Are you listening

Soren Kierkegaard once wrote " It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities that one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God, one must follow it." Are you listening to the subtle hints God is giving you on a daily basis, or are you ignoring them because they seem to inconvenient or risky to undertake? God will make all things possible if it is His will to do so

We all travel on a daily basis down the road we call life. During these travels we hear little voices or feel little nudges in directions that we feel uncomfortable in going. We may feel uncomfortable in going there because it si something we have never done before, or it is outside of our comfort zone. We may resist the nudge because it is to risky, and how will I feed my family of it fails? I am slowly learning that we have to trust God on our daily journeys, and open our eyes, hearts, minds, and lives to the gentle nudges that are given to us on a daily basis. We all can be successful but it is not necessarily a monetary success, it could be a spiritual success as well. Mother Teresa was not a monetary susccess by any stretch of the imagination, but her life was a strong testament to the success of the spirit one can achieve.

Open your ears, your eyes, your hearts, and our minds to the possibilities that God is presenting to us on a daily basis, and the successes can be endless.

Oath

I was reflecting over the last week, with the 11th being Veteran's Day, the Oath of Office I swore some 28 years ago.

I Paul H. Bartoswicz, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

At the time I took that oath it was a very serious thing for me to do. I put a lot of thought into the oath before I swore it in front of the admiral, my pastor, and very close friend Polly. I had just finished a pretty intense training program over the past several months including military history, small arms qualifications, navigation, protocol, and the such. I was about to be commissioned an Ensign in the United States Navy. In the reflection I had taken upon myself regarding the oath of office I was about to I came to the following conclusions:

I Paul H. Bartoswicz, The one possession that I have that can never be taken away from me is my name, my background...the I Paul H. Bartoswicz, is the one thing that can never be taken from me. I may lose money, I may lose my health, I may lose my freedom, bu the fact is that I am who I will always be, and that can never be changed. My name may change, but me as a person will not. I am a culmination of the experiences of my past.

Do solemnly Swear. I had to make a solemn public affirmation in front of classmates, friends, and officers that I would do something. This affirmation is not to be taken lightly nor without deep soul searching of what it meant to me.

that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States, the one document above all others that sets the course of American life apart form that of any other country. Our founding fathers thought long and hard about what was to be set in stone so to speak as the founding document and guiding light for our great country. It is not a living document as some would try to make you believe, but a foundation for the country to be built, and the guiding light for our illumination through tumultuous times. It is the foundation upon which all other laws guiding our actions must be based, and the template for which the Supreme Court to rely upon for judging the admissibility of those laws. Before i swore this oath, I took the time to read and study the document I would be swearing to defend, and I came to the conclusion that these brave men in the infancy of our country were so wise beyond their years for the guidelines they set up. The electoral college to give all people of the country equal weight in electing the President, and not just leaving it to the heavily populated urban areas. The freedom of the press, the right to bear arms as well as the rest. It is a document and set of ideals well worth defending. I still pick up copies of the Constitution and read it today. It would be my wish that every graduating Senior form High School be given a copy of the Constitution along with their diploma as they set upon their future. We would all benefit from reading it and learning what our founding fathers meant when they set the pen to the parchment it was written upon. (The other document every senior should receive is the Declaration of Independence to give them insight as to what we were leaving behind when we set on the course of history we set upon). With the studying of this great document came the reading of some of the Federalist Papers to get a little better insight to what our founding fathers were trying to do. As a result of this intense research, I found that the Constitution was a document well worth supporting and defending, and that our states must remain United in a common cause.

all enemies, foreign and domestic, we have to remember there are people all around the world as well as within our own country that would love to tear down the structure and the very fabric of life we enjoy on a day to day basis. It was part of my oath that I would defend the country and our way of life from those people and ideologies, with in the confines of the procedures set upon me by the very document I was swearing to defend.

that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I interpreted this to mean that I would hold my faith and allegiance to this document the Constitution of the United States as the guiding light of the governance of this country. I had the most trouble with this part as a Christian Man of Faith, in that in Sunday School we were told to swear allegiance to no power but God's. It was only after talking to a chaplain that I was able to overcome tis obstacle to my searing the oath, In that we were not swearing an oath that made the Constitution a divine guidance, but a political guidance for the governance of the country, and that we could hold a faith and allegiance to God as our religious belief, but also a faith and allegiance to the Constitution as the guiding light of our countries political future.

that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. I was not coerced, or in any other way forced to swear this oath of affirmation. I was able to do so with a clear conscience, and no wavering, or using as a method of evading any other responsibilities I may have had.

and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. This is an affirmation I try to do in all aspects of my life now as well as then, whether it be my job, my extracurricular interests, my marriage, or my family, I will faithfully execute the responsibilities expected of me in all aspects of my life. I will try to be a builder rather than one to tear down. I will try to be a supporter rather than one to be supported. I will try to be a positive influence, rather than a negative one.

So help me God. My divine guidance, my religious faith is not separate from my civic responsibilities. My life is an intertwining of my religion and my civic duties, and as an American Citizen it is my responsibility to balance the two aspects of my life and not let one over run the other. The very document I was swearing to uphold and defend, was the very document that guaranteed, not the freedom of religion as we hear so often touted, or the freedom from religion that others would have you believe, but the freedom that we would not be imposed with a state sanction religion as they are in so many other parts of the world. We are free to believe and worship as we see fit. The country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, but the founding fathers were to weary of making the government the controlling factor in ones religion. So many had come to this country to get away from state mandated religions.

So the oath the I swore that day some 28 years ago was without reservation that I would not be able to uphold the office I was being commissioned into, and is pretty much the same oath the President swears every four years on January 20th. I think we should all reflect on what this oath means as we move forward to that date again this year

Election

I have been uncharacteristically quiet over the last several weeks as this election heated up into the media frenzy it has become. I am an avid upholder of the Constitution and the intent of our forefathers when they penned that great document that has been the blueprint for our civilization for the last 200 plus years. We separated ourselves from the despotic rule that the English had held over the colonies, and in doing so penned one of the greatest documents guaranteeing personal freedoms that has ever been written.

John McCain was not my first choice of candidates for the Presidency of the Unites States, however he is the candidate that the Republican Party has chosen to be the candidate to represent them in the race for the Presidency and he is now my choice for President of the United States. In supporting my choice of Candidates I have been called a racist bigot, yet those that know me know that it is far from the truth. I believe all humans are born equal with the ability endowed upon them by God to become whatever they may decide to become. My lack of support for one Barack Obama has nothing to do with race, and more to do with his lack of coming clean with the American people. When I swore my oath in 1980 to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to follow the legal orders of the Officers appointed over me (which include the postion of the Commander in Chief, POTUS, President of the United States) I subjected myself to a background check that was very extensive and thorough. I had to meet certain criteria in order to hold the position I was being considered for. My life became an open book so to speak. Barack Obama is not willing to let the information out that I had to let be known in order to hold my security clearance, and the clearance Obama would hold is much higher than the clearance I had.

I recieved this information in my e-mail this morning and it really makes you think, what is Obama trying to hide...

A Guy named Joe, who happens to be a plumber with ambitions for a bigger business, questioned and challenged a Guy named Barack, who happens to be running for President of the US/Leader of the Free World. And within 24 hours The Media has given us more information about Joe's life than they've given us about Barack's life in the past 18 months!
Thanks to a diligent press corps, we now know about Joe's professional licensing status, his income tax situation, his employment history, his domestic squabbles, his voting record, everything associated with his personal identity; his education. It's probably been reported somewhere whether he wears boxers or briefs.

Thanks to a lazy press corps we still don't know
1) what grades Obama made in college
2) how he got into Harvard
3) when he met Bill "the bomber" Ayers
4) when he stopped doing illegal drugs
5) his medical history
6) whether he still smokes cigarettes
7) the extent of his affiliation with socialist/communist organizations
8) why he's no longer a licensed attorney
9) whether he lied on his Bar application
10) whether he'd qualify for a security clearance if he were just an "average joe"
11) what passport he used to travel to Pakistan in 1981
12) who his ex-girlfriends are
13) whether he was or still is an Indonesian citizen
14) why his Kenyan grandmother insists he was born there
15) whether he was ever legally named Barry Soetoro or anything else besides Barack Hussein Obama
16) why he needed the help of a crook to purchase his family home
17) where he was on Nov. 6 and 7, 1999
18) what the long-version of his birth certificate says
19) why he helped an anti-American, pro-Islamic candidate for Kenyan President against US interests
20) why he listened to Rev. Wright's sermons for 20 years
21) how many times he took his kids to a Rev. Wright sermon
22) what he actually did as chair of the Annenberg Challenge
23) the depth of his relationship with ACORN

Well, you get the idea.

But, really, I am SO relieved that the Mainstream Media has done its job vetting Joe The Plumber, who is NOT running for public office, but who had the AUDACITY to challenge Barack Obama, who wants my vote for President of the United States of America."

Think what you may of McCain and Palin but their lives are open books compared to Obama. When questioned about his being born in Panama, McCain produced his birth certificate, revealing that he was born to American parents. His father a Naval Officer, his mother and American Citizen, He was born under military jurisdiction thus make him an an American Citizen by birth..

The argument is being made that Srah Palin is not qualified to be Vice President of the United States, when she was a Governor and a Mayor. Obama was a senator for 140 days before deciding to run for President of the United States. He was an assemblyman and a community organizer before that. So I guess that autmatically qualifies him to be President of the United States.

In closing I urge every person to go out and vote. it is our Constitutionally right to be able to cast a vote for the President of the United States and every other elected office of this country. Whether you agree with me or not about my choice for President, exercise your right to vote for President.