personal reflection

Chris Knight's avatar

Okay so truth be told, I lied about the free toy.  Maybe I was driven to madness by the bowl of Lucky Charms that I am currently enjoying.  Along with the orange juice and banana, everything that a growing boy… errrr, grown man(??) needs.  Anyhoo…

I am very grateful and honored that American Thinker, a commentary site that I have long admired and respected, has published the third article that I have written and submitted for their consideration.  “The Inthinkables” (I looked for that word on Google and couldn’t find it already, honest) is about how too much of our society has yielded over its capacity for rational and critical thought and in its place has chosen an almost visceral and hair-trigger instinct toward reacting on the basis of “feelings” unfounded in logic and knowledge.

In short: too many aren’t using the minds they were born with.  The ...

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“Frankenstein’s Body Politic” is about something I’ve been pondering for some time: that the two major parties have each in their own way been self-destructing these past few years. Except in contrast to my prognostication four years ago, the Republicans have avoided that fate (for now), while the Democratic Party is coming apart in drastic fashion.

An excerpt from the article:

Strangely, the bicentennial of the novel Frankenstein is witnessing a practical demonstration of Shelley’s tale of promethean horror. A mishmash assemblage, long on borrowed time, is ripping itself to shreds at the seams. We will never know what agonies might have erupted from the throat of Frankenstein’s creation as it struggled to rise. But of the vaster Democratic Party and its fellow travelers in media and entertainment, the death throes prevail across our screens. Those silicon bindings may not be enough to contain the rising lust for wrath.

I ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I am not a wise person.

There are many who possess far greater wisdom than I can ever contain in the few cubic inches of mind absent depression or mania.  And those who admit to knowing me will testify, Dear Reader: I have shared many matters I wrestle with on Facebook, hoping that among beloved friends some can lend a measure of that wisdom.
At first, that’s where this was meant to be: posted on Facebook.  But maybe this time I should cast a wider net.  Perhaps some of you who read this blog can provide the answers I seek.
Here it is: Should I want to have children?  Why should I want to have children?
Do I have the right to bring a child into this world?

It is no secret that for the vast majority of my life I have wanted to be a father.  To be entrusted

...
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“Are you going to delete the embarrassing stuff from your blog?”

It wasn’t the first time that’s been asked and it won’t be the last.  This time it came from a longtime friend.  And the context was clear: would I remove any of the less impressive material from this site? Meaning the content that would potentially reflect harshly upon me, might humiliate me.  Perhaps even cost me a professional opportunity or a relationship or a position of leadership.

So… would I do that?

Absolutely not.

I think in the fourteen years since The Knight Shift began, I’ve deleted only five posts from it.  And those were made in haste, in “moments of madness” if you will.  And for the most part they were more about others than they were about myself.

Fourteen years.  Much happens to a person in that period of time.  And if it doesn’t, that person is ...

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This is the season for graduations. For some it has already happened and for a few it’s still in the next week or so. And I know that countless commencement speeches have been given already and better minds than mine have had reams of wisdom to impart. Even so…

Earlier this month someone who has become a very special person in my life graduated from college. Someone who God blessed with an abundance of intellect, talent, and beauty. She is graced with more faith than most, including I. And her parents and family and friends are very proud of her. For the first time in my life I sent a graduation card and, ummmm… guess I didn’t know what quite WHAT to say! But I gave it a try.
Maybe these words will be of some use to others who are also walking up to get their diplomas. So
...
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“Sir please return to your room.  PLEASE sir it’s dangerous!”  A fleck of dark red was on her cheek and plainly she was anguishing to clean off her face, take a shower and likely dispatch her uniform to the incinerator.  Red smears also on front desk.  A crimson palm print, vigorously violent and vaguely human, on one of the support columns.  Not far away on the floor: shards of broken glass.  Some stained red like those among the ancient windows of Notre-Dame and other holy places I had seen in Europe long ago.

But it didn’t register that it was blood… lots and lots of blood… until I was heading back up to the fourth floor.  Three hours later, as a commercial hazmat crew was finishing with cleaning and decontaminating the lobby, the desk clerk phoned up the “all clear” signal.  Once again the elevator doors opened onto the ...

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So this is not only the first video blog post I’ve made in… well a VERY long time.  It’s also the absolutely FIRST blog post that I’ve made about now-President Donald Trump ever!


To be fair though, it’s not about Trump himself.  It’s about what I’ve seen waaaaay too much of in the way of hatred toward the guy.  It’s not warranted and it’s not worth it.  Anyhoo, roll the clip!

...

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A thought:
Earth is the only world out of countless trillions spread across the universe that holds the perfect conditions for life, because the universe needed to be seen and recognized and appreciated.  The universe requires life to justify its existence and give it meaning.  Even if that life is constrained to one small speck of dust in the limitless cosmos.
Had there been no life whatsoever anywhere with consciousness and sentience to acknowledge and accept and observe the universe, would the universe exist at all?
Either the universe alone created life on Earth for its own sake, or something higher than the universe itself created life on Earth with conscious intent.  Which followed to its logical conclusion means that the universe as an entire reality is created with conscious intent.
Merely something that’s been on my mind the past week or so…
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Perhaps if Ambrose Bierce were still with us (and who knows, we don’t know what became of him since he disappeared somewhere in Mexico during its revolution) he might have made the following addition to his famous work The Devil’s Dictionary:

COMMUNISM, n.
A simple idea, that with innocent charm and seductive promise makes monsters of men.

“It just hasn’t been attempted correctly!”  How many times are we going to hear that one?  Looking around the past few days at the celebrations of the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, my head cannot but shake in disbelief.  That even today, there are many who will scream that communism will not only work but be a raging success… if the right people could be in charge of it.  And of course they will claim that they are the very “right people” who should be at the controls and trusted to ...

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I debated whether to make this post.  No wait, scratch that: I debated whether to make any post ever again on this blog.

In the midst of the madness, a lot of thoughts raced through my mind.  One of them was to give up this blog.  Wondering what was the point of it.  Wondering what was the point of anything.  So faced with the stark meaninglessness of life in this pale shell.  All was vanity, with no redeeming grace.

It’s actually been worse than that, these past two weeks.

A lot of things have happened: issues which warrant action that I am unable to take.  Crushed hopes (on more than one front).  Frustrations.

I don’t care to relate on these pages the full scope of what these have meant to me.  Maybe God will yet show me that He is listening to me.  That is all that I have ...

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