War

Words of an old Frenchman, 1937: “War is a terrible thing, an ugly thing. I did not fight in the war; I had already served my military duty, long before the Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo and the whole damn world flew apart, like shrapnel. But I had many friends who fought here, and back there, where we just came from in my France, back there at the Somme,the Marne, Amiens. Our soldiers drove the Germans back across their fortified lines, the Hindenberg line they called it. By summer of 1918 the Germans were in full retreat, although it took them a hell of a long time, and rivers of spilt blood, to admit it. And so it all ended here. Those trenches, over there in France, that had been held and occupied for two hellish yearsby both armies, those muddy hellholes were finally left behind, vacated, and afterward . . . filled up again with the soil of France and Flanders and Belgium, and green grass was planted where warfare had formerly blasted its way out of the dark human soul and the dark humus of lowland dirt and now we see that grass, trimmed, manicured and growing so tidily around those rows of white crosses out there, most of them with some soldier’s name carved on them, many just unknown, anonymous, and how could this have happened? You might as well ask how could. . . a grain of sand get stuck in an oyster? And how could that oyster, in retaliation against that rough,alien irritant, then generate a pearl—such a beautiful thing, lustrous and white—coming forth in response to a small, alien presence that had taken up unwelcomed residence inside the creature’s own domain?

The answer, my friend, is floating in the sea, blowing in the wind, growing green and strong from soil that once ran red with men’s blood.” The excerpt above is from chapter 27 of novel “Smoke”. https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-L-Carey-Rowland/dp/1495330834 Carey Rowland

The Long Climb

After 75 years on this earth, this writer reflects on a few of the LPs that have been spun upon the turntables of Time, going way, way back. . . “In days of old, Jacob came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set. . . He had a dream, and behold a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels were ascending and descending on it.”

Later, much later. . . there was a man sitting under a tree, who asked Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered and said: “before you were sitting under the fig tree, I saw you.” And then later, much later, in a different place and time. . . before you were searching for purpose in Texas. . . before you were driving through Colorado. . . before you were hanging out in California. . . before you were publishing in in North Carolina. . . before you were promoting the Kingdom in Utah, or Philadelphia, or Germany, or London. . . “I saw you.”

before you were hanging out in Minnesota, or the Cafe’ Wha, or the Bitter End. . .

before you were sitting on the beach in Florida. . . before you were listening to the radio in Louisiana, before you had a busted flat tire in Baton Rouge. . . I saw you! “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”

Listen: Follow the Way Traveler’s Rest Glass half-Full

A Day in the Strife

I heard the news about Old Glory
Fifty stars dragged down into the mire
A crowd of rebels in our Capitol
They cast our Congress to oblivion

They blew their mind out in a riot
They wouldn’t notice that the nation changed.
A crowd of people watched online.
They’d seen that dread spirit long before, in 1864. Our nation’s splitting soul was up for grabs.
The joker brandishing his tyranny
Casting spells of spoken alchemy
Tossing tales of woken enmity.

He’d spouted words stand back stand by
They stormed the Dome with rebel cry.
They trashed and gashed the hallowed hall
They wouldn’t read the writing on the wall He blew their minds out with a lie
They raised the zombie rebel cry
A freaked-out nation sat and stared
They’d seen that face before, back in 1864.
They’d heard that rant before.
Nobody was really sure what the hell was happening.
His spell was marching on. Listen: Glass half-Full

The Patriot's Burden

They took up the MAGAmaniac’s burden, sending the proud boys’ breed. to send their oath bleepers to the Capitol, to serve their master’s need, to disrupt in forceful entry the Loser’s three percent of anarchy; but they failed to maintain or establish a MAGAmaniac monarchy

So we sing our star-spangled update: Oh say can you see, in the 2026 light What we so proudly maintained after a 2021 fight? That broad dome and wide steps through the perilous fight O’er the barricades we watched was so gallantly retained! As our Congress did dare, with teargas in the air, giving proof through the fight that our Congress was still there; O say does that Capitol Congress remain with our Presidency, o’er the land of the free? Yeah, I say unto thee. Democracy!

But that’s not the first time an old whitey-hair failed to get his way. There was a precedent long ago, on a fateful Little Big Horn day. They took up the MAGAmaniac’s burden, sending the proud boys’ breed. to send their oath bleepers to the Capitol, to serve their master’s need, to disrupt in forceful entry the Loser’s three percent of anarchy; but they failed to maintain or establish a MAGAmaniac monarchy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u71LxQ4YDb0

Rerouting History

According to Gordon Lightfoot, northern waters flow from Lake Superior, southeastward to Lake Huron, then down to Lake Erie, then Lake Ontario, and into the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. In the middle between Superior and Huron is Lake Michigan. The cities of Milwaukee and Chicago were built and developed on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan. Chicago developed along the Chicago River, which drained water from the Illinois countryside, eastward into the Lake. This was a flowing arrangement that had been developing naturally for thousands of years. When the southern half of North America was being developed by the people and the institutions of the United States, the city of Chicago arose as a sort-of midpoint between New York and San Fransisco. During our 19th-century expansion, when “Go west, young man” was the motivation for adventurous and enterprising explorers, Chicago emerged out of the muddy swamps of lower Lake Michigan. Adventurous Americans who traveled from New York, Cleveland, or other eastern origins could go by wagons or rails of boats. The boat travelers would have to get off the boat near Toledo and travel by land to go further west. After a while, they would reach the south end of Lake Michigan. Maybe they were tired of traveling, and they were encountering troublesome swamps. There were friendly Indians in the Chicago area, and they were probably tired of traveling. . . settlers began to accumulate in a favorable location on the southeast shore of Lake Michigan. There was a river that flowed into Lake Michigan, which was named after the natives; it came to be called the Chicago River. The city hub developing there grew exponentially as the railroads were established from the east. The frontier city of Chicago grew to be the major hub of continental development and transport in the middle of our United States. Back in those days, people had not yet figured out the principles and practices of modern sewer and trash collection. As more and more people settled in Chicago, the Chicago River was polluted. The river degenerated from a fresh source to public sewer. So their sewerage was flowing into Lake Michigan, which was their source for drinking water. Between 1887 and 1890, the citizens decided to solve the problem by reversing the flow of the Chicago River. They dug canals and built locks to drain the Chicago River westward into the Mississippi River watershed, insuring that their waste would no longer be cast into Lake Michigan, their source for drinking water. That was one small step in the great American project to build a great nation from east coast to west coast, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, and from the pioneer world to the great American progress project of building a great nation. As time ticked on by, we the people would figure out how to actually cleanse our water by removing the sewage waste. This is what is known as progress and we should never forget it. We humans have come a long since the Genesis, when Creator YWHW was moving over the surface of the waters. When the Creator placed people on the earth, He provided our brains so that we could figure out ways to solve our problems. The people of Chicago served our nation by proving that we could change the course of rivers, change the course of history, and make progressive improvements wherever necessary. Let us go forth, through the noise and waste. . . to preserve and improve our great American nation that has proven to be an example of human ingenuity and good will. A decade later , an Illinois President manifested the destiny of all American citizens by assuring that no man nor woman would be enslaved.

After the crash of 1929, President Roosevelt initiated a new deal, whereby Americans would work together to improve our infrastructure. . . our parks, our waterways, our culture and our way of life for the benefit of ourselves, our children, our neighbors and our heirs.

Let us go forth in the noise and haste, clearing the confusion, cleaning the waste, and clearing a flow path toward wealth and health for all Americans, laying down the tracks of progress, just as the people of Chicago did after they reversed the flow of the waters so that progressive improvements could designed, built and utilized by Americans from coast to coast and around the world. Glass half-Full

Chicago

Great center of the American world, manufacturer, maker of rail lines and skyscrapers, metropolis of business and busyness, city of bustling pedestrians. They say you’ve had dark days, days of gangsters and lawbreakers, and I understand that, as the center city of our great American expansion. . . law and order, mail order, Sears, Montgomery Ward and Marshall Fields. 19th century, 20th century, 21st century. . . in the middle of the country. A traveler would have to rail or to fly eastward to Hudson, or westward to the Pacific, to find a city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and and tough and strong and cunning, flinging media amid the enterprises of piling job upon jobs. . . a tall bold skyscraping skyline, manifesting the burdens of destiny and development, working as a young citizen, touring. . . as this curious American guest.

Down on the south side, where glad, glad Leroy Brown, gladdest man in the whole bustling town, does his thing, laboring to bring strength and prosperity, peace and regularity to a city and a nation balanced upon the center of the continent . . .

sending and receiving the great American destiny from coast to coast, with the most energetic pulse, whether through Louie Armstrong, Muddy Waters or the Chicago Symphony. . . a brassy, bold, wondrously urban declaration of prosperity and progress, from Grant Park to Lake Michigan, through the reversed Chicago River to the Mississippi and the Atlantic and Pacific shores. . . “laughing the stormy, husky brawling laughter of youth. . . proud to be producer, tool maker, butcher, stacker of wheat, with freight-handling railroads,

trains and planes for Americans and world-citizens who come and go, to and fro, while our next generation does grow and grow. Glass half-Full

Liberty Justice for All

But Liberty and Justice for All is not something that just happens. As compatriots with liberation and deliverance, liberty and justice emerge triumphant from the very embattlements of human history. Where their zealous advocates manage to grab some foothold in the landscape of human struggle, freedom is fleeting not far behind. Noble aspirations are all summoned up when the careless slayings of men demand value more sacred, more holy, than the mere clashing of weapons and the expiration of breathing bodies. In our present exploration’s story, the bad news is: there is an inevitable outflow—the shedding of blood—which propels violence to ever higher levels of atrocity. The good news is: where there’s shedding of blood, Soul is not far beneath. In the summer of 1964, all of these elements of human struggle converged in an unprecedented way. Way down south, in the piney woods and sweltering fields of Mississippi, a new activist strain of blood-red camellia was taking root in that freshly-tilled civil rights black delta loam. As God had heard the cry of Abel’s blood arising from Edenic soil, he heard now the beckoning of enshrouded laborers, those dead and these living. Their muted cries called forth liberation; they demanded deliverance. So while black folk of the deep South were struggling to register their right to vote as Americans, a vast brigade of like-minded souls from other regions caught a whiff of their newly-planted liberty, and so the new brigades took it upon themselves to go down to Mississippi and lend a hand. Go down, Moses, was the call. Go down, collective Moses. There were many who heard that call; there was even a man named Moses, Bob Moses from Harlem. He, and others who stood with him against discrimination, planted themselves in Mississippi at the crossroads of injustice and opportunity. Down here in the verdant lap of Dixie where the honeysuckles twine sweetly and the slaves had mourned bitterly, a battalion of wayfaring strangers from far and near came to cultivate the new growth of freedom.

(I noticed this plaque today while visiting the Obama Library in Chicago.) They were filling a void in the whole of the human soul. Robbed of freedom, the Soul of Man wails out a distress call; then in regions afar, the Soul of Man hears, and resonates with action. Deep calls unto deep.

(Audacity of Hope Monument) In Berkeley California, Michael Savola answered the call. He knew about the work of the NAACP. He had heard the battle-cry, had felt those deep twelve-bar blues jangling through his heart and across his brain. When Michael got to Mississippi, the civil rights pioneers took him by the hand and lead him into a little church. For the first time ever he felt the flesh and blood plaintive chant of Negroes; they were singing”: The truth will make us free, The truth will make us free, The truth will make us free some day. Oh deep in my heart I do believe The truth will make us free some day. King of Soul