Christmas & Advent blessings on all ... especially for freedoms, including freedom of speech ... Free Birds ... college memories of LSU Free Speech Alley tied in to Twitter ....

Pic: Public Domain

Peace and tolerance ... reminders of this wonderful season of Advent & Christmas that we're blessed with right now and providing us with thoughtful renewals of our hearts and souls to the many freedoms that we all enjoy and may take for granted.

And I recently had a flashback about one of these cherished freedoms to when I was a freshman at LSU back in 1977 and a roommate with my best friend Scott.

Here we were transplants from Uptown New Orleans … both the Most Holy Name of Jesus Grammar School grads, but Scott went to Jesuit and I to De La Salle!

Once, when we were walking towards the LSU Union, we saw someone standing at the top of the steps and heard him speaking loud about some issue near and dear to his heart.

Yes, there were jeers and cheers echoing off and on from the onlookers – and even from both Scott and me, since “DLS Cavaliers” & “Jesuit Blue Jays” had differences of opinion at times.

But Scott and me found a way to still respectfully listen without violence - just like those others in attendance at that LSU Union gathering.

Just at that moment, I happened to spy an eagle flying overhead – what a thrill that was as it reminded me then of the origins for our great country and that cherished 1st Amendment to the Constitution!

This “Free Speech Alley,” as we found out it was called, provided a great forum for diversity of thoughts to be shared with respectful tolerance – however heated it may have gotten at times and without any violence.

Fast Forward to the here and now … with social media platforms and spectrums galore that were not even imagined to be able to be available to us back in 1977.

Why are some folks uncomfortable listening to those who have a difference of opinion ... that's how we all learn and grow?

It is so good to see some free birds flying all around, even in China, and encouraging all folks to speak their minds and hearts.

And we're not going to let the "Apple" in our eyes restrain us ... no matter how much we might be tempted to keep taking from "the tree of misinformation & disinformation," life and death.

So in this wonderful Advent season with hope and the anticipation of my own re-birth in the Risen Christ, I especially enjoy sitting in our backyard and hearing cardinals, blue jays, sparrows and other birds TWEETING away in a marvelous, diverse melody of sweet harmony and sharing peace and goodwill to all.

KJPH
PRAYER CARE, LLC
SOCIAL WORKER