I’ve been pouring over my proof copy of SALSA! The Taste of Life, my new book coming out soon to your local bookstores. It occurred to me that I am in a great place in my life right now ! Then this song popped in my head and so I had to share it with you, my amazing audience. So now I’ll get back to some more weeding out of last minute typos! HAPPY LABOR DAY 🙂
Live!
I find that people who put themselves in a box are blasé and quite boring…
They spend their drab lives asleep, loudly snoring, while life slips by them…
Then, one day, they wake up and are upset because they claim that those of us who enjoy our lives are being loud and rude; our busy and productive lives make so much noise, it awoke them! Well, I’ll tell ya- excuse me for stepping on your boring and mundane toes. If my too-much activity stirs you to anger, well then, perhaps it’s for your good. Wake up! Take a chance!
Smell the roses, and I don’t mean the one you’ve picked out to deck your early coffin. Live and let live! Yes, this means you! Praise Him who made you. Stop your whining and complaining. Be glad He chose to keep you alive!
-EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2012
HAVE A GREAT WEEK-END EVERYONE!!! 🙂
The River Colored Red
The sound of mighty rushing waters,
elevates the soul,
to another dimension,
a higher plateau.
Walking, step by step on this daily journey,
taking in the beauty
of what Your hands created,
fashioned, designed, orchestrated…
An eternity ago?
Perhaps!
With You a thousand years is like a day.
Maybe You put it there for our simple pleasure.
You are mighty in your power,
magnificently majestic.
Only You know the intricate details of,
the sum of all of our thoughts at this very hour.
Those who deny your existence,
who boldly mock your presence;
all they need to do,
is open up their blinded eyes.
Yes, tune in and hear the sounds,
of mighty rushing waters,
cascading, rushing, making way,
bringing healing to the sickly souls.
There is a river,
saw it just the other day;
its flow will never be controlled,
through mere human ingenuity.
For it contains the water of life-
divine intervention.
Sent from up above to purify, banish our defilement.
Open up your heart! Let the river flow!
That amazing Colorado River
runs through the arid desert.
Appropriately named Red,
for its twofold significance.
They dually co-exist:
In the natural, one nourishes the desert dwellers.
Providing them with life’s necessities,
making life bearable amidst a barren land.
Its counterpart—the River of Life
“Living Waters”
Colored Red:
Crimson drops of divine blood.
Open up your dammed-up heart;
get carried away in the torrent!
Be immersed, inundated!
His love: never-ending, everlasting flow!
-EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2012
This is another edited poem that didn’t make it into my new book due out soon, SALSA! THE TASTE OF LIFE.
Watch this video and decide for yourself!
BUSINESS
Representative Mike Kelly, speaking on the House floor today, managed something very rare in the history of the institution – he got a standing ovation. Applause is usually forbidden in the house, but Kelly‘s blistering attack on regulatory red tape and Washington’s culture of control was apparently so powerful that several of his fellow house members couldn’t resist showing their support, clapping, standing up and shouting “USA! USA! USA!”
Would you applaud this way? See Kelly’s speech below and decide for yourself:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/see-the-speech-that-got-a-standing-ovation-in-congress-today/
It’s horribly tragic what just transpired in Aurora Colorado. The selfish, thoughtles and careless act of one person, unleashed loss in families, a community and our nation. Today I will post another one of my poems that didn’t make it into my book, Salsa! The Taste of Life, due out soon. I want to honor the families that were directly touched by this sudden tragedy…R.I.P.
God‘s Workmanship
The Master is forever working, creating, perfecting.
His subject? A living canvas.
He chooses and mixes the various mediums.
What starts out seemingly chaotic, is being made perfect
through His loving touch.
His discriminating eye is constantly scrutinizing…
the past, He obscures in shades of gray,
lest you forget from where you came.
Accentuating in dazzling hues those things about you,
that deeply touch and delight Him.
On those days you are feeling frustrated and forgotten:
Do Not Fear! The Master is lovingly letting the canvas rest.
For there are wet layers of paint that must dry:
Deep-seated issues that can’t be worked out overnight.
Tomorrow, He’ll continue where He left off.
Then there are days of non-stop work.
The canvas cries out, “I’m tired! I have had enough!”
The Master lovingly ignores the pleas,
for He alone knows when to cease.
At times when your fears seem insurmountable,
and failure is your constant companion.
Rest assured His plan is bigger than the canvas:
He will work it ALL out!
Those things that hurt,
the wounding you have suffered,
He mixes His tears with dark shades of crimson…
…to remind you He’s been there with you, holding you
as you were shamed and mistreated.
Alas, The Master stands back,
the living canvas is nearing completion…NOT!
For this is the work of a lifetime.
May the fullness of the essence of God,
forever wash on your living canvas!
You Are His work of art on Display!
-Eva Santiago Copyright 2012
I’m posting this information on my blog today as a public announcement. I believe many more are waking up everyday.
-Eva
The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why then should we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or security to his own life and his own honor! Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague, near you, are you not both already the proscribed and pre-destined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws ?
If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up, the war? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We NEVER shall submit ! Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promise to adhere to him in every extremity with our fortunes and lives? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty; may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him.
The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. Nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things, which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former, she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter, she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, do we not change this from a civil to a national war? And since we must fight it through, why not pull ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory.
If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people–the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies; and I know their resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and can not be eradicated. Sir, the Declaration of Independence will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the spirit of life.
Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.
Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see—I see clearly through this day’s business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so: be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a FREE country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured–be assured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, –copious, gushing tears; not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.
Sir, before God I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves the measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall by my dying sentiment; independence now and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER.
DEFINITIONS.– 1. Reconciliation: renewal of friendship. 2. Colleague: an associate in some civil office. 3. Proscribed: doomed to destruction, put out of the protection of the law. 4. Predestined: decreed beforehand. 5. Clemency: mercy, indulgence. 6. Tittle: a small particle, a jot. 7. Controversy: dispute, debate. 8. Eradicated: rooted out. Redress, deliverance from wrong, injury, or oppression. 9. Chartered: secured by an instrument in writing from a king or other proper authority. 10. Immunity:freedom from any duty, tax, imposition, etc. 11. Compensate: make amends for.
NOTES.– Mr. Webster, in a speech upon the life and character of John Adams, imagines some one opposed to the Declaration of Independence to have stated his fears and objections before Congress while deliberating on that subject. He then supposes Mr. Adams to have replied in the language above.
1. The quotation is from “Hamlet,” Act V, Scene 2.
You, sir, who sit in that chair. This was addressed to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. Our venerable colleague refers to Samuel Adams. After the battles of Concord and Lexington, Governor Gage offered pardon to all the rebels who would lay down their arms, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
Print this one and take the time to really read it- it’s worth it. The opening statement really grabs you.
Washington Post on Obama – FINALLY!!!!!!
As I’m sure you know, the Washington Post Newspaper has always had a reputation for being extremely liberal, so the fact that their Editor saw fit to print the following article about Obama in their newspaper makes this a truly amazing event and a news story in and of itself. Finally, the truth about our radical President’s agenda is starting to trickle through the ‘protective walls’ built by our liberal media.
Matt Patterson (columnist for the Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)
Government & Society
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages.
How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job? Imagine a future historian examining Obama’s pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a “community organizer”; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote “present”) ; and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.
He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama’s “spiritual mentor”; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama’s colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of Liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass – held to a lower standard – because of the color of his skin.
Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) “non-threatening,” all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest? Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don’t care if these minority students fail; liberals aren’t around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin – that’s affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn’t racism, then nothing is.
And that is what America did to Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.
What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama’s oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people – conservatives included – ought now to be deeply embarrassed.
The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliché’s, and that’s when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all.
Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth – it’s all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.
And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence.
But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?
In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.
When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.
I was just telling Esther that God doesn’t ask us to do the impossible like wake up every morning and run the universe. “ Ok, kids, today you will align the planets, make the firmament firm and run things for me. Good luck guys!” No, His ways are so simple: “ Today kids, I want you to TRUST ME and be content and thankful no matter what your circumstances look like. Think you can do that?” No, we are more interested in helping Him run things. Bleh 
He gives us the easiest job and we botch it up by trying to do it all ourselves. Man are we dumb!!! HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SUMMER and longest day of 2012!
I am thrilled to announce to you my amazing readers that I have just completed the first round of edits for my upcoming book, SALSA! THE TASTE OF LIFE. I beat my June 15 deadline too! That’s why I wasn’t posting on my blog. I never was a procrastinator. Why live life worrying about what you know you have to do? My motto: Just do it! That way when it’s done you can breathe easy. Ok, ok, I’m not trying to get preachy here 🙂
A couple of day ago I finally met with my editor via the cell phone. She is such a wonderful person to work with. Funny, I had always feared working with an editor; I seriously had made it into a nightmare in my head. Now that I actually have one who is working with me to help me fine tune my work and helping me grow in the craft, I truly do appreciate the work editors do.
This post was for catching you up on the latest developments of my book. Since it’s Friday, I shall leave you with some funny pictures to start off your week-end. Have fun it’s summer!!!
Eva Santiago 