New Book Coming Out This Summer
Over the past 14 years of writing, this theme has been with me and is threaded into the story fabric of each novel and non-fiction work I've been privileged to write. It isn't because I am someone special, but it is because I want to be; to my wife, friends, children, family members... May I share a condensed chapter?
Love is Life
“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses.” --Voltaire
How important is love? Its touch brings renewed hope to the disheartened, pleasure to the eye, a quickening to the soul; love sustains mankind. It leads to commitment, then marriage, on to families and as such creates the social bond we call community.
Love is the glue to every worldly society for it ultimately calls the mother and father home to nurture the rising generations; it beckons the brother, sister, friend to give, serve, lift and care for one another.
No other emotion so powerfully affects us day to day. Love feeds the starving, clothes the naked and cares for the poor, homeless, widowed and fatherless. Love, like fire, burns at different degrees in all of us. The most hardened criminal can be touched by it, given the right mix of passions and compassion.
“Love is divine fire, with a large F.” --Truman Madsen
Love… Soliloquies issuing from the mouths of the dying have summoned it. Defined in written and spoken words it has been reviled and reveled in as played out on screen and stage. Philosophers have written tomes to fill libraries on it. The religious have enjoined it to the grand purposes of the Gods. Nations have fought wars in the name of it and men have risked their lives to seek but a taste of its sweet and addicting flavor.
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” -- Plato
Love is a verb and a noun. To explore its dimensions in literature, song, dance, worship, art, and service is to touch the hand of the Divine Creator and partner with him in creating on earth a small space of heaven.
Love is food to the soul. It satiates spiritual thirst and puts a quicker beat into the heart, sending life-giving fluids bursting to every part of ones being. Love is from the fountain of the heart.
Indeed, we may say in truth, “Love is life.”
James Michael Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
LOST CAUSES & the Jimmy Stewart Solution
The 1 Rule Solution to Every Day Crisis
The shortest column I have ever written is accompanied by this YOU TUBE from the classic 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A newcomer, he takes up a lonely battle against the entrenched establishment in the US Senate.
We are faced with a "national crisis," and "international crisis" and for each one of us, at least one current "personal crisis." The national, international, and personal dilemmas have a solution. I think I'll let "Mr. Smith" share it.
What if we adopted Mr. Smith's solution? Just one rule...The Golden Rule?
James Pratt
jmpratt.com
www.powerthink.com
www.usconstitutioncoach.com
The shortest column I have ever written is accompanied by this YOU TUBE from the classic 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A newcomer, he takes up a lonely battle against the entrenched establishment in the US Senate.
We are faced with a "national crisis," and "international crisis" and for each one of us, at least one current "personal crisis." The national, international, and personal dilemmas have a solution. I think I'll let "Mr. Smith" share it.
What if we adopted Mr. Smith's solution? Just one rule...The Golden Rule?
James Pratt
jmpratt.com
www.powerthink.com
www.usconstitutioncoach.com
Friday, March 20, 2009
5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
An Elegant Thinker and Writer
Birth of a National Bestseller: I'm so proud to announce the birth of the 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION of W. Cleon Skousen's THE FIVE THOUSAND YEAR LEAP, commissioned by his sons and family to my small publishing company, American Documents, and distributed by PowerThink.
I met Dr. Skousen on several occasions, first in 1981 when this book was published and just before he passed away in 2006. I never met another man, outside of my own father, with a gentler and kinder spirit, and more firm conviction for God and country coupled with passion for truth, morality, ethics, law, and family.
It was the 1930's when law school student, and later FBI Agent W. Cleon Skousen, wondered why socialism was the college professor's choice in perspectives for successful governance. Working in the nation's capitol, he was further stunned by the average Congressman's lack of understanding of the US Constitution. He set out to remedy that in an age where an increasing number of college students and celebrities idolized men like Fascist Mussolini, and communists Lenin, and Stalin. Soon to arise on the international scene would be Hitler of Germany and Mao of China. No matter that 10's of millions had died and more than 100 million would yet die under their philosophies and regimes, those Marxist and socialist inspired ideologies were not about individuals, but the undoing of capitalism and the perceived ruling classes.
A populism driven by steel resulted; guns, bullets, bombs, and mayhem, the "people's revolutions" these despots preached was nothing more than "tyrants rule." Individuals were seen as expendable and no more valuable than grass to be trampled, cut down, or left to burn in the path of revolutionary fires.
I first studied Skousen's national bestseller, THE 5000 YEAR LEAP in 1981. It explores 28 principles the Founding Fathers used to create the 222 year-old document guiding the American success story. I could never have imagined this day, when everything it warned against would become an item of daily news.
This 30 Year Anniversary edition with Foreword by Glenn Beck (given by him to Skousen's sons and copyright holders for use in this edition) is now available at our website with other specials including our 7 day old CD ROM study tool, the US CONSTITUTION COACH KIT... a product I believe will be the only tool you will ever need to gain a thorough understanding of our 222 year old history and its founding documents.
By the way, no one illuminates the news, makes its meaning more applicable to Dr. Skousen's work than the highly entertaining Glenn Beck. He is a true friend to Dr. Skousen who would have loved him like a son. I urge all readers of this and my other blogs and works to enjoy his daily insights.
We are so honored to be authorized by the Skousen family to bring you this amazing book and its story. Only at: www.usconstitutioncoach.com, www.5000yearleap.com, and www.5000yearleap.net.
James M. Pratt
Birth of a National Bestseller: I'm so proud to announce the birth of the 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION of W. Cleon Skousen's THE FIVE THOUSAND YEAR LEAP, commissioned by his sons and family to my small publishing company, American Documents, and distributed by PowerThink.
I met Dr. Skousen on several occasions, first in 1981 when this book was published and just before he passed away in 2006. I never met another man, outside of my own father, with a gentler and kinder spirit, and more firm conviction for God and country coupled with passion for truth, morality, ethics, law, and family.
It was the 1930's when law school student, and later FBI Agent W. Cleon Skousen, wondered why socialism was the college professor's choice in perspectives for successful governance. Working in the nation's capitol, he was further stunned by the average Congressman's lack of understanding of the US Constitution. He set out to remedy that in an age where an increasing number of college students and celebrities idolized men like Fascist Mussolini, and communists Lenin, and Stalin. Soon to arise on the international scene would be Hitler of Germany and Mao of China. No matter that 10's of millions had died and more than 100 million would yet die under their philosophies and regimes, those Marxist and socialist inspired ideologies were not about individuals, but the undoing of capitalism and the perceived ruling classes.
A populism driven by steel resulted; guns, bullets, bombs, and mayhem, the "people's revolutions" these despots preached was nothing more than "tyrants rule." Individuals were seen as expendable and no more valuable than grass to be trampled, cut down, or left to burn in the path of revolutionary fires.
I first studied Skousen's national bestseller, THE 5000 YEAR LEAP in 1981. It explores 28 principles the Founding Fathers used to create the 222 year-old document guiding the American success story. I could never have imagined this day, when everything it warned against would become an item of daily news.
This 30 Year Anniversary edition with Foreword by Glenn Beck (given by him to Skousen's sons and copyright holders for use in this edition) is now available at our website with other specials including our 7 day old CD ROM study tool, the US CONSTITUTION COACH KIT... a product I believe will be the only tool you will ever need to gain a thorough understanding of our 222 year old history and its founding documents.
By the way, no one illuminates the news, makes its meaning more applicable to Dr. Skousen's work than the highly entertaining Glenn Beck. He is a true friend to Dr. Skousen who would have loved him like a son. I urge all readers of this and my other blogs and works to enjoy his daily insights.
We are so honored to be authorized by the Skousen family to bring you this amazing book and its story. Only at: www.usconstitutioncoach.com, www.5000yearleap.com, and www.5000yearleap.net.
James M. Pratt
Sunday, March 8, 2009
PAUL HARVEY, TOUGH TIMES, and You!
When Times are Tough, Be a Creator…
This week I want to pay tribute to radio legend Paul Harvey… and lessons learned along the way about “creating.” Paul Harvey passed away this week at the age of 90. I cannot recall a time when I did not know the voice of Paul Harvey. See, that’s because I’m a “youngster;" a mere 55 years old. He was already broadcasting in an unploughed commercial radio medium for years before the doctor spanked me and told my Mom, “You have a son.”
His 10 plus minutes of news, humor, and inspirational American vignettes were carried daily by over 1000 radio stations for nearly six decades. It would be a really rare American who had never heard his soothing, sometimes folksy, but entirely self-trained and “All American” baritone monologue delivery of the “News with Paul Harvey” and “The Rest of the Story.”
What I find compelling is Paul Harvey had an "idea" and did not wait to be “found” or until conditions in the market place were “ideal.” He did not go to school and present credentials to interviewing employers; nor did he look for “approval” of others. He found a way to “create” what his mind envisioned and a service he could give. This is probably the best tribute I can make to a man I did not personally know, and one I am happy to offer:
He inspired me, because Paul Harvey was a CREATOR.
I am a creative writer. I have been writing all my life it seems, first in private journals, and just random thoughts. My first novel was published after suffering a near death experience and in recovery. But of the 10 books published over 11 years, just five of those years have been real “paying” years. In other words, I have stuck to “creating” anyway, even though at times feeling a bit delusional and very strapped financially. Why?
Creating is a way "out" for tough times, and the only option for beginning life fresh everyday.
Over the past six years I haven’t had the luxury to “wait” until “things turned around.” I just had to believe if I just put forth the effort, and gave my best, that what has happened for so many others – people like Paul Harvey, and fellow creators – would also inevitably happen for me.
Searching YOU TUBE for a perfect video message to fit this theme I found an inspiring 2 minute message worth watching:
What I am trying to say is that though “times are tough,” and are not “ideal for a new beginning” or start, and though it is quite natural to feel fear and anxiety...
THERE IS A REMEDY: It is found in a uniquely human and universal gift available to everyone called, “CREATING.” See, not being “ready” or polished, or capable, or top of the class in your gift or talent is no excuse. You simply need to have an interest.
It can be in writing, music, or any of the arts. It can be inventing, making home-made products, business, working with the mind, the voice, or the hands. Age is not a requirement, but being “alive” is.
When you are down, everything is “up.” Why not be a CREATOR? What’s the worse that can happen? Creating soothes the spirit, calms the soul, and draws others to you. It opens doors you may have never seen coming, and ones which never could have opened for you until you “created.”
It comes down to “value.” I have not been working for money for many years. I have been working for value, and for something else; a dream to touch you and others unknown to me. Money will come again and that is because “CREATING” produces “value.”
Never underestimate the unique quality in you, nor the one of highest importance and immeasurable by any means but by God; for you are His child.
For more on the life of Paul Harvey visit www.paulharvey.com
"Good day!"
James Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
www.powerthink.com
This week I want to pay tribute to radio legend Paul Harvey… and lessons learned along the way about “creating.” Paul Harvey passed away this week at the age of 90. I cannot recall a time when I did not know the voice of Paul Harvey. See, that’s because I’m a “youngster;" a mere 55 years old. He was already broadcasting in an unploughed commercial radio medium for years before the doctor spanked me and told my Mom, “You have a son.”
His 10 plus minutes of news, humor, and inspirational American vignettes were carried daily by over 1000 radio stations for nearly six decades. It would be a really rare American who had never heard his soothing, sometimes folksy, but entirely self-trained and “All American” baritone monologue delivery of the “News with Paul Harvey” and “The Rest of the Story.”
What I find compelling is Paul Harvey had an "idea" and did not wait to be “found” or until conditions in the market place were “ideal.” He did not go to school and present credentials to interviewing employers; nor did he look for “approval” of others. He found a way to “create” what his mind envisioned and a service he could give. This is probably the best tribute I can make to a man I did not personally know, and one I am happy to offer:
He inspired me, because Paul Harvey was a CREATOR.
I am a creative writer. I have been writing all my life it seems, first in private journals, and just random thoughts. My first novel was published after suffering a near death experience and in recovery. But of the 10 books published over 11 years, just five of those years have been real “paying” years. In other words, I have stuck to “creating” anyway, even though at times feeling a bit delusional and very strapped financially. Why?
Creating is a way "out" for tough times, and the only option for beginning life fresh everyday.
Over the past six years I haven’t had the luxury to “wait” until “things turned around.” I just had to believe if I just put forth the effort, and gave my best, that what has happened for so many others – people like Paul Harvey, and fellow creators – would also inevitably happen for me.
Searching YOU TUBE for a perfect video message to fit this theme I found an inspiring 2 minute message worth watching:
What I am trying to say is that though “times are tough,” and are not “ideal for a new beginning” or start, and though it is quite natural to feel fear and anxiety...
THERE IS A REMEDY: It is found in a uniquely human and universal gift available to everyone called, “CREATING.” See, not being “ready” or polished, or capable, or top of the class in your gift or talent is no excuse. You simply need to have an interest.
It can be in writing, music, or any of the arts. It can be inventing, making home-made products, business, working with the mind, the voice, or the hands. Age is not a requirement, but being “alive” is.
When you are down, everything is “up.” Why not be a CREATOR? What’s the worse that can happen? Creating soothes the spirit, calms the soul, and draws others to you. It opens doors you may have never seen coming, and ones which never could have opened for you until you “created.”
It comes down to “value.” I have not been working for money for many years. I have been working for value, and for something else; a dream to touch you and others unknown to me. Money will come again and that is because “CREATING” produces “value.”
Never underestimate the unique quality in you, nor the one of highest importance and immeasurable by any means but by God; for you are His child.
For more on the life of Paul Harvey visit www.paulharvey.com
"Good day!"
James Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
www.powerthink.com
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