Tag: All Heart

Was I One Tin Soldier?

“to even lay down my own life,”

Great story line for a film back in the 70’s called “Billy Jack.”

Just had some interaction with a friend on the posts and her thoughts suddenly got me thinking about a film I remembered seeing when I was a kid that had a good theme and message derived from the dealings of Billy Jack with bad people so much like today but it’s even worse now all over the place and way more vulgar and sinister!  I could visualize how this all connects to my actual life experience in the very recent past and things that mean so much to me and should to the country!

The term One Tin Soldier comes from the book “Mere Christianity” by CS Lewis.  Jesus is the One Tin Soldier.

Then in the 70’s they tailored this movie role for Tom Laughlin “Billy Jack.”  His character was an “ill-tempered, karate-chopping pacifist” who battled racists through four movies. The first film, released in 1971, also produced a hit song: “One Tin Soldier.” I figure some thought was there about this character being a pacifist, making him a bit Christ like and he did step up to protect the innocent and vulnerable!

He was up against the haters or bullies and that correlates well with what is going on in our society presently extremely well; as mentioned I even know from firsthand experience in my own dealings with the bully government full of Nazi like thugs and conspirators that even went against me when I was trying to protect the environment and nature, the unprotected innocent, that they were trampling upon for greed, power, smoke and mirror crony agendas; negligently!

In the movies he had crowds with him in support of his voice and actions but I was totally stand alone, nobody else wanted to get involved or cared enough; but the times had a lot to do with that too, the 2000’s are not the 70’s!  Much had changed especially in the mind-set of people since back then!  Now we have the digital age and monster communication entities like Google!  Google is evil they support terrorist threats and accusations not peaceful accusations which is the flip-side of that 70’s era, it’s even blocking the internet from peaceful songs and ideas in some instances seeking to manipulate the public for nefarious agendas.

But the big contrast with this Billy Jack was that I wasn’t in a movie and had to be very careful and use my wits to face the harsh reality or I would have been crushed like a cockroach by what I faced alone, and they would have enjoyed that too much!  I never gave them that satisfaction!  Besides using my wits the thing that helped me Most of all was I had Jesus in my heart and thoughts always as I pushed through the lies, deception, corruption and dirt!  I never gave them that satisfaction so my head stood thick in spite of them; and out of the line of fire!  Jesus was my shield from even death that lurked nearby!  Even so, I took a lot of abuse and pain; I guess I had no choice!  When we serve God’s will it won’t always be simple or without consequence, but if I must suffer any consequence, “to even lay down my own life,” “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13.  I can’t think of any other reason or purpose that is more appropriate and worthy.

Yea, maybe I am a Tin Soldier; I’m also a faithful servant of God’s in the name of Jesus Christ.  It’s been hard as nails and mean and ugly; doing so much damage to my life and body but so what, look at what He was willing to do for me on that cross, He the most innocent being ever to be in this world!

Lawrence Morra

“One Tin Soldier Rides Again”

The Paradigm Never Changes Here On Earth

“pick yourself up by the bootstraps, brush yourself off and get moving!”

Seeing that conflict exists all the way back as a boy and now has made it all clear!

Going back as far as I can remember I was always an eternal optimist when I had little if any concept of what eternal is!

I remember when as a young boy I was confronted by a pair of bully twins in the neighborhood that were going to beat me up and I asked them why they want to make trouble so much and make me suffer which would sure get them in more trouble than they realize, not just with my parents but with God; and with Christmas coming in a couple of months they would ruin it with all the trouble they want to make.  I went on to say we should not be bullies to each other because we should be helping each other the way Jesus told us to and that is why we have Christmas, to be good.  Those two bigger than me bullies suddenly became my friends and we walked on down the road till they had to turn to go to their house and I remember them saying, “see you later Larry!”

Fast forward so many decades later and all the more recent battles I’ve been up against with far greater more powerful adversaries and bullies have cut into me deep, body, heart and soul!  Was that little skirmish way back then just a trial to get me going in the right direction from a tender young age to reflect on even now and know that the paradigm never changes here on earth but I too should not change from what I was back then and what was in my heart back then when I was a boy, because now it is needed even more to turn the bullies away from doing harm or causing more ruin than they already have to me and the world!

The eternal optimist is still there holding fast to what is right and only seeking to do God’s will knowing so much more now how God will never let the faithful down, they are after all His children; even so the spirit is truly willing and the body is weak more so at certain times than others, but like dear Dad told me as a kid, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps, brush yourself off and get moving!”

I’m “Moving!”  Thanks God and Dad.

Lawrence Morra

 

“Smokes & Boots”

I say they wanted those brand new cowboy boots I was wearing, Whaddaya Think?

A lovely little story from “Puss & Boots” to “Smokes & Boots;” only in NYC folks!

Life is full of challenges that along the way generates countless personal moments of self-refection, and some are inconsequential and others are revelations; but all of it part of a big test.  God isn’t planning out our days for us and setting us up with a certain person or circumstance.  If we travel with the Holy Spirit whatever does come up will be something we can deal with the way God wills us to in serving Him.

I had to shift gears in more ways than one in life and literally between gigs or even changing career paths to maintain my life, paying all the bills and saving for the future, I found that commercial driving filled in many gaps.  Throughout my life I’ve driven commercially over a million miles and thank God without being in an accident or worse. How I negotiated that 18 wheeler through all conditions, snow storms, highway grid lock, thinking ahead at all times as to the four wheelers all around and what stunts they might try to pull to get past or around the big truck made for a very dicey and stressful situation.  On top of all the driving I had to be in all kinds of environments, from Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan to various rail yards like Croxton in New Jersey to International Airports like Logan, Bradley, Newark, Manchester and JFK, or on the waterfront of several key fishing port locations up and down the North East Coast.  Any of these locations could be on the schedule at any time of day or night so when most people were sleeping I might be hooking up double trailers or a 53 foot one in a dark roughneck part of the city or during regular business hours when the streets are full of people and their cars they congest the streets with.  I met more kinds of people and in more varied environments than one can shake a stick at, and sure I saw humanity and sometimes fleeting human connections in our travels while in passing one another when stopped at one of these varied locales having short interactions in our travels; but there was nothing better than being back home in my place where I belong and where I’m loved and needed. Out of necessity I was all over the map but does God want me for some other reason to be bopping all over like that to find connections, I think not!  The man-made world is in a sense from the perspective of a single person a chaotic place; and so focus on one’s own particular life and close family or significant relations is enough to deal with and I see meeting strangers as that just meeting strangers.

I had plenty of opportunity to meet new people in these working circumstances and even my personal travels but to me looking back its all like passing ships in the night and inconsequential.  As I’ve stated many times to many people, I’ve found my greater insights and purpose to my life when alone and depending on nothing more than my own abilities and the paramount guidance of God Almighty’s Holy Spirit that watched over me and indeed protected me.  I’ve studied acting and did a bit here and there so I’m fully cognizant of the idea of taking risks.  Doing so on a stage or in front of a camera can be helpful in creating a visceral characterization but as far as taking real risks with my life, I prefer to pass on that.  Unnecessary risk can become habit forming and we know this by the numbers of adrenaline freaks or junkies in the world! I see our individual lives as so precious to God who gave them to us that we should not take unnecessary risks with them and flaunt them in such a way as to be caviler with them.  Am I guilty of doing so, damn straight, I confess I did some pretty stupid things with my life over the years when not thinking the way I am now.  One little mishap or miscalculation and I wouldn’t be writing this now, that’s how dangerous it was at the time!  I was on a fine line of doing something for whatever reason on the one hand and sheer stupidity or foolishness on the other.  I thank God again that I made it through all the things I did to be able to share now with others, “that you are always better off keeping things in order of priority and your purpose for living in the first place;” the important mission to not fail the test.  I tend to see Monks and Nuns as being closer to serving God more accurately daily by a humble and meeker style of living and serving with focused mission and more restraint and not freewheeling the way many people do actually live in this time and age of pleasing self!  I don’t see risk if not absolutely necessary or even fully appropriate as being anything positive at all. “Common sense and practicality rule!”
Lawrence

PS I know I point out harsh reality here and in quite a few things I say or write about, because I know firsthand just how much danger and evil lurks around any given corner, and not that one should be paranoid but in this world today foolishness abounds and I attempt to counter that mind-set.

“Thank you for sharing that. yeah, Thank you Jesus that you were kept safe on the roadx”

Oh good! I’m glad you liked my little short story (autobiographical vignette).  Yea, plenty more where that came from, I sure stretched my envelope of protected space or comfort zone in my driving travels in my car cross country through 46 states, staying for long periods in about a dozen.  Talk about NYC I thought you might like my connection to Fulton Fish Market, now there’s a place that I met some characters during ungodly hours of the night.  Nefarious from the first looksie!

There was this time I had a hell of an experience taking a train into NYC during the wee hours of the morning arriving in town wearing my cowboy boots as I jumped off at Penn Station and decided to walk street-side on to my destination via 7th avenue in the wee hours when a group of bad hombres almost got the drop on me, I felt like I was in some surreal scene of the French Connection giving them the slip on the subway with some good faking body language that said I might be the heat!  I got away from them by fractions, and sure was good I did; because I know they weren’t gonna discuss Jesus or different parts of the hood with me, no matter how well-spoken or genuine I was!  Yeah, I got AWAY!

I say they wanted those brand new cowboy boots I was wearing, Whaddaya Think?

Or maybe, they just really had to know what I was doing walking around the Big Apple at 3am alone wearing new cowboy boots!  Hey what can I say I do lots of things alone. Maybe they figured I was related to the Marlboro Man and they wanted free smokes!  Oh well, these are questions for inquiring minds that we’ll probably never know the answers to; or will we?

Yes, thank Jesus I’m alive and kicking still!

Lawrence Morra
Amen

“Free smokes 😂”

Don’t forget the Marlboro Man Boots, sorta like the hood version of “Puss and Boots;” “Smokes and Boots,” great deal when you can get it!!! OMG only in NYC!  Hahahahaha! See I can laugh about it because it went the right way for me, at least in that little way, hehehehe!  But oh the things that could have been, I mean good things!  I shoulda done stuck it out!  Not my neck mind you; but maybe my personality?  And, I don’t mean with those bad hombres; but the people with the opportunities!  I guess I was a boy with the wanderlust!  A Rambling Man!  I talk up a powerful storm let me tell ya!

Lawrence Morra

 

PS Ya know folks I should count myself blessed and lucky I did all that and made it out alive in one piece!  The thing that doesn’t sit well with me is that I got through the gauntlet many a time being no worse the wear in spite of it all but then later life; the nefarious bastards stabbed me in the back!  I think they were so damn jealous!

Alive and Kicking You SOB’S.  One of my Hero’s “Papillon,” Steve McQueen!  He was a Marlboro Man!  He made it off “Devils Island” the only one to do it!

 

“Our Creator; My Perspective”

“let us make them in our imagine,”

Yes, I have my perceptions of this existence and the only thing that adds up is God; God is incomprehensible to mere basic intelligence that we possess!  God is full of love and creativity the likes of which is beyond our reach or ability to completely fathom. God in expressing this enormous infinite love created or birthed an existence outside of Him-self part of it is what we see and know about along with us human beings within it.  In Genesis it says, “let us make them in our imagine,” so we were created with a spiritual and intellectual creative essence to us full of gifts of creativity and imagination with rich emotion so that we are capable of expressing great love too!   The whole purpose is that God is so abundantly loving and caring He had no choice but to make all of this, but how would it work and eventually come out after a long infancy and maturity process.  We are all caught up in God’s PLAN, but He also had to offer us guidance just like parents must raise their children God must teach us and show us what is best for our well-being and happiness.  You know God had to give us Free Will in order not to make us programmed robots so that each individual can be an individual and on his or her journey learn and then decide what he or she wants in the end, to be at peace and in perfect harmony with God in paradise or to reject that and get the opposite which is all that is unholy and unworthy to be in God’s presence; polar opposites in simple terms and that is a decision that each soul must make for themselves.

This process that God provided would not be fair or successful for all that deserve an opportunity to see the truth and light; so God being so loving did the perfect thing!  He said you can all be free to make up your own minds and hearts but all of you would surely fail in the end because all humans are not perfect and remotely close to being absolute or powerful enough to save themselves from sin, failure and destruction; but He then allowed Himself to be born as one of us only in His case a perfect human and example of what an absolute human being would be, and that was when He came as Jesus Christ not only to show us the way to glory and everlasting life but also to pay the required price or punishment for all of our sins and iniquities.  In this way He gave us all the freedom to be individuals and not robots but then it would be up to each of us by our faith and trusting in Him our God enough to either follow His plan or will for us and accept Him as our God and Savior, which then translates into or becomes our everlasting covenant with God in order to give us what He is and has in Paradise or absolute eternal life and happiness devoid of any imperfection or sin; absolute joy and peace where our souls can dwell with God and all that is good forever.

Some people can’t accept this simple truth and think there is some other reason, while still so many say there is no reason for our existence which is to me absolutely ridiculous to say or think such a thing because if anyone thinks deeply and delves into all of the reality of our living here in this plane of consciousness they should see a good portion of what I’m saying as the only purpose there could be, along with seeing God is present in this miracle of existence before our very eyes and minds, nothing else would make sense or answer the overwhelming question; WHY?  Doing as I say humbles us to accept that we know so little really, but we know enough to understand who and what God and His plans are about so that we can join into that plan if we truly want to. 

We’re just children of God and in His hands, so we should look to Him for all we need and He will deliver as promised if we keep our end of the bargain!  How else could this Supreme Being God the Creator of all things seen and unseen create a family of beings to be like Him and able to join Him in eternity?  There is absolutely no other way, anything else would have created machines that he made do this or that and not be the free agents that we are to make up our hearts and minds to say Yes I want to join You heavenly Father out of Love, Faith and Acceptance that You are who You say and I will trust in You!  Amen.

Lawrence Morra

“From Here to Eternity;” That’s Where I’m Going!

“Loudmouth Good Guy,”

Thank you and same to you brother!  They done me wrong, and did try taking me out, breaking me or ruining me a few times now over the years; but God said He wants to keep me in the fight, so I do!

Now I’ll announce to the world what I told some of these no goods and bastards to their faces over the years “face to face,” you want me gone, you have to blow my brains out you mothers!  I might be like the Frank Sinatra character “Loudmouth Good Guy,” Angelo Maggio in the Classic Film, “Here to Eternity” who had the guts and faith on his side to hang in there against the brutes and spineless thugs of the world, and in the end he got it; bad, but he was NO COWARD or a QUITTER, he was ALL HEART!

“His vibrantly cocky attitude gets him into trouble again and again.  And Again!”  But, his benevolent attitude is demonstrated in some touching scenes, one in particular that I won’t spoil by telling you, so that you can watch it and get the impact fresh!  Ya know, like a punch in the face!  Don’t worry; I won’t breaka you face, goomba; ( Italian: (KUM-PAR-AY) really meaning fellow country man, friend, buddy, comrade.)  Yea, I’m like that guy in that story and maybe a tad like Sinatra being a “WOP” just like the character Sinatra played where he got picked on and “called one of those which he wasn’t,” but to me that was same as calling a black person the N word!  But, I’m also much like his best friend in the movie played by Montgomery Clift as Private Robert E Lee Prewitt, another very good guy with heart who’s a bit of a romantic like me too, but in the film he is the guy that’s a real boxer and knows how to kick ass!  “Maggio is very protective of his family and all his loved ones, including his best friend, Prewitt.  Despite Maggio’s almost reckless impulsiveness and his human character flaws, he really does care about other people deeply to a fault, and is willing to take part in his friend Prewitt’s sufferings if for no other reason than personal affection and his overriding sense of fairness or justice.  But in the end, the sum total of his benevolent characteristics of loyalty and justice coupled with his acute propensity for friendship redeem him which ultimately inspires his best buddy Prewitt to be willing and able to risk his own life for the sake of Maggio’s memory, a lasting legacy of true friendship.

Yea, Angelo Maggio he took some lumps but never quit and that’s me now, had some lumps and willing to take more until I get home!  Or the fat lady sings; whichever comes first!  God’s justice  be done on earth as it is in heaven!  Let no man attempt to stand in the way or flaunt that which God decrees!

CIAO

Lawrence Morra

For your convenience this link will provide some background and memorabilia on the film.

From Here to Eternity: Sinatra, Rumors, Myths and Casting

BTW this is a line from a comment to me today from a Patriot connection that acted as a spark as I was working out a massive dilemma I’m still dealing with for years now which was a response to an earlier comment I made on the net!  Like I always say we  never know where the needed inspiration or vital message is going to come from! This helped me get my thoughts and heart on this new Blog!

“I sure hope so, brother. God Bless you for fighting the good fight in a socialist pit.”