In the End©

In the end, there is no end.

It was finished for eternity.

There is no end

Mortality to Immortality

It is finished

And eternity is for all

Some will live forever

Some will die forever

Sometimes the urge to sleep is overwhelming

To close my eyes and rest in peace

To have no cares or tears or fears

Sometimes the urge to sleep is devastating

But along with pains and trepidations

I’ll miss the love and joy and care

I stay awake and alert with eyes open

Sometimes I trudge

Sometimes I walk

Sometimes I run

Sometimes I fly

I don’t know why I hoped

I had resigned myself

That gift I always wished for

Once again for someone else

I don’t know why I hoped

Could it be for me

Could it be mine

But no right now it’s hers

I can’t have it

I don’t know why I hoped

So I make myself understand

I have to feign

I don’t want it

I have to affect

I’m happier without it

I don’t know why I hoped

My heart breaks once again

And so morose I trod the road

Wondering where it led

Wandering this life and lost

My burden such a heavy load

My sadness kept it fed

Oh could I afford the cost

The price that was foretold

But it was for me He bled

On that lovely cross

So with joy I run the road

To home is where it led

Soaring and no longer lost

I’m happy

And I’m free

So often I wish for people to understand

how difficult this is for me

how challenging this life is

can I keep this hope

or is it quiet desperation

If I could stay in my dream

If I didn’t want your affection

If I didn’t long for perfection

So often I wish to just end this

the arduous walk I trod

the loneliness I feel

but I keep the hope

my screaming desperation

If I could stay in my dream

If I didn’t want your affection

If I didn’t long for perfection

And so often I know

how difficult it is for you

how challenging this life is

do you keep the hope

or cry out in desperation

Wake up from the dream

You have His affection

He longs for your perfection

Oh I always know

He lifts us to soar with ease

We can go on no longer weary

A poem by Donna Campbell

If I seem like I’m in another place

I am, I have no scars, anxieties, or material cares

In my dream my genuine smile brings love and joy

I live in the separate world of my own inner space

And pain is also absent but all friends and love disappear

I’m terrified that this imaginary life could be destroyed

I’m dreaming of a different me with a better face

I know the false blue sky can’t answer my prayers

It can’t grant me beauty like that of Helen of Troy

Oh Lord, His truth crashes this imperfect façade

These scars are earned and make me stronger

His love envelops me and changes my heart

In His goodness and tenderness I am awed

He gives me hope and maybe I can hold on longer

But He says “Let go we will never ever part”

He answers, He gives, He loves, Oh my God!

In Him, my Lord there is nothing He won’t conquer

I’m awake and more beautiful than any piece of art

I am a Southern girl. I was raised in the south and I love it. I am proud of my heritage. I know that in 1861 the confederates didn’t start a war to protect slavery, they began a war to protect their civil rights and personal freedoms. Were there errors in their cause? Absolutely. While they fought for their own freedoms they didn’t consider the freedoms of the men and women who were forced and born into slavery. But many brave men on both sides of that horrible war fought for what they believed to be their inalienable rights.

The confederate flag doesn’t stand for bigotry and hate, it stands for southern pride. A heritage that teaches courage and resiliency, freedom and the same rights fought for and won in the Revolution. The confederate flag and other symbols of southern heritage have been kidnapped by men and women whose narrow perspective of the world has led them to damaged, bigoted, and hateful thinking.

If we remove the symbols of our past that have been used in hate, in wars that were fought for defective reasons, and battles that helped one group but horrifically damaged another then we would have to remember that in our gaining this country we nearly destroyed the people who lived here, the Native Americans who were here before “America.” We would have to forget not only Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, but Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy. We would have to forget Harry S. Truman, Malcolm X and many others we consider heroes.

Philosopher and writer George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Likewise, Winston Churchill wisely said, “When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong–these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Destroying all the remnants of our history, even those which offend many will not make the past disappear but may very likely doom us to repeat its mistakes. Rather than eradicate the reminders of a difficult and horrific history, let us together learn from it and improve our present and future.