6.24.2025 – he was a man of

he was a man of
integrity – feared God more
than most people do …

Adapted from the verse in the Bible in the book of Nehemiah, Chapter 7, Verse 2:

I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the commander of the citadel, because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most people do.

I opened up CHAT GTP and asked it … how do you measure integrity?

It replied:

Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you consistently uphold, even when it’s difficult or when no one is watching. It’s about doing the right thing—not because of external pressure or the potential for reward, but because it’s aligned with your core values.

Key aspects of integrity include:

Honesty: Telling the truth and being transparent.
Consistency: Acting according to your principles in all situations.
Accountability: Taking responsibility for your actions, including mistakes.
Reliability: Being dependable and following through on commitments.

In short, integrity is the internal compass that guides ethical behavior.

To go the next step, Nehemiah put his brother Hanani in charge of Jerusalem because he was a man of integrity …

… and feared God more than most people do.

It’s about doing the right thing … not because of external pressure or the potential for reward, but because it’s aligned with your core values.

Somehow, I don’t know that Hanani would have found a place in the current administration.

Somehow I don’t know that Atticus Finch would have found a place in the current administration.

Somehow, I know, Robert. E. Lee “Bob” Ewell would have found a place in the current administration without having to fill out an application.

6.21.2025 – warm summer sun shine

warm summer sun shine
shine kindly here – southern wind
blow warm, softly here

Sky paintings at the Calhoun Street Dock. Bluffton, SC

Based on the poem, Warm Summer Sun, By Mark Twain

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

Written as a eulogy for his daughter Susy Clemens, who died of meningitis at only 24 years of age

5.30.2025 – despairing, hopeless

despairing, hopeless
inevitability
deliciously so

Looking up the word hopeless in the Online Oxford Dictionary, it said:

ADJECTIVE

1 Feeling or causing despair about something:

Jessica looked at him in mute hopeless appeal his situation was obviously hopeless.

Or …

That delicious uncertainty has been replaced by despairing, hopeless inevitability.

2 Mainly British English Inadequate; incompetent:

When will governments learn they are hopeless at running businesses?

I really liked those examples.

5.27.2025 – a crime to despair

a crime to despair
learn to draw from misfortune
means of future strength

“It is a crime to despair. We must learn to draw from misfortune the means of future strength. There must not be lacking in our leadership something of the spirit of that Austrian corporal who when all had fallen into ruins about him, and when Germany seemed to have sunk for ever into chaos, did not hesitate to march forth against the vast array of victorious nations, and has already turned the tables so decisively upon them.
It is the hour, not for despair, but for courage and re-building; and that is the spirit which should rule us in this hour.”

Excerpt From
Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V) (Churchill Biography Book 5)
Martin Gilbert

5.22.2025 – he felt warm and safe …

he felt warm and safe …
at home – drowsiness came – he
slept deliciously

Adapted from the passage by Herman Wouk in his book, The Caine Mutiny (Doubldeay, Garden City, NY, 1951), where Mr. Wouk writes:

With a sense of great luxury and well-being, Willie crawled to the narrow upper bunk and slid between the fresh, rough Navy sheets.

He lay only a few inches beneath the plates of the main deck.

He had not much more room than he would have had under the lid of a coffin.

A knotty valve of the fire main projected downward into his stomach.

The stateroom was not as large as the dressing closet in his Manhasset home.

But what did all that matter?

From the clipping shack to this bunk was a great rise in the world.

Willie closed his eyes, listened with pleasure to the hum of the ventilators, and felt in his bones the vibration of the main engines, transmitted through the springs of his bunk.

The ship was alive again.

He felt warm, and safe, and at home.

Drowsiness came over him almost at once, and he slept deliciously.

One of my favorite words, that.

Deliciously.

Delicious.

I always thought that for most the word applied to taste.

The online Merriam-Webster though defines it as affording great pleasure: delightful.

The online Oxford English Dictionary says, extremely pleasant.

When I swim in the Atlantic Ocean … I find the experience, the water, the waves, the sparkle, to be delicious.

To hold a smiling gurgling grand baby I the experience to be delicious.

When I get my morning coffee, all I can say is It is delicious.

When we stopped for ice cream cones on the way home from the beach, it was delicious.

Every bit of it.

Being in the hot car on the way home from the sandy beach and the salty water was delicious.

Stopping at and going into the grubby gas station/connivence store in our swim suits (at hour age – gee whiz) was delicious.

Eating ice cream out a cones, trying to stay ahead of how much the hot day could melt before we ate was delicious.

And the ice cream itself, butter pecan with lots of and lots of pecans, my Dad would have loved it was delicious.

And the fact that we had both learned of this hidden ice cream stop that was one our way home from the beach, with cones half the price of the places that catered to the Island tourist crowd … was delicious.

What a great word.