Category: Entertainment

Since When Has Life Mattered?

C.L. Harmon

Every moment on social media or on a news segment somewhere there seems to be a reference to “All Lives Matter” or “Black Lives Matter”. My question is since when. Since when has any life mattered when it comes to humans? Did it matter to the Romans when they conquered the peoples of Western Europe and other lands or persecuted and killed Jews and early Christians? Did it matter to Pol Pot and his regime when they murdered two million fellow Cambodians? Did it matter when Genghis Kahn and his army killed 40 million people in his quest for a Mongolian Empire? Did it matter when Adolph Hitler and his followers exterminated 6 million Jews and 5 million others from all walks of life and nationalities? Did it matter when the Mayans beheaded and tortured their own people as sacrifices to the Gods? Did it matter when Joseph Stalin and his Communist regime murdered 20 million people? Did it matter when religious zealots burned their neighbors at the stake because they believed them, witches? Did it matter when the US Government used abhorrent methods to eradicate Native Americans? And, let us not forget the 45 million abortions worldwide each year in a time when medical science has proven that a fetus is alive. Are we sure life matters or that it ever has been that important?

The truth is, humanity has been murdering and torturing since Cain slew Abel. There has never been a time in history when one race, one nation, or one person was not trying to kill another. Even Christian Crusaders and Muslims murdered one another in the name of God. This madness stems from the fact that all of humanity does not accept that all lives matter let alone any lives. So again, I ask, since when have any lives mattered?

As angry as one may get over the senseless death of another human being, the truth is that senseless killings happen every day all over the world. And most of these are not reported on but simply left to fade into a forgotten history and dust from which God created them.

In order for senseless murders to abate, ALL of humanity must learn that every other life is as valuable and precious as their own. Every government must treat its citizens with equality and value. Every parent must teach love, humility and compassion to his and her children. Every peaceful religion must be respected. Every citizen must accept the fallibility of all humanity and utilize the power that forgiveness holds and not the judgment that revenge brings. Every person must accept that their existence is equal to everyone else’s in God’s view. Until the citizens of the world embrace these principles and practice them in their own lives, no lives will ever truly matter enough for senseless killings to stop, no matter the amount of media coverage, public outrage, rioting, or peaceful assembly.

Writers Note: This work was posted on Facebook but due to its nature, was limited so very few people could see it and no one could share it. In the future, all of my writings will be published here. As I cannot control the actions of social media and their choice to limit who sees content, I ask that each of you share this and my other works so that others might have the option to see it.

My New Book Is Available

Hey Everyone,

For those who may not know, I recently published a book titled “Chopping Down the Tree of Knowledge”. I would greatly appreciate you checking it out. I might also ask you who do read it and those who have already read it, to please leave feedback about the book on Amazon. I am posting the link below.

Thanks Everyone!

https://geni.us/SchzhTd

Our Focus Is Often Out Of Focus

C.L. Harmon

We are taught from a very early age to focus. In our education, personal lives and careers we are instilled with the belief that we achieve more by focusing on what we are doing. But do we ever stop to think just what we are accomplishing with the importance we place on this focusing? The very essence of focusing is putting ourselves at the center. We must focus in order to be better. We must focus to reach our goals. We must focus to create. We must focus to succeed. At the center of all our focusing on these actions is always ourselves.

It is true that there is a need to focus on certain aspects of our lives at specific times. However, many of us allow our desire to focus to become the focus of our lives. What should only be a tool in the building of our lives, becomes the structure we are building. We have become so involved in our efforts to achieve, we ignore the needs of others. We become the center of our own attention shutting out the world around us.

We were not created to focus solely on ourselves. Our purposes are rooted in inclusion. We are designed to function as an intricate web connected to each other with each strand intentionally woven to the next. The focus on one strand alone creates nothing beyond itself. We must shift part of our attention to others so that their strands will connect with ours creating a stronger outcome for all. To be a million strands disconnected is to be broken; to be a million strands intertwined is to be the structure of life and a vision worthy of focus.

Untitled Short Story: Part 1

For those who read this blog, you generally find material of a more serious nature. However, I felt it was time to add something a little different into the mix. I have an idea for a short story and thought it might be fun to see where it goes without edits or rewrites. Consider it like a tv sit-com recorded in front of a live audience. I encourage comments and hope we can have a fun little journey together.

C.L. Harmon

He was born Malachi Martín Musgrave, a fitting name it seems for someone such as this peculiar creation. Born in 1975 in a small town in Oklahoma, he would quickly become an oddity of sorts to many once he began junior high. Although his parents already had their suspicions that he seemed to have a part of his brain switched on that the rest didn’t, they hoped for him a normal life.

But there was something very different about Malachi; something that no one else in the world possessed. It was something that would take him all over the world and into an incredibly abnormal life. He had a gift which seemed to jump out of the Old Testament from the days of prophets and into the present and into a relatively no one. Strangely though, other than this extraordinary gift. Malachi was normal. In fact so normal, he was boring. He was a mediocre student, awkward around girls, was into the new arcade game craze and had wet dreams like all pubescent boys who fantasized about what breasts feel like and if sex was really heaven on earth as he had heard from older kids and his brother Caleb.

Malachi had a love of history. All the other subjects were simply a waste of time after the seventh grade he believed. But history had a fascination about. It held a connection to him that felt as real to him as any connection he had with family and friends. An eighth-grade history class incident would help him to begin understanding why. One day while flipping through the textbook to the subject matter of that day, he came across a photo of a tablet with cuneiform writing. The symbols on that tablet made sense to him. It was as though he was reading the English alphabet. It made perfect sense to him. He then read the caption below the photo and realized that it explained what he had just read on the tablet.

Immediately, he walked to the teacher’s desk to ask about it but was told to return to his seat and get on board with what the class was learning that day. Try as he may to listen to the teacher, his thoughts were a flurry of possible explanations as to how he could read the tablet. Pac-Man scores and even the thoughts of naked teenage girls would soon come to be taken over by afternoon sessions in the school library and eventually the town library. A slight obsession his parents thought, one that would subside with the excitement of high school, driving, and dating. They were wrong.

By the time he had started his sophomore year, the local library had borrowed hundreds of books from other libraries for him. He had even taught himself to write cuneiform so he would have copies of what he had been reading. However, he had kept his gift a secret from everyone. He told his parents that he had a love of history and that he was curious about learning all he could about it. He knew that what he could do was strange, but had no idea as to how extraordinary a gift it actually was or how beneficial it would someday be. His father, not the bookworm type, worried about his son who seemed to have no interest in girls, cars or sports. He did have friends that he spent time with, but only if there was not a new book at the library.

His fascination with what he was learning was like an addicting drug. The more he read, the more he wanted to learn. Every shard of clay was a puzzle piece that became part of an ever increasing and intriguing picture. Most of it made no sense. It was a book with many of its pages torn out. But there was definitely a story there he believed. It was more of a feeling than anything else. Archaic communications that held no meaning or purpose in the present is really what they seemed to be. They should be nothing more than pieces of a collection in the world’s museums. But what if they were more, Malachi wondered as he began seeing glimpses into the world of 5,000 years ago. But then again, maybe those thoughts were nothing more than the desired fantasy of a boy who dreamt of a life filled with adventure instead of one with old books, joysticks and the curiosity of hormone-raged teen. Reality it seems is never far behind one’s fantasies.

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Mindset: Patterns Are Us

Mindset: Patterns Are Us

C.L. Harmon

There have always been patterns in life that most never give a second thought. For those who do, they only see enough to know there are such patters and not the reasoning behind them. We even classify these patterns in terms such as love languages, personality types, body types, attitude dispositions, among many others.

But why are we given patterns when each of us is created to be unique? Perhaps it so we never feel alone. In a creation where each is unique, it stands to reason that we would often feel alone with no guides, teachers or examples to follow because of our individuality. But with our natural inclination to recognize and be drawn to what feels familiar, we are given the opportunity to learn from those before us who are in the same patterns we are.

Within this incredible existence we inhabit, we are all guides to others. When we experience loss, tragedy, heartbreak or any other suffering, we are given a light in the darkness that is built into our psyches. If we are weak in our faith and stumbling through misery and confusion, our Creator still gives us a map to bring us direction through our desires to identify with others who are familiar to us through these patterns.

As unique as we are and as lost as we can become, we are never left alone. We are all each other’s keepers and teachers. Our experiences are the messages of comfort we offer others who are wayward. What an incredible design that we are a part of. If patterns prove nothing else, they prove we are connected and instrumental in the cohesion that which connects an entirely unique creation into the purpose that we are actually one with eachother.

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Mindset: The “Tryangle” Of Life

Mindset: The “Tryangle” Of Life

It is such a simple question. What is our purpose here? The age-old inquiry as to why we are here. Why were we created? We are all different and yet the same, together but apart and yet inexplicably connected in ways we can’t understand. We share so much with each other and though we may never meet others, we still understand that we are a part of them in the cosmic sense.

Theologians, philosopher, and poets have pondered the meaning of life as do each of us during trying times in our lives with struggles and loss. Some believe that perhaps the answer is what we take from our experiences, lessons that become knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps there is merit in this concept. Or maybe those are simply a result of actions we experience in life.

What if the answer was far more simple than that? What if the experiences were not lessons but opportunities? There are concepts in this realm of existence that are available to every one of us. They do not discriminate, cost currency or die. Each of us has the opportunity to feel and give love, hope, and faith. The three concepts that no one can take from us.

We can choose to love even if we feel others may not love us. It is ours accept and to give without restriction and is infinite. Hope is ours as long as we hold onto it. Others may attempt to take it, but they are powerless to do so if we refuse to relinquish it. Faith is the elixir of life. It is not forced upon us nor can we force it upon others. We can choose to believe that there is a Creator who loves and guides us to a meaningful existence. We are free to trust in that greater power just as we are free to believe in those in whom we share the world. Our faith in others is also a choice for us to make. And when we choose to believe in others. We give them hope, we show them love and we give them the ability to believe in others.

Perhaps the meaning of life is to never understand how and why good and bad happen, but opportunities to understand who we can become by finding the meaning and power in love, hope, and faith.

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