Shreveport, Louisiana 2009 Gathering

Shreveport, Louisiana 2009 Gathering

Monroe 2003 Gathering

Monroe 2003 Gathering

Mapp and Lucia links as well as Rye links

Mapp and Lucia links as well as Rye links

E.F. Benson Links

A Little Taste of Martin Wixted

A Little Taste of Martin Wixted

Me standing by boat on the Sea Of Naples

Simple Pleasures

Simple Pleasures I woke up at 7:30 AM this morning and the first thing I saw was the light coming in my miniblinds this morning and instead of cursing the fact that the sun came up so early and woke me up, I thanked my God because I was able to see the sun and also the mess I had allowed my mind to become. It is too easy to think negatively in our lives. Today, I decided to think of the Blessings I have in my five senses. I awoke and saw the light coming in through my miniblinds. I wondered. How many people awake to darkness. I immediately thought of my friend Javy. He has woken up every morning to darkness. He was not born blind but became blind as when he was a premmie. I think that is the term they use for premature babies. He was put into an incubator and there was too much oxygen put in with him that did damage to his undeveloped eyes. He has never woken to the wonder of sunlight, never known the meaning of a sunrise service. I thanked my God for my sight and went on to think of how Blessed I was.The second thing to hit me this morning was that I could hear the not too distant train about three blocks away rumbling along the tracks and the blasting the horn. I thought to myself, how blessed I was to be able to hear. I again wondered how many people everyday wake up to Silence. I have met people in my journey of life that use sign language to speak and to hear. They have to rely upon flashing lights on their computers to warn them instead of that beep I hear from mine when I make an error typing or put in the wrong command. I think to myself how blessed I am because I can hear. Well, after those two revelations, I was well on my way to finding the blessings of my other three senses. I threw up my window near my computer and instantly the scent of Honeysuckle came wafting into my room. Yet another of the blessings I have taken for granted too much lately. I could smell. I thought to myself how blessed I was because I had escaped from the inner city where smog and pollution had dimmed my sense of smell. Not to mention the traffic and the not so sweet smell of carbon monoxide of the truck directly ahead of me. As I began this message of Simple Pleasures, I realized that I could feel the keys to which my hands were typing. How often we take that sense for granted. How many people suffer from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and have lost that sense? We, who are still able to touch and feel, can take the hand of a loved one and press it against our skin and feel the warmth and the love that is behind that hand. Again, I am overwhelmed by the blessing that is mine. Lastly, the fifth sense. The sense of taste. This is another sense that gets dulled by living in the city with all the pollution. Our sense of taste gets really knocked out of whack. Not to mention, this is the sense we too often take for granted. We can taste food. Not that we do because too often, we are driven in our lives to just inhale our food and gulp down our drinks. We don't taste the fine mixtures of seasonings that we use. It is no wonder that so many people suffer from eating disorders. We do not take the time to properly eat our food. We get too rushed by the passing of time and the time constraints we put on ourselves. Again, I am struck by the many blessings that are mine. Now, take a minute. Even if you do not have all these senses or some of them are still there and have just been taken for granted. Reflect on what you do have instead of what you don't have and be thankful for the Simple Pleasures of life. This is not a chain letter. This is something that I took time to write myself. If you are touched by it, please by all means, use it and pass it on. If, on the other hand, you dislike chain letters and would just rather keep this to yourself, that is just as fine. I do hope, in either case, it might help in thinking from another perspective.Yours always,Robert

Me playing around with the Imperial Guard near the Colosseum. I think that is Brutus with the sword in my side.

Me In the Grand Theatre in Pompeii in April 2005 

Me In Front Of Amphitheatre in Pompeii 

Me in Rome with the Tiber River in the background

Time Alone With God

Time alone with God can bring you happiness. Time alone with God can teach you kindness. Like so, time alone with God, can make your burdens lighter. And, time alone with God can make your day brighter.
Time alone with God will help you want to care. Time alone with God will help you want to share. Time alone with God will help you want to love. Time alone with God will bring you closer to him that is above.
Time alone with God can make a sad day bright. Time alone with God can show a perfect insight. Time alone with God can clear a boggled mind. Time alone with God can show us where we are blind.
Time alone with God can show us all our talents. Time alone with God can put us back on balance. While time alone with God can show us were we are wrong, Time alone with God can give our lives a song.
Time alone with God gives joy to our very souls. Time alone with God can set our lives own goals. Time alone with God can set our hearts so straight. And time alone with God can never be too late.
Robert A. Ross

The Coming Of Spring

"The Coming of Spring




As the sun begins to shine again,
The wintery glum begins to end.
All brightness comes through and through
As the sky surely turns from gray to blue.
The sun throws out its radiant glow,
As the crisp Spring winds begin to blow.
Gone is the Winter and gone is its cold.
For the warmth of Spring, we are surely sold.
We take in the crisp air, that was hidden by the clouds.
The beginning of Spring knows not its legal bounds.
Some springs come early and come come late.
But early came the Spring of ninety-eight.
The heavens opened up with the coming of Spring.
Let us hear, this year, the winds to sing.
The freshness of Spring does come again.
And may peace on Earth, have a chance to begin.
As sure as the grass turns from brown to green.
May our lives, in short, to us be seen.
Surely as the Spring does come and the Winter does go.
So shall the peace in our hearts begin to grow.


Robert A. Ross "

Creation And Lover

Creation and Lover



Winds blow over the clear crystal waters.
As the waters live, so live I.
My mind flows faster than the waters ever could.
Thinking, reasoning, what this all could mean.

As the sun reflects the dew covered grasses,
So does my face reflect, the turmoil in my soul.
I am envious of the time we had together
As the ground is envious of the moisture she had lost.

Quiet moments
Lost in my thoughts.
As the quietness
Is lost in its own.
My love for you grows deeper
As the love of the creator for his creation.
However, you mean more to me
than the creation means to the creator.

For you are you
And I am I,
But together we are one.





Robert Ross

Starving For Love

Blogger: Dashboard
Starving For Love



My soul cries out
For someone to love!
Someone with whom
I can share, my lifelong dreams.

Someone, who will be, my everything.
My being cries out
For having someone love me.
Someone who will
Hold me close
And tell me, I am their everything.

Years have passed,
And the one I thought
Would be this someone,
I now…have lost.

Now I exist
As the days go on.
My soul is still crying
For someone to love.
My being still cries out
For someone to show love to me
And someone,
To tell me that….I am special.

Why, Oh God
Is it so hard for people
To share love with me?

Is it because I do not deserve the love
Of anyone,
Or,
That I would not be able to handle,
The love of anyone?

Why, Oh God, will you not send
Someone to love me?
I would treat the person
As royalty in my midst.
I would cherish every moment
We would share together.
I would love them like
No one has ever done before
I would give them myself, if
You would give them me.

So, please Lord!
Send someone to be
My life, my joy, my all.



Robert A. Ross

I Dared

I Dared





I dared to dream a dream
to let my soul soar on high
above the evergreen
into the bright clear sky

I dared to love a soul
weakened by life's long fight
to care for one man's soul
To do that which seemed right.

I dared to give my all
to the one I love the most.
I dared to make that call,
for him, I dared to boast.

I dared to live a life.
A life noone thought I could.
I dared to give my life
to everything, I thought I should.

I dared to love My God
in the way that I thought best.
To live and love for God,
That my soul should find rest.

I dared to have a dare
as strong as I could have.
I dared so that I could share,
All that my life, I have.


Robert Ross

Hate Crimes against Homosexuals and"Gay Panic" can not coexist

If this country is truly going to classify killing Gay/Lesbian people just because they are gay/lesbians and placing them under Hate Crime Legislature, they first must wipe out the "Gay Panic" defense used by so many defendants that are arrested for the murder of a Gay/Lesbian person. These two ideas simply can not coexist.

In the murder of Rowland Hardwick, of Georgia, his attacker stabbed him 40 times. His defense team tried and successfully told the jury that Rowland had a knife and was threatening to rape their client, James Lee Shaw. They were at a restaurant. Mr. Shaw did not have any defensive marks that showed he had a struggle with Mr. Hardwick. He simply killed him unmercifully for possibly making a pass.

The defense went on to further say that their client had been molested by men several times in his youth and he had a "Flashback". Yeah, right!!!!!!!

The only way to protect gays and lesbians under a Hate Crime Legislature is to do away with the "Gay Panic" defense.