Well Pleased.

I usually post about politics, but today that will not be so...

As some of you may know, the last couple of years has been tough on my family. I lost my job in AZ, moved back to Indiana, thanks to the kindness of Erica's Sister and Brother-in-law had a place to land. This was very tough for us. I am thankful that I was able to maintain employment throughout this, initially not immensely "gainful" but since I have obtained a solid position with a 90+ year old company. But that is not why I am writing this post...

I want to write about my wonderful children, they have taken this entire roller coaster ride in stride. They have adapted to sharing bedrooms with cousins, sharing beds when necessary, living by someone elses rules, even if they are confusing and new and sometimes hard to understand, They have been willing and joyful participants in sacrificing what has needed to be sacrificed and doing what needed to be done. For them I am well pleased, to God I am grateful.

A new chapter has begun in our lives, Erica and I closed on a home a few weeks ago. It's an old house in the country on 4 acres. We got it dirt cheap, with that it needs a ton of work, we should be able to handle about 90% of it ourselves, but we are talking in the tens of thousands of dollars range. The previous owner has not yet removed their "stuff" and we need to start the work to prepare the children's bedrooms. So yesterday Erica and I went to the house to move all of the remaining stuff downstairs and get the space ready for a complete demo and remodel. Once again, my kids were up to the task, Rose and Sarah took turns helping out upstairs and keeping the babies, everyone participated in moving stuff downstairs, sweeping, cleaning-up and doing what needed to be done. Not one complaint, in fact one of the kids, I believe it was Gabriel said that "It is great that we are all working on this together!" My children exemplify what I believe it is to be a Leschorn, we are a family that does not fear hard work and takes joy in the process of reaching for our goals, a family with the help of the Almighty can overcome huge obstacles and strenghten our bonds with our Maker and eachother in the process.

My quiver is indeed full and I am a blessed man. Praise to our God, our Heavenly Father. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Character Of The Happy Warrior

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
What every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn,
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature`s highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable - because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self - knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
`Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labours good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state,
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose power shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw:
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master - bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, whereso`er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love: -
`Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation`s eye,
Or left unthought - of in obscurity, -
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won.
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self - surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven`s applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is he
Whom every Man in arms should wish to be.

By William Wordsworth

"It is my prayer that perhaps we can all become happy warriors." -JTL

In Loving Memory of Margaret Mary Palermo

Nana passed away this morning at about 7am. While I am sad that she is gone and I miss her. I can't help but be joyful in my heart that she is now in Paradise, meeting up with our family already passed. The reunion must be joyus, much like the joy we feel when a new child comes into our mortal world.

To the woman...

...who drilled me in my multiplication tables until I got them right.
...who I loved to play cards with on Saturday mornings.
...who I told that I was going to get married first.
...who loved my wife like her own granddaughter.
...who I shared my new faith with first.
...who shared my love for Jesus Christ.
...who loved me unconditionally......

I love you and adieu.

Your Grandson,

John

C O L O R B L I N D

I look at society, I look at my coworkers, my family and my friends...

What is the first thing you see when you look at a person?

Do you move away from people who are different then you?

Do you write off one persons actions to represent their race?

I propose that when it comes to race we must become colorblind. We must not judge people by what we see in popular media, we must teach our children that the substance of a man is in his character not his color or creed. It is not enough to "not" teach racism, we must instead teach love. We must become neighbors, go outside of our comfort zones, learn about different peoples and places. Respect the diversity of culture and the richness of the peoples of the world.

The time is near that all the things we have won't be enough, in fact, it has come. The only race we should all recognize is the human race. We must reach understanding, that can only be had through love and service to others.

So, to the world I say... Become COLORBLIND! It is long past time....

My thoughts on a Sunday afternoon.

A Journey Thirty One Years in the Making

Shortly after I established contact with my birth mother Linda, I determined that I needed to go visit her. I thought about this for several days, then I contacted Helen (Linda's Mom) and told her that I wanted to make plans to visit Linda, but wanted to surprise her. She said she would get the message to Don (Linda's Husband) to call me. The in the next day or so I received a call from Don, got his blessing on the plan. Within a few days I had tickets to fly out to JFK late on December 30th, the red eye flight. Don agreed to pick me up at the airport, at 6:18 in the morning.

I spoke a lot to Erica about this, some friends, some colleagues at work. I spoke to my mom and dad, all asked if I was nervous about the trip. I had to say, "No", I have been at ease with Linda and Don since I first started talking to them.

I flew out to New York, arrived just before it started snowing at JFK, very tired and without much sleep. Don picked me up and drove me home. Linda still was not aware of what was going on. On our way home we met with several of Don and Linda's friends. As a welcome to me a number of Don's friends who are bikers got up early in the morning, met us on the Long Island Express Way. To honor Linda and I they they escorted us as far as they could, in what were slick and snowy roads.

We arrived home in a full blown snowstorm, I walked in, Linda was upstairs, Don walked ahead of me. He said to Linda, "Your Son." I then walked up the stairs and for the first time ever was embraced or even touched by my birth mother. I cannot describe the emotions present in me at the moment, the weight of 31 years of not knowing was gone. Linda was speechless.

In reflecting on this moment and the experiences I have had over the weekend. I will say that I am a changed man. For the love that Linda and Don have had for my brother and I over the last 31 years, I have to express my thanks to Heavenly Father. I am grateful for the decisions that were made, by both Linda, my mom and my dad. I am also grateful for Erica's support in this whole process and the patience she has shown me. I am also impressed and touched by the love that exists in Don's heart for Bill and I, he came into Linda's life after she gave birth to us, he choose from that point to love us as Linda had, as his sons.

I have much more to write, stories to share about my family, but I will leave off with pictures of both my sister Michele, brother Pete and me.

A Thanksgiving to remember.

Well, as many of you know I don't post on a daily occurence like my wife. Usually I post about a political issue or something that is on my mind. This time I have a story to tell.

In 2004 my son Gabriel had a siezure, he was just an infant, as parents do, we panicked, we had dozens of tests run on him. After about 6 months of personality changing medication and consulting with his doctor, we decided to wean him off of the medication. Since that time he has not had any seizures, we have come to the conclusion that they were development and that he would grow out of them, and that he seems to have done.

At that time I decided that I should find out any medical information I could about my birth parents. So I researched and found out about a mutual consent adoption registry that the NY Department of Health has online. I submitted my information to it. What I got back was a form stating very basic information about my birth mother, her age, race, etc. There was no medical information of any value, so I believed I had hit a dead end at the time. The form also stated that if she registered we would both get a "final consent" form for identifying information to be exchanged, I held hope that perhaps she would register at some point.

At this time I was driven to find out more information, so I searched the internet, even went as far as to call the hospital I was born at, all led to dead ends.

So we fast forward to October 2008, I have moved several times, relocated to Arizona, doubled the size of my family. I received a final consent form in the mail. This could only mean one thing, my birth mother had registered and also recieved that form. I decided it was time to move forward with things. So my wife and I filled out the form, got it notarized and sent it via certified mail to the State of NY. I was hopeful that within days I would hear something.

On November 21st I recieved the information, my birth mother's name is Linda, she lives on Long Island, NY. (I am sparing additional details out of respect for her privacy.) I was in shock, almost 31 years have elapsed since I was born and given up. What would I find?

Late Sunday night I received an email from Linda. She told me a little about my birth family, she told me that she remembered my birthday every year, that she prayed for and worried about what happened to my brother and I. She told me that I have another brother and a sister, a niece and a nephew. She told me that her and her husband, who she met after giving birth to us have thought about us throughout the years.

I responded with my story and was thankful that she made the decision that she made. I told her about my wife, kids and my brother. She went from having 2 grandchildren to 10! She is thrilled!

I am truly thankful for the very adult selfless decision that Linda and her parents made when she was only 16. I believe that God put things in place so that we could all be happy and eventually come back together to heal a family. I have room in my heart for my birth mom, my new brother and sister, cousins, niece, nephew, uncles and aunts and grandparents.

I hope as you read this you think about your family's blessings and they bring a smile to your face.

-John

A open letter to our new President Elect, Barack Obama

Mr. Obama,


First let me congratulate you for running a very long and hard fought race. You brought many Americans together for a common cause, for this I commend you.

I am a conservative who voted for John McCain. I disagree with you on many social issues, but as the President Elect, I will support you in your office. I sincerely hope other conservatives will join me in this. I do have some specific concerns of a very personal nature that I want to address.

I am an adoptee, born to a mother of sixteen years of age in 1977. I do not know the circumstances around why she got pregnant, but I do know that she made the decision to put the value of my life and my twin brother's life ahead of her own. She made a selfless decision to give up 9 months of her life to carry us to term, and then give a my adopted parents a the gift of something they could not obtain without her help, twin baby boys.

I ask you Mr. Obama, should we not be promoting this sort of behavior? Should we not have better programs to allow more young women to give the gift of life to another, instead of taking it away?

I'm not asking you to outlaw abortion, as I know that is not something your party will allow and it does not seem to be where your mind is, what I am asking is for you to take up the cause of helping to decrease the number of abortions every year by working with other lawmakers to develop programs that promote life by supporting young mothers who wish to carry their babies to term and give them up for adoption. We can provide hope for young mothers, show them that they aren't alone, give them the chance to give a gift of life.

I sincerely hope you or one of your staff will read this and consider my words.

Sincerely,

John T. Leschorn

My awesome wife.

So as a few of you know I have always enjoyed the times of Knights and Armor. Hence my interest in D&D and Castle Simulation video games. As you also know life takes us as adults away from these sorts of passions many times. As I haven't played D&D in years, as I have a family to take care of and this takes of most of my time.

We recently went to the Renaissance Fair that is held annually here in AZ, it was a lot of fun, great exhibits and shows. This naturally rekindled my interest in all things Medieval. So Erica and I have been looking around.

What we found through a friend of ours is the "Society of Creative Anachronism", http://www.sca.org/, these down to earth folks share a love for the culture of this time period, in fact Arizona as a state has a large community of people who practice the combat, arts and science of the medieval age. Not only that, they have youth combat, archery and regular collegiums (classes in the arts), the most expensive events have nominal fees and usually include food.

So me never doing anything half way, and having several chats with Will, have decided to take of chainmail construction. Believe it or not this is pretty inexpensive, 14 Guage Electric Fence Wire, Wire Cutters, a couple of needle nose pliers, a steel rod and some free time is all it takes.

So at this point you are wondering why I titled this article this way. Well first let me tell you that the hands in that picture above are my dear wife's she is awesome, she has shown interest in this crazy thing I want to do, to the point of being as good if not better then I am at making the chainmail. We have spent a little bit of time together the last few nights making links and learning the art of chainmail construction together. We are working together to make Ammon a shirt, then Malachi, then Gabie. Rose and Sarah are interested in Archery, I will be doing hard armor combat complete with chainmail and homemade hardened leather armor. (Don't worry we use rattan swords, I'm not going to get my head chopped off...) And Erica will probably be sewing costumes and getting into the arts.

So in the end this is a tribute to my wife. Whom I love and adore. She is awesome and is a real friend. Thank you sweetheart for being interested in what I love.