Hello Sweet Readers!
Trees, lights, shopping, presents, wrapping paper, bows, new clothes, big dinners, rushing, searching, spending, spending, and overspending. These are the things that make up Christmas, right? Isn't that what the advertisers and the big malls want you to think, that some is never enough and more is better but much more is the true expression of the season.We rush to spend our money we haven't made yet to buy that perfect gift that will light up a face and get us hugs and kisses and squeals of delight that last for a moment and then are gone once the next present is handed over. All the while we forget the true meaning of all the holidays celebrated in the month of December, whether it be the Christian observance of Christmas or the Jewish holiday of Hanakkah or the celebration of Kwanzaa. The only meaning there is to the season is, LOVE.
We buy gifts for those who we know will buy us one, we send cards and what we did this year letters to the people we know will be sending us one and if we do forget someone we send them a card as soon as we get theirs so they don't feel slighted. We plan big dinners and spend way past our budget to impress the neighbors or the boss or our cousins that we only see once a year. We believe that if we don't buy something we can't afford for our children they won't love us anymore. We get all dressed up in our new outfit and show up at church for Christmas Eve service to show everyone how good we look and so we won't be talked about because we didn't make an appearance.
Christmas isn't about any of these things! We have never been overly blessed in the monitary department and from an early age my son learned that there always isn't enough for everything we want, usually only for what we need and sometimes a little extra. He understood that just because he didn't get everything that everybody else had it didn't mean that I didn't love him just as much if not more than those other kids Mom's loved them. It's very easy to buy your child a gift to occupy their time but it's a true gift and one that will last a lifetime when you take the commitment to spend quality time with your child. We spend so much of our time working, working, working for the things we think will make us happy and less time talking, playing, or creating things with our families. The greatest gifts I have recieved in my life have been small little things that my son made with his own hands. They may have been nothing at all special to the rest of the world but to me they are worth a million dollars.
I have always been so proud of my son and admired him for how from a small child on he has understood when there weren't 50 presents under the tree with his name on them. From the time he was about 8 years old he has always found great joy in passing out the gifts and watching everyone else open them. There was no greater pride that a mother could have felt than to watch his little face light up at seeing someone else smile because of something they got. He knew the real meaning of Christmas. LOVE!
Love for our fellow man, love for our family and friends, love for the pure joy of being together and celebrating having those around us who love us. To my wonderful son, to all my readers who look for my column each week, and for all my friends who I have come to know and love whether online or in real life, from the bottom of my heart to yours, I am truly thankful and blessed that God sent you into my life. May this holiday season help you to find your true meaning of Christmas and may you be blessed with love, and health, and happiness!
I have asked Terry for a little time off from writing my column and so the next couple of weeks will be re-runs of columns from the past that I would like to be read again. Even though I won't be writing you a new column on these weeks, you will still be in my heart and my thoughts and my prayers. Blessed Holidays to you and yours!
Until Next Week, Dear Ones, Love and Many Hugz! Leeza
Hello Sweet Readers! I know I said I was going to take a break for a couple of weeks but I had to share a few things with you first. This week I have two stories to share with you. One I know will make you laugh and the other I hope touches your heart.
I got an e-mail from Terry stating that this week they were asking for articles to honor veterans and soldiers. This is a subject close to my heart because my father was in the military during the Korean Conflict. He was in the Army Air Corps which later became the modern Air Force we have now. He didn’t see actual battle but he was part of the support force that was stationed in Germany. Once when he was on leave he decided to be a very bad boy and go A.W.O.L. (absent with out leave) He came home and got a job on a chicken farm near Hookstown, PA. When his leave was due to be over he didn’t report and just stayed on the farm. One day two MP’s came to the farm and asked my father if he had seen a man named Richard Coleman around there looking for work, of course he denied ever meeting the man and they left. Two weeks later the same two MP’s returned to the farm and looked at my dad and said, "You’re who we’re looking for aren’t you?" I guess the old saying is true, hide in plain site! They handcuffed him and took him to the military airport near Pittsburgh and put him on a plane back to Germany. He sat on a crate in the cargo hold, handcuffed to a pole. Like where did they think he was going to go?
My heart goes out to all the service men and women and their families who are seperated this holiday season. It doesn’t matter where they are in the world, whether in Germany or Serbia or Iraq, they are away from the ones they love and missing the joy of seeing their families faces on Christmas morning when everyone is together and opening presents. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with this war or the reasons we are there, the only thing that matters is these soldiers that are putting their life in danger each and every morning and who sometimes go to sleep at night laying in a ditch they have dug and listening to gunfire. Who, alone and scared are thousands of miles away from the ones they love and who they wish they were holding on to instead of their gun. When we are sitting in the warmth of our own homes surrounded by the ones we hold dear, let us take a moment to say a prayer to our Father in Heaven to keep those soldiers safe and to bring them all home before the next Christmas. One of my son’s friends will not be celebrating Christmas this year with his family or his infant son because he lost his life in Iraq, my prayer is that his son grows up and is told what a hero his daddy was and that he will never be forgotten.
The other thing that I would like to talk to you about is a young boy from the UK who’s name is James. James has leukemia but when you look at his pictures all you see is a huge bright smile even when he is at the hospital getting his chemotheropy. James has a very simple request for Christmas this year, and it isn’t for a new toy, or a puppy, or money, or even for a cure for his disease, his wish for Christmas is to have 100,000 friends on his friends list on MySpace. He has over 85,000 right now, which is good but Christmas is close and he has a way to go. This is a mini-goal for him as he really wants to have 1,000,000 friends. Which come to think of it with all the people who have a MySpace account world-wide, this isn’t very many. I am including a link directly to James’ page, please, if you have a MySpace account take a moment of your busy day to click a couple buttons and bring him 1 person closer to his goal. Who knows, YOU could be friend number 100,000. I can only imagine the sparkle and the celebration of glee that would take place in his home on Christmas morning if he wakes up, turns on his computer, loads in his MySpace and sees the number 100,000 friends on his list!
<a href=http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vY29sbGVjdC5teXNwYWNlLmNvbS9pbmRleC5jZm0/ZnVzZWFjdGlvbj1pbnZpdGUuYWRkZnJpZW5kX3ZlcmlmeSZmcmllbmRJRD0xMDA1NDE5NjkmTXlUb2tlbj02Mjk4MzY2ZC0xMTM1LTQwYmMtYWU0YS05N2YzN2U1ZjY3NTY= target=_blank><img src=http://a857.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/55/l_08866665749102c5c3c320595384d4b8.gif border=0 alt="please click here to add" title="please click here to add"></a>" </center></a><br>
May God richly bless you and yours this holiday season!
Until Next Week, Dear Ones, Love & Many Hugz! Leeza
Hello Sweet Readers! For my first article of the new year I have chosen a very hard subject to cover. Here in the United States we have so many organizations and magazines and television programs and even movies that are totally gay oriented and openly discuss the subject of gay life and the ups and downs of being gay. All of us know who Matthew Shepherd was and about The Stonewall in NYC and the gay rights riots there. We have read or been told about a gay individual who has been beaten up or verbally assaulted because of their lifestyle and their choice of sexual partner. I will agree that gays and lesbians are treated badly but, if you have been assaulted in America you can go to the police and you will find help and support and the person will be prosecuted if they are caught. While researching this article, I came across a place where if you are found to be homosexual you could be executed. Iran.
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has some very outspoken and controversial beliefs on people’s rights, gays, and even the Holocaust. He claims that Iranian woman have "the highest levels of freedom", freedom of what? To breathe. They don’t have many other freedoms and are generally treated as possesions. When asked about the Holocaust he called it a myth and said that the Jews act like they are better than God and religion and that they made up the whole thing. He even said that they should move the whole nation of Isreal to somewhere in Europe, Canada, or the United States. When asked about gays in Iran he replied, ""We don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. We don't have this phenomenon; I don't know who's told you we have it." Truth is…they are there, just not openly. Anyone who thinks that gays don’t exist everywhere in the world must be living in a bubble somewhere and totally oblivious to all human nature. Gays have existed throughout time and will continue to exist until the end of time. How we choose to treat them is a different story.
In Iran you can be beaten, tortured, hanged or worse. You ask what can be worse than being hanged? Well, if you are found guilty under Sharia Law of the crime of lavat; defined basically as penetrative or non-penetrative sexual relations between two men, the punishment is lashes for the first three offenses and death for the fourth. A segment of Islamic punishment code is listed at this link: http://www.pglo.net/IRQO/English/islamicpunishment.htm
This whole article is the result of me finding a story about two young men, Tayab and Yazdan, who are awaiting execution for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of two young college students who’s gender is not specafied but the form of their execution is one that is reserved primarily for people who have been conviced of lavat. For any of you who feel that American laws are harsh and that some forms of punishment are inhumane and that conditions are bad in our prisons, how about in Iran. The punishment for these two young men is that they will be tied in a sack and thrown off a cliff into a ravine, if they survive, they will be hanged. Other punishments are just as severe and deplorable. If you are caught stealing for example, you will lose the four fingers of your right hand upon conviction of your first offense. A second offense carried the punishment of half of your left foot, the third time is life in prison and if you steal while in prison you are executed. Adultery is still punishable by stoning. I think we need to be very thankful for our laws and forms of punishment, I bet there are many Iranians who wish they could be punished under our laws instead.
The following clip is of a documentary made by CBC News about the gay world in Iran. It follows a young man named Mani Zaniar who was the leader of an organization in Iran called PGLO (Persian Gay & Lesbian Organization). He takes the reporter into a coffee house where gays and lesbians meet each other and to a park where they hang out. He also introduces you to a young gay man who became a prostitute and how he was treated by the police when he reported being gang raped. You will also meet a young transsexual who tells about being told by her parents to just sit in her room until she dies. The video is 22 minutes long but well worth watching, very eye opening. http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/03/030407_1.html
Until Next Week, Dear Ones, Love & Many Hugs! Leeza
Hello Sweet Readers! This week my article is short because I only have a few comments and then I’ll let the video speak for itself. It is never right to kill anyone just to kill them, there is self defense but that is totally different than killing someone just for the fun of it. It is never right to kill someone because of their religion or their race or even their sex or sexuality. All over the world people are being tortured and abused and killed for being a certain way, just because some factions of the poplulation are afraid of them and that fear turns to hate. It is alright to hate something that someone does or a belief they stand for but it is never alright to take their life for that belief. I was given the link to this video by a good friend and was unable to watch it the first time all the way through without tears and part way through it the second time I had to just turn it off and couldn’t finish because it delt with the murder of a 3 year old child because his father thought he acted gay. Some people in this world are just plain SICK! Murdering a defenseless child is above evil, it is some level deeper than deplorable, below inhuman, no words can describe this horrible gut wrenching feeling I get when I hear of a child being abused or murdered. I delt for two years with the emotional trauma of an angel who had been told all his young life that he was such a bad boy that God had decided to punish him by giving him AIDS. Who had been kicked and beaten and made to perform sexual acts on his own brother by this same father, who thank God is in prison for child abuse but not before he scared both his sons for the remainder of their lives. This little angel was Mikey. But I am getting off the subject here, I’m sorry, it’s one of those days for me. I would love to hear your feedback on this video. I dare any of you to watch it and still have dry eyes at the end, I don’t think even the toughest of you can manage that feat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw9zJq0QGl0
Until Next Week, Dear Ones, Love & Hugz! Leeza
(walks in and sets down a soap box and stands on top of it)
Hello Sweet Readers! This week I am going to be letting fly with some things that have been bothering me for some time and I guess today is as good a day as any to get them off my chest so to speak. (ok guys you can stop looking at my boobs now!)
I have been going into the gay.com chat rooms for about 2 years now and over that time I have witnessed many things that bother me and have encountered some extremely rude and nasty people as well as some who are real gems and I love to death. Those of you who have made my visits a pleasure and who treat me with respect are very dear to my heart and these words are not meant for you.
I began coming in the chatroom and met some people who I began to think of as friends. I felt comfortable talking to them and even met a few. I was invited to spend the night at some of their homes if I needed a place to sleep because I was too tired to drive home. A couple times I did that, my mistake. On one occasion I was sitting at home and my phone rang and it was someone wanting me to go with a group of people up to a bar with them. I informed them that I didn’t have any money and couldn’t go. Several calls later, 7 to be precise, I finally agreed to go along after being told "it’s ok, we got you covered we just want you to come with us, you’ll have fun". Mistake #2. I went and yes I had a good time. A few days later a friend of mine sent me a copy of the conversation going on in the chat room as it was going on where this person who had been so insistant on me going, was in the room telling everyone that I was a user and that I insisted on going along and expected them to pay for everything including my drinks and didn’t even offer to help pay for gas or parking. After that conversation took place in the room I would go in and I felt a coldness toward me. Then one day I was in the room and a person that I had actually met and considered a friend and who had been one to offer me a place to stay if need be at any time, informed me that I did not belong there since after all it was a gay MEN’s chat room. After that day I did not return to that particular chat room. I now chat in the southern wv room and have made many good and dear friends whom I love and some of whom I can’t wait to see again or meet for the first time in March.
Next, there have been times in the room when I have seen a picture that someone has on their profile of them in their underwear or showing their bare chest and stomach or even all of themselves nude. Sometime during the conversation in the room someone will make a comment about that picture and say how hot the person looks or how big they are or something to that effect. I have then seen the person who has the picture turn around and go off on the room stating that they are more than just a body or a c*ck (edited for explicit content by author), that they have a brain and thoughts. Them my question immediately is: If you are wanting people to think of you as a person and someone with a brain and independent thoughts, why is the picture you put on your profile not of just your face or of you with clothes on? You are wanting to attract the attention by putting the sexy picture of yourself on your profile so don’t yell at us when we notice and make a comment.
And then there are the people who come in the rooms and sit there reading profiles and looking at the pictures on them and want to make rude or nasty comments about the way someone looks or their body build or their age. They want to make fun of and belittle everyone who is not sexy or young or one of the beautiful people. Meanwhile, they themselves don’t have a picture of them on their profile so that everyone can see what they look like. You have no right to make fun of someone else’s looks or age or even size and even less of a right to say anything if you don’t have a picture of yourself for the people you chose to hate on to see who is doing the hating. Is there something wrong with the way you look? Come on, be a man and let us see what you look like or are you just a lonely, sad person who hides behind the anonymity of your computer letting evil hateful words fly knowing that nobody knows who you are or what you look like so you don’t need to fear retaliation.
Lastly, at least for today this is the last rant I have but I’m not promising that in the future if something is bothering me that you won’t get another colomn with me on my soap box. I have been in the room when someone comes in and either has written on their bio line that they are only in there for chat and only chat with people who are hott or sexy or under 30 years old. OR, they make the announcement in the room this same thing. If someone sends them a private message or begins chatting to them in the room and they are not fitting this criteria they are rudely informed that they will not be talked to because of their inadequacy. This only makes me wonder, if you are only in a room to chat and are not looking for a hook up, what difference does it make what the person looks like or how old they are. If you are not looking for some type of physical relationship whether a one time thing or a LTR, why are you limiting your choices? And the big question is….some day when you yourself are no longer one of the beautiful people or heaven forbid you pass the age of 30, are you not going to talk to yourself? How will you feel then?
(gets down off the soap box and puts it away)
Until Next Week, Dear Ones, Love & Hugz! Leeza
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