Nancy Baird
The Second Coming (verse one)
by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
"I used to think the causes of war were predominantly economic. Then I came to think they were psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively personal arising from the defects and ambition of those who have the power to influence..."
B. H. Liddell Hart, war commentator
"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount...Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living."
General Omar Bradley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
"We think of children as vulnerable. In my experience, they're giants. Their bodies and souls are amazingly resilient. What we often mistake for fragility is their openness..."
Fred Epstein, pediatric neurosurgeon
"At 20 years old, struggling to make her way, Maya Angelou took a life-changing trip to San Francisco to visit her mother. When it was time to leave, her mother walked the young poet down the hill to wait for the streetcar. As they kissed good-bye, the mother said, "You know, baby, I think you are the greatest woman I have ever met." Waiting for the streetcar, Maya Angelou recalls, "I sat there thinking: Just suppose she's right. Suppose I really am somebody. It was one of those moments when the sky rolled back. At times like that, it's almost as if the whole earth holds its breath.""
Fred Bauer, "The Double Blessing of Encouragement"
"Believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else..."
David A. Bednar, Conference Report, Oct. 2006, 95-97
This is a letter left at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. It was a three-page letter to a North Vietnamese soldier, left in 1989 by a former member of the 101st Airborne Division. It was accompanied by a photo of the enemy soldier posing with a young girl who probably was is daughter.
"Dear Sir," the American began. "For 22 years I have carried your picture in my wallet. I was only 18 years old that day that we faced one another on that trail in Chu Lai. Why you did not take my life I'll never know. You stared at me so long, armed with your AK-47, and yet you did not fire. Forgive me for taking your life. So many times over the years I have stared at your picture and your daughter, I suspect. Each time my heart and guts would burn with the pain of guilt. I have two daughters myself now...As of today we are no longer enemies. I perceive you as a brave soldier defending his homeland. Above all else, I can now respect the importance that life held for you. I suppose that is why I am able to be here today.
It is time for me to continue the life process and release my pain and guilt. Forgive me Sir, I shall try to live my life to the fullest, an opportunity that you and many others were denied."
The letter was signed by Richard A. Luttrell, who could not be located.
"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all -- security, comfort and freedom...When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."
Edward Gibbon, author/historian
D&C 1:35 "...the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his dominion."
James 1:8 "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."
Matthew 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."
Ecclesiastes 1:18 "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."
2000 STRIPLING WARRIORS
Alma 53:20, 21 (Mormon)
" And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity ... men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.
Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the
commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him."
Alma 54:5 (Helaman)
"...never had I seen so great courage, nay, not amongst all the Nephites."
Alma 54: 5, 4 (Helaman)
"Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.
And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."
Alma 57: 19 - 21 (Helaman)
"... my little band of two thousand and sixty fought most desperately; yea, they were firm before
the Lamanites, and did administer death unto all those who opposed them.
... those two thousand and sixty were firm and undaunted.
... Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea,
and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them."
Alma 57: 25 -27 (Helaman)
"... there was not one soul of them who did perish ...
... And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe - - that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power.
Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken: they are young, and their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually."
Alma 58:40 (Helaman)
" They have received many wounds; nevertheless they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free; and they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, they do observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually; and their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come."
Alma 52-63 - Nancy Baird - September 27, 2011(Audio)
