I was reading this piece on Abe Lincoln the other day that I found interesting. Abe had gone out to inspect some of the troops during the Civil War and he came upon a brash young lieutenant who was visibly upset. The young officer came up to Abe and asked the President if he would read a letter that he had drafted to his superiors.
He was disturbed about how the war was going, the leadership that he had observed exhibited on the field of battle, and generally speaking, was just putting it all down on paper. It was passionate, it was heated, and it was lengthily. It was also evidence for court martial.
Lincoln read the letter, and then he looked at the young officer and said to him, “Son this is well written, you surely have pointed out all the mistakes that needed to be pointed out. You have named names, people and places, and your passion is well documented.” Now what I want you to do is sit down and write another letter to these officers. After a period of time, the young officer submitted the second letter to the president and he read it.
He looked at the young officer and said, “burn the first letter and mail this one.”
So what is the point?
The point is, “be careful about what you put down on paper in the heat of the moment, it might come back to bite you in the end.” I used to work with an old timer and his expression was, “Don’t be too quick to put it down on paper boy. A piece of paper will follow you around for the rest of your life.”
Good advice.
Yesterday I received this Email from a complete stranger, of the opposite gender. How and where she got my email address is beyond me, but there it was, low and behold in all it’s splendid glory. The subject matter was her date with a guy over the weekend, very vivid and quite interesting. So I dutifully sent her an email back stating that she might want to be more careful in the future about her email and who she was sending it to. For which, I got a vehement reply to “mind my own business and a demand from her as to who it was that gave me HER address.”
Go figure. Might have embarrassed her or something, I dunno.
What if you were an employee of a company and you sent out information compromising your current employer to another company, but by mistake, hit the publish or send button, and sent a copy to YOUR present boss. Not so cool. Sending out a traitorous email to another company is against the law, and you could possibly find yourself on the way to the county lockup.
Another email that has been circulating is this Billy Graham thing, it is a copy of a prayer he was alleged to have prayed on the Larry King Show. Here it is as I got it:
‘Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!’
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, ‘The Rest of the Story,’ and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord’s help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called ‘One nation under God.’
If possible, please pass this prayer on to your friends. ‘If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for everything.’ Think about this: If you forward this prayer to everyone on your e-mail list, in less than 30 days it would be heard by the world. (It’s worth a try!)
One Nation Under God
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For the most part I agree with most of it, except for a couple of things. There are a couple of items I do not personally agree with: “We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.” No one, to my knowledge, forces poor people or rich people, to play the lottery. It is a choice; it is not something that the rest of society burdens upon folks with less income than others.
The second thing I find about it that is distasteful is it is a bald faced lie.
Summary of the eRumor: The text of a prayer said to be from Billy Graham and for the United States. Paul Harvey allegedly aired it on his radio program and got the greatest response of anything he’s broadcast. The Truth: This prayer was not from Billy Graham but rather from a minister named Joe Wright who offered it in front of the Kansas State House in 1996. Someone simply added Billy Graham’s name to it and started circulating it in July, 2008.
(CLICK HERE for that story)
Like I said, “It might be advisable to sit back and think about it a little bit, before you hit the send button/publish button” In most cases if you say something stupid it lasts for just a short while, and is quickly forgotten. The public generally has a short memory; a piece of paper however, can follow you around the rest of your life.
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