North Carolina Home

(Listen to song link below) I found a pair of Murphy-to-Manteo shoes; and I kicked off those Asheville-Statesville blues. . . went from Deep Gap down to Raleigh. . .met a friend I never knowed in Holly Springs. Now I’ve been to Arizona; walked the beach down in Daytona, I was born in Louisiana, took a drive through Alabama; but North North Carolina’s my home. I love the Carolina sunrise, Carolina apple pies, I love my Carolina woman in my Carolina home. I had a thrill up in Chapel Hill; I rode a boat on the coast near Shallotte, climbed a mountain in Swannanoa, pulled a bluefish on the shoah, and ain’t it just like a friend of mine to ease my troubled mind. I’ve seen the weavin’ wavin’ wheatfields out in Kansas; I’ve the fruited plains and the popular purple mountains’ majesty. Bur the place I’m surely going to is the home I’m most into; it’s tarheel blue and Duke blue too and every tall tale’s true. Ilove the Carolina sunset, rolling waves at Bogue inlet, Queen’s Road in old Charlotte, Queen’ s road and all that; yeah; that’s my home.

I worked a diddly-haw upstart saw in Waccamaw; I duffed a goofily gosh-darn golf game in Greensboro, sat on the porch in Siler City; even old women there are pretty. I wouldn’t trade this place for the world; it’s precious as a Pamlico pearl. Here to tell you about Denver, Durham and Dallas, about Kill Devil Hills and Cary and Biltmore palace, about Topsail’s total sunshine, Triplett’s tipplin’ moonshine, about Weddington, Wilmington, Waynesville,Wilson, and cardiac pack-attack Wolfpack too. It’s the midway midpoint t’wixt Manhattan/Miami; it’s s bobcat, cougar, yeah Panther and a bald eagle mammy; it’s the fairest of the fair. Heaven’s interstate exit is there. . . Y’all come see us when you can now! (I’d just as soon be in Boone.)I found a pair of Murphy-to-Manteo shoes; and I kicked off those Asheville-Statesville blues. . . went from Deep Gap down to Raleigh. . .met a friend I never knowed in Holly Springs. Now I’ve been to Arizona; walked the beach down in Daytona, I was born in Louisiana, took a drive through Alabama; but North North Carolina’s my home. I love the Carolina sunrise, Carolina apple pies, I love my Carolina woman in my Carolina home. I had a thrill up in Chapel Hill; I rode a boat on the coast near Shallotte, climbed a mountain in Swannanoa, pulled a bluefish on the shoah, and ain’t it just like a friend of mine to ease my troubled mind. I’ve seen the weavin’ wavin’ wheatfields out in Kansas; I’ve the fruited plains and the popular purple mountains’ majesty. Bur the place I’m surely going to is the home I’m most into; it’s tarheel blue and Duke blue too and every tall tale’s true. Ilove the Carolina sunset, rolling waves at Bogue inlet, Queen’s Road in old Charlotte, Queen’ s road and all that; yeah; that’s my home.

I worked a diddly-haw upstart saw in Waccamaw; I duffed a goofily gosh-darn golf game in Greensboro, sat on the porch in Siler City; even old women there are pretty. I wouldn’t trade this place for the world; it’s precious as a Pamlico pearl. Here to tell you about Denver, Durham and Dallas, about Kill Devil Hills and Cary and Biltmore palace, about Topsail’s total sunshine, Triplett’s tipplin’ moonshine, about Weddington, Wilmington, Waynesville,Wilson, and cardiac pack-attack Wolfpack too. It’s the midway midpoint t’wixt Manhattan/Miami; it’s s bobcat, cougar, yeah Panther and a bald eagle mammy; it’s the fairest of the fair. Heaven’s interstate exit is there. . . Y’all come see us when you can now! (I’d just as soon be in Boone.) Listen: North Carolina Home Glass half-Full

The Sounds of Irrelevance

There’s the cell phone buzz again; it came to jangle me again because some jangly came beeping, and leaves its blip while I am thinking. And the message that was planted in my phone. . . now is gone within the sounds of irrelevance. In literate words I read alone old books, and new ones now long gone Beneath the halo of lamp light I turn the pages, left to right. Then my ears get stabbed by the jingle-jangle toys of unseen voice with political noise a phoney voice with pleas for cash but I assess its all political trash. But in the online light I discern they’re wanting money that I earned in work I did in days gone by. So I ignore it with a sigh. ‘bots with people voices speaking but really it’s Ai blather bleeping while people still sing songs that we should hear as history and relevance still draw near. Fools in politics who do not know money like a cancer grows. . . Hear the words of the real news; citizens trying to snuff out the fuse

of insurrection and maga greed as money men amp up the feed that snuffs out the words of relevance with the noise of irrelevance. And the magas bowed and scraped to the president who raped. Now the signs display a dire warning in the resistance that is forming And the sign said the words of the prophets are written in the Bible books Let Justice roll down like the waters! Public servants must do what they oughter! Let us go by the wisdom in the books not the money of the oligarchal hooks. Money ain’t worth the paper and plastic its printed on. Let’s restore Truth, Mercy and Justice before its gone. There’s a way that gets out of this political money mess. It’s the underground railroad that rolls us out of stress. Glass half-Full

The Big Bad Nukes

When I was a child I spoke as a child, but now that I’m 75, I’m speaking my mind. Having entered into this world in 1951, I was one of the millions of baby boomers born to American parents after the big war, World War II, which was humongous compared to the little war that we launched in Vietnam after the French had failed to run the communists out of Vietnam, and then we also failed. But you can’t win ‘em all. Back in that day, we Americans were quite comfortable in our houses, with our new cars and our TV sets, watching Captain Kangaroo and Disney, Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. We probably had it better than any prior generation in the history of the world, except for one thing: the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. A mere six years before I was born, our American bombers had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

It was the most destructive act in the history of warfare, inflicted on the people of Japan because their stubborn emperor refused to end the war that the Axis powers were losing anyway. And although the atomic bombing of Japan was a tragedy of worldwide proportion, it was a blessing in disguise, because, after that terrible destruction, there has been no emperor or king or president or premier foolish enough to inflict such terrible destruction and death on the people of this planet. But there was a moment in time, in1962, when we came close. In their paranoia, the Russian communists had shipped a bunch of nukes to their puppet dictator Castro, in Cuba. President Kennedy called Premier Khrushev on the red line and convinced him to turn those nukes around and put ‘em back where they came from. That was a close call! but we got through it, thanks to President Kennedy’s foresight and leadership. Meanwhile, back at the world ranch, as the icy paranoia of the cold war warmed up, nuclear power generation was being generated in several countries around the world; and that was working out well until 1986, when the Chernobyl plant almost melted down in Ukraine. After that, all was quiet on the world nuclear front until 2011, when the power plant in Fukushima, Japan almost released a dangerous level of radioactive contaminants. In 1983, in the midst of what was first thought to be an American nuke attack on Russia, a Soviet lieutenant colonel, Stanislav Petrov, might have saved the world from nuclear destruction! The Soviet early warning satellite system had erroneously detected what the electronics presented as an American nuke attack on Russia! But Lieutenant Petrov saw signs indicating that the alarm was due to a computer glitch, or something like that. His corrective retort to the officer in charge probably prevented a nuclear disaster of global proportions! All that to say. . . we have had, and still do have, a sword of Domoclesian destruction hanging over our world-citizen heads. We need to be careful. God forbid a Dr. Strangelove debacle, with Slim Pickens riding down on a buckaroo bomb toward the first strike zone of an atomic war!

Let us hope and pray that Vladimir Putin never makes such an irresponsible move in his desperate attempt to conquer the Ukraninians. Let us hope and pray that donald trump does not fire nukes on Iran because he thinks they want to fire bombs on Israel. There is a place for a paranoia in this life, like, as David Crosby had said, “looking out my rear view mirror and seeing”. . . a nuclear blast. . . or something like that. But prayer, directed toward the Lord Creator of the Universe, is a more appropriate assurance of protection, along with reasonably peaceful logistics, negotiations between the head honchoes of this world. And. . . as Amos used to say to Andy:”I told him that.” Glass half-Full

Declaration of Impeachment

When in the course of American events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the executive bonds which have connected them with a president, and to assume among the powers of our citizenry, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of our Constitution and our Role of Law entitle US, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the offenses that compel US to the Impeachment. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Americans are born equal, that they are endowed by our Constitution with certain unalianable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the exercise of our rights and freedoms without harassment by soldiers. And so, to secure these rights, government is instituted within several branches, legislative, executive and judicial, state and local, deriving their respective powers from the consent of the governed. . . and that whenever any president becomes destructive of our rights, it is the Right of the People to reject and impeach hIm, and to install new leadership, laying a new foundation on Constitutional principles that shall seem most likely to restore the safety and legality and Rule of Law of the American people. Prudence, indeed, will indicate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Accordingly, all experience has shown that Americans are tolerant of abuse to a certain extent. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object of purloining unauthorized power, constituting thereby blatant abuse of Executive privilege, it is the right of the American people; indeed it is their duty!. . . to throw off such abusive, magamaniacal authority, and to lawfully provide new leadership for the peace and safety and future security of the American people. Such has been the patient sufferance of US, the citizens of the United States, and such is now the necessity which constrains US to remove the lawless occupant of our Executive office. The history of the present Oval occupant is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in his direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these United States, and subsequent enrichment of privileged oligarchs at the expense of the American people. To prove the legitimacy of this call for impeachment, let facts be submitted to a candid world. ! He recruited a host of violent rebels to attack our Representatives and Senators at the US Capitol, January 6, 2021. He launched the violent rebellion as an attempt to disrupt and to overthrow the lawful assembly of the US House of Representatives, after a gavel-call to order in which they were assembled to count Constitutionally obtained Electoral votes. These offensive acts expose an illegal and violent attempt to steal a national election. !! He illegally ordered soldiers to attack US citizens who were legally assembled to collectively exercize their Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, on multiple occasions. !!! He allied himself with a Russian tyrant to conspire against the people of Ukraine, after he had conspired with Russian agents to discredit the integrity of his opponent in the election of 2016.

!!!! He usurped Congressional duties by presumptuously imposing tariffs on foreign imports, thereby imposing economic hardship on the American people. !!!!! Without due process, he deprived immigrants of their human rights and constitutional rights by illegally ordering violent and lethal attacks on them. !!!!!! Having no Congressional mandate, he illegally launched a war against a foreign nation, murdering innocent children and citizens in the Republic of Iran. !!!!!!! He illegally retained classified documents in his MaraLago residence after he had lost the election of 2020. !!!!!!!! He spoke irresponsibly, inappropriately and presumptuously in claiming maga ownership of Greenland, Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico. . . thereby exposing to the world his naked covetousness and stupidity in matters of international protocols and Law.

One if by land; two if by what We the People see. . . and act upon! People get ready; there’s a slow train coming. . . Glass half-Full

Sunshine

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”. . . and there was light.

Sunshine is good. That light that doused the earth with energy became the primary driver of life, as life itself was nestled among the rocks, sands and soils of earth. Every creature and plant depended upon sunshine for life. As millennia of time wrapped energy and elements around all creatures great and small, light energy was stored in organic matter, plants and animals that had once been alive, throbbing or pulsing with sap or lifeblood. It was an ancient earthly legacy of life development, growing, evolving, all creatures great and small. Every creature or plant that ever lived ends up in the ground, where their remains are recycled into the earth. This is true of us humans as well. We humans have special status, insofar as our Creator has put within us a mental and spiritual capacity for being aware of the YWHW creative process whereby we live and breathe and have our being. We were given a limited capacity for comprehending all creation and participating in the management of it. In the 19th-century, humans began to figure out how to make use of nature’s stored energy. We discovered that the remains of organic life contained stored energy. The ultimate original source of all earth energy is our sun. Sunshine is our most precious resource. Sunshine enables us to see in the daytime, and use the solar-originated earthen stored energy in . . . wood, fuel oil, coal, kerosene and electricity generated from all those solar-originated energy sources, to warm our buildings and fuel our cars, trucks, factories, computers, phones. . . Since the 1970’s, sky-oriented solar collectors have enabled us to make immediate use of the massive energy that comes through our atmosphere every day. Sunshine is our most precious resource on this earth. But we also need sunshine in government and public affairs. Our most precious resource in governance is moral integrity, honesty, and a willingness to conduct all public and governmental affairs in the sunshine of truth and Rule of Law. All public servants, politicians, congress representatives, senators and presidents must operate in the light of public awareness and truthfulness. “He who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises.” (King David’s last song, (2 Samuel 23:4)

We can see sunshine every day. We can even hear Sunshine! Carey Rowland

Rearranging Roses

I heard it in the wind last night; Now I see it in the autumn bright falling leaves in glorious applause as summer takes a three-month pause The glories drifting down and all around in golden flight with rustling sound

It seems like many dim years ago we moved into this forest space; every breeze brings down a whispering trace of what has grown and died this year. The trees shed their heritage with a leafy tear. I catch these glimpses of forest flutter that whirl and twirl down to our gutter. In our home this writer resides to witness glory as the forest glides. There was a time when this father was a singer in past a musician, but now a bringer of life and love to to the woman, the son and daughters, a marriage of heaven and earth, doing what we oughter I remember the days when I used to sit and sing songs in guitar modal grit. Yet now we prosper ‘cause we’re grateful as the leaves float down so graceful here in our homestead planted in the woods where the trees spread their leafy hoods Life has brought us so much joy and love as years fly by like the fluttering flying dove. Now I live up here, the old guy; the world shines bright as all that grows on Appalachian wooded heights. We received the call to worship the Son of Man, the Lord who survived the hammers, the nails and wounding of the sword. I hear the trees in the rustling fall, in glorious applause as Creation celebrates the seasons with a colorful pause. Chilly now, end of summer, no more shiny hot nights It was just the arbutus rustling

and the waltzing of the trees as they wave goodbye to summer in the Way, the Truth and autumn Light. Listen: Carey Rowland

The Supremacy Illusion

History is full of human mistakes. Much of the trouble surrounding the peace and safety of people can be traced to some person or group who thought they were better than everyone else, or holier than thou, or puffed up with pride because of toting a better way to do this, that, or the other, whether it’s leading a nation, or a movement within a nation. This writer, born in 1951, studies books and media to look back into the annals of history to survey the how’s and the why’s of 20th-century hatred, violence, murder, and even maga-scale holocaust. I notice that, a few decades before I was born, a demonic nazi took hold of the German state, turned it into a wehrmacht war machine so he could send his legion of maga-murderers to kill anybody who was not on his side; hitler twisted the historical precedent of Indo-Aryan hegemony to convince the German gentiles that they were better— high and mightier—than all the other Europeans, especially those Jews, whose legacy included a divine revelation that there were divine laws, promulgated by the Creator of the Universe, and that those divine laws include a commandment: THOU SHALT NOT KILL!

The little Austrian corporal dragged the Europeans into a continent-wide war in which millions of people were killed. Along the way, he appointed his most bloody-thirsty officers to launch a holocaust against the people who followed the Law that the Creator YWHW had sent down, many, many centuries ago. A few years after that world war had subsided into the tombs of history, I was born in the deep south of the USA. I was a child in Jackson, Mississippi, when Medgar Evers was shot dead in his own front yard. It wasn’t long after that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Martin had spoken to a gathering of his people on the night before his death, He had told his people, gathered in a Christian church, that he had “seen the promised land.” But he also said, “I may not get there with you.” As a faithful leader of an oppressed people, Martin was re-living the experience of Moses, a brave spiritual leader of long ago. As Moses had lead his people, the Hebrews, out of slavery in Egypt, Dr. King was leading his people out of racial oppression and discrimination in the deep south.

Now, in 2026, at age 75, I am amazed at how far we have come in our American declaration that all men are created equal, endowed by out Creator with Life, Liberty and the the pursuit of happiness. The amazing grace of these progressive changes convinces me that the supremecy illusion is no way to run a nation or a world. We had best take the advice of the Jew who said we ought to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Then he fortified his legacy of golden rule authority by rising from the dead, on the third day after his crucifixion. And if you believe that, I’ve got some real estate in heaven that we’ll share when your life and mine is all said and done. Mountaintop Carey Rowland

Making Love

an excerpt from chapter 18 of Glass Chimera, a microscopic venture into the land of Utruss:

Deep in the womb of Salli Cretani something unique was about to happen. Intimate collaboration with her husband was culminating in a great event of Creative proportions. All around them, the excitement was building up. They could just feel it coming. God had set a great, creative urge deep within them, which would produce a unique work that only they could perform. On this appointed night, the holy place had been prepared, and was ready to receive visitation from the Chosen One. Salli’s husband, Kemal, anticipated the upcoming event with great joy. . . Down in the depths of Kemal, the prophet lifted high his staff and waved it broadly toward the vast swift-flowing River Deferens, upon which their rising momentum now began to surge with fervent purpose and ecstasy. The prophet surveyed that entire scene as the mighty horde passed before him into eternity. He watched them all dive with jubilant abandon into the vast River, and he kept his steadfast eye upon their departure until all had disappeared round the bend of the River—all except one. He gazed upon that One with a joy that accompanies only those rare events in which true Life is being wrought from raw potential. The One who stayed behind approached the prophet humbly. And when he had come within an arm’s length, he kneeled there beneath the prophet’s expectant gaze. “I have expected you,” said the prophet. “What is your name, boy?” “Lance, sir.” “From this time forth you shall be called: Sir Lance.” “Thank you, sir.” “Tell me why you have lingered here, while the others have gone before you to perform their duty.” “I want to obtain your blessing, sir.” “Then you shall have it.” “Thank you, sir.” “And so, Lance, since it is incumbent upon you to overtake your comrades in this expedition and thus fulfill your sacred destiny, I do anoint you, on behalf of our Creator, to go forth in the knowledge and confidence of your holy purpose, and thereby to accomplish its fulfillment in the land of Utruss. Arise, Sir Lance, and go. Do what you have been called to do.” “Thank you, Sir.” Now Lance stood erect, knowing that he had received the precious commission for which he had lingered. Without hesitation, the anointed servant turned upon his heel and left the holy mountain. Alone, he dived into the vast River Deferens to make the long journey to Paradise. The prophet watched until the chosen One disappeared around the bend of the River. “May the Lord go with you, boy,” he whispered. Kemal and Salli sighed with their sweet love’s satisfaction. Read the book, Glass Chimera: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Chimera-L-Carey-Rowland/dp/1452897565 Carey Rowland

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

At Lincoln Memorial

a scene from Glass half-Full They walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When they reached the top, Bridget was gazing, like most everyone else who ascends here, with rapt interest at the seated statue. But Marcus, holding Bridget’s hand, gently prodded her to keep moving, slowly to the left, through the myriad of ambling visitors.

They came to an inner sanctum. Carved on the white marble wall in front of them were the words of the slain President’s Gettysburg address. Marcus stopped, taking in the enormity of it, both physically and philosophically. He was looking at the speech intently. Bridget was looking at him. After a few moments: “Isn’t that amazing? “Yes.” She could see that he was thinking hard about something. The great chamber echoed a murmur of humankind. “Supreme irony.” The longing of a nation’s soul reverberated through the memorial… in the soundings of children, the whisperings of passersby. Deep within Marcus’ soul, something sacred was stirring, and she could see it coming forth. “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.” He was reading aloud Lincoln’s words on the white wall. But for the echoes of a million people who had passed through this place, there was silence. After a moment, Bridget responded. “…and yet, there it is carved on the wall, for all to see: ‘the world will little note what we say here….’” “Right, Bridget. Isn’t it amazing?” Suddenly, amid the noise was a loud shouting. Marcus could hear where it was coming from. He moved quickly away, toward the noise, to see what was happening. Bridget felt the sudden coolness of air on her hand, in the absence of Marcus’ gentle grip. As soon as he emerged from behind the marble column, Marcus was puzzled by an incongruous, glistening wet flash of red upon the feet of Lincoln’s statue. What the hell? Instinctively, he ran over to it. He could still hear a constant shouting; it was a ranting. Then his attention settled on the man who was yelling. He had a bucket in his hand, dripping with red paint. The rant went on, and suddenly Marcus was comprehending it: “…you sonofabitch see if you can get that off and then rub it on your white ass, your sorry white ass that destroyed what this country could have been you’re a traitor to your race.” This must be a dream, a very bad dream. Marcus was noticing the speaker’s bald head, goatee, his moving mouth spouting insult. Then Marcus was deciding to do something. It seemed to him that it was someone else speaking when he asked, loudly, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Glass half-Full