At the end of July God chose to bestow upon our family one of the finest and most wonderful of His gifts. The Author of life sent a little boy named Conner to enrich our lives and reflect the great and abiding love of our Creator. He has big blue eyes that stay wide and intense as he looks at you for long moments, skinny long arms and legs, dark hair, and two holes in his heart. (more…)

Last week we passed a milestone, one million comments made by you, the Tree House community.
That’s a thousand X a thousand comments within our ongoing conversation.  Pretty neat huh?
Factually, it’s the best milestone we’ve passed, because it’s not the viewership that we have ever paid attention to; it’s the companionship that matters.  Our trail through the woods has brought some remarkable insight within our journey, and the campfire conversation has expanded many views beyond our horizons.
A million comments; a million bits of information, insight, experience-based opinion, humor and some of the most awesome crowd-sourcing imaginable. (more…)

Those were the words from Dr. Benjamin Franklin as he exited the Constitutional Convention in in 1787 while replying to Philadelphian Mrs. Powell’s question: “what form of government have you given us”?

Today I had a goal.  We have a Treeper family in need of prayer; a baby born – and a family in need of comfort.  So I settled affairs and drove to a quiet Catholic church where it is always comforting to light a candle and sit in prayer; good, strong deliberate prayer – chicken-soup-for-the-soul type prayer.

Upon exit of the chapel, a few feet past the entrance to the parking lot, I stumbled upon Sam Adams with a flat tire and a spare of little usefulness.

His name wasn’t really Sam Adams, but he held a seemingly gruff and independent disposition when I offered my assistance.

After curtly nodding no, something told me park and try again.

Alas, Sam was essentially correct; after quick review, there was nothing short of a trip to a tire shop that was going to solve the immediate crisis faced.  Obviously the viable solution rendered almost all aid offerings moot.  In the busyness of what we call life, most are not able to deliver 2 hours of solution at the drop of a hat.

Key word “most”.

Sam’s lucky day.

So off we go, useless wheel now in my trunk and Sam on his cell identifying the closest shop. (more…)

I have long felt that life is like a series of links in a chain. You might be driving down the road and you hear a song on the radio, or see a picture, and you feel a memory,…. something that reminds you of a different time and place than where you are right now.

You reflect.

The memories you consider remind you of a totally different time in your life. Perhaps you lived in a different place. Perhaps you were surrounded by different people. Perhaps a different job or completely different friends. You recognize those memories were constructed like frozen moments in time. They become individual links in the chain in your life. (more…)

Dennis Prager has an outstanding idea to stimulate thought about Independence Day, and create a simple ceremony using a U.S. coin.

Passing out quarters (or half dollars) to your friends and family can inspire a larger context.

https://youtu.be/Ml6LBcu0B7s?t=1m36s

Friday evening I took my Stars and Stripes in from the front porch as I do every night, but everything felt different and each movement was conscious as I realized I might not put it out again.

Yesterday morning I came to some sad clarity as I thought through the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, 

…and to the Republic for which it stands:

unfortunately,  the Republic for which it stands is in tatters – separation of powers only an ideal; representative government a Potemkin facade; We, the People…just a memory

…one nation:

hardly, having been thoroughly Balkanized by the ruling class whose goal is buttressed by minimal and selective enforcement of immigration laws

...under God:

Not.

By the way, it was In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, (that) President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge we say today. (I don’t remember the White House being lit up with crosses the following day)

 ...indivisible:

that which was thus described no longer exists as such. Its Constitution is no longer a practical reference. Its history is being dismantled. Its foundations are untended – and that doesn’t matter as much as we might think since there is little left for them to support

…with liberty and justice for all:

except for non-minorities, the Baltimore Six,  officers who are drummed out of the military because they serve faithfully according to their oaths, American employees made to train their foreign replacements, anyone targeted by the IRS, etc.  (more…)

Memorial Day is a day of reverence.
Memorial Day is a day of solemn remembering; and Memorial Day is a day of thankfulness for those who have given their lives in the cause of freedom; our freedom.

Memorial Day is separate and apart from any other day – in that we secure this day to remind ourselves how significant a cost is the price of freedom.
Memorial Day is a day we pay our deepest respects to those who died to provide it.

Prediction: Over the next few years the stability advancement shown here by Catalian Duru will lead to collaborations with gyroscopic engineers (think Segway) and by Christmas 2020 the hottest gift under the tree with be a Hoverboard. 

It’s a world record-setting flight by Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru aboard a homebrew hoverboard. He recently piloted this prototype nearly 1000 feet across a Quebec lake to set the record. (link)

A few of us were discussing our family research projects on the Open Thread the other day.  Most of us are curious about our ancestors – who they were, what they did, what kind of world did they live in?  We want to know because those who came before us determined, in great part, what and who we are today.
(more…)

(Via PJ Media) There are some weeks when you know it’s the 21st century not because the last seven days are markedly different from its immediate predecessor, but that a confluence of stories news stories emphasize how different the problems — and the opportunities — of the current age have become.
Think about it.

A major league baseball game played to an empty stadium, but most of the audience could still watch it. An American billionaire space entrepreneur has launched a tourist spacecraft from a Texas spaceport to compete with the one in development from a California spaceport. A probe is nearing Pluto, the last of the “classic nine” planets to be visited. Then it will be on its way to the Kuiper Belt objects beyond Pluto. (more…)