… “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
2021 has again been a tumultuous year for most of us. As the eve winds down, we are given to considering everything that has taken place.
Perhaps we have new challenges, perhaps our center is askew, perhaps our faith holds a new perspective, or perhaps our exhaustion weighs heavy as we rush turning to the next chapter…. hoping, praying for a better tomorrow.
It is easy to lose our sense of optimism. Retaining a joyful perspective while everything around us seems mad isn’t easy. However, if you accept that you can create something just a little bit better by making a choice, then you have accomplished a great deal. Regardless of what tomorrow brings, we always have choices. A new year’s perspective:
I have long felt that life is like a series of links in a chain. You might be driving down the road and you hear a song on the radio, or see a picture, and you feel a memory….
Something triggers within you that reminds of a different time and place than where you are right now.
You reflect.
The memories you consider remind you of a totally different time in your life.
Perhaps you lived in a different place. Perhaps you were surrounded by different people. Perhaps a different job or completely different friends. You recognize those memories were constructed like frozen moments in time. They became individual links in the chain in your life.
We never actually realize, in the immediate moment, when one link closes and another link begins. But when we look back, we can clearly see distinct points where things changed, the link closed, and a new link began.
You see, the links are only visible in reflection.
As we reflect, we find parts of the chain in our life where each link closes and connects with the other. A beginning, and an end. At the point where the links are joined, we carry parts of the previous link forward to the next.
For many people those connections are bonded by family, or very strong lifelong relationships. Connections which continue beyond our geographic moments, jobs or temporary acquaintances.
But for everyone, the primary bonding agent brought forward from one link to the next is us, our center, our values and core principles. Our beliefs.
The strength of the steel which comprises the links of our life is forged in the fire of adversity, weakness, challenge, pain, loss, and painful growth. The steel is then cooled with the tears of triumph, hurdles overcome and resolve.
The forging makes the steel stronger and able to withstand the pressures that accompany the additional length. Slowly the chain becomes wiser as it lengthens. Able to reach further, form more significant benefits and become more useful.
Hope replaces fear. Love replaces loneliness. Success replaces adversity. These are successful links began and finished while contributing to the whole.
At times we may manipulate the links with avoidance. We hide from -or choose to avoid- an issue in our effort to begin a new link before the old one was naturally, and spiritually, prepared to be closed.
Eventually, as life continues and the chain lengthens, the weak link can fracture, and we are forced to revisit/repair what we originally chose to avoid.
You see, in life we cannot control the universal laws that guide us. So, if we manipulate circumstances to avoid confronting our own weakness, we cannot fully strengthen our life of links. Eventually, the weakness of our past will impact our future.
So, what principles do we carry from link to link? What core values and beliefs stay with us throughout the journey of our lives? The answers to these questions are what makes us human spiritual beings.
We possess freewill able to make choices about what we do, and how we define our individual humanity; but can we then define ’right’ and ‘wrong’ according to our individual principles? Or are there principles that exceed our influence and definition?
Are there natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, that cannot be subjected to the determination of man?
These are the bigger questions, perhaps the more important questions; and yet, perhaps the ones we reflect upon the least.
Consider the example of the ‘Law of the farm’ vs. the ‘Law of the School’. Natural principles vs. those made by man.
A student can skip class, take few notes, pay only half attention, then stay up all night cramming for a test and manage a decent grade. It depends on the student’s goal: grades or learning.
The student can choose to manipulate the education, by avoiding the learning and capturing the grade. This is possible in the ‘Law of the School’.
However, a farmer cannot take short cuts. A farmer cannot avoid tending to the soil, preparing the seed, fertilizing and nurturing the crop, and still gain the benefit of an abundant harvest.
The farmer must necessarily do all of the appropriate work in order to benefit from it. Such is the ‘Law of the Farm’, the natural law.
When one considers the weakness remaining within a poorly constructed and manipulated link, perhaps established by selfish choices and driven by avoidance and fear, one can be faithfully assured those who have dealt dishonestly with us will have to visit the issues of their association again.
Conversely, no amount of manipulation or avoidance on our own behalf is going to improve the frailty of any link without first resolving the lack of character which created the weakness.
So, we have choices in our lives. Decisions we each make regarding how we interact and participate in the lives and links of others, as well as how we choose to construct the links that comprise our own lives.
Do we base our sense of purpose around natural principles? Principles based on natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies. Do we forge strong links by following our heart, our values?
If we can interact with others absent of a prideful self-driven agenda, or manipulative intent, we can then apply such principles and strength to our endeavors.
If we protect the integrity of the soil upon which we build the foundation of our lives, we can live without regret.
If we fertilize and cherish our crop, and the crop of our neighbor, with honesty and sincere appreciation for the souls we meet along our chosen path, we will live a life of abundance.
If we tend carefully to the consideration of everyone, yet holding true to our values and principles, we can strengthen ourselves amid the face of adversity and disenchantment.
If we do not hide from, nor ignore our individual and collective faults, we can build the chain of our life with strength, humility, and purpose.
I wish for each of you a long chain of bold, strong, beautiful links, polished with the reflective brilliance of Love, and the very happiest of blessings for a brand-New Year.
Abiding love to all.
Steadfast,
~ Sundance
…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
God Bless you Sundance and thank you for providing a place of refuge for us.
you are a gift Sir.
Sundance gave us a bit of sanity in our insane world. Thank You and hopefully the coup will be defeated in 2022.
Fortunately, we will be doing much more than this!
Happy New Year Sundance ~ 🙂
Thank you for your thoughts and Robert Frost poem as well.
The Road Less Traveled ~ George Strait
Love the Robert Frost poem, the George Strait song, Sundance’s post, and of course the awesome landscape photography! Happy New Year and thanks for linking it all together, Stillwater. 🙂
Happy New Year to you to0 the phoenix ~ 🙂
Thank you StillWater a great song by George Strait, God Bless you Sir.
Blessings to you too LtoL ~ 🙂
This is funny: Don Surber: CDC says
Happy–You Know, the Thing!
Thanks for the laugh. Happy New Year! Don’t let the bastards get the best of you.
Thanks to you and the CTH Team for your laser focus on and persistence in bringing to light our core strengths and the very real threats to our republic. The Lord is our salvation, strength and protection and this is our Last Refuge!
Blessings and continued effectiveness in 2022!
Thank you. Happy New Year.
well said
Happy New Year Sundance
May your chain links be strong and shiny
As Spock says
Live Long and Prosper
from a very low branch
full of deep appreciation
As the return Vulcan greeting goes (translated into English aka the Federation Standard language), “Peace and long life” ms idaho … (and Happy New Year! Had to chime in as a fellow Star Trek fan …) 🙂
Seems like whenever I came to a fork in the road, I ALWAYS, automatically took the road less traveled,, and looking back, I’m the better for it,..
Happy New Year, Sundance!
Hard to believe its been 5 years, since I fell into the treehouse, WHAT a blessing its been!
Hanging out here, I have found my voice, and although some probably wish I would shut up, once found I will never lose it, again.
Thank you Sundance, Adrem and all, for all you do.
When you come to the Slauson cutoff, get out and caught off your Slauson – Johnny Carson
‘When you come to a fork in the road…take it.’
— Yogi Berra
I won’t be going to your nightclub on New Year’s Eve, Wordman.
Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
He was my ‘Word’ idol!
Happy New Year to Sundance, Ad rem, Menagerie, Stella, WeeWeed, all else who work behind the scenes to make this the wonderful place it is, and all Treepers!
Thank you for providing The Last Refuge!
God bless you!
God bless America!
May 2022 be a great year! 🙂
If it weren’t for them, we would not have this wonderful place, so yes and thank you, may the links remain strong…Soon I will be back up in my squirrel nest…but now am breathing as a freedom loving American. In a free state!
May all have a New Year full of peace, hope and love!
And may all our states be free! 🙂
I’m moving to a to free State in March of 2022 , Blessed be freedom, God bless you all for a Happy New Year to all.
Thanks Sundance and God Bless you and your family. Take Care.
I can’t decide if I’m serious minded and reflective or joyful, hopeful and optimistic. A little of both? Regardless, I’m grateful and content so I guess I’m living my best. Happy new year!
Cheers to you Sundance. God Bless all here at CTH. Happy New Year !
One year closer to the final day of reckoning. Every day before this arrives gives an opportunity to those who are not prepared to do so.
Several years ago, an elderly Christian man I knew and saw almost every weekend, said that whenever someone asked him “how ya doin'”, he’d say “One day closer!” Little did he know how close he was the afternoon he died instantly from falling off a shed – no one knows, but boy, he knew where he was headed!
Happy New Year, Treepers!
For 2022.
The Path I choose to travel is the Prosecution of Mark Warner and Others included Wolfe.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2020/02/16/doj-corruption-the-fork-in-the-road-few-noticed-what-bill-barr-needs-to-explain-to-everyone/ (READ THIS AGAIN!!) there is no other focal point
The Road more traveled will be this one for 2022. I have ZERO doubts that we will NOT take another provable steal.
the war will have no boundaries. it will be ideological, with you surrounded, depending on where you are, at any given time.
Good Luck
There is no going back. The build up to the midterms will be about helping people out of the pot, and ZERO about voting.
https://4thamendmentrestored.com/f/ideological-civil-war-not-geographical
There is no going back is correct. I just hope we can go forward from here. A little hard to look at since the U.S. appears to be split, but can’t we still dream? I hope so. I’m in my last years, never realized what I was put here for, but I can still dream….even if I never reach what I’m looking for, I keep looking. Happy New Year to all, and may all the dreams come true or at least close to it. from the
Old Lady
We are right, they are wrong.
They are wrong because their ideas have been tried many times and always fail. Case closed.
The American Revolution was the one great revolution in human history. Most revolutions since have been counter-revolutions.
Edmund Burke foresaw that the American Revolution would succeed, the French Revolution would fail. Leftism always fails.
Leftism is a regression. Leftists crave a return to a neo-feudalist world. A few rich ruling an ocean of peasants. If you want to explain/understand limousine liberals that is the reason. They foresee a world where a few rich and privileged people rule. The missing element is always why the poor should obey. And a police state is always the missing piece of the puzzle.
Crises like Co-vid therefore become crucial to them. An explicit police state would be, you know, Trump. But we have an excuse, we have Co-vid. Sweet!
That’s an amazing sunset/highway photo, Sundance. It reminds me of photos in the old Arizona Highways that came into our farm home in the 1950s.
We will keep standing in our place, as well as we can.
That word, STEADFAST, carries good freight– incoming, outgoing, and ongoing.
Happy New Year, Sundance and all
What a journey 2021 has been!
Wishing peace, health and prosperity to everyone in the coming year.
May God bless you Sundance for having the CTH site. This site has been my go to site for several years ( found it during Trump era). CTH shows the truth.
The pun about 2022 is funny.
Oh no!
Next year is twenty twenty too!
To Sundance and his devoted friends and helpers. Have a Happy and healthy New Year. And to the rest of all the treepers here, a happy and healthy 2022. Thank you for all you do.
Happy New Year everyone. Keep the faith.
Is there any way we can just skip 2022 ?
The first picture brought back many memories. It was just over fifty years ago I went to the arctic for the first time. A few years later my wife and I floated a river north to the Arctic Ocean – a river that had never been floated before. I spent a good part of ten years up there.
I concluded years ago that I was born at exactly the right time. After the last few years, I absolutely know that to be the case.
Kermit,
I envy you. I think I should have been born in Victorian times. Happy New Year anyway!
Thank you Sundance.. May God continue to bless you and yours..
Thank you for all the great expose`, on our politicians that seek to destroy us. I appreciate your analysis and commentary.
I don’t know about Happy I’m trying
we tolerate another year!
Absolutely beautiful!
Wish I had something profound to say – or at least funny, but I don’t!
Happy and Healthy New Year to Sundance, The Staff and All Treepers….
Happy New Year, Mr. Marmot. Thanks for keeping a look out for us.
Happy New Year Sundance & to all my fellow Treepers. Each & every one of you is a blessing to me. I’ve learned so much over the years from Sundance-things I instinctively knew but were never confirmed until I found the Treehouse and Luke minded people Forever grateful ❤️
Blessings to not just ‘survive’ 2022 but to thrive in the midst of the storm.
Happy New Year to all. 🙂
Thank you for keeping my sanity intact, and giving me a place to post. Happy New Year!
You are an inspiration to each and every one of your treepers. You work diligently to expose the lies and deceptions of our government and uncover their true agenda. A heartfelt “Thank You”. May the New Year bring you an abundance of joy, peace, prosperity, and good health. God Bless You Sundance.
This is beautiful. Thank you.
“In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
Happy New Year, Everyone! Be Invincible!
Thank you Sundance. You give us hope and courage. God bless you and Happy New Year.
Happy New Year Sundance. May God bless your wonderful rebel heart.
Hi, Montana–I’ve been watching the NOAA minimums/maximums in your neck of the woods…..it’s in that phase where it literally hurts……..be so careful…..
looks like you’re getting a tiny “break” this weekend? Warming up to 10 above or something? One takes what one can get….
Beautiful! God Bless you, Sundance. I do so appreciate your gift of insight and expression and I am grateful to you for creating this refuge. I look forward every day to reading and participating with the Conservative Tree House.
Happy New Year and may 2022 bring Gods Blessings to you.
Thank you Sundance for the information and inspiration you provide. It is a comfort and joy to read your words of common sense wrapped in a rebellious, patriotic fashion. Happy New Year!
If you don’t have a tv, or do, this is live, New Years around the world…
Happy New Year…
I have been waiting for this one all day, Sundance. And it did not disappoint. Thank you. And thank you once again for your providing this place for us who have run to it for shelter in the storms which had enveloped us. I doubt any of us know exactly how much work it is to keep us up to speed. There are no words I can use to adequately explain how much I’ve enjoyed being welcomed into these branches of camaraderie, bending but never breaking.
We all desperately hope that the year upcoming will see a turning for our nation. I have been dwelling in the past all this year, remembering easier days and the stability that is no longer. And while I yearn for them, I realize nothing stays the same.
We’re now in an unfamiliar place as Americans…seemingly unable to extricate ourselves from the hideous hole we’ve been forced into. But I’m feeling strangely more optimistic than I’ve felt for a long time. I’ve come to believe we are actually climbing out of that hole little by little. I think fair winds are with us now. Should they stay with us going forward into the new year, as I continually pray for, we have a chance to forge a new link that resurrects our once great Republic. It will be a hard slog, but we are many against a depraved, amoral few.
May God be with us all in 2022, and may He be with each and every one here, keeping us healthy and giving us His peace which passeth all understanding.
Happy New Year all.
Weather here on the coast is beautiful, just saw a picture of the President and First Lady entering Mar a Lago main room.
Fireworks have been going for a couple hrs already, beautiful thing.
Wonder how AOC is liking the free state of Florida.
On a side note heard that San Fran Nan’s house deal got squashed, very rich influential residents said NO way.
Thank you. You made me think of my parents on New Years Eve and how much I miss them since they passed on. I am grateful for the new people in my life and the fun I’m having in Florida tonight. Happy New Year!!
I better hurry. They are replacing the forks in the road with round-a-bouts.
LOL, round-a-bouts, no matter how unpopular they are with the public. You will drive in circles AND you will like it.
I am taking the “Rural Road”, the “Country Road”. Our first new year in the Boonies doing the 2-finger steering wheel wave. Trying to save my sanity.
Happy New Year, bless you all.
I say, we keep going by faith.
“He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I’m going in on a positive note, praying for many good and wonderful things for all. God be with us!!!!
Amen, Same to you and all of CTH land
W/O Sundance to light the darkness there is a high probability I wouldn’t be here today..
Thank You Sundance and to all who make this pub a family.
Sundance, your words made me get very emotional.. oh dear.
This treehouse is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious..
Good good people.
That sky ? ..
This album …
I like reading all you peoples posts ..♥️
Happy New Year Sundance thank you for always giving us the truth