E, E and Eternity

E is an Excellent letter in the English language. The peoples of Britain had emerged, over centuries of time, from a collection of migrating tribes, one of which was the Angles, who had migrated across the North Sea from the lands now called Denmark. Replacing the A with an E, for English, instead of Anglish, was a favourable arrangement because E has four parts instead of three—one big lines, one little line in the middle, and two lines, one on top; one on the bottom. More is better—in this case more lines four instead of three, as the English people discovered, by and byE, while sailing around the Earth a few times . . . and thereby associating their English selves and their culture and their literacy with other peoples, cultures, on far-away contintents, in lands where, so to speak, the sunset never set on the English. I know that seems a little Egotistic, but it worked quite a while for the English. But even they had to learn a thing or two when we Yanks had to tell King George III to take his Empire on shove it! But I digress. I will Egress to . . . they didn’t totally screw up; the English did do some things right. Here’s another thing. Early on, the English people were reading the Bible, and finding therein a literate connection with the ancient legacy of the HEbrew people. In that Bible, they noticed that one of the old-timers of that Scripture was (I’m going way back in Time here). . . Enoch, seventh generation fellow from Adam. . . and that Enoch had been taken into Eternity by Elohim, the Creator of the Earth and the Universe and all, Everything that is Everywhere! See what I mean about this E. . . E is the beginning of Excellence, always has been. Another Examplar of this E-phenom in the Bible is a prophet, Elijah, who was also taken directly into the Eternal realm by Elohim. He was taken up in a chariot of fire; then his trainee, Elisha followed in his footsteps. Elijah’s dramatic Exit in the chariot of fire was an inspiration to all Bible-readers for many ages thereafter, all the way into the 20th century. In the 1930’s the English people were amping up their energy to later run the nazis back into their holes. A team of English runners were running on a beach in St. Andrews, Scotland. They were preparing to compete in the 1936 Olympics, which were soon to take place in Germany, where all the holocaustic trouble in the world was busting out, from the mouth of a little krauty mustachio’d madman. The scene of the Englishmen running was later presented in a movie, Chariots of Fire, a film which tracked the Efforts of Eric Liddell, a Christian Englishman, and Harold Abrahams, a Jewish compatriot , in their storied path from training to victory in the 1936 Olympics.

Many years later, my son and I were walking on that beach when he stopped suddenly to ask me: “Do you recognize it?” “Recognize what?” I asked. He waved his hand along the wave-swept shore, toward the town of St. Andrews. But I still had not made the connection. We were running on that beach where the English runners had run back in ’36 when they had been training for the ‘36 Olympics. Those English runners later ran victorious at the Olympics in Berlin. . . . on chariots of fire, so to speak, as Elijah had done long, long ago in a land far, far away on this Earth, on the Easternmost shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Not only that, but, it’s no accident that the sun—source of Energy and warmth for everyone on Earth—comes up in the East! In a sense, Everything Emerges from the East. Civilization has generally moved, for the most part, in Earth history, from Eastward. Most of the ancient literature on which our civilization Emerged was written or carved in stone in, or near, the Euphrates valley, beginning in a land far, far away, in an Earth time long, long ago. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s something special about that horizon over there. . . in the East! The sun sets in the West. That setting is like, downhill all the way, or at least the westward half of it, after its ascent from the East horizon. But Life is good like that. We’re born into it. Our life Emerges out of the shadow of mama’s womb like the sun rising in the East. But one day life will set down in the west and we will go into the big E.. . EtErnity! I Entreat you to Enter into Eternity with me, through the Everlasting life that Christ gave us when He Emerged from the grave on Easter morning; twas the the most important Event in history, the RE surrection, whereby we Enter into Eternity with the Everlasting Lord of Everything that Ever was, is or will bE! Smoke

It's Still Politics to Me

Here’s a little ditty of a poem, inspired by an old Billy Joel song I heard on the radio back in the day. . . Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock ’n Roll to Me.” (See link at bottom.) Here’s my 2025 America ditty, with words arranged (more or less) to fit the pattern that Billy had made such good use of in “Still Rock ’n Roll to Me.” What’s a matter with our wacky politickin’ in the year 2025? I wish I could be read’n some old newspapers from the year ’55. Where have we been on social media lately? You can’t make a make a point without first turning hately. Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout the Jan6 riot, but it’s still insurrection to me. What’s a matter with the party I remember in November as a child? We can see that it’s gone all dismembered; that its all goin’ hog-wild. I can see its not the same old GO-party. Their best bet’s a maga mobby-starty.

mad men rippin’ down donkey-funk deep-junk; it’s still insurrection to me. Oh it doesn’t matter what they say on FacX fume cuz its just a bling echo room There’s a new king in town; though he aint got a crown and it feels like its doom and gloom How about a new pair of parties with a new way of doin’ things? We could really be a lawful Republic without all the b.s. bling1 Then we’d find ourselves a new way to govern instead of blowin’ fire in the mega-maga oven.

Next phase; new wave, no craze, anyways its still politics to me! Glass half-Full Now, if you wanna hear Billy singing his “Still Rock n Roll” song. . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngPI9ySYIUU

Story Old and New

Adam, oh Adam, wherefore are thou, Adam. You are the east, and mankind is the son, not to mention the daughters, although I just did. Funny, we should mention it . . . those sons, those daughters, scratched out of the dust ground, some say by Creation, some say by Natural Selection. I say: by the Creator, using his ways and means committee o Nature and homo sapiens’ God-given wisdom and his earthly panorama of resources, starting with those natural, moving right along to . . . the Scriptures, the philosophies, the history, the technology, even the frickin’ world wild web, if you can dig it. But I digress.

Adam and Even did their thing and they messed up, but God gave them a break, opened of the gate of a natural world, which morphed into a humanized civilization, which evolved into the modern world, and the scrolls unfurled and the baseballs hurled and footballs unfurled and the basketballs shot, and all that man hath got and woman hath begot. Enoch’s legacy morphed into a legacy of angelic whatchamacallit . . . what these angels did way back then and what they will do when is dropped the other shoe and what’s it to you? As for Methuselah, said to be the oldest man that ever lived . . .I can relate, now that I’m 73, on Social Security, but possibly now on the edge of a great precipice when that New Dealian magic carpet is pulled out from underneath me and can’t get meds anymore and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know I’m six feet under, and that’s why I’m depending on Jesus, and what was said and witten about Him; that he was publicly humiliated and executed for no legitimate reason, but then He redeemed the situation by stepping out of the grave three days later. And I don’t think anything or anybody in history can top that, so I’m going with Him! How ‘bout you? Revelation 5:9

North Carolina Home

Long about 700 A.D., a kingly dynasty emerged from among the people of what is now called France. From 688 to 741 A.D. the politics and military operations of the Frankish people was ruled by a leader, Charles Martel. When Charles died, the kingdom was divided between his sons, Carloman and Pepin. Pepin’s reign over Frankish lands became known, as ages passed, as the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin’s son, Charlemagne, built a legacy of military rule, leadership and regal authority that became known historically as the Carolingian dynasty. Thanks for reading Carey's Snippets! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. In the year 778, Emperor Charlemagne engaged in battle at Roncesvelles pass in the Pyrenees mountains, which are along the border of what is now France and Spain. Events in that battle became, later, the basis for the French epic, Chanson de Roland. As the time of Emperor Charlemagne’s death was approaching, his legacy became known as the Carolingian empire, which ruled the Frankish dominions for the greater part of the 9th century. Later, the name was simplified to “France.” Their epic, the Chanson do Roland, later became the inspiration for naming my first vinyl LP (1978) the Songs of Rowland. But that’s neither here nor there. As I was saying. . A century later, King Louis V ruled for about twenty years. He was the last of what is called the Carolingian dynastry of what later became France. Then centuries rolled through time. About a thousand years later, a new kid on the block of world history came along, Britannia, known these days as Great Britain. The origin point is that island in the North Atlantic, also known as England. A thousand years after the Carolingian empire discombobulated, the Brits were sailing around establishing their hegemony, later known as the world empire on which the sun never sets. Dream on, ye limeys! But anyway, as I was getting to. . . ,During that era of British expansion, they established colonies in North America. On the east coast of the North American continent, the Carolina colony was established. Ultimately the colony was divided into North Carolina and South Carolina. Later, after the thirteen British colonies of north America had fought their way out of British nomination, we established the state of North Carolina.

On our southern border, which runs east-to-west from the Atlantic to the Smoky mountains region, a state line was established to clarify, for all time, that we citizens of North Carolina are who we are, and those folks down there in South Carolina are who they are, and they can do their own thing, I mean, it seems to me that sometimes they get a little cocky. But that’s neither here nor thee. . . it’s there, not here in North Carolina where we live. You see , , , back in the day those cocky South Carolinians started a civil war, and later we got dragged into it, even though we didn’t have near the number of slaves that they had had. But hey! Let bygones be bygones. We’ve managed to forgive them for that. That kind of sumters it all up for you, in a nutshell, a peanut shell or whatever. Even so, I must admit that we tarheels and blue devils and mountaineers and other North Carolinians do like to vacation down there in Myrtle Beach every now and then. But I digress. What i’m getting to here is that, about thirty years ago, I wrote a song about the great state of North Carolina. I thought you might like to hear it; so, if you care to, you can listen to North Carolina Is My Home.

Chicago!

Chicago, Chicago, my kind of town! To you, to you, did the coasts come around. Great pumping heart for the American dream. Designated hitter for the American team Pumper of power, builder of towers, Engine of steam

Manufacturer, Retailer, Joiner of Rivers, Progress shipper Master of migration, piper of hydration, mid-America skipper Wheeler, dealer, produce peeler, slump healer, water dipper Engine of progress from Conception to Completion Wagon of wheels from New York to California. Joiner of Rivers Snow king, Water whiz, prairie prince, furnace against shivers Makers, shakers, quakers, stakers, takers and givers. They tell me you are butcher for the world. But I see you as the American dream unfurled.

You are the football, the puck, the bat, the baseball hurled You are the American flag, old glory, the flap and the whirl You are Lake Michigan, the Illinois, the swamps made to whirl. You’re the playground for every boy and girl You are the Freedom, the Energy, the stars and the stripes; You are the water, the prairie conduit, steam and pipes. You are the Apple of Manhattan made ripe! Oh, New York, New York, where is your bling? To you, L.A. Frisco, Seattle, Denver, Twin Cities, we bring the other side of America, westward migration, completing the ring the cycle of progress, the wheel of fortune and wealth the prairie, the harvest, the produce: American health! Chicago, Chicago, joiner of the halves of a Nation enjoined Oh windy city, city of plenty, Wealth of the nation encoined! You are Production defeating poverty purloined. Chicago, Chicago, glorious and free

Great city where to whence movers and shakers did flee. Oh, Chicago, Chicago, great middle city for America, for me! You are the football, the puck, the bat, the baseball hurled! The three-pointer long shot to win the tournament of the World! King of Soul

Thanks for the Memories

When I was a child, I spoke as a child. Now I am an old man; I write as an old man. Early on, I rode a bicycle. Now I recycle. oh, yes, household detritus and worn-out stuff gets properly handled for the sake of the planet that I grew up on. But in a wider perspective, I recycle the stuff of my 73 years into whatever comes to mind . . . whatever I find, in that grey matter up there at the crown of creation. Creation is an ongoing miracle that I did not invent; Creator created me, and I make the best of what I got; been doing it for 73 years now. When I was younger, a fellow named McGuire came along and wrote a song, “Eve of Destruction.” I see what he was getting at, Things were dire for McGuire when Kruschev and Kennedy were rehearsing Russian roulette. I remember. I remember. After spending part of my life in construction, I have decided that is generally better than destruction, although, truth be told, sometimes you have to tear down before you can build up. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t fulfilled around his mission required sending soldiers to tear down the slave establishment that my southern forebears had been constructing for a couple of centuries. Life comes shining, we notice, from the East unto the West. Dreams may culminate in Fulfillment, or . . . maybe not. But you gotta give it a shot. And it’s funny; sometimes its New to New; sometimes its New to Old to New. And, for sure, kids have a lot to do with it. There was a time when I was one of the New Generation; now I’m just an old guy, like my wife’s gramps was, back in the day, The Blood Sweat and Tears singer sang. . . or maybe it was the the Chicago Transit Authority singer (I’m writing this in Chicago) who sang: “Give me my freedom for as long as i live; all I ask of living is to have no chains on me, and all I ask of dying is to go naturally . . . and when I die, when I’m dead, dead and gone. . . there’ll be one child born and a world to carry on, a world to carry on. Well, in our case, its three who carry on, and so on and so on. Neil Young sang to and Old Man to “take a look at my life; I’m a lot like you.” Now that I am on old guy, I do see young folks out there in the hinterlands, living life. . . well, we’re all the same really, but not really. . . at least, us Americans, we’re a special breed. i mean—not that we’re any better than anybody else—but we did inherit something special when Jefferson wrote, back in the day: “. . . all Men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” And that has worked well for us. It still does. And there’s so much good stuff to ruminate about. At the Simon and Garfunkel show, a couple of nights ago, the two guys there were singing the old song, “Old Friends” who “sit on their park bench like bookends; a newspaper blown through the grass falls on the round toes of the old shoes of the Old Friends. And come to think of it. . . that’s important to understand: Friends are very important in Life. I mean, next to husband or wife, and the young’uns that come along, friends are one of the most precious blessings we have. When I was a teenager, I remember listening to Judy Collins, on—I think it was the “Wildflowers” album, “My father always promised us that we would live in France; we’d go boating on the Seine, and I would learn to dance. We lived in Ohio then; he worked in the mines. . .now I remember . . . the setting sun . . . in my father’s eyes.” Or something like that. Now I’m a fathe—grandfather no less—remembering—or trying to—all of it. But I have also learned that, if you want to live a quality life, you should tap into the ancient wisdom, such as: the ancient prophet comes to mind, Jeremiah. He went to a potter’s shop because the Lord told him to. When he got there, he watched what the potter was doing. And life is a lot like that: we are clay in the Great YWHW Potter’s hands, spinning on the wheels of time, chance, providence and the grace of God. To get a glimpse of the final phase—where we’re headed in the big picture, check out Revelation 5:9: https://open.spotify.com/track/4t3dyoa2vpmTqvZ2uKuL9W?si=4d13b30bc6b34974

Time Times and half a Time

About 2400 years ago, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar took control of what had been the land of the Jews—Judah and Israel. Because ole Neb was a smart guy, he understood that those Jews whom he had subdued were smart people. They were not street-smart like he was. They were not control freaks. They were not powermongers. They were people of the Book; they are the people pay attention to what is going on; who read and pay attention and pass from generations to generation the history and the theology that we know in this modern ago. Moses started the Book long ago when he wrote the story of their Exodus, a story that later inspired Martin Luther King, when he had spoken and acted with conviction to set free the captives of racist oppression. https://open.spotify.com/track/0NNQLsb7YExz88Fgak87Ze?si=ce9bd4eb7aaf4550&nd=1&dlsi=9fc79d1cb31e4cf7 The Book known as Bible is a profound historical narrative; it’s a preservation of wisdom, a foundtion for Law and proper relations among all peoples. The people of the Book have often found themselves in persecution and peril because, compared to their antisemitic neighbors, they know too much. It was for that holocaustic purpose that the little kraut colonel kicked off the nazi movement in 1923, his “third reich”, that strove to eliminate the Jewish race. That did not work out for the hateful nazis; nor will it ever work for future antismites. The People of the Book will not be eradicated from human history. That is why some watchful members of that Hebrew tribe discern the patterns of human behaviour accurately enough to prophecy events that would take place 2000 years later. That’s what Daniel did, long, long ago, because he was of the People of the Book, and he understood, by divine revelation, what the long arc of history would ultimately present: a brazen attempt to exterminate the People of the Book. Case in point: About 400 years before Christ, the scholar Daniel, a captive Hebrew, was taken prisoner. Nebuchadnezzar hauled the Hebrew wise man to his capital, Babylon, and prevailed upon the young man’s literacy and perception, using Daniel’s advice, much like Jewish lawyers are often prevailed upon in modern times, except at that time it was more about dreams and visions than Law. Even so, while in service to his boss, Daniel discreetly composed a book of his own, which we find, even today, in the Bible. Because the people of the Book send historic signals that raise red flags to signal the onslaught of a strange crooked crosses that represent holocaust and terrible abuses in human history. About 2300 years before it later happened, Daniel discerned and depicted, in cryptic Hebrew, the rise of a “little horn”. . . a despicable being who would erect a vast system of murder to snuff out the Jewish people, and also to put to death thousands of other folks who had answered the call to stop the little nazifying lunatic. In the biblical canon, the Book of Daniel, in 7:24-27, the prophet presented a literary, symbolic scenario representing events that would transgress human decency, many, many centuries later. . . even 2000 years later.

“. . . the ten horns of the kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the rest, and he shall subdue three kings. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his control until a time, times, and a dividing of times. “But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, and they shall take away his dominion . . .” Then later, in my parents’ lifetime. In the early 20th century— it happened this way: The adolf hitler demoniac mounted up, in a great heap of third reich insanity, a mountain of hate against his European neighbours. During his hyper-murderous, swastikafied campaigns, his fascist minions captured as many Jews as they could, imprisoned six million of them in concentration camps and tried to murder them, en masse, to exterminate the Jewish race. But, but—praise be to God—the brave men of France, Britain.and the United States of America, along with many others, put a stop to hitler’s murderous campaigns. And when the great liberation from nazi holocaust and warmongering had been put and end, the Allies discovered the camps where the demon hitler had tried to exterminate the people of the Book, and they put hitler’s Holocaust officers on trial in Nuremberg. And that’s why Daniel had written,in his prophetic account—long, long before it actually happened. . .7:25. this: ““But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, and they shall take away his dominion , to consume and destroy it to the end.” Furthermore, moving right along. . . the prophetic voice of the people of the Book is still active. That’s why—to present one expression of perseverance and courage— a couple of Jewish boys from the Bronx, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, sang Paul’s profound verses, which I heard sung two nights ago in a live, theatrical presentation set to Paul’s prophetic music, using literary symbolism that goes back, way back. . . in time. back in the day,-1970’s. . . ”In the clearing stands a boxer. . . a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down and rocked him, ‘till he cried, in his anger and his shame, ‘I am leaving; I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.’ ” Paul’s “Boxer” is far more than himself; it represents his people, the embattled People of the Book who have managed, through all these millennia of time, to survive, carrying the reminders—written in the Book— of every attempt to knock them down into the the holocausts of prejudice, hatred and discrimination And. . . as Amos had said to Andy: “And I told him that!”. Smoke