1) I have been a little harsh lately, especially to nemesis. Perhaps it's because he reminds me of myself when I first got here, chiming in on every other post, flitting around and sticking his two cents into everything, like a rock skipping over water. Sorry, nem.

2) When I have mentioned anything referring to famous spiritual people from the past, I have been met with scorn, ridicule and a general attitude of 'here he goes again'. I understand that it is not easy to talk about that sort of stuff even in person, and it's even harder online. I can understand that I get profiled as a religious nutbag for referring to that part of history so much. I do that because it was a big part of my search. I do not conduct myself as a religious nutbag, but you here reading don't know that. All you know about me is what I put here and then it goes through your filters and voila! This phenom has caused numerous scrapes with numerous people, the latest being Cynthia. So I will endeavor to express myself in other ways to get my points across. I do feel however that I and anyone else should be given a little lattitude to use whatever references necessary from our particular lives to express, whether it be religious, intellectual, philosophical, or whatever. Preaching is another story, which I agree has no place here. Just please don't assume that one is preaching just because one refers to a certain person or historical event. Preaching is more of an attitude than a subject matter, imho.

3) Chomping at the Bit...
I would like to be inspired or inspire others here to go beyond what has already been accomplished here and break new ground. I don't know what that looks like at this point, I just know that I have been away and come back here more than once and it feels like nothing has moved one way or the other, and the same worn subjects are being bandied about. In one way, this is necessary for F8 to have a semblance of constancy since there are always new people coming by. But that is what the Archives are for, aren't they?

I want to thank Susan, Hilltop, the Mods and others whose handles escape me at the moment, for helping me to keep it real.

Sanford