand of the Pharaoh and began the exodus to the Promised Land (or so I hope, and if you don't, read the Bible). During this Exodus G-d gave his ever-obedient prophet, Moses, commandments to give to the Israelites and for them to follow. When Moses went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of these commandments, he left behind a people with spiritual doubt. Let's go back to where the doubt sprang up from; let's go back to when Amalek and his people joined in the Exodus. It is not said in the Bible, but you can find many places that give unwaivering proof of them joining in. When they did, they brought there own spiritual doubts, there own need to spread that doubt. What you do, what you feel inside, and, truly, what you are, affects those around you. Action = Reaction. The negative action of spreading that seed of doubt throughout the camp lead the people to finally, while Moses was receiving the commandments on Mount Sinai, build a golden calf to worship as a false god. Moses came back and upon seeing this, broke the tablets in fury and disgust, that these people, who had been rescued from the lands of Egypt by the almighty G-d, who had been taken from slavery and made free, who once had know doubt in the L-rd's existence, would fashion a golden calf to worship in the place of G-d?! Words cannot even begin to describe what an outrage it was. Now when Moses gave the people the G-d-given commandments, they obeyed, and Aaron, Moses' brother, offered a sin-offering (a calf, ostensibly to atone for the golden one fashioned as an idol) for the people which saved them.
This is a lesson of life, my friends. If you let spiritual doubt into your life, if you do NOT wait for G-d to open the door and push it open yourself, you will turn your 40 day journey into a 40 year journey. Follow G-d's Word and wait for him to open the doors of the path you take, and you'll get there much quicker. G-d promises this to us, and his promises are not false. G-d, our heavenly father, is a leader. And therefore he must make examples of those who do wrong, and those who do right. Take Aaron's sons for example: They disobeyed a direct order to wait for the the L-rd's command to bring forth a burnt offering, therefore when they brought the strange fire before the L-rd, our Heavenly Father had to make an example of them, for if he didn't, the people would believe they could disobey the L-rd without consequences. So the L-rd willed the fire to consume the young men, and Aaron, standing nearby, didn't even flinch. Why did he not flinch? He must have been dying inside, right? Yes, yes he was... But he trusted the L-rd, trusted his judgement. We should all do that, should we not? We should all trust the L-rd to lead us down the right path, to open the doors that we truly need open, and to open our spiritual windows to the right things. He is the Almighty G-d, the King of Kings, our Perfect L-rd, He is everything. If we cannot trust Him, then we truly are lost aren't we?
Today, classmates, is the day to start letting Him lead, letting Him open the doors. Today is the day for us to start our spiritual journey down the right path; the path of G-d. Give praise to the L-rd, and he will bless you.

Thank you all for reading this post today.


Your friend, classmate, and comrade,


Today is the day to start!