Perspective
Equanimity
Reflection
Cognition
Elevation
Prescience
­Transcendence
Intuition
Omniscience
Nirvana

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2107)

Driven by my message,
  settled by the score

Riveting exposure,
  fastening secure

Words burning through my memory,
  reminding once again

The past and future just a myth,
—and nothing but pretend

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

All virtue intended,
  but darkness conspired

The moon bringing shadows,
the wind bringing liars

Our memories entrapped,
  as time’s myth reigns again

From clouds that are hidden,
—where thunder begins

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Trapped inside a nightmare,
  dying inch by inch

Slave inside a rusted heart,
  feelings chained then lynched

Later now than yesterday,
  earlier than goodbye

Spooled like thread that can’t be sewn,
  the needle asking why

But time contorts, reversing,
  trumpets call you home

Eyes unspoken, voice untouched,
  senses all dethroned

Words on fire with freedom stirred,
  their meaning scorched and bare

A silence brewing louder,
  new light burns through the air

Eleven Angels fly as one,
  and twelfth, you join their throng

With wings now soaring inward,
—time’s grip left dead and gone

(Airplane To Seattle: March 8, 2017)

The warts are ugly,
  the wrinkles deep

The flesh now sagging,
  deprived of sleep

The eyesight failing,
   with hearing gone

But words still call
  —from tomorrow’s song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
      'From The Book Of Prayers'

My life a poem, forego the count,
  that comes in threes and fours

The space between to catch new breath,
  that time may now allure

These moments gifted more than once,
  now constant in their prayer

Whose vow will cast the river wide,
—new words to baptize there

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

A prisoner of devotion,
  a Saint indentured pure

The light now holds him captive,
  on knees bent to the floor

His silence for a jailer,
  its sentence now unlocked

With handcuffs loose and falling,
—their key from heaven bought

(Las Vegas Nevada: January, 2017)

Sometimes,
in the shadows
of the early morning light

Resting in the
shade,
awaiting the beginning

And hiding
from the end
of all that’s unpromised

I watch
the questions disguise themselves
as often answered

And tuck
new whispers soft within,
—a certain change

(Chicago Illinois: July, 1977)

Did you try to take it with you,
  did you really think you could

Are those moments that you sold for cash,
  now spent and gone for good

Did you try to buy forgiveness,
  choosing darkness over light

Are your memories long forgotten,
—new horizons barred from sight

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)

Poetic transfusion,
prose bleeding through

Words but a suture
—stitching the truth

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

The enigma of a woman rests
  in what you’ll never know

Despite those things she gives to you,
  her secrets bide unshown

Your eyes may taste and hands might touch,
  but to herself alone

Her power worn as though a crown,
—her mystery, her throne

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Are you the hero
  in your recurring dream

Or the victim
  of a life undone

Are you the ambassador
  for all you esteem

Or a fugitive
  —a soul on the run

Are you a real friend
  beyond trial and strife

Whose allegiance
  now stalwart defends

Are you the true master
  of all your desires

Or the ghost
  —of what sleep can’t befriend

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Long before title,
  and long before name

A wish was granted,
—to begin again

A legacy ransomed,
  escape from the night

A voice breaking through,
—calling into the light

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Will the pieces of the life you’ve lived
  come together at the end

Will the times that you reflected
  straighten your path out, free of bends

Are the places that you visited
  more than way stops that you chose

Are the feelings that you left with
  still inside you—heaven knows

Are your children still in contact,
  do they ask you what you think

Are your parents now forgotten
  as you pour yourself a drink

Are the days now counted backwards
  with the best all left behind

Does the silence serve to haunt you
  with those things you cannot find

Does the laughter fall on deafness,
  do the smiles pass you by

Are your friends now off your guest list
  with no time then left to find

Are the pieces of your puzzle
  pointed sharp, and ill to fit

Does your conscience wear a muzzle
  with the blame an endless pit

Is it what you said you wanted
  when you started down this path

Or are you now among the hunted
  in a bad choice aftermath

If before you’re gone, one chance flew by
  a difference then to make

Would you hang on tight to all the lies,
  or embrace this change of fate

And if you do, the words will say,
  you almost got it wrong

Before you called those choices back
  —and changed them into song

(Grantham New Hampshire: March, 2015)

‘For thirty years, she called to me in a voice unclear. Today, a new pass leads me into the true magic of Shiprock.’


Insignificance:

Why was everything so big and I so small?  Why, from the very beginning, was the attraction so strong?  The closer I rode to what I thought I wanted the more insignificant I felt and the more important everything around me seemed to become.

Was it those things around me, or was it the missing parts from inside my spirit that grew larger in the vast emptiness of space and wonder? Stepping outside of myself in that Navajo Hogan, a vision that Bearheart had foretold years before, allowed me to take that first step back — back inside a self that was prepared to greet me and call me by my real name.

I see my old self in the false images of things that I once thought mattered … things that clouded my sight and kept me from becoming who I was meant to be.  

Today, the great Shiprock monument looms ahead and checking the mileage I know I must be getting close.  The old cowboy expression of Riding For Days, But The Mountain Gets No Bigger hits home to me now. She sits alone in a sea of desert, and I feel her presence before seeing her image.  It’s easy to understand why the Navajo worshipped here, and no life was complete without a pilgrimage to stand inside her great shadow. No matter how much this mountain road twists and climbs, the eyes of Shiprock stay focused on me.

Small in my footprint, but growing larger in my understanding, I feel more important and part of this place. This is new and replaces the empty awestruck detachment I had always felt when passing through here before.  There are no small connections when timeless majesty reaches out to you, small is a term that we use to qualify others — and ourselves.
                              
The Navajo Nation, with its flat arid landscape and towering monuments, is a timeless reminder of how low most of us dwell. Until we feel our true connection, we are indeed small and isolated from the Great Mystery — and any chance at rebirth.  

Like much of the West, there is a magic here that is felt only in its presence. To become its visitor again honors me if only for the shortest time.  I finally realize that by taking nothing, I am given everything, as the ancient spirit of Shiprock embeds itself deeply inside me.  Some things only become real in your understanding of them and their acceptance, and before leaving, I stop the bike to look at the ancient Petroglyph wall that faces East.

The Kachina figures come alive and dance for my amusement, and I strain hard to hear the music and what the chanters are trying to say. In silence, I walk closer and hear a voice speaking: “Who Is Really The Ancient One On This Wall Of Renewal?”

As I watch Mudman move across the rock, I feel everything that I knew before change inside me.

In an epiphanic awareness, I point the bike north toward the high country.  I’ve been in the desert for four days, and I can hear the mountains of Colorado calling my name. The desert never says goodbye as you wander higher. Time and temperature will bring you back knowing that her light is always on. Like a faithful mistress, she watches you leave knowing that you must. Her trousseau is richer than before you came, and she is content in the knowledge that your betrothal is secure.

Darkness fell, as I pulled the bike into South Fork Colorado. Neither working town nor ski resort, it is the perfect waystop for a traveler like me.  I walk my nightly ritual along her one road, my shadow the only connection between tomorrow and yesterday.  In the waning light, I see the figure of Mudman again on the east side of the mountain. As he dances, he pulls the last rays of today’s sun onto my pathway ahead.

Walking back to the lodge the temptation to reach up and touch the stars fills me with the wonder of being so high, and the sky becomes a canopy of new light. Alone beneath the Milky Way, and wrapped in the marvelous insignificance that only a day like this day could inspire, my heart is at rest.    

In bed that night, I wonder about the contrast between the desert and mountains. Feeling like a piece of thread — I travel through the eye of their needle — looking for that one stitch that will keep me married to them both. I try to keep them connected in the tatters of my conflicted wandering. If forced to choose between the two, I choose not to.  One cannot exist without the other — and neither can I.

I am thankful tonight to be a tiny speck of humanity within creations bounty, blessed to have at least one eye open to more than myself.  As my one eye gives thanks, my other eye remembers how short my duration is with the moments fleeting to embrace the little time being offered me.  

This morning, I left Canyon de Chelly by a route I had never traveled before.  The main canyon road was closed because of mud, and my detour took me high over a pass I had never seen or read about.  It was newly paved, and the grade was higher than I thought the bike could make.  It was called Wolf’s Tooth Pass, and I’ve not found it on any map or atlas.  A good friend, who lives nearby, swears it doesn’t exist.   All I can say is that from the top, where Arizona and New Mexico meet, Shiprock called out to me in the distance. And in the importance of her calling — I stopped asking why!


Kurt Philip Behm: August, 1999

Will there ever come a time
  when time doesn’t matter

Will there ever come a date
  when the days won’t connect

Will there ever come a phrase
   its words devoid of meaning

Will there ever come a song
  whose melody won’t play

Have you let what you celebrate
  turn into celebrity

Has your message been transformed
  into a billboard or sign

Have you become a caricature
  of a free and lasting symbol

Have your words become mere chatter
   —in your pandering for fame

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Time may be short,
  but the memories are long

Of a life I now celebrate,
  in poetry and song

My body though challenged,
  my eyesight forlorn

Those promises I kept,
  the blanket that warms

The sun may be setting,
  with leaves turning brown

But the path clearly marked,
  my journey, my crown

As the light becomes dimmer,
   and the music portends

Not sorrow but gratitude,
—this message I send

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

Night Guardian

A steward of memory
  —the caretaker of dreams

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)


    The Eagle Cries

A new American profile
   —the look of fear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)

      
       Its Treasure Calls

Nostrils fill with wood smoke
   a mountain spewing lies

Fifty miles up the trail,
  its legend waves goodbye

Lost Dutchman in my memory,
  the map no longer clear

While buried deep inside the truth
  —its treasure calling dear


(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)


           In Print

Truth outlasts memory
  —on the printed page

(Train to New Hampshire: March, 2014)

The gravity of freedom,
  the weight of space and time

Above the calculated noise,
  the wisdom of the Mime

Truth reveals a vacuum,
   where silence waits to live

As words describe what minds can’t see
  —and imagery forgives

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

Chapter 13: An Uncertain Trail  
Cutty was once again headed down a trail with an uncertain end.  He didn’t feel good about the riders ahead or what their true intentions were.  Jimmy had said: “They are probably cowboys from the Bar Circle T Ranch,” but he had only been guessing.

He charged up the rapidly darkening trail…  

The only thing he was sure of was that he was forever duty-bound to a code that had taken him captive so very long ago.  It never mattered the circumstance or the odds of success.  When her voice called—and his honor was once again at risk—everything else became subservient to his sense of duty.

It had first called his name in Central Park over twenty years ago.  He had been hunting pirates behind a pond, on the east side of the park, when the message was first handed down.  It was delivered in the scream of a young girl coming out of a small cave on the far side of the pond.

As the bats flew out of the cave, all of the other boys ran.  Cutty never wavered, as he covered his head and charged.  Inside, was a defenseless seven-year-old girl who had wandered away from her nanny.  Cutty covered her with his jacket and led her back outside. As the other boy’s heckled and jeered, he never stopped or even looked their way.  That young girl’s name was Miss Shepperd, but Cutty had heard the nanny call her Destiny—Destiny Shepperd.

Cutty was now riding his five-year-old horse at a full gallop and the white sweat from the horse’s withers had covered his trousers.  His knowledge of tracking was enough to tell him that the shoe prints were becoming more pronounced the further west he rode.  He was gaining on them.

Five miles later, there was less distance between the front and rear hoof prints of the riders ahead.  They had slowed down.  They were now either cantering or walking their horses. Cutty decided to get off and walk his horse until he was sure.  He knew his horse could use the rest, and he needed the quiet to be able to hear what might be up ahead.  

He walked for twenty minutes, as the tracks in front of him became fresher and fresher.  There was no doubt in his mind that the riders ahead of him were walking their horses too.  

It was now late into the evening, and he thought he heard voices coming out of the trees ahead.  As he edged closer, he could smell wood smoke and hear the sounds of a fire.  Cutty knew the other mounts would smell his horse in the night air before he got much closer.  He decided to tie his horse to a tree thirty feet off the trail.  He had learned from the Gurkhas in Nepal how to move soundlessly through the brush.  He held his sword close against his body, as he advanced through the dark.

The trail started to enter a deep ravine.  At the bottom, he could see five horses all tied together.  Fifty yards past the horses was a raging fire.  These men were not worried about being seen.  Cutty listened for voices as he moved past the horses.  The sounds that he heard in the night air were emboldened with inebriation.

These Men Were All Drinking

“Good,” Cutty said to himself.  “A drunken adversary is only half the threat that he is when sober.  This adjusts the odds a little more in my favor.”  Still, Cutty wasn’t going to take anything for granted.  Five drunken cowboys, if that’s what they were, could still be a lot for him to handle.

He checked the cylinder of his Colt .45 to make sure it was fully loaded.  He didn’t want to repeat the mistake he had made when rescuing Adrian on that hill in Portugal.  After chasing the Basque Assassin, Bakar, through the hills above Lisbon, he had forgotten to reload after shooting at him and several of his men.

He was sorry now that he hadn’t asked Jimmy for his Colt, Model M1902.  It would have given him eight rounds in case the six in his Colt .45 were not enough.  The Colonel had always told him that, … “In direct confrontations, there is very little chance to reload.  Most fights are over by then.”

The M1902 was a semi-automatic pistol developed by John Browning for Colt in 1902.   It was an improvement on an earlier design.  The military version had a square and lengthened grip frame allowing it to carry an additional round in the magazine.  It fired eight rounds of .38 ACP from its six-inch barrel.

With his Colt .45’s capacity of only six rounds, Cutty would have to be deadly accurate with each shot.

DEADLY ACCURATE IS WHAT HE HAD BEEN BEFORE!
  
As he came out of the woods and passed by the horses, he tried to move quietly so as not to startle them and give himself away.  
The lead stallion whinnied as Cutty brushed by him in the dark.  The noise was loud enough to arouse two of the men and they came to investigate.  Cutty moved further off into the shadows until the men were satisfied that the horse had only been reacting to a small animal in the brush.  The two wobbly figures mumbled to each other as they walked back to the fire…

“We’ll teach that filthy redskin a lesson about wandering this far off of the reservation,” the bigger of the two said.  “His body will only strengthen our story about the missing cattle.  When we get done with this running iron he’ll wish we had killed him when we killed his horse.”

All five men were now seated again around the fire and passing two bottles of whisky back and forth.  There was no sign of Not-Many-Prisoners anywhere.  Cutty said a prayer that he was still alive.  Based on what the one cowboy had just said, he was pretty sure that he was.

But Where ?

A running-iron was a free-handed branding tool that allowed the cowboy to create a design of his choice on the animal with its hot glowing tip.  Unlike the forged designs of most branding irons, the running-iron allowed the brander to change, or go over, an existing design making it a favorite tool of rustlers throughout the west.
Cutty circled around the ravine to get closer to the fire.  The five men had continued to drink, and their words got louder as their attention span’s diminished.  As the sparks danced in mock adoration …

Cutty Started To Plan


Chapter 14: Right Toward The Fire

He looked down at the gleaming brass on his blouse.  As an afterthought before leaving home, he had stuffed it into his satchel.  He wasn’t sure why, but he thought that maybe—just maybe—it would be useful in some way.  The buttons were now alive in the distant glow from the firelight.  They would appear as multiple sets of eyes coming out of the dark.

Cutty looked intently at the five men as they continued to pass the two bottles around.  Their faces were greasy and unwashed, and they sat with a demeanor that gave away their intentions.  They were among the lowest of men ...
  
These Men Hadn’t Seen A Washtub In Over A Year

Cutty remembered back again to his cowboy friends in Abilene and Dodge City—they looked nothing like this.  They had been righteous and straight, and their posture and speech only reinforced their true makeup.  They were nothing if not respectful of those around them and totally dedicated to their craft.  Cutty appreciated that. Their loyalty to the ranches they worked for equated to his unwavering commitment to a life of duty and honor.

Those Men All ‘”Rode For The Brand”

He had developed a kinship and brotherhood with those cow hands back in Kansas, and he had made himself a promise to one day go back and visit them again.  He knew as he made that promise to himself, going back was something he had never been able to do before.  He hoped  this time it would be different.

“All right, who’s going first?” Cutty heard from the cowboy seated at the far end of the fire. “Who wants to put the first mark on that filthy redskin?”  “I’ll do it, Jack,” said a man seated ten feet to his left.  “I’m going to burn a dark groove right between his two beady eyes.”  
“OK, Pete; you and Bill go get that stinking Piegan.”

At this point, Cutty had not seen Not-Many-Prisoners, but he knew he had to be close.  The two men walked toward where the horses were tied and within five minutes were back.  Each man had Not-Many-Prisoners by an arm, and the Piegan Elder was slumped forward and struggling to walk.

Cutty Had Walked Right Past Him

“I don’t think he liked being tied to that horse, Jack.  He about pitched a fit when we cut the ropes and took him down.  Bill gave him a good jolt to the head with his Peacemaker to get him to behave.  I don’t think he’ll give us any more trouble.” “Good, you and Bill tie him to those two small cottonwoods over by the water.  Then we can let the real fun begin.”

Some Of These Outlaws Were Carrying Colt .45’s

Cutty couldn’t believe that he had walked right by Not-Many-Prisoners when he had entered the ravine.  “How could I have missed him so close in the dark?”

Not-Many-Prisoners had been tied cross-saddle to the biggest of the five horses.  It had been the fourth one back as Cutty passed by in the dark.  After tying him to the saddle, the outlaws had covered him with a canvas tarp making him impossible to see.  It also made it almost impossible for him to breathe.

Not-Many-Prisoners was lucky to be alive.  Had Cutty been able to see and untie him, it would now be two against five and they would still have had the element of surprise working for them.“I wonder if Not-Many-Prisoners knows I’m here?  He may have heard me as I walked by, especially when that lead horse whinnied, and has kept quiet to protect me.  Or, he may have been in such rough shape, that he missed me entirely.”

Cutty wasn’t sure of Not-Many-Prisoner’s mindset but he was sure of one thing ...he didn’t have much time.   As the vile, and now drunk, outlaws tied Not-Many-Prisoners to the cottonwoods, Cutty hurried back to the horses.

He quickly and quietly untied them from each other—he needed to make a statement.  The cowboys were still drunk, and a drunken man’s imagination often gets the better of him.  He was hesitant to do it, but he felt he had no other choice…

He Unholstered His Colt


Chapter 15:  A Different Brand Of Justice

The horses had been bound together with a technique that Cutty had never seen before.  They had all been tied to a forty-inch branch that allowed them to move freely and graze without getting tangled.  It lowered down as they fed and then rose when their heads straightened back up.

Cutty vowed to remember this for the future.  It provided for both security and a limited amount of mobility.  It had been invented by the Cheyenne and was used extensively throughout the southern plains. The Colonel had been right when he said: “The Native Americans are noted for their prowess in stealth and tactics.” Cutty untied the horses from the branch, and—with three of the reins in his right hand and two in his left—started to walk them slowly toward the fire.

He knew his next move would be costly, but he needed to create as big a diversion as he could.  It would only leave five shots in his Colt, but the effect would be worth the bullet, at least that’s what he hoped.
.
He Reminded Himself About Hoping Again

The Colonel had warned Cutty repeatedly about hoping.  “Wishing for a certain outcome is not worth the mental effort you will put forth.  Keep your attention focused on the task at hand.  That will afford you the best chance of success.”

Cutty slapped the lead stallion on its **** as he fired his Colt up into the night sky.  At the report of the gunshot, all five horses took off toward the fire like they were being chased by the underworld god, Hades.  Entering the mouth of the ravine, there was not enough room for them to go around and avoid the fire.

They Charged Straight Through

The horses charged across the fire as the five cowboys looked on in drunken horror.  There was smoke and flying embers everywhere.  Two of the cowboys at the far end stood up and tried to run but were trampled by the horses before getting very far.  The lead cowboy, Jack, managed to get to his gun before leveling it in Cutty’s direction and firing.

Cutty redrew his Colt while dropping to one knee.  He sighted his big .45 and fired before Jack could get off a second round.  The bullet went straight through Jack’s right shoulder causing him to drop the big Peacemaker as he fell back away from the now-scattered fire.  
Cutty picked up Jack’s gun and ran toward where Not-Many Prisoners was tied.   As he cut his restraints, he handed him Jack’s gun saying: “There are five shots left in the cylinder.  Here’s six more rounds in case you run out.”

They both turned to face the startled cowboys who were now crawling through the dirt trying to make sense of it all.  With a KIAI that none of these rustlers had ever heard before, Cutty advanced.  One by one, he grabbed the men and threw them face down onto the dark ground.  He then yelled to Not-Many-Prisoners: “Tie them up with their hands behind their backs.  I’ll tie the one that I shot after I check on his wound.”

The KIAI Had Been For Not-Many-Prisoners Benefit

Cutty checked on Jack’s shoulder.  It was bleeding profusely, but it was a clean wound and the bullet missed any bone or cartilage as it passed through.  Cutty grabbed the bandana from around Jack’s neck, ***** as it was, and wrapped his shoulder.  “This will help to stop the bleeding,” Cutty said.  “Keep pressure on it with your other hand.  It’s better than you deserve, but you might just live if you keep it from bleeding out before you get to a doctor.”

Jack had been staring at Cutty’s blouse as he doctored his wound.  “So, you some kinda government agent?” Jack asked, as Cutty started to walk away. “I’m a Major in the United States Army here to investigate charges that rustling has been taking place on government land.  I can see now that the rumors have been true.  In addition, you were getting ready to commit capital ******.  I am ordering you, and your men, to stay here until my detachment comes back to pick you up.

If you’re not here when they arrive, they will hunt you down like the wild dogs that you are.  I need to get this Indian Scout back to headquarters. We know who you work for and what you’ve been doing.”

“You Are All Under Military Arrest”

Cutty tied Jack’s right hand to the top of his other arm. He knew he had just stretched the truth, but he wasn’t above doing that if a man’s life hung in the balance.  He looked across the scattered but still burning embers.

Not-Many-Prisoners had a look on his face that Cutty had not seen from any of the Piegan Elders before.  El Cristo had been the first to look at him that way when he had mortally wounded his son, Elligretto, in Seville.  His expression transcended the present moment as it acknowledged Cutty’s immortal warrior spirit.

Not-Many-Prisoners ran into the darkness in the direction that the horses had just gone. In less than ten minutes he was back with all five of them in tow.  “How was he able to find them in the dark and to have done it so quickly?” Cutty wondered.
  
Horses, when frightened or startled, will often run for miles without stopping.  He was sure when he fired that shot from his big Colt, those five had been both.  The Colonel’s assessment about Native Americans—a breed of men Cutty had only met once before in Abilene—rang true again tonight.

At West Point, Jimmy had been masked in eastern tradition hiding the best parts of himself.

Cutty Jumped On The First Horse As He Yelled

Dying alone on foreign land,
  death now grips his blessed hand

Never choosing time or place,
  but method certain,
—the Angels wait

An oak to fall on alien soil,
all seeds to heaven thrown

His words cast free to light the dark,
  that ‘Good Night,’
  —now his own

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

There’s a voice deep inside me,
  that still tries to get out

No matter my mission,
  it screams and it shouts

Its call is then loudest,
  on those darkest of nights

When my mind seeks new refuge,
  from this Seraph’s delight

I toss and I turn,
  but it speaks louder still

As its words start to burn,
  from new vision distilled

No barter or denial,
  will turn back its call

The Muse is on fire,
--- my pen can no longer stall

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

Writing in a vacuum,
  the magic seals tight

Writing in a vacuum,
  no maybe’s or might

Writing in a vacuum,
  words floating pristine

Writing in a vacuum,
  nothing fettered between

Writing in a vacuum,
  no beginning—no end

Writing in a vacuum,
  no enemies—no friends

Writing in a vacuum,
  all time is concealed

Writing in a vacuum,
  myself is revealed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2017)

Chapter 13: ‘Linking Us Together’


The values linking us together in America were timeless, and part of an unending chain, binding us together with the strength of their connection. It was a connection based on values, and those values were shared. As tough and confusing as life sometimes got, these links were a safe haven and connection to all that was good and right.  

Team Sports were a living embodiment of these chains.  When everyone was acting together in unison, agreeing on a plan or goal, the game had the best chance of being won.  If only one person decided to break away, go off-sides, commit a foul, or worse get thrown out of the game, the whole team suffered with victory lost.  In a negative way, this underscores the importance of a strong connection keeping the links intact for the objective to be met.

It was only through strong links to each other that people survived the Great Depression, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an ensuing and devastating World War, and its low point, The Holocaust.  Today, we are still dealing with the aftermath of 9/11.

9/11 tragically pointed out that terrorists don’t only **** their sworn enemies … they **** indiscriminately!  In a dramatic statement of
inhumanity, they tried to shock the world with their misguided and disconnected view of reality.  They profaned their allegiance to God by
blaspheming him with their actions of despair and destruction.  They are links to a chain that is, at its end, connected to nothing, worshipping in many cases the same things they seek to destroy. Many of the 9/11 terrorists were out experiencing the worst of western culture, strip clubs etc., only days before they carried out the brutal attacks.

The value chain of generations past was a mutually shared affirmation. It reinforced the idea that by living together we could prosper if our values were shared. Living this way in America, we overcame all obstacles for over 200 years.  When I was a kid, and we had a bad snowstorm, my parents would always put chains on the rear tires of their cars.  The chains would allow the slippery rubber tires to reconnect with the snowy surface of the road, digging in, and creating a ‘grip’ that bare tires could never provide.  This allowed my parents, and our neighbors, to resume their normal activities and turn what was a temporary setback into a small challenge to overcome.

These chains metaphorically point out the deep connection we used to have with each other.  When times got tough, we dug deep, finding the ‘chains’ within our own psyches to get us through the tough and challenging times.  The ‘chains’ were only as strong as our belief in them and what they could overcome. Strength was based on each link and how it would ultimately fit with other links in the chain that bound us all to each other.   It was this ‘connection’ that created our sense of community, and it spread from our families, to our neighborhoods, through our states, and ultimately across our nation.  I also believe when we were the strongest this chain spread worldwide linking America with the rest of the world — a connection that in many ways has either been broken or abandoned today.

With these ‘chains of connection,’ we were able to become something bigger than just ourselves and share in the true wonder of moving mountains together.  Whether it was creating the world’s greatest economy, national infrastructure with our great dams and highways, or curing many of the worst diseases that had plagued the world for generations, we attempted these things with a unity of purpose and shared in the pride of accomplishment once our efforts were done.  Most of these things could never have been done by individuals alone.  

Today, the celebration of division is killing America.  My generation kicked this into high gear with the mantra ‘do your own thing.’  Forty years later, we see what the result of doing your own thing has become.  What happened to ‘our thing?’ the spirit behind why men died at Valley Forge, Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Normandy, Mt. Suribachi, and the rice paddies of Vietnam.  Brave young men are still dying today in far off places like the deserts of the Middle East.  Are we supporting them in the same way we did their grandfathers and great grandfathers?  Do they fight with a clear vision and light heart knowing the country is of one mind and behind them until they come home?  Do they watch the evening news, seeing the protests and division that have driven America into a sectarian society.

Thank God, we still have men and women brave enough to go to these places finding something deep within themselves, and each other, to get the job done.  What the military has not totally abandoned is the spirit of connection that our country has lost.  These men are bound to each other in an ‘Esprit De Corps’ that transcends any politics or attempt to divide them.  They are sometimes forced to fight two wars — the one on the battlefield before them, and a second war of public opinion that no courageous soldier should ever have to endure.  

No country in the world has ever been 100% ‘right’ with a moral compass free of all blame.  That being said, no country in the world has ever been as right as ours. Democratic freedom, and its defense, is a shared idea. It’s been the defining link in our national chain from Lexington and Concord to the present day.  

If we can’t agree on who we are, and what we are, the problem stays buried deep in what we have become. We need to look inside ourselves and admit to the emptiness we feel. We can only fill that emptiness by acting together. An 8-ounce glass of water has little power, but magnified 300 million times, it turns into a powerful force that can wash over us all.    

I am here today because of what so many men and women gave their lives for over the past 250 years.  I am writing this, in a fervent attempt, to reconnect us to our American Core Values and to each other.  Together, we can reconnect the links in the great ‘Chain of Unity’ that, up until recently, defined us as a nation.  I write with the hope that sacrifices made in its defense, and its shared value system of Freedom & The Individual Rights of Man, were not in vain.    



  Kurt Philip Behm: May, 2024

In the end,
  the only thing left,
  —is what people remember

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

Convincing myself of my own importance
  —I became an audience of one

(Bryn Mawr College: Pennsylvania: January, 2014)

I met him on a summer’s day,
  when life seemed very far away

A home once mine when as a boy,
  I’d lived and loved and searched for joy

Twas taken cruelly from my grasp,
  the black sheep son, now left askance

As I walked past this house so tall,
  a dark haired man in t-shirt called

“How are you today” he said and smiled,
   my burden lightened, my mood beguiled

I knew that instant, my Angel named,
  and in that moment, we friends became

With all the magic in his heart
  my life rebuilt, he drew the chart

For two short years he gave me all,
  and fifty more I still recall

How at a crossroads he there stood
  a lighthouse shining, and always would

I owe so much to that young man
  who took me in and took my hand

And saved me from a life unhinged,
  and me a stranger—but not to him

Bob may be gone, but deep inside,
  his smile stays, his goodness shines

If I may live another year,
  his words I’ll carry close and dear

And thank my Brother from the sun,
—for the grateful man that I’ve become

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February 12. 2018)
        ‘Read At Bob’s Funeral, 2/24/18’