THE TWAIN

 Here’s a little bit of information…I find it necessary to repeat.

It was Rudyard Kipling who wrote East is East and West is west…

and never the twain shall meet.

And just in case you were wondering…Yes, I know there are a few

twain is an old-fashioned word not used much anymore….it’s the same as saying two.

What Mr. Kipling was saying…if I get the gist…

Is that sometimes there are too many differences between certain people…

for them ever to peacefully coexist.

Which makes me ask…

Are we, at this moment, living in a world that will never be complete…

with two sides so divide that never the twain shall meet?

There is so much anger in the air…so much animosity…so much bitterness…so much hate…it makes on wonder…in the end…what will be our fate.

As I sit on a deck overlooking the Mississippi…a river over 2000 miles long…

I’m wondering when it comes to this country…this world…when did it all go wrong?

I don’t have the answers…but this is Hannibal…which means a quick look on the shelf…and perhaps we can get some inspiration from Mr. Twain…himself.

He said anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it’s stored…than to anything or anybody onto which or whom it’s poured.

Okay these were not his exact words…as his words are widely known…

in order to make them rhyme…I’ve added a few words of my own.

But by taking all of Mark Twain’s words…with his boyhood home so near…

and adding a few of my own…his message is still clear.

If we are not careful and more thoughtful….in the things we do and say….

anger, hate and prejudice…will slowly eat us all away.

And it will never matter…who is wrong…or who is right…

If consumed by the acid of hate….there is no one left to fight.

So here’s a prayer from Hannibal, Missouri…

where Samuel Clemens once walked the street….

May we, in spite of all our differences,

find a way for our twains to meet.