Never underestimate…

the power of a woman…

                                   or a Mom!                                  The best surprise of all!

For God hath not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind. – 2 Timothy 1:7  

Three Book Reviews

I’ve been very busy reading books this past year and it has been a true blessing through all the troubles and trials- both here and abroad. My restless memory recalls no single other full calendar of inordinate chaos like 2023! Reading made me feel satisfied to keep my peace at home. In addition, all the violence and destruction has betrayed  a sign of the times. So getting deep in study of my Bible- along with everything else I read- kept my compass focused and steady. (Reflective activity has always been helpful for me to re-strengthen and stay strong.)

Three books stand out among the rest- all produced by basketball pros- which really made me ponder the way this world treats its people in all aspects of life. These books were real page turners, each for very different reasons.

I read LeBron first as it had just been published. Then, months later, I picked up Carmelo Anthony’s “Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised” which was published back in 2021. Most recently I finished “Love & Justice” written by Maya (Moore) and Jonathan Irons. The latter has left a very deep impression on me with its triumph over evil and corruption in our judicial system and also the redemptive power on every page even over the most extraordinary circumstances. In addition, the outcome of their collective struggle has restored my faith like no other book has- except for the Bible- and helped me put every one of the above-mentioned chronicles into proper perspective.

All were written with professional help and guidance- Le Bron’s entirely by a pro-writer- but Love & Justice stood alone because it was co-written by Maya and Jonathan, by turns. Two people separated for years by prison bars but somehow becoming one voice through love alone and eventually brought together by God alone! It’s a miraculous collaboration.

Le Bron’s story is inspirational for people who are reassured by talent and affluence. His beginnings were as humble as Maya Moore’s and Carmelo’s and all but Carmelo were born to a single parent- their Moms. (Carmelo’s father did not help raise him because he died young.) However, Le Bron was eventually raised in a sports-oriented family and each measure of success propelled him all the way to the top of his game-literally. By the time he entered into NBA arenas he had hand-selected a prodigious team of supporters who were also loyal friends who became employees. They have helped keep him at the top clear up to the present day. If you are a fan of Le Bron this book will not disappoint you.

Carmelo voiced the fact that he became fast friends with Le Bron at the U.S.A. Basketball Men’s Youth Development Festival while they were still collegiate prodigies. Both shot 66% from the field and during this festival Le Bron won the gold while Melo took home a silver medal. Being roommates, they hit it off from that time and even though both revered their respective mothers, their surrounding experiences and outcomes, through the years, have been vastly different on a personal level rather than the professional.

I found Melo’s story much more poignant in loss and heartache and he never once compared his life with Le Bron’s but that would’ve hardly been necessary. He was thirty-seven when he wrote his book with the help of a professional writer by the name of D. Watkins. Melo is now retired from the NBA and his book focuses on his early life and before his career with the Nuggets.

While he was touting up successes to become a 10-time NBA All-Star, winning Olympic gold medals and reaching the statistics in becoming among the top-scorers in the NBA during his career, he lost friends and relatives to the streets of NYC and Baltimore and his family scattered. By the time you’re at the conclusion of his book you realize that it’s a miracle he survived his early environment and even he looks back incredulously and writes, “I’m a Black kid from the bottom.” “I had to fight through some of the roughest housing projects in America. How did I, a kid who’d had so many hopes, dreams and expectations beat out of him make it at all?”

His relatively long and successful run with the Nuggets from 2003 to 2011 showed me and the rest of the country, that he more than made it and his most productive seasons started right here in Denver twenty years ago. He made Denver proud of the Nuggets and that says a lot. Even though he never formed a posse around himself both he and Le Bron were first round draft picks and both faced down the same opposition in the Eastern European games. Interestingly, one N.Y. Knicks player, Stephon Marbury, was a rival to both. In addition, they played concurrently in 2008 on Team U.S.A. and remain friends to this day as a result of the association.

Although Maya Moore is every bit as accomplished in her pro basketball career in the WNBA, her humble beginnings (along with her mother) are a testament to her prodigious personal credit. Her early focus on God is self-evident in her narrative throughout the book Love & Justice alongside and concurrently with Jonathan Irons. I felt a personal connection to her immediately early in the book (p. 24) when she wrote about the “deep, deep bond between” her mother and herself.

Love & Justice presents both authors stories by turns throughout the book instead of one writer presenting their stories, standing outside of it. In this case, it’s highly effective because it marks the chasm separating their lives with imperative contrast, until they finally connect to secure Jonathan’s release from a wrongfully prosecuted prison sentence.

While Maya was building a flourishing career in basketball- a span of nine years with the NCAA, MVP All-Star awards and championship titles to her credit, Jonathan was struggling to overturn a 65-year prison sentence of wrongful conviction handed down to him at the age of sixteen. He was tried as an adult under regulations passed in the late 1990s, which drastically lowered the minimum age for prosecuting children as adults. The excessively long prison sentence, alone, was abominable but the facts of his case were ignored in 1997 and he was charged and convicted of first-degree assault, armed criminal action and first degree burglary on the basis of what was later revealed to be fraudulently altered documents when his conviction was finally overturned in March of 2020.

This book shows how determination to commit to justice and caring enough to make a stand for it can change lives if we return to a higher purpose, a higher standard of character and acknowledge a Most High God. I highly recommend Love & Justice for the sake of its purpose. We should care how people are treated in every walk of life- no matter where it may be. I stand back and observe ultimate messages sent from the pages of these three books and can see a marked difference in how Maya and Jonathan’s story changed both of their lives forever because love makes that kind of difference. When I closed the book my first thought was, “Look what God can put together for good to those who love Him!”

But wait- there’s more! Don’t skip the photographs at the end of the book. This also turned out to be a true love story of the romance kind! In this one God’s woman gallantly put aside one conquest and used that courage to support and rescue her hero. Additionally and best of all, the book is an indictment about our judicial system. Billions of taxpayer dollars go to the funding of building more prisons, more unschooled policing and unchecked prosecutors. That money would be better spent in our public educational system. Currently, we’re in danger of losing our greatest resource of advancement to society, in general, if we don’t divert those funds where we need them most. Our greatest resource, the children of the current day, need those resources at school, at the dinner table and public libraries.

Best of all, Love & Justice holds God up as the victor of its prodigious narrative showing us  that we have more than hope. For those who will take up the banner, it shows that God will win and we only need to stand with Him!

The Castle Lady, 2024

 

Relevant quotes for 2023

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.

-C.S. Lewis

Dwell on the beauty of life.

Watch the stars and see yourself running with them.

-Marcus Aurelius

How Many Hits Did You Say?

Getting lots of hits have become like making baskets for me. I never know how few or how many I might ‘bag’ as I go along but when I found my audience- so to speak- counting them became quite easy with time and patience. Alex here would agree with me and then probably make a poem out of it. I once did so myself. You can read it here https://thecastlelady.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/to-the-basketball-god  and then check out all my blog entries on basketball.

I’ve been playing baskets most of my life beginning as a young child. My all-star athlete brother, Tim, taught me how to make a basket. The teen years and adulthood made me believe that it was all over for me until 2006 when a social media friend convinced me I should start up again.

I took him up on it and incorporated it into my daily exercise routine and I haven’t looked back. It only adds about 10 minutes more to my rounds and has added an energy I didn’t think was possible.

About a month ago I sprained an ankle and couldn’t get to anything so, to say the least, it could’ve really derailed my summer. In truth, it hasn’t hardly put a dent. Today I put in a full effort and made 23 out of 30 shots. Not my best, in which I made 29 of 30 shots on May 9th this year, but considering how bad the sprain was  when it happened on June 3rd I feel lucky to be back on my park’s court (for about a week now). I had a blast yesterday-on Sunday- doing set after set! I did seven excellent or better rounds and finally quit.

Now I’ve got to get back to the business-more often-of posting entries on castles, poems and songs. 2020 is a memory and life is still beautiful. As Lionel Ritchie would sing… “Play on, play on….play on.”

219,051 hits and growing as you are reading this…

 

The Ogre

Halloween is now rated as the most popular holiday in the world and not just in the U.S. We can thank merchandising for this and lots of ad promotion but that alone would not account for its popularity save for the fact that children are the most avid adherents. A certain mindset of adults- that part that never grows up quite- accounts for most of the activity which fuels this holiday. The following story by David Starr Jordan tends to put this holiday in a context for good in examining how we treat those whom we believe to be evil. Comments are welcome and invited. Enjoy!  – The Castle Lady 

There once was a terrible giant ogre and he lived in a huge castle that was built right in the middle of a valley. All men had to pass by it when they came to the king’s palace high up on the rock summit at the head of the valley. They were all terribly afraid of the ogre and ran just as fast as they could when they went by and when they looked back, as they were running, they could see the ogre sitting on the wall of his castle. He scowled at them so fiercely that they ran as fast as ever they could. For the ogre had a head as large as a barrel and great black eyes sunk deep under long, bushy eyelashes. When he opened his mouth they saw that it was full of teeth and so they ran away faster than ever, without caring to see anything more.

The king wanted to get rid of the ogre and he sent his men to drive the ogre away and tear down his castle. When they would draw near the ogre would scowl at them so savagely that their teeth began to fall out and they all turned back and said they dare not fight such a horrid creature. Then Roger, the king’s son, rode his black horse Hurricane up against the door of the ogre’s castle and struck hard against the door with his iron glove. Then the door opened and the ogre came out and seized Roger in one hand and the great black horse in the other and rubbed their heads together and while he did this he made them very small. Then he tumbled them over the wall and into the ogre’s garden. They crawled through a hole in the garden fence and both ran home, Roger one way and Hurricane the other. Neither dared tell the king nor anyone else where he had been, nor what the ogre had done to him. It was two or three days before they became large again.

Then the king sent out some men with a cannon to batter down the walls of the ogre’s castle. The ogre sat on the wall and caught the cannon balls in his hand and tossed them back at the cannon, so that they broke the wheels and scared away all the men.
When the cannon sounded the ogre roared so loudly that all the windows in the king’s palace were broken and the queen and all the princesses went down into the cellar and hid among the sugar barrels and stuffed cotton in their ears till the noise should stop. Whatever the king’s men tried to do the ogre made it worse and worse. Finally, no one dared go out into the valley beside the ogre’s castle and no one dared look at it from anywhere because when the ogre scowled, all who saw him dropped to the ground with fear and their teeth began to fall out. When the ogre roared there was no one who could bear to hear it.

So the king and all his men hid in the cellar of the castle with the queen and the princesses and they stuffed their ears full of cotton and the ogre scowled and roared and had his own way.

There was one little boy named Pennyroyal who tended the black horse, Hurricane, who was not afraid of anything because he was a little boy. Pennyroyal said he would go out and see the ogre and tell him to go away. They were all so scared that they could not ask him not to go. So  the lad put on his hat, filled his pockets with marble and took his kite under his arm and went down to the valley to visit the castle of the ogre. Of course, the ogre was sitting on the wall and looked at him but the little boy was not afraid and so it did the ogre no good to scowl. Then, this bold boy knocked on the ogre’s door and the ogre opened it and looked at Pennyroyal.

“Please, Mr. Ogre, may I come in?”, Pennyroyal asked and the ogre opened the door and the little boy began to walk around the castle looking at all the things. There was one room filled with bones but the ogre was ashamed of it and did not want to let the little boy see it. So when Pennyroyal was not looking the ogre just changed the room and made it small, so that instead of a room full of bones it became just a box of jackstraws. The big elephant he had there to play with he made into a lap-elephant and the little boy took it in his hand and stroked its tiny tusks and tied a knot in its trunk! Anything that could frighten the little boy the ogre made small and pretty, so that they had great times together.

By and by the ogre grew smaller and smaller and took off his ugly old face with the long teeth and busy eyebrows and dropped them on the floor and covered them with a wolf-skin. Then he sat down on the wolf-skin and the little boy sat down on the floor beside him and they began to play jackstraws with the box of jackstraws that had been a room full of bones. The ogre had never been a boy himself, so jackstraws was the only game he knew how to play. Then the elephant he had made small snuggled down between them on the floor. As they played together, the castle itself grew small and shrank away until there was just room enough for them and for their game.

Up in the palace, when the ogre stopped roaring, the king’s men looked out and saw that the ogre’s castle was gone. Then Roger, the king’s son, called for Pennyroyal. When he could not find the boy, he saddled up Hurricane and rode down the valley to where the ogre’s castle had been. When he came back he told the king that the ogre and his castle were gone. Where the castle stood there was nothing left but a board tent under the oak tree and in the tent there were just two little boys playing jackstraws and between them on the ground lay a candy elephant.

That was all. For the terrible ogre was one of that kind of ogres that will do to folks just what folks do to them. There isn’t any other kind of ogre.

        Is there?