A-M-U-R-I-KUH. 'MURICA!

The 4th of July 2010 was my first real taste of what it means to an American to BE an American. It was the day I realised that national pride isn't something that should be shunned. We should be proud of the place we live in, if we can be, and we should be able to fly our flags, sing our music, and damned well PARTY!

This year, however, I am thinking that we (the people of the UK - Politicians and Plebs alike) can learn from the example the USA set in 1776 when they drafted and signed their Constitution.
The thing is that, yes, they kicked us Brits out of America and said "We shall rule ourselves, pal. Thank you very much, have a nice day!", but what they also did is take a set of rules and try to make them work for the people they govern.

Since it's signing the Constitution has had 27 amendments added to it which have allowed for the USA to adapt and keep its citizens safe.
I think that, as Brexit looms, we can learn from that.

Brexit isn't going to be easy, it's not going to be particularly nice in my opinion, and it is going to take a lot longer than the two year deadline we have been given. That's not to say we won't have left the European Union, we will have. But we will need to adapt as we go, be willing to bend and change as we re-learn who we are as a nation outside of the EU. We need to try and be like our cousin's across the ocean.

Let's hope we can be, let's hope our leaders can and, as they say in good ole US of A:
God bless us all, and God bless our country (this is adapted to suit my purposes, obviously).

Peace!

A fitting date for a return to the front lines...

Today is a day of great importance to a great number of people. Their reasons may well be very different, their celebrations opposing in style and fashion, and definitely location. But a day of celebration it is.

Firstly, I am celebrating my return!
I thought I would return to this aspect of my outwardly looking self because, quite frankly, I have missed it. Perhaps my tone has changed over time and due to experiences I have shared with a great group of people but it's still me and sometimes we all just need a voice, a shoulder to cry on, and an open forum in which to have a chat about our thoughts, beliefs, and occasionally, our feelings. Let's hope we can all learn from our peers.

Secondly, a wonderful friend and confident is celebrating a milestone birthday today. My friend who encouraged me to write, who has helped shape who I am as a person, the man to whom I feel I owe a great deal. Happy 50th, BlueBoy.

Third, Pope Francis' 25th anniversary of becoming a Bishop is today. For those who don't know this, I'm a Catholic. The head of our Church, it's erstwhile servant is a humble man who, throughout his tenure so far as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Faith, has people who love him, people who can't stand him, and people who probably don't have an opinion either way. But, for me, he is a leader of great compassion and love who acknowledges his own short comings, his own sin, and gets on with doing the best job he knows how to do.

The fourth thing to celebrate (for some) is that there has been £ONE BILLION magicked out of thin air and given to the DUP so the Tories can get to work in some form of propped up sham of a parliament. This is celebratory for me because I now live in Northern Ireland and, with this over, the DUP can get back to trying to sort out it's own assembly, let alone the Parliament of the UK. How does it work? What did the conversation go like?
"Hey, Arlene!" urgently whispered May.
"What?" replies Foster.
"I need your help. I can't form a government without you."
"Here, I haven't even sorted out the assembly yet...ah, go on. What do you need?" said Arlene, smelling the beautiful scent of money.
"Just vote my way on a few things and we'll be fine." demands May.
"£1,000,000,000,000 plus the £50,000,000,000 we already get."
"Done." says May, defeated. She knows she has no choice. She watches glumly as Arlene skips away towards Gatwick and a plane back to Northern Ireland to wave a load of cash at the rest of Stormont.
So I'm celebrating because perhaps now the government of Northern Ireland can actually...maybe...be organised into a coalition to govern and not be simply in absentia!

Finally, a personal note. It is just under 42 days until my wedding to a wonderful lady named Karen. It's getting real very quickly and it has prompted me to begin running...this belly isn't going to shift itself!

So, that's the first post since deciding to return. Done and dusted. I also have a Podcast these days but I'll talk more about that another time and perhaps share the link. I will leave you with one thought. I was talking with a good friend of mine yesterday and she's not been having a great week. I am the kind of person who likes to be there for someone, it's just who I am. With that in mind, I want to share with you something that I said to her during our conversation. She had said to me that I am an amazing person to be so attentive to someone else's problems. My reply can be found below (my language wasn't grammatically correct at the time so I added important aspects to allow you to understand my meaning at the time in [these]):

"Sometimes...most of the time, we can't help but be who we are made [to be]. I don't see it [what she saw in me] but people notice something in all of us we don't see [in ourselves] and it's exactly that which reveals our vocational spirit."