LIFE Can Be Immortal / Nine Foods You Should Never Eat Again / John Cogan Paintings Ready to View / Sept. 5 First Day of Semester

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.”
– William Blake

Life,
ageless and immortal.

We stand
on the threshold
of a truly unbelievable
tomorrow.

The Human mind,
endowed with a wealth
of unlimited,
God given,
curiosity and creativity,
is now precipiced upon
a surreal landscape.

Today,
with the technology available,
biological immortality
is possible within
a few DECADES.
Life,
together with its progenitor,
Love,
can truly become immortal.

                                                 .
We are standing on the brink of
immortality.
Ray Kurzwell (The Age of
Spiritual Machines)
and Terry Grossman, M.D.,
argue that if you can make it through
the next 50 years,
you might be able to live forever.
Citing recent discoveries in genomics, biotechnology, and nanotechnology,
they explain how these
rapid breakthroughs in knowledge
will translate into medical advances
that will ultimately prolong human life
indefinitely.

Now,
we need to imagine
if the span of our lives
were to expand
to 200 years,
or 1,000,
or 10,000 years,
or more,
more than you can dream of,
more than you may want,
more than you may be able
to endure.

Will we continue
marriage
until a death
that does not occur?
Can we enter
Heaven,
if we never depart this Life?
How will society,
if it exists,
change?

Oh, NO!

Will those that believe
in reincarnation
be disappointed?
There are philosophical implications
that we cannot even
imagine.

      A truly unbelievable tomorrow.

My Dear Friends,
do we possess
the depth of compassion
and understanding
needed to survive
such enabling technology?
We can’t seem
to get along with each other
with the relatively short
life span we now have.

Were you aware that
America Has Been At War
93% of the Time
– 222 Out of 239 Years –
Since 1776.
The United States
has only been at peace
for 21 years
since its birth.
read more

Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.

It is interesting
that at the same time
we anticipate such longevity,
we are reaching
for the stars.
Our search for new
habitats
exactly meets
an unconscious anticipation
for the need.

We will need PLACES
to put many, many
REALLY old people.
And there are
TRILLIONS
of Galaxies
with Hundreds of Millions
of Stars.
The nursing homes
of the future
will have a different
appeal.

Thank God
there are conceivably
an infinite number of galaxies with stars and planets
to house an infinite number of people
living an infinite number of years.
Funny how the numbers
match up!

Stephen Hawking,
speaking at Oxford University,
said our best chance for survival as a species
is to leave the only home we’ve ever known
and establish colonies on other planets.

And the pace of space exploration is ramping up.
NASA is very busy in its search for
planets in the goldilocks zones –
not to near or far from their star –
planets that might be able
to sustain Human life.
And Space X CEO Elon Musk
has already laid out his plans to colonize Mars
within the next century.
Are we being
guided
by Sacred Forces,
a collective conscience,
unknown to our individual
conscious mind?
Is our search
of the Heavens
propelled by
an act of unawareness
called Love?

Tomorrow,
the deepest concerns
with achieving immortality
will not relate to
the given of technology.
Tomorrow
will cast deep and abiding
shadows
upon serious philosophical implications.

Will our utopian dreams
lead us to be abandoned
by a lack
of Love
for one another?

             ONLY THEN, will there be Hope.

My Friends,
we must prepare
our children
for a future unimaginable.
If
what we are capable
of doing,
is not accompanied
by our capacity
to be compassionate
for one another,
dimensions of forever
simply will not matter.

But,
If we teach our children
to Love one another,
to indeed
Love their neighbors
as themselves,
then
AND ONLY THEN,
will there be
Hope.

With Life,
ageless and immortal,
we can forever experience
a growing depth
of Love and Joy.

Goodnight.

“And so here am I
Open arms and ready to stand,
I’ve got the world in my hands.
And it feels like my turn to fly.

Though I may not know the answers
I can finally say I am free.
And if the questions led me here
Then I am who I was born to be.”
– Audra Mae, grandniece of Judy Garland

Nine foods you should never eat again.

• By: Eric Steinman

• About Eric
• Follow Eric at @SteinmanEric

A few months back, a website called Trueactivist.com (a sort of news aggregator with an activist flavor) published a list of nine foods you should never eat again if you care at all about your long-term health. Each of the nine foods mentioned ranged from the somewhat surprising to the “I stopped eating that crap years ago” category. Here is what was on that list:

White Bread, Refined Flours
Conventional Frozen Meals
White Rice
Microwaveable Popcorn
Cured Meat Products with Nitrates
Most Conventional Protein Bars
Margarine
Soy Milk and Soy-Based Meat Substitutes
Diet Anything (For example: Diet sodas and the chemically derived artificial sweeteners they contain (especially aspartame) may act as neurotoxins and have been linked to headaches, memory problems, anxiety, brain fog, depression, skin irritations, menstrual problems, fibromyalgia, joint pain and more.

Each of these listed above were accompanied by a paragraph explaining how toxic they are, or how nutritionally vacant they may be. But this got me thinking – only nine foods?Off the top of my head I could think of at least ten more, including Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino (along with just about anything that costs more than $2. But beyond such specifics, I wanted to add an additional eleven to make an even-numbered list of 20 forbidden foods. These were all selected on account that they are bad for your health and offer little in return. I skipped over items that were just poorly managed, unsustainable, or just plain bad for the environment (that could easily be another list of fifty or more). So here goes:

Conventionally Grown Berries (due to the abundance of pesticides used)
Deep Fried Foods (due to the fact that they are loaded with saturated fat)
Conventional Fruit-Flavored Yogurt (loaded with more sugar than many sodas)
Pop Tarts (loaded with fat and sugar)
Vitamin Water (also loaded with tons of sugar)
Mayonnaise (just too much fat)
Store-Bought Muffins (loaded with fat and sugar)
White Pasta (lacking any real nutrition)
Canned Tomatoes or Tomato Sauce (the acid of the tomatoes leaches BPA from the can)
Artificial Sweeteners (They can increase your appetite and create severely adverse health effects)
Conventionally Produced Meat (too many reasons to list)

And there is a lot more where that came from. What else can or would you add to this list? Is there anything you think has been unfairly demonized?

Related:
8 of the Worst Foods for Your Body
Top 10 Riskiest Foods
Essential Reasons to Eat Organic Food

IMPORTANT  DATE:
Sept. 5 (TUESDAY)    First Day of Fall Semester

                      John Cogan

Please Note: Paintings from the Artist-in-Residence of my friend John Cogan may now be viewed at http://www.johncogan.com/page1.html  click here to view

                     John Cogan

Copyright Disclaimer – Section 107 – Copyright Act 1976,
allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship,and research. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of “fair use”.

Lyrics/song texts/paintings are property and copyright of their owners and provided for educational purposes.

                                       by John Cogan

A Wind That Blows Lonely / The Antithesis of Love / Friday: Modern Art Museum

Love is the answer,
and the Prayer.

Look into the future smiling back.

There’s a wind that blows
lonely
across the barren plains
of our memory.
Soft,
it caresses the face
that refused to turn
into the wind,
toward the ones
so Loved,
to look into
the future
smiling back.
And now,
the past
no longer belongs
to us.

“Yes I know
how lonely life can be.
The shadows follow me
And the night won’t set me free.
But I don’t let the evening
bring me down
Now that you’re around me.

The book of life is brief
And once a page is read
All but love is dead
This is my belief.”
– Don Mclean

Life itself is an answer to Prayer.

God still whispers
into the restless void
of our lonely aching Hearts.

But so very often,
we recognize not
His answers to our Prayers,
simply because
we have never had need to pray
for so very many Blessings in Life
already bestowed
upon us.

No,
we never had need
for such Prayer,
for our needs were met
long before
awareness
needed a reason
to be.

So very many Blessings in Life
we never recognized
were answers
to Prayer,
Prayers we never had the need
to say.

“Therefore I tell you,
do not worry about your life,
what you will eat, or about your body,
what you will wear.
For life is more than food,
and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap,
they have neither storehouse nor barn,
and yet God feeds them.
Of how much more value are you
than the birds!”
Luke 12:22-24

Such is the Love
of a Mother and a Father
for a deeply Loved
Child.
Such is the Love
of your Father in Heaven
for YOU.

    You are an answer to Prayer.

Life itself,
is an answer
to Prayer.

You
are an answer
to Prayer.

Look about you.
There is nothing,
absolutely NOTHING,
that does not answer
some Prayer,
somehow,
somewhere,
at sometime,
by someone.

   Silence has the loudest voice.

Dear Friends,
there is scarcely anyone
who does not desire something
beyond
what is good for them.
So rather than hurt you
when the honesty’s too much,
God answers some Prayer
with the tender syllables
of silence,
until the moment
subsides.

Silence is like a River of Grace
inviting us to leap unafraid
into its beckoning depths.
It is dark and mysterious
in the waters of Grace.
Yet in the silent darkness
we are given new eyes.
In the Heart of the Divine
we can see more clearly who we are.
We are renewed and cleansed
in this
River of Silence.
– MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, Seven Sacred Pauses

Such is Love
in you,
that in the Sacred stillness
and the quiet of a thoughtful moment,
with Wisdom and Grace,
  you proclaim a silent Love
Divine.

Silence is the only language
of the realized.

“There are times
when silence
has the loudest voice.”
– Leroy Brownlow

By simply accepting
what God already provides,
we are made aware
and acknowledge
Prayer
never offered,
never needed,
but answered
just the same.

My Dear Friends,
Love
is the answer,
and
the Prayer.

“In the darkness of my dreaming,
the Light of you will stay.
If I could be close beside you,
If I could be where you are,
If I could reach out and touch you,
and bring you back home.
Is there a way I can find you
Is there a sign I should know,
Is there a road I could follow,
to bring you back home
to me.”
– Roma Ryan

So very often
we find ourselves
in the midst
of the greatest Answer
to the most fervent Prayer:
that we are
deeply Loved.

Welcome Home.

With a deep seated Love of Courage to map the unknown.

The Antithesis of
Love

My Precious Friends,
Addiction
is the antithesis
of Love.
It can become
the destroyer of Worlds –
of your World,
and sadly,
that of your child.

Little understood,
like Cancer,
it devours the very substance
of the Life
we pretend goes on.
The fabric of our existence
feeds our addictions.
And the bacterial excrement of
Alcohol,
like cancer, can devour
and permanently change
the very structure
of the Human brain,
and more importantly,
the Hopes and Dreams,
of our precious Children.

Alcohol, like cancer, can devour and permanently change the very structure of the Human brain.

People who have been drinking
large amounts of alcohol
for long periods of time
develop serious and persistent
changes IN THE BRAIN.
(National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism)
read more

It is
much like an enemy in battle,
sneaking behind the lines
to disarm the troops
before they can engage
in combat,
while front line soldiers
stare straight ahead,
totally unaware,
wondering what is going on,
and why we cannot attack
and win.

Our ignorance,
our blind arrogance,
our naivety,
disarm us –
and we never know
how!

“Sometimes we know,
sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we give,
sometimes we won’t.
Sometimes we’re strong,
sometimes we’re wrong.
Sometimes we cry.

Well,
we’re gonna have to sit down
and think it right through.
If we’re only Human
what more can we do?“
– Van Morrison

Our other addictions –
to linear thinking –
becoming too focused to get
the BIG picture,
to compressing time,
to the allure of complexity and dependency
upon technology,
to drugs we know
virtually nothing about,
have shrunk the number of outlets
for the daring, aggressive nature
of mankind,
that fought the good fight,
with a deep seated
Love of Courage
to map the unknown
and go
where mankind
has never gone
before.

This saddens,
but doesn’t surprise.
The Heroes
of our proud Past,
the Soldiers of our good fortune,
no longer are
of the same branch,
on the same tree,
or even
in the same forest.

The courage
to Love one another
enough to fight
the good fight,
to vanquish
the enemy within,
we cannot accept,
because
we cannot even recognize
that it is us.

“We shall meet the enemy,
and not only may he be ours,
he may be us.”
– Walter C. Kelly, Jr.

But when Life
breaks you,
and brings you
to your knees,
know that God will hear you
through your fervent Prayer,
and hold you
in warm embrace.

“If we experienced the present through Eternity
and Eternity through the present,
we would know true Love.”
– Akiane Kramarik
from her upcoming book:
Eternity Is Not That Long
read more

Love
can command you,
it can rule over
your precious Heart
or
you can let it
pass you by.

But please remember:

Everything
outside of Love
is a lie.

Do not be trapped
within a prison
of doubt.
The Loving You
is no illusion.

The Honesty of your Love
is the only
Truth.

“And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you
free.”
– John 8:32

Goodnight.

Love is an answer and a Prayer.

“Never place a period
where God has placed
a comma.”
– Gracie Allen

                                       On Friday, Nov. 4, 2016,

we will meet at the MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH, 3200 Darnell Street (telephone 817-738-9215) at 9:45 a.m. Do NOT drop your child(ren) off early or without Dr. and Mrs. Anderson present. Our docent guided tour of  “KAWS WHERE THE END STARTS”  will start at 10:00 a.m. Following the tour we will dine at the museum’s restaurant, Café Modern, at 11:30 a.m. Parents, guests and family members and friends are invited to join us.

                   Pick-up is at 2:30 p.m. at the museum.

After lunch we will have a self-guided tour of the permanent exhibit and shopping at the fabulous gift store. Parents are advised that mature subject matter may be on exhibit including language, nudity, and sexual content.

Spanning the worlds of graffiti, pop art, and consumer culture, KAWS’s bodies of work are highly charged, each conveying his underlying wit, irreverence, and affection for our times, as well as his agility as an artist. He has primarily looked to and appropriated from pop-culture animations (including The Smurfs, The Simpsons, SpongeBob, Hanna-Barbera, and Peanuts) to form his artistic vocabulary for his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Now well known for his larger-than-life sculptures and hard-edge paintings that emphasize line and color, KAWS’s cast of hybrid cartoon/human characters, with similarities to popular cartoon figures and logos like Mickey Mouse and the Michelin Man, are perhaps the strongest examples of his exploration of humanity.

The Modern maintains one of the foremost collections of modern and contemporary art in the United States.

FINANCIAL: No fee for admission.

GIFT SHOP: Has fascinating items. (I bought a DOG Bowl! Stop laughing!)

LUNCH: Café Modern serves contemporary American cuisine. Please provide funds for lunch.  One check per table will be provided. A gratuity will be added. Students please order from the Children’s Menu & Observe POLICIES of the Museum.

Uniform pants with a belt, polished shoes & monogrammed red shirts required. Parents / NEIGHBORS / SIBLINGS & WHO ARE YOU? are always invited to participate on our trips.

   IMPORTANT  DATES
        
Nov. 21-25  (Monday-Friday)            Thanksgiving / Fall Break

Dec. 1-2                                             Texas A.G.T. Conference (no school)

Dec. 22 (Thur, – changed from Dec. 20)      Last Day of Fall Semester

Dec. 23 – Jan. 4                                Winter Break Holiday

Jan. 5 (Thursday)                              Second Semester begins

Jan. 16 (Monday)                               Dr. Martin L. King Holiday

Jan. 20                                               Fort Worth Stock Show

Feb. 20 (Monday)                              President’s Day Holiday

Mar. 13-17                                         Spring Break Holidays

April 14  & 17 (Fri. & Mon.)              Good Friday & Easter

April 28                                             Scarborough Renaissance Festival

May 22-26                                         Adventure Trip

May 26                                               Last Day of Semester

      The Loving You is no illusion.

 

 

 

The Gift Of You for the Salvation Of Us All

 If the only prayer
you said in your whole life was,
“thank you,”
that would suffice.
                                       – Johannes Eckhart

Kylie, always kind, loved to feed the wild birds.

It is so important to give of yourself.  Giving, even a smile, can help you lower stress and lower your blood pressure.  When your mind and body feels gratification from giving, you relax and the blood flows freely.

I am reminded of my truly wonderful days in Scouting, To “do a good deed daily” was the goal. And the positive influences of this dynamic program deeply impacted my life and the philosophy of our school. Scouting, at its core, is dedicated to giving of yourself and becoming aware of and developing an appreciation for all that is so breathtakingly beautiful in Nature. It teaches us to “Be Prepared” and do so by protecting ourselves with our God given natural resources.

My Mother, Marie, and Werner Bendorf, present the Eagle Scout Award to William (Skip) Anderson.

As an Eagle Scout (at the tender age of 12) and later as a Scoutmaster of Troop 57 in Abilene, while enrolled in college, I became the beneficiary of a proud tradition. My fondest memories of my youth are centered in Boy Scout Troop 17 and in being with our beloved Scoutmaster, Werner Bendorf.

Having survived the Holocaust, he especially appreciated life and he endeavored to share his truly dynamic love of living and his very special love for everyone around him. Privately, he shared with me, among many things, that forgiveness was the only pathway forward in life, the only way home. And there was so much that happened in his life for him to forgive. The transgressions felt in our lives simply cannot ever compare.

I can truly say that without the compassion, understanding and deeply felt love of this man for my Mother and myself, I could not have survived. I am in tears as I write this and simply cannot continue, at this moment, to share more with you about the special gift of Werner’s life. But I plan to tell the full story, later, of the stunningly beautiful gift I received, when our lives intersected.This precious man may no longer be with us, but I can assure you that his spirit resides deeply embedded within every fiber of my being. As I remember all the love he shared so willingly in life, I can feel his heart still beating within me. Yes, the love you give to others is the only thing you will ever truly possess. And it shall be yours forever.

Because of such caring people, and that of my loving family and friends, the story of my life begins and will end with Love. Above you will find my very favorite quote, from Johannes Eckhart. So now, my prayer in life is one of Thanksgiving. Dear Lord, and my dear and precious family and my wonderful friends,  from the very depths of my being, I want to sincerely “Thank You”. From you I have found the Love of God.

The NO VACANCY sign is always out.

Back to the Garden

Mankind’s first home was an unbelievably beautiful Garden, not a crowded, polluted city. And I believe that one simple solution to so many of our problems lies in returning home, going back to Nature, searching for the overgrown pathway that leads back to the Garden. Realizing just how happy we can be, requires us to think about simplifying our lives and becoming intimately and closely connected to the stunningly beautiful natural world around us.

And a part of that natural world includes our delightful and beautiful friends, the Birds. They are an absolutely critical part of our survival. But, my friends, they are now threatened by pollution and our destruction of their habitat. Yes, when our homes were constructed, the trees were uprooted and the wildlife was given absolutely NO consideration. If you want to know who owned this land before we did, or even the Native Americans, look up into the relatively few trees that are left. The real deeds to our properties, were in the good deeds of Nature’s beautiful inhabitants.

Our feathered friends, and protectors, are not just beautiful to look at and listen to. We need them to control the insect population, transfer pollen around, move nutrients from the sea to the land and clean up the environment. They are the best and safest natural pesticide you could possibly employ. And how do you lure them to your yard? I love working in the yard and have been adding bird houses and bird feeders and baths.

Dr. and Mrs. Anderson seem to be enjoying life. But why the fur coats – it’s 94 degrees and what’s with the “Cool Dude” sunglasses?

To diminish mosquito populations, attract birds that eat insects on the wing (they catch flying insects in the air). The main ones are swallows such as the tree swallow, violet-green swallow, barn swallow, eastern kingbird chickadees, house wrens, gray catbirds, bluebirds, vireos, etc.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recently classified 97 species of birds as globally threatened. And what can we do to help? Well, a truck load of common sense would help.

Ian fed the birds and then helped himself.

We must act now to stop the process of global warming. Warmer environments lead to mosquito-borne pathogens that kill species like birds, horses and, you guessed it, people.

My dear friends, at this critical moment the birds need us, just as we need them.

If you care about our children, if you love being in the natural world, if you enjoy employing common sense, there are a few, simplistic things you can do.

1. All Electric cars are fast becoming available. Please make it a priority to buy one. Make your next purchase a car that can be charged with solar cells or a small windmill (you can make it a vertical model that will not knock the birds out of the sky).

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has hinted that his firm is considering “freeing” its patents to help speed up electric car development. If by some coincidence, hanging by the slenderest gossamer thread of fate, you should chance to read this, Mr. Musk,  I beg you, on behalf of all humanity, to please do so. And, as you are well aware, you can do so much more than this.

Elon, I ask that you make the spirit of Ben Franklin, which embodied the very essence of what makes America such a good and Noble idea, and the rest of us, very proud of you. Ben, as I mentioned last time, contributed to the world by giving to it his many inventions at no cost, refusing to own patents on any invention. He never patented any of his inventions. He was willing to share his ideas for the benefit of all, and without personal gain.

Elon Musk, you are very close to becoming a true patriot, like Ben Franklin. A patriot is one who devotes his life to serving his country and his fellow citizens. And our Nation is today in critically desperate need of such men and women. We need true patriots, like America’s educators, who can put the well being of the Nation and its citizens above the self.

An unimaginable depth of compassion for others, exemplified by the life of Franklin, is necessary today for the survival of our children on this planet. Perhaps, Mr. Musk, you can go beyond inclusion in the annuals of mere History. Perhaps you can become deeply embedded in the hearts of your fellow Americans. My prayer is that you become so enlightened.

2. Eliminate plastic bags from you shopping habit. This needs no elaboration.

3. Place a birdhouse, birdbath and bird feeder in your yard.

Kirby, will you take out the, uh, well, uh, never mind.

4. Stop using pesticides! You do not need them. And your children will truly suffer from being exposed to these extremely toxic chemicals. Use the birds (dare I say, and bees?) instead. They will eliminate the pests.

At our school we do not use pesticides. We provide birdhouses, bird feeders and bird baths for our special friends. And they give us an environment for our children that is virtually free of such things as misquotes (the deadliest creature known to man, that kills more people on earth than any other creature – known to carry over 550 viruses, and many of them, like malaria, estimated to kill over 600,000 people each year, west Nile virus and yellow fever, among many others.

Saffy, will you take out the trash?

Economically priced bird houses, feeders and baths are simple, effective solutions to helping the birds and your family. Providing for our feathered friends is a natural method of controlling pests. Another is simply leaving as many wasps/yellow jackets alone as much as possible. They devour mosquitoes and deadly spiders and are not naturally aggressive.

Instead of spraying insecticides all over the place, spray the wasp nests with water from the hose and knock down their nests. This encourages them to move, but not far away. Later you will find them on the outer perimeter of your property, where they can live in peace and save your life.

Lila, will you take out the trash?

Pesticide exposure has been linked by good and solid research to cancer, birth defects, infertility, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, gastrointestinal disorders, reproductive problems, degenerative diseases such as Dementia (by as much as 70%), Parkinson’s disease (a 70% increase as well), Alzheimer’s disease, Type II Diabetes and many others.

Studies show that chronic low-level pesticide exposure is associated with a very wide range of nervous system symptoms such as: headache, fatigue, dizziness, tension, anger, depression, and impaired memory. Child IQ loss has been linked to pesticide exposure in the womb and can elevate the odds for ADHD in children.

 

OK. I’ll take it out myself.

Think about it. We share this small planet. And as they fly, feed and nest, the birds help us in countless ways.

Birds and humans are complex and vulnerable organisms. We are, like other species, co-dependent. At the end of the day, the fate of the birds will also be our fate.