Beech Tree News Network

First, a word about fame and fortune, if I’ve ever had any to speak of.  Oh, I do get a “I enjoy your column” every now and then.  That’s nice.  Mark Twain said one time he could live two months on a good compliment.
But we can’t live forever on compliments and adulation.  Folks try and they are usually miserable.  I’ve heard of people who even pray for position---that’s like bending God to our will.  We need to let Him bend us to His will.  Fact is, Salome, the mother of James and John(Jesus’ cousins) asked Jesus for sons to have high positions when he “came into his kingdom.”  Salome, like many, thought Jesus would set-up and earthly kingdom.  She wanted one to be “vice-president” and the other to be “ Secretary of State” as it were.
Once I heard a mother say she “wanted her daughter to move to a rich town and marry into one of those wealthy families there”.  Like Salome, a good woman, the Bible says, this woman had her priorities misplaced.  We all often need reminding, there is no position that can guarantee abundant happy living.  Those who live on Fifth Ave., New York, don’t laugh any more often or louder than those who live on some back street in a small town—visiting with neighbors on the front porch.  John Milton, in Paradise Lost, said “the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, or a Hell of Heaven.”  It depends on what se are inside.  One writer said, “To pray for position is silly, because position has nothing to do with abundant living.
Those win political positions are often more miserable than those who fail.  George W. Bush (w, as his friends call him), the younger, when he was governor of Texas said his best days were laying in his hammock on his upper front porch, listening  to his beloved Texas Rangers playing baseball.  In his last day in office as governor, he also was heard to say, “All I want to do now is go to Wal-Mart and buy a new bass plug:  go somewhere and get it wet.”
On a personal note: We are moving into town if we can sell our place and find one in town.  I’ve told my family that I don’t care where we go, all I want to take are my books, my typewriter and my guitar.
 
Kindest regards…..