Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

    I have written a review of this book on Amazon, which you can find here. Please do me a favor and mark the review as 'Helpful,' because I lost about 3000 points by not keeping my reviews up during the personal, family, and societal crisis of the past couple of months.  In addition, if you don't WANT to read the supplemental personal commentary, go to the Amazon review and don't read this. Or, you can read the indented material below, which consists solely of the Amazon review. Last preface comment: I'm trying to determine how many people are pleased to sign up for notification on the email gadget (top right). If that worked for you, could you send me an 'I got the email about your blog' message? My email address is PapaPatPatterson at gmail dot com. Sometime in the past week, I posted in Sarah's Diner a note, saying that I was going to review, in the near future, two challenging books. Both of these were written by people with a first name beginning ...

WARNING ! This is NOT one of the reviews I have promised in which I review books written by people who have parents who were A-list science fiction writers. Concerning those two forthcoming reviews, just to pique your interest, one of the authors is a male, and his name starts with the letter M. The other author  is a female, and her first name ALSO starts with the letter M. However, I only include that to demonstrate that in a universe full of random occurrences, you are much more likely to accumulate a random grab-bag like that, rather than win the lottery. They probably statistical events of about the same probability, but the outcomes are far different. Based on what I know about lottery winners, it usually ruins their lives. Based on what I know about the two books by the authors 'M,' it is quite likely that you will be stressed and blessed, and perhaps through the books, you or someone you love, may be started down the path to be set free from crippling trauma. That is NO...

A few days ago, I asked for advice on how to keep current with the blogs I want to follow. Some blogs sent me an email every time a new blog was posted.  Other blogs did NOT. As an example of a blog that DID send me an email every day something new was posted, I mentioned the Mad Genius Club, written by the conglomerate of people who know how to write and can explain it. As an example of a blog that did NOT send me an email every day something new was posted, I offered Peter S Grant's fascinating Bayou Renaissance Man, where he shares wit and wisdom on pretty much everything that exists. Well, today, I believe I discovered the answer to my question, as I was listening to the music of Gregor Joseph Werner, suggested as good Sunday music listening by the aforementioned Peter S Grant (see? told you: pretty much everything that exists). The blogs I get an email notification for, are all Wordpress blogs. The blogs I DON'T get an email from, are Blogger. When you post a comment ...

I was watching a movie last night, and was impressed by the excellent background music. What first got my attention was the Allman Brothers' song, "One Way Out." Later, after more people got shot and beaten, and more great music, they played 'Sail On, Sailor,' and to my surprise, discovered that this song I've been listening to for 40+ years, and attributing to the Doobie Brothers, was, in fact, sung by the Beach Boys. And then I waxed nostalgic for a bit. First, I thought about the tragedy and perseverance of Brian Wilson, who was one of those few who have psychotic breaks triggered by drug use. Mark Vonnegut, author of 'Eden Express' and 'Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness, Only More So,' is another, and there are many more. Second, I thought about an article I read recently concerning the recent spate of sexual misconduct charges. The point of the article was that this was a logical consequence of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and...

    As you can see, this isn't only about St. Joseph. It's also about the book "Minds of Men," written by the amazing KC Ezell. Amazing, you say? Yes, amazing. She flew helicopters in places where it mattered, and that speaks to my medic bones. My first company commander was a First Lieutenant who flew medevacs in Viet Nam, and drove a white Corvette, and had a gorgeous wife, and that sort of sets the stage for the way I feel about chopper pilots. (Umm...on the other hand, I also knew a staff sergeant, a former warrant officer chopper pilot in Viet Nam, who had more rows of medals than I could count;  he was as ugly and as pleasant as my next-to-last dog. YMMV.) Her stories grasp the nature of being, and service, and I guess all that comes natural;  and what doesn't is something you learn when you are driving a truck through the air with the tracers reaching up for you, looking for the green smoke at the LZ and yelling for your crew chief to turn off those ***ing ...

There is a lie, quite commonly circulated among parents, that as soon as kids turn 13, they immediately transform into soul-sucking vampires,  desiring nothing more than the immolation of their parents on the pyre of their own self-destructed bodies. This lie is utterly and totally untrue, for three reasons: The transformation is not immediate. it takes anywhere from a few weeks to a year to take full effect. It starts before they are 13.  They do not desire destruction for its' own sake; they are just seeking independence, the way that a drowning swimmer seeks air. If you can grasp the truth of item #3, you have a chance to see the teenage years as a good thing. Otherwise, you, and your kids, are likely to be in for some unnecessary and enormously painful conflict. I speak from experience. I am 64 years old; I was 43 years old when my first-born son became a teen-ager.  I was 51 when my youngest bio-child reached that milestone. And today, this very day, my son Kenneth (...

In the near future, "The Last Closet," by Moira Greyland Peat will be published. In the book, she talks about monsters. She expects to be criticized as a result of the publication. I expect that's true. The monsters she discusses are adults who sexualized children for their own pleasure. She speaks from her own experience. I am not strong enough to tell you her story, but if you follow this link , you can read it for yourself. Now, you MAY be inclined to think that her story has been sensationalized; that while there may be a slight element of truth there, that NOBODY could abuse their child in such a way. If you think that's true, you are wrong. Yes, it is rare that such monsters exist; but they do exist. I have met them. I was a middle school counselor for 16 years. Let me give you one example of a monster I encountered: he started having sex with his oldest daughter when she was 12. When his actions were discovered, he committed suicide in the family living room. ...

A wicked person kills children, parents, and grandparents in church on Sunday morning. The morons started blathering immediately, long before any more facts were known. Those of us who aren't idiots held off, until there were more facts available. Forty eight hours haven't passed, as of the time I started writing this. That's not very much time, but even so, certain facts are clear about what happened at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. The blathering continues unchanged, despite facts. Here's the series of events, as understood by me at 8 AM Tuesday morning: During the Sunday 11:00 AM service, a 26 year-old man with a rifle fired several shots into the windows of First Baptist Church from the outside. He then entered the building, and continued shooting. As of Tuesday morning, reports state at least 26 people are dead and as many as 30 more were wounded. More than half of those killed were children. He exited the building, and was engaged by a good guy with...