Never Forget. Never Again

 Here’s a fragment of ancient writing; it was recovered from a cave in Israel:

 

The document is part of a treasured trove of historical and prophetic writings which is often referred to as the Prophetic works of the Bible. Long before we Christians began calling it “Bible”, Jewish readers called it Nebi’im, which means Prophets.

Pictured above is a fragment from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who lived and wrote in Jerusalem about 2700 years ago. He prophesied, among other things, of the ordeal that Jesus endured before his death and resurrection.

This fragment is on display at the Museum of Israel in Jerusalem.

About a century later, another prophet, Ezekiel, wrote on his scrolls for posterity. His prophetic legacy, which was written while he was in exile in Babylon, consisted of writings that must have resembled the ancient Isaiah fragment pictured above.

In the portion of Ezekiel’s writing that we call chapter 37, the prophet describes a terrible vision, which he described in this way:

“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones.

He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry.

He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “Oh Lord God, You know.”

Again He said to me, “Prophecy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’

“Thus says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, that may come to life.”

About a year ago when Pat and I were visiting Israel, we toured the Yad Vashem, Holocaust Museum, where we saw the monument pictured above. After viewing this memorial, we went inside and were guided through a tour by a very knowledgable British fellow name Harry Orenstein.

If you’re ever in Israel, you should visit the Holocaust Museum. It’s a real eyeopener for those who are attentive to the warning signs of history.

During the moment of Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, he receives this prophecy:

“Behold, O will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.”

Now, regardless of how you think about God, or the prophets, or Israel, or people such as I who believe in supernatural interventions, it is an historical fact that the Jewish people were removed from their ancient homeland by the powers that be in the ancient empires of Babylon and Rome.

And it is an historical fact that: the Jewish people managed, in the middle of the 20th-century, to return in great numbers, to their ancient homeland and re-establish a nation called Israel. 

And it is an historical fact that: the very Holocaust by which Nazis sought to extinguish the Jewish people—that murderous “final solution”— ultimately became the terrible, tragic prime motivating crucible from which the Jews escaped, and mounted up the resolve to repopulate their ancient homeland.

So history indicates that the "final solution" inflicted by Nazis on Jews . . . turned out to be, instead, a final solution for the Jewish problem of securing a home in this world of sorrow and woe.

Pretty amazing, I thought. I'm hoping they can continue working it out with the Palestinians.

Several years ago, while I was researching Europe as it existed in 1937, I wrote a novel, Smoke, that weaves an historical tale around events and circumstances in Europe that preceded—and eventually led up to-- that Holocaust. 

If you would like to learn more about the tragedy of Holocaust, but are unable to go to Jerusalem to see Vad Yashem, check out the U.S Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, which is a part of the story in my first novel, Glass half-Full.

Smoke

Look Up!

 Somewhere

between the Faithful and the Fanatical

there lies a land that we once knew

waiting there for me and you.

Up there

between the Reasonable and the Radical

there’s a far-flung faith of red and blue

existing there for me and you.

Where we shall share

the common and the rare

the other-worldly and the air

the care and have no care

the fervent and the fair.

We’ll share and share alike;

no longer will we fight

‘cause fight does not make right.

We’ll walk by faith and not by sight

when we reach that rarified height

ascending high as highest light.

What? You don’t believe me?

I would not deceive thee!

You think life’s just a coin-toss?

a random game of gain and loss?

With our selves to be eaten by the moss?

Down there where Destroyer is the boss?

But no, look up beyond this present loss

There is a place beyond our cross.

I have come to tell thee:

One already made that journey,

and lived to tell about it.

 

Glass half-Full

Play ball, y'all!

 Hitch a ride on the mystic chords of memory, the baseline of Time, presented through my novelic story . . . King of Soul . . . Picture it . . . all ye boomer guys . . . picture the scene in your mind:

Spring of 1963, Jackson Mississippi neighborhood . . . time for baseball, improvised on the corner lot with the neighborhood boys, guided imaginatively  with Mickey and Roger and Yogi and Jackie and Willie and Hank Aaron . . .

. . . Hank Aaron, baseball legend and Negro trailblazer, who passed away today, January 22, 2021. . .  from this life, and whose baseball heroics fired the imagination of millions of young American Little League players, back in the day . . . in the mystic chords of time . . . whether black or white . . . trotting out every step in between first base and home after a home-run hit . . .  Picture the sandlot scene in 1963:

      The next morning, on the other side of town, three sixth-grade cowboys were running through a big grassy back yard, aiming at each other with toy pistols, whoopin’ and hollerin’ at each other, imagining themselves to be like their heroes in the movies. On this twelfth day of June, summer vacation was still new enough to be a wild pleasure. The  boys paused from their make-believe gunfight  to sample the plum trees in Donnie’s back yard, but the plums were not yet ripe.

       A few minutes later those holstered playthings were dropped on the lawn when Troy and his buddies from down the street showed up.

       “Y’all come down to the lot for a game,” Troy yelled from the next yard over. Donnie, Mike and Joe watched Troy and three others as they traipsed through the neighbor’s yard along the backside of the chain-link fence. When they got into Donnie’s yard, Troy voiced his challenge again. “Us against you. Come on.”

       “Four against three?” asked Donnie, as if it made any difference.

       The point was—it’s time to play ball, y’all. The numbers didn’t matter, especially to Troy, because the score always somehow ended in his favor anyway. “There’ll be some other guys showing up, you know.” Troy responded, with confidence, as if he could make it happen.  “You can have the next one who comes. Just like last week, we’ll have a bunch more guys before long, since school is out.” Troy had a fielder’s glove on his left hand. He was tossing the baseball into it, then retrieving the ball with his right and tossing it into the glove again, with an easy fluidity of motion that demonstrated, in the midst of his friendly provocation, his baseball agility.  He was doing this little perpetual motion between hand and glove while keeping his eyes trained steadily on Donnie.

        So how could he not? Donnie knew it was time for baseball, because Troy said so. Troy was leader of everybody on Meadowbrook Lane. And he actually had a point there. This make-believe with cowboys and Injuns was going by the wayside anyway. Donnie knew it, he just didn’t have any direction about it yet, but he knew that because Troy had issued the challenge, now was the time for something more intense, more real than cowboys, more real even than cops and robbers—baseball. Troy knew. He was always ahead of everybody else, except in school. He was, however, king of the playground, the recess time. He was king of the hill too, although they had not played that one for awhile. Donnie’s mama had said it was too rough a game when Troy was involved. Now Donnie was watching Troy’s face, while the bigger boy moved slowly toward him. Troy smiled. His smile looked like the shark’s smile on some cartoon.

       “You ready?” he asked. “You can use my glove.” He paused from his ball toss mantra, lifted the mitt up as if for Donnie’s inspection.

       “I got one.” Donnie replied.

       “Go get it. What’r you waitin’ for?”

       I’m waiting for you to get outta my face.  

       Troy turned and began his next maneuver, which would be exit. The other three fellows followed dutifully. And so Roy Rodgers, the Lone Ranger and Tonto fell by the wayside, like ole Western clips on the cutting room floor of a Hollywood backlot. Now it was time for the real world. Now it was time for, as Donnie’s friend Chris called it, hardball. Maybe Chris would show up. He was a pretty good player—a better player than Donnie, and a better captain.  Donnie would make sure to get Chris on his team, if he showed up. 

       Now it was time for Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra to step up to the plate. And Donnie and Mike and Joe, and  Chris and whoever else would show up. Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.  Play ball, y’all.

King of Soul

A Profile in Courage

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President of our nation on March 4, 1861.

With the dark cloud of civil war hanging ominously over our Union, the incoming President ended his inaugural message with these hopeful words:

 

   “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained— it must not break— our bonds of affection.

 The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone—all over this broad land—will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

 

But those better angels did not prevail until four year later. His call for peace did not work out as he had hoped, until  we escaped the deathly embrace of a bitter civil war.

Now, 160 years later, we again find our United States on the verge of being torn between two zealously ideological factions. A fierce heat of  trumpish  enmity was intensified two weeks ago when sore-loser rioteers attempted to undermine the Constitutional procedures by which we pass the torch of leadership from one administration to another. 

But, in spite of that malevolence . . . we—in accordance with the hymnic anthem of our erstwhile 20th-century Civil Rights crusade—we have  overcome those sore losers’ subversive attempt to obstruct a lawful transference of Executive authority.

Two weeks ago,  as the Electoral process was  unfolding in Congress. . . a courageous Vice President wielded the gavel of authority in the US Senate; he stood at the very pivot point of that Electoral encounter. 

Mike Pence’s self-disciplined courage assured the integrity of our transition, even in the midst of a riotous assault on the US Capitol.

 In defending our imperiled  lawful transfer, Mike carried the  the torch of other courageous Americans whose bold service is long remembered in the mystic chords of American memory.

“Profiles in Courage” is the title by which President Kennedy, in his book, commemorated the brave souls whose valor has, through the decades, assured the integrity of our fragile Republic.

Here’s another Profile--a poetic rendition-- for Kennedy’s Hall of Courage. It is found in my versified saga of Mike and Joe:

’T’was just a simple twist of irony

in this, our passing Presidential authority:

Our Veep who in ’16 election wielded gavel in the Senate

has now the Oval prize, as he did win it.

 

So now Ole Joe accepts the Vote of victory

as our 2020  he has won for all to see.

Yes, he who last time swung that Veepy gavel

will now to  Oval Office travel.

 

But now VP Mike wielded that Veepy gavel,

as our nation strove ‘tween Presidents to unravel.

When in the Senate, Electoral votes were counted,

Did Mike's gavel seal decision honestly accounted?

 

He did wield our gavel to do the right thing;

Mike declined to abet the tRrumpian uprising.

’T’was just a simple twist of fate we did see

As Mike gaveled in  Joe’s Presidency.

Glass half-Full 

He Did Try in His Life . . .

 While leading Christian believers as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Dr. Martin Luther King was lead by the Lord into his wider mission as a human rights Liberator.

As Moses was guided in ancient times by the Lord to deliver his people from slavery, so was Martin guided by God to liberate his people from post-slavery oppression.

That role acceptance came early in his life. 

When he was nearing the end of life—when he knew that he had become the target of a racist murderer—Martin spoke gravely to his people and indicated to them how he would like to be remembered. He instructed them not to talk about all the accolades and honors that human society had laid upon him.

Inspired by the teachings of Jesus that had been long ago recorded in Scripture, Matthew chapter 25, Dr. King spoke this request:

“I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right and to walk with them. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe the naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.

And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Glass half-Full

Trouble in River City

 Glass half-Full is the title of my first novel, published in 2007. The story takes place in the Washington DC area.

In chapter 21, we find that two DC detectives have arrested a suspected rapist, Barney Bluntell. At police headquarters, they are questioning the suspect when they suddenly receive a lot more confession than they had thought possible.

In this scene, Barney the suspect is getting worked up as he answers a few more questions than detectives Trent and Nguyen have asked him:

“You’re damned right.” Barney was on the soap box now, showing his true colors, almost unaware of his prisoner status, lecturing the cops on what would have to be done to get society straightened out.

“And how did you know who these women are…the ones that need to be put in their place?”

“It’s the Jewish women. They started the whole thing. Now its infecting everybody. The men don’t know how to handle their women. They’ve fucked everything up. The Jews started communism. Marx and Lenin were Jews. You know that, don’t you?”

Now Nguyen thought he’d take a chance. “Is that why you bombed the Holocaust Memorial?”

Barney looked at Nguyen, surprised at the question. “That whole damned holocaust never happened. You know that don’t you? They made the whole thing up so they could get sympathy from everybody else…just like the niggers.”

“Oh yeah? What did they do?”

“They didn’t do a damn thing, except pick cotton. The Jews raised a bunch of hell until they got Lincoln and the rest of that nigger-lovin’ crowd worked up enough to fuck the whole country. It’s been a mess ever since then.”

Nguyen’s voice became calm, professorial. “The last time I checked a history book, Barney, it said that it was a bunch of Christian abolitionists who got that movement going.”

But the detective realized he was getting off track. He paused and thought for a moment. “What do you think it’s gonna take to get this country straightened out?”

“It’ll take a major rearrangement of power,” said Barney, now overconfident in his own psychopathic harangue. Having lost sight of the criminal implications of his actions, Barney was misinterpreting Nguyen’s interest in his activities. Barney was not an habitual criminal, but an idealogue who had gotten sucked into a criminal fringe of fascism.  “These days, people don’t know what real power is.”

“What is it?” Nguyen inquired, now spreading the net of inquiry over Barney’s self-laid trap of fanatical egocentrism.

“Power is whatever is taken by those who are unafraid to be strong.” Barney smiled, lost now in his own self-incriminating screed, as if he were talking to himself. “Power is what you are going to see very soon, when the obstructions to it are taken out of the way.”

“What obstructions?”

“The weak and inferior elements. They’re dragging the whole evolution of the human race down. It’s just a matter of time before power will be put back where it belongs. The Jews were the ones who fucked it up to begin with, with their worship of weakness…then the niggers, spicks. Some people were born to be slaves. What we need is a caste system. The Hindus had a few things right, but they missed it on the animals thing, and the untouchables. It’s better to just extinguish them altogether.”

Nguyen looked over at Trent, amazed at the unbridled fanaticism that had just passed from the prisoner’s lips. They were at a loss for words for a minute or more. Derrick Trent stood, stretched, began pacing around at one end of the room. Then he asked, “So that’s why you moved on the Holocaust Museum?”

“That was only a wake-up call. The next time, it’ll be much more effective.”

“Says who?” Trent shot back.

“Says me…and about 100 other people,” declared Barney, not even thinking now of the legal implications of his diatribe.

“How do you know? Were you there?”

“The fuhrer was there.”

Trent stopped his pacing, incredulous.

http://www.careyrowland.com

A Desperate Addict

 Overheard . . . 

 . . while passing beneath the dim light of a streetlamp on a Fulton county street corner, when the d---ld went down to Georgia 'cuz he was looking for some ----s to steal:

Brad, Brad! . . . I'm desperate here . . . need another Power fix . . . can ya hook me up? . . . before it's too late!! 

 

Glass Chimera