Christian Faith

 Christian faith is about being redeemed from the limitations of this present life and being born into eternal life with Jesus Christ, the only man in history who died a criminal death and then lived to tell about it.

You believe that?

If you believe that, perhaps some day you’ll join us.

Christian faith is not about politics; it’s not about worldly influence or governmental ascendency, It’s not about media influence or domination. It’s not about what happens in Washington, or Jerusalem or Gaza or Hollywood or Silicon Valley or any pleasant valley on a Sunday. 

I’t about your life. Do you want to live forever? Or not? If you do want to live forever, you have an historical opportunity to join up with the  person who has proven that life goes on after death. 

How do I know? The message that I just delivered to you was delivered long ago by Jesus and those who followed him. It was written for posterity.

But be careful. The Christian life is no walk in the park.

Hear more about that in my song:

Follow 

 After He ascended into eternity, Christians kept the message going. That message of eternal life and salvation has been going on ever since, and will continue. You can read more about it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 

So now you know the real deal. It’s not about politics, clout or whose in charge of this present circus. It’s about you. What is your destiny in eternity?

Glass half-Full

The Evita Mystery

 Our media-saturated life is a roundabout. We go ‘round and round in our daily routines, in our weekly routines, and monthly and. . . year after year, decade after decade, until one fateful day. . .

Anyway, don’t know about you, but I’ve been on this merry-go-round since 1951; not that it was all that merry, but that it does go round and round and is perpetually decorated with memories.

For sure, there are the real memories, with real people. . . fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, school chums, frieusnds, best friends.

Then there are the ever-present media memories that are always humming or gleaming in the background. For my generation that backdrop was Captain Kangaroo, Howdy Doody, Disney stuff, Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, Kennedy, MLK, Saigon, blahblah. . .

AM radio. Elvis, Beatles, CSNY, Karen Carpenter. . .

Say what? Karen Carpenter?

Well, yes, there was Karen, who came along with her pianoforte’ brother, Richard.

The point of this blog is getting around to what I’ve been remembering for the last week or so:

the most beautiful voice that God ever put into a human, and now that that you mention it. . . Karen singing the  most beautiful song written during my lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ZKihNCWWE

Don’t ask me how it happened. 

The song, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, was sung in a musical opus called Evita, a so-called rock opera, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in 1976.

The story in that Webber/Rice rock opera is a musical depiction of the life of Evita Peron, wife of  historic Argentinian President, Juan Peron. You can learn more about her in this Wikipedia posting: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evita_(musical)

I don’t know how or why I got onto this song-memory thread . . . but I guess I just wanted you to hear it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ZKihNCWWE

Music and Memory are two incredibly fascinating elements in this life. This is my way of sharing a very special moment in 20th-centiry music with you.

King of Soul

So what about the Jews?

 Like a disease, antisemitism flares up now and then in our world history and . . . now again, it seems, to be poking its hateful head  in our present Age. 

The Jewish people have been documenting human behaviour for thousands of years. Their history scrolls originated with a very smart man named Moses. He wrote the story of a wise man named Abraham who decided to improve his life and the life of his family, by leaving a bad situation and moving to a faraway place where he could do better for himself and his family.

But Moses’ historical opus wasn’t just about Abraham. Moses also documented the ancient story of how the Creator, YWHW for lack of a better word, who created our world and the first people in it. 

And if that wasn’t enough, Moses also wrote a list of laws that have enabled men and women to live productively and healthily in tribes and communities for thousands of years. 

Because Jews have been literate and morally conscientious longer than other people groups of the world, they have developed a culture that provokes jealousy and resentment from other people.

We humans have a very useful thing call Law. The Jews are more responsible than any other people group for the awareness of law and the proper use of it for establishing and maintaining a civil society.

You know what I’m talking about: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, etc.  etc.

Their cultural insistence on doing the right thing gets them into trouble with people who don’t want to do the right thing. 

What happens is this: Some wise guy cranks up a human project or institution that victimizes other people. The wise guy and his lackeys know that what they want to do is wrong but they blast their way through their unjust or usurious program anyway.

And  what happens, historically, is that a Jew who knows and understands the moral Law comes along and says No you can’t do that; it’s not right!

In ancient times, for instance, a notable prophet, Daniel, served in the royal court of Babylon, similar to what Joseph had done in Egypt, many years prior. 

In elucidating a divine Law for the sake of improving human life and governance—instead of corrupt human laws that promote the hegemony of of powerful overlords—Jews such as Daniel have from time to time gotten themselves in trouble with the powers that be.

In ancient Babylon, Daniel came to understand the character and motivations of corrupt leaders. Daniel described, in those ancient times a type of leader who would do as he pleases—instead of doing rightly by promoting Justice, Mercy and Peace. 

Daniel described such a leader: 

“He will show no regard for the gods (or sacred values) of his fathers . . . for he will magnify himself above all.”

“He will honor a god of forces . . . with gold, silver and costly stones and treasures.”

That person whom Daniel described in ancient times indicates an archetypal leader who arises from time to time in human history. 

In the long trail of our human civiization, certain Jews who were aware, at the time, of such entities have gotten themselves into deep trouble because they were aware of the corruption that goes on among the movers and shakers of our civilizations.

And they were willing to expose that corruption so that the rest of us citizens would understand what the hell is going on.

The most recent manifestation of this historical dynamic was worked out in the Third Reich, dreamed up and actualized by adolf hitler, who imposed a massive holocaust on the Jewish people. But decent citizens of the world moved in to put a stop to those murderous auschwitz-camps and gulags and other despicable, unlawful imprisonments that men concoct to control other men and women.

In the world today, there are men who would strive to put themselves, improperly and unjustly, in positions of power for the sake of their own enrichment and authority.

 But for the sake of all mankind, as well as for the protection of Jews and other persecuted ethnicities, men who enforce their own wealth and power at the usurious expense and persecution of others should be brought under the mantle of Justice and legitimate Law.

May it never happen again!

Never again.

Glass half-Full

Days of Infamy and Signs of Hope

For my parents generation, the “greatest generation”, their terrible appointment with disaster came on December 7, 1941.

 President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it  a “day of infamy,” the unforgettable day that Japanese emperor Hirohito’s air force struck our Pearl Harbor. . . the day we entered World War II.

22 years later,  the date of infamy for my baby boomer g-generation arrived:  November 22, 1963—the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

That was the day Walter Cronkite removed his glasses and told us that President Kennedy had died at 1:00 pm, central standard time.

All of us baby boomers remember where we were when we first heard the terrible news. I was in a 7th-grade classroom. Our principal interrupted the class to deliver the news. She spent a few minutes recalling how the President had "had 'em backed up against the wall," referring to the Russians and the Cuban missile crisis.

There was no other day of such a tragic infamy until 9/11/2001, when we all remember where we were and what we were doing when we saw or heard the news of the World Trade Center collapsing. I was repairing some exterior siding on a friend's house when Mike rolled out in his wheelchair with the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. My first imaginative image was of a small plane, like a Cessna, crashing into that skyscraper. But, of course, the disaster was much larger than I had first imagined. . .

But hey. . . even as I recall these tragic dates in American history, I do want to conclude this moment of reflection with a positive indicator for our future, 200 colorful images.

 Behold the hopeful graphic artworks of 200 child residents, on display in a public playground, Vacaville, California: 

 

Glass half-Full 

Bob Woodward's Legacy

 In ages past, a fervent interest in history required stacks of those ancient paper things called “Books.”

Now books are nice, and still essential for scholarship, but I would not trade internet access for any of them, except for the Greatest Story Ever Told, the Bible. But that’s another story for another day. 

Here’s my latest story hot off the press, so to speak. 

Watching Youtube, yesterday, I come across Carl Woodward being interviewed by Ari Melber. I had to listen in.

Here’s Ari prying into the mind of the reporter who broke the Watergate story. . . with a little help, of course, from his friend and fellow Washington Post reporter, Carl Bernstein. 

For such a time as that . . . 1973, those two guys were born. 

My mind wandered back to the summer of 1973. In my near-campus mini-apartment, I took every opportunity, while not working at the shoe store or attending my last two classes at nearby LSU. . . every opportunity to watch the Senate Watergate hearings on TV.

Those hearings, chaired by North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, were similar to the recent House January 6th hearings, and just as informative, for an historical investigation and expose' on events that were, at that time,  history-changing events. 

You see. . . back in ’73, things were different. But you didn't have to be there to learn about it.

If ye young whippersnappers are not familiar with the Watergate saga, do a search for “All the President’s Men.” 

Long story short: Two Washington Post reporters tracked down enough evidence to convince a President to take his ball and go home.

I’ll not dredge up all the drama. Just check it out and see what you think:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E18UmgEvGJk

  A few years later, the story was told in cinema: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President%27s_Men_(film)

While recommending the movie, I’ll not get into the lengthy story of President Richard Nixon’s ultimate withdrawal from the Oval Office. 

I will, however, commend Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for opening the nation’s eyes to the inner workings. . . the “Plumbers’” view of what all the President’s men did in their attempt to cover up the Watergate Hotel break-in, a crime not unlike--though on a much smaller scale-- the recent trump insurrection attempt to overthrow our US government.

When you get to be my age, what is even more interesting is to hear, right out of the mouth of such an alert man as this . . . Bob Woodward, and discover his take on that history-changing investigation. . . how it impacted our nation and how it prompted Bob to persist in his lifelong search for journalistic truth, and then. . . and then explain it all to a highly qualified contemporary reporter, Ari Melber. 

Oh, and, as if all that were not enough, Bob did manage to, in between his many investigations and interviews, write a few more books. . . definitely worth the reading, or the watching.

King of Soul

The Tragedy of Verminizing Public Discourse

 I don’t know, but I been told (by Steve Schwartz), that a recent trump tweet referred to “Radical Left Thugs” as “vermin.”

The trump tweet, which Steve showed us in his “The Warning” blog, specifies who, in trump’s opinion, those vermin are: communists, marxists, fascists and radical left thugs who will do “anything possible” . . . to destroy “America and the American Dream.”

Apparently donald trump was not aware that he was including some of his own supporters, the “fascists”, in his vermin list.

If donald does intend to destroy fascists, then he should notify the proud boys and the the oathkeepers and the three-percenters and all those other radical thugs who were standing by awaiting his call to action on January 6 2021. He should warn them of his intent to destroy them in his campaign to extinguish “the vermin.”

Rodents, cockroaches, termites, bedbugs and lice are vermin.

Persons whose bodies typically host vermin are also sometimes derogatorily called vermin: beggars, vagrants, homeless people, poor people, even. . . immigrants! May it never be! The pilgrims were immigrants!

But Democrats, liberals, socialists, communists, BLM activists, LGBTQ people, marxists, leftists and Jewish people are not vermin. 

The former president’s derogatory name-calling does not establish their identities. In this free nation, each person establishes their own identity. Furthermore, each group establishes their own identity.

The former president’s use of that word to defile his political opponents places him in the same leadership category as adolf hitler.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower would not/did not use that word to describe their fellow-citizens, or even their enemies. As dignified American leaders, they would not stoop so low as to insult their opponents by calling them “vermin.”

Even Richard Nixon did not use that word in referring to his political opponents. Nixon certainly never called Hubert Humphrey or George McGovern or Sam Ervin or Woodward, Bernstein or Ben Bradlee . . . “vermin.”

Only adolf hitler stooped so law as to calling his opponents “vermin.”

Now donald trump calls his opponents vermin. If he keeps insulting and deriding them at this rate, the magamaniacs will begin stretching out their arms in the maga salute: “Heil Trump.”

Or, as the witch hailed  Macbeth in Shakespeare’s tragedy play, “Hail MacTrump who shall be King hereafter!”

That royal destiny could only be accomplished by the dastardly shedding of blood that Lady Macbeth later regretted when she cried “Out damned spot!” 

And Burn’em Constitution Rule of Law doth move against Washington and Lincoln’s name!

May it never be! . . . although, methinks. . . dark, foreboding clouds of American tragedy do loom on our horizon, not unlike those that Romeo feared when he declared:

“For my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin. . ”

with these trump’s rebels!

Glass half-Full

Louisiana

I left Louisiana in broad daylight; back in ’73 it was. 

I was a clueless English major LSU grad, still wet behind the years with an untamed urge to experience the good life.

California, where everything was hap’nin, was too far away. I had hitchhiked there one time and found it to be a cool place.

But some family connections steered me to the South’s version of California, Florida.

So I did the Florida thing for about a year and half, selling life insurance and then newspaper advertising. But then a few days of jail time on a traffic violation—driving on a revoked license to get to work one morning, but then getting caught— I opted for leaving Florida in the broad daylight.  

Finally settled in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. Been there ever since. Destiny, I guess. At least I like to think so. 

Better yet. . . Providence, like Abraham.

Who’da thunk it that a Miss'ippi River boy, me, kinda like Sam Cooke, "born by the River" would end up living life as a mountain man?

But this is America, where a man can carve his own destiny out of whatever wood, stone, mountain, river or  storm gets in his way. 

When Katrina hit Louisiana in '05, I accompanied Pat and a bus full of nurses on a trip from our home in Boone NC down to Baton Rouge. I was quite impressed with the work that Red Cross was doing for hurricane victims who had been flooded or blown out of their owns. During that time, I remember hearing Randy Newman's song, Louisiana, about the great flood of 1927.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE

Long about 2005 or so, the ole Writerly urge—and the lame LSU English degree— finally kicked in and paid off, so to speak, haha!. I wrote and published my first novel, Glass half-Full. After that,  as a few more years rolled by the second and third novels somehow tumbled out of the laptop: Glass Chimera, Smoke.

And then the long-awaited novel, the fourth, a story that involved going home again (in my authorial memory and imagination) appeared, having been summoned  out of a million keystrokes, onto 258 KDP pages: King of Soul.

It's a story about what happened to our nation back in the days of the Vietnam War, while I was a student with a college deferment at LSU, until the lottery when my number came up 349.

Most of the story is centered on events at LSU,  although the last scene is in Kent, Ohio.

Go figure. In my mind,  it’s the great American novel, haha!. Thank God and my wife, RN Nurse Pat, for making that grand writing project possible while she was keeping patients alive in the ICU. 

What’s so fortuitous is that the creative urge had started to bloom in Asheville while Pat and I were meeting and falling in love.

Thomas Wolfe's famous 1929 novel was “Look Homeward Angel” which mostly happened in a guest house in Asheville that was just a stone’s throw from the printing company where I worked for a few years.

Thomas Wolfe also wrote another novel:   You Can't Go Home Again

Nevertheless, come Tuesday, I’ll be  "going home again," getting back to my roots,

flying out of Carolina in the broad daylight to Go "Home" Again, in that bayou state where I was born in '51. We’ll see what the ole home place has become since I left Louisiana many and many a year ago with a guitar on my knee, passin' through Alabama. . .  my true love, Pat,  for to see.

King of Soul