[OBW]

Don,

You may notice that I have only been posting sporadically for some time. I also have a job. And until yesterday, I was so busy that I sometimes only had time to look a the posts quickly and decide that others had said enough. (And even when I post, they probably already have said enough.)

It is in my nature to sit by unobtrusively until I see/hear something that seems incomplete, inaccurate, needs clarification, etc., then I spring to action. I'm sure that it seems like I think pretty highly of my own thoughts. While I'm sure we all do, I'm willing to accept that I am quite fallible. And when my ideas are shot-down, it is what it is.

Unfortunately, I think through things in a linear fashion, seldom jumping from issue to conclusion. What I write is often so long because I take everyone through my thought process. Then I edit the heck out of it. So if I'm busy at work, it doesn't happen.

I'm hoping that you caught early on that my comments in this particular series were not meant to disparage you or your observations, but to note that we too often cannot know everything. You have further added that even where we think we know more, unless we have absolute knowledge, we cannot claim absolute certainty concerning what we think as a result of our knowledge.

That means that what we can determine for certain is essentially nothing. Neither the stories from Taiwan and China, nor the descriptions by you, Francis Ball, and those who had direct run-ins with Lee describes the whole man. What was driving each encounter cannot be known.

Yet when I back away, I begin to see a pattern that would tend to make me wary of accepting Lee as a significant voice from God instead of something else. What that something else is/was may not be clear, but I begin to see too many "oh no's" to just let it slide. That is my point of reference.

In any case, I'm glad to see you back on the forum. Your perspective, even if not always what we want to hear, is not otherwise easily found in first person.