August 1, 2024
Well, here it is, Son, August 1st! That is so hard to believe! I believe school is starting for some today. I don’t know if I am remembering correctly or what, but it seems like I remember not starting school until after Labor Day when I was a kid. I’ve often thought school should be a year-round thing with two weeks off at the change of the seasons. I’ve also thought school should be done away with altogether – LOL. It’s nothing but an indoctrination center now-a-days… as it is currently done.
All schools should be locally run and include all ages. No kids should have to ride buses to school with the exception of rural kids. All schools should be neighborhood schools with plenty of bike racks and have sidewalks leading to them for the kids to walk or ride their bikes to school. Ah… but alas… this would be utopia. I forgot… there’s no such thing! We might as well have munchkins making us all life-time supplies of chocolate!
Oh well, Son, so much for La-la-land. Let’s get back to reality… as we know it. There is an old Indian saying, or, at least, I’ve been told there is an old Indian saying (who knows what is any more) that goes something like, “Good and evil are two wolves fighting within you. The one that wins is the one you feed.” Sin is like pretty much anything else. It grows when fed and perishes when starved. We’ve just been told that it is breaking some long list of rules that seems to have been written by an old buzz-killing librarian for study hall or something of the sort.
No, Son, sin is simply doing what you know you ought not do or not doing what you know you ought to do. If everybody quieted their souls, listened to that still, small voice that does eternally call, and then did what they knew they were supposed to do and refrained from doing what they knew they were not supposed to do, utopia would ensue everywhere this was occurring! No list of rules needed! Rules are for schools and the study halls within them. They are for training kids to… not listen to their heart of hearts within their soul of souls!
How can it be that this stuff is so simple, yet we’ve been doing it all so wrong for two thousand years now? It’s no wonder nothing ever changes! How can it be that no one’s ever come up with this… simple stuff before? Rest assured, Son, they have! It’s just been buried… along with them… probably… in most cases. This is why the serpents in shadows promote strict adherence to biblical canon, and, should you infringe that, it is enforceable by excommunication from the theater where the hit show continues to go onstage every Sunday at… The Church of your choice.
They want you to follow their study hall rules. It makes for… quieter study… of canonical texts. It’s time for the bell to ring and for school to be out for summer and… The New Golden Age of Mankind and The Second Coming of Christ! Ding-a-ling-a-ling!
You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
- Christopher Columbus
August 2, 2024
Mornin’, Son. So, how can it be that sin is, not breaking some rule from a long list of buzz-killing rules, but simply doing what you know not to do and not doing what you know to do? Leaves on a tree, Son. Leaves on a tree. Animals on a planet, Son. Animals on a planet. Stars in the night sky, Son. Stars in the night sky. Mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, tundras, prairies, beaches, marshes, swamps, savannas, and Antarctic wastelands, my son. That is how it can be!
God hates the lukewarm! He spits it from His mouth every time! Serpents in shadows love it. They want it not so cold that they can’t operate nor so hot that they can’t handle it. Lukewarm is much easier for them to handle. Long lists of buzz-killing rules is… lukewarm. If you can control the lists… you can control the people who believe in them. If the people are, like the leaves of a tree, all following what they know they are supposed to be following, independently of rules or each other, control is lost, but… order is not. It’s just no longer their order – their… New World Order.
Son, believe it or not, things are not sins. Alcohol is not a sin… or, rather, the drinking of it. Killing, even killing another man, is not a sin. It’s all in the intent, and that is in the person – not the thing or the thing being done. One who is dependent on alcohol to escape the life God has for him sins when he drinks to excess and to escape. One who kills in self defense or in the defense of his home and family is not sinning when he kills. Conversely, when one actually does follow authority and adheres to some list of rules, knowing in his heart that it’s just not right, he is sinning when he does so.
Doing what is right by society’s standards is not doing what is right by God’s. Case in point – just look at Jesus. He was hung on a cross, was He not, for following God rather than following the society of serpents in synagogues? If you had lived in Europe back in the 1930s, would you have followed along with the good, old boys in the SS or the Nazi Party or would you have followed your heart? What if a group of your friends suddenly became a riled-up lynch mob intent on stringing up a questionably guilty, possibly innocent person whose main crime was not being part of the… in crowd? Would you follow along with them… or with your heart?
God orders His universe differently than do serpents in shadows. God’s universe is glorious! Just look at it! Serpents slither in shadows. Their universe is dark. Colors are not easily discerned in shadows and are, therefore, unimportant in their universe. Diversity is preached but not practiced in the universe of serpents… except as a way of diluting that which is too strong for them to handle. Recipes call for diverse ingredients, but, if you throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into the same pot, do you think the resulting meal will be glorious… or gross?
God’s universe is glorious, but it is also ordered. He wants us, as Jesus so fervently prayed for us in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified, to follow Him – to be One with him – to be His body on Earth. God does not want us following some long list of buzz-killing, colorless, all-inclusive rules just because someone of earthly authority… says so! That… is exactly what got Jesus hung on a cross! He, instead, followed God’s authority! I love you, Son. I sure wish I could have told you all of this stuff… before.
Sometimes it’s time to get away from it all and experience things in a completely different way.
- Kim Mance
August 3, 2024
Good morning, Son. My brain is tired this morning. I don’t know if it is capable of much more than directing me to yawn every few minutes. Your mom and I went to Hong Kong Buffet last night. I think I am still… “hung over” from all that Chinese food – ha! We decided to go out last night since we were “childless”. Penn and Chewy stayed in a “condo kennel” at Gluckstadt Animal Hospital as a practice run for next weekend when we are planning on heading back up to your old stomping grounds in South Carolina for the installation / dedication phase of the John Cody memorial bench project. That has really turned into a labor of love, Son! I sure wish you could have seen that.
Anyway, since we have never boarded Penn and Chewy, we thought it’d be a good idea to do a trial run just to see how they’d do before hauling off eight hours away from home where we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if they did… not take to being boarded very well. I am assuming they did alright. I dropped them off around nine yesterday morning and didn’t hear anything from them, so, I guess, no news is good news… unlike the real world in which we live.
In the “real world”, that’s exactly where they bury the very information that we do need and that we should be getting from… “the media”. They simply do not tell us! Some people are so caught up in that, “You really need to check your facts before spreading all that misinformation and conspiracy theory crap!” And I’m like, “Number one, you can’t possibly really believe the “facts” that the “fact checkers” check any more than you can really believe the ‘truth” that the “truth tellers” tell in the mainstream media now, can you? And, number two, if you do believe all that, well you are just too… I don’t want to say, “dumb,” so I’ll just say… gullible to realize that all they have to do to bury the truth is to… just not tell it.
People are too lazy to do their own research. People find it much easier to just trust authority and what authority tells them is so, such as: “Don’t do your own research! You don’t have the expertise to wade through all the conspiracy theory crap and determine the truth from the fiction like our… experts do, so just let us do the research for you. You should only trust… authoritative sources for your news and information!”
Many people are beginning to wake up to this… fact of our… “reality”. Many people are starting to see that “the media” are nothing but actors before cameras. They are paid professionals. They are paid to… play a role – to tell lies to the public, feigning that it is the truth! They are no different than the paid professionals in Hollywood… other than the fact that the Hollywood crowd admits that they are actors. What they don’t tell you, though, is that they are actors 24 / 7. They are acting – they are playing a role whether they are on screen or off.
But, Son, as people are awakening to this… “news” – as they are becoming more and more awake to this fact that they have been lied to – as they become aware that the “conspiracy theory” about the “news media” has evolved into a “conspiracy fact” – they seem to be put off by the “news” that this has been going on for a very long time. They seem to think that that… is still a conspiracy theory.
It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun… and that is probably true due to the “fact” that they hide everything “new” in the shadows where we cannot see it, or, at least, where we must strain our conspiratorial theory eyes to see it.
Son, hiding the “news” and “lying by omitting” has been going on for a long time. Do you really think this is new? Do you really think that there is anything new under the sun? Do you think that this was not going on when the emperor, Constantine, convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and dabbled around in the early attempts at establishing a biblical canon? Do you think an emperor, of all people, would tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
It amazes me, Son, how people will trust an emperor from the fourth century… but won’t trust what the Spirit of the Creator of all there is has to whisper in a still, small voice to the “ears” of their souls in the here and now! It amazes me, Son, that these people can argue and debate over “facts” that are nothing more than “planted evidence” – that are nothing more than obvious “baits for traps” and “decoys for dummies”.
I hear all these experts deliberating the minutia of all the evidential aspects of their particular field of… expertise, and I think, “They are science fiction or fantasy nerds arguing over which character from the movie or book in question best exemplifies the truth of the human condition and the solution to the problems of our current reality, or which race’s spaceship would defeat all the other races’ spaceships if their universes were to collide and they were forced into battle with one another… or something of that sort.”
Anyway, the point is, Son, that, this that we are experiencing, is the only thing that is real, and we discount it at every opportunity for something from the past – an authoritative account of history – or for something from the future – passing the time away by drinking, drugging, or otherwise escaping through spectator sports, playing games, watching movies, reading fantasy books, or any other sort of mundane entertainment that just… passes the time away. We are to learn from the past, and we are to be mindful of the future, but we are to live… in the present, and so very few of us do that… including me! Until next time, Son. I love you!
It feels good to be lost in the right direction.
- Unknown
August 4, 2024
Good morning, Son! Well, I guess Penn and Chewy did alright staying in their “condo kennel” at Gluckstadt Animal Hospital Friday night, so I reckon we are good to go for doing it again this coming Friday morning through Monday evening or Tuesday morning (depending on what time we can get back home Monday). Our trip back up to South Carolina for your memorial bench project is kind of iffy right now with that tropical system developing off the east coast and threatening to course up through the Carolinas later this week. We’ll just have to sit on go and see how things develop as the week goes on.
They got the concrete poured for the pad that your bench is going to sit on at Chattooga River Lodge Thursday evening, so it is ready to go for a bench installation. I’m not sure about the site prep at Wildwater or Belle Farms. I’ll have to check on that. Hopefully the weather this week will be conducive to the concrete pads being poured at those locations as well. I certainly hope the weather cooperates and we are able to proceed with our plans, but, you know what they say, “If you want to hear God laugh, just tell Him your plans.” Maybe God won’t laugh at this, though.
Anyway, where were we on this journey of ours? Son, I tell you these things every morning because they are real – they are real to me anyway – the way I see things, and I just feel like, if you could have known God in a real way – the way I do, perhaps it could have saved you. I don’t mean “saved”, here, in the way all the “Churchians” do either – not that “ticket to heaven” thingy they so arrogantly boast of when they… “join the club”.
No, Son, I mean really save you – in the physical and spiritual sense. Had you had a spiritual awakening, you would not have taken the gift of life that God gave you and thrown it away; for you would have seen the value of it, you would have appreciated it, you would have wanted to give it back to God as a living memorial to Him – for Him to use to His glory. I can only imagine… what that would have looked like and could have developed into. I am so sorry, Son, that I did not tell you all these things while you were yet here, wandering this Earth. You could have been one of those who wander… yet are not lost.
I do not mean to offend Christians… or… maybe I do. I mean… maybe the Christians of this world need to be offended to get them out of their comfortable little social clubs and out into the streets fighting the fight that Jesus started with the powers and principalities against whom we are to fight! Instead they hole up in these “churches” that are shaped – that are organized – that are designed – that are run by the very people against whom we are supposed to be fighting – the serpents in the shadows.
Maybe I am mad at them! Maybe it is a righteous indignation! Maybe, if Jesus of Nazareth were here today, walking the streets of our day, He’d march right up in those churches and overturn tables as He did in His day with the moneychangers! Oh, yeah, Jesus is Coming… Back! I only wish, Son, that He’d come to you first and had awakened your soul to all of this so that you could be here with us. But, perhaps, Son, God has even bigger plans for you than your mere mortal life could accomplish! Though our plans are not panning out as we had planned, I don’t really think I hear God… “laughing” right now. He’s… “smiling out loud” as He sees His children growing and maturing into that which He… had always planned. I love you, Son!
It’s good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
- Ernest Hemingway
August 5, 2024
It’s liable to be a short foray today, Son. It’ already passed five and I am just now setting into a pace for today’s journey… and it’s a slow pace at that . Such is life when you’re old and decrepit. My brain ain’t wanting to get up and go either… so there’s that.
Son, so much of that which we believe and do is based on that which we think is. This is why it is so important for them to control the narrative… whatever that narrative in question happens to be. The more narratives the better. That just gives them more teams to pit against one another. All they have to do is throw money at the top – at whomever is leading that particular narrative, corrupting them by either slowly winning them over as they accept bigger and ever bigger treats for jumping higher and ever higher on command; or quickly by threatening to expose the corruption to which they have already succumbed if they refuse to jump any higher; and if that doesn’t work… kill them, making it look like an accident of course.
This has been the way of it for millennia, my son. Over those millennia, they have divided humanity countless times. There are now vast and constantly fluctuating numbers of “teams” all pitted against one another… and they control them all from the top down. They can promote one “team” over another (or over all others) simply by throwing money at it. They can put a “team” in the basement and starve it of any exposure to the light of day simply by withholding that same money – that same money that they control, not only the flow of, but also the very creation of through their fiat money systems that they have installed in practically every nation on Earth.
Son, so few people even know about this, let alone understand it. Now, I am not claiming to understand just how these money systems work or how these serpents can run everything from the shadows in which they slither, but, just because I don’t understand all the technical details and industrial trade secrets of high finance, that doesn’t mean that I cannot see that they are using finance as a weapon against those over whom they hold the purse strings, threatening to either tighten them… or loosen them depending on how high the recipient is willing to jump.
You know, it doesn’t take an explosive ordinance disposal expert to realize that if they are putting bombs into aid packages… stop taking in aid packages! It ain’t rocket science! And, if it were rocket science, they’d control that narrative too! Sorry, Son, I just ain’t with it today. It’s Monday. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be more… with it. I’ve got to go feed the dogs and greet the coming day. I love you.
Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.
- Mark Twain
August 6, 2024
Mornin’, Son. Mom has another injection in her hip and lower back joints this morning. Hopefully that will give her enough relief from all this pain she’s been having to enable her to tolerate an eight hour trip up to South Carolina Friday, enjoy, if that is the correct word, the installation / dedication of your bench at the Lodge, and then endure the trip back on Monday. I haven’t checked the weather to see what that tropical system is doing off the east coast. I shall endeavor to do that today.
Mat from Chattooga River Lodge emailed some pictures from the concrete pour Thursday evening of the pad there. It looks like your bench is going to be down in the woods next to a creek at a trailhead or something – very secluded and conducive to meditating and contemplating… I would think.
Stephen from MoreSun Timber Frames sent some pictures of the bench install at Wildwater. I all but busted out crying at work yesterday when I opened the group photo at the end with like twenty people all around and on top of your bench. It is such a labor of love and respect, Son. Oh how I wish you could have seen the way people have come together for you over this! I think I’ll stretch out and go for a run. I’ll visit you again while Mom is having her procedure. I love you, Son!
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
0850
Hey, Son, I’m back. I’m sitting in the waiting room. They just took your mother back for round two of her steroid injections. I don’t know how many of these they can do, but I sure hope they get the right spot this time… or, at least, a “righter” spot. We’ll see, and, hopefully, Mom will have a pain free trip to South Carolina and back. I reckon we’ll drop Penn and Chewy off for their extended stay at the “condo kennel” Friday morning around 7:30 or so and then hit the road for Long Creek, SC.
They’ve got this screen on the wall in here that is continuously playing one of those idiotic reality shows. This one’s got this prissy little dude in skinny jeans with tats all over him, including his neck and throat area up to his jaws and all sorts of piercings and rings and chains dangling everywhere. It’s so distracting – the show and the… accessories on the dude that’s on the show. You can’t even focus on this guy’s face for all the… artwork (if you want to call it that) that’s all over him. You can’t help but look at it!
That’s the way of this world, Son. The whole thing is a distraction. The whole world is a disco ball with a spotlight shinning upon it, sparkling and projecting little rays of light everywhere to keep you dazzled and amazed and gawking with your mouth agape to distract you and keep you from living a natural, organic, and authentic life as God had intended for you – as God has intentioned for all mankind to do. Materialism is the poison apple that put Snow White to sleep. Where is our Prince Charming?
Jesus showed us the way. He rejected materialism. He lived in the moment. Can we do this? I don’t know, Son. We do have to have a certain amount of foresight to survive in this world we wander. Where would we be if all we did was to live in the moment? Stacking firewood for the coming winter is certainly not living in the moment. Neither is planning and growing a garden, nor canning the fruit that that garden yields, yet… where would we be without such actions?
Again, Son, balance seems to be the answer. Just as there are seasons through which we must go – cold, hard winters, lush and gentle springs, hot, yet productive summers, and soothing and scenic autumns – there are also seasons of preparations we must attend lest we find ourselves freezing and starving to death because we were… caught up in the moment of an eternal spring that turned out to not be… eternal. No, Son, we must learn from the past, be mindful of the future, and live in the moment… even if that moment is studying history or planning for possible future events like drought or killing frosts and prolonged freezing weather.
Materialism distracts us from that. It suggests we sacrifice our futures so that we may live in the present – so that we may really live in the moment! Materialism asks us to forget the past – that’s behind us! Look what the present offers! It asks us to disregard the lessons we learned from the past because the present is prosperous enough to take care of our every need, desire, or want.
Everything devolves into the disposable with materialism at the helm. There’s no need to fix or repair or recycle because with materialism, there’s plenty to go around! Being conservative – being a conservationist falls out of vogue. It’s cool to be wasteful and show that you are not weak and scared – that you are part of the in crowd and have the material means to succeed in this… material world of Madonnas (plural – not possessive).
Balance, Son. Oh how I wish that you, me, and the whole world could balance living in this world without being so obsessed about living in this world. We should, rather, be focused on learning from the past and on making this world a better place than it is. Well, how the heck do we do that while… living in the moment – in the present? That’s a good question, Son. I’d like to know the answer to that my own self! Perhaps we can wander that path next time. They ought to be about through with your mom any minute now. Until next time. I love you.
Every few hundred feet the world changes.
- Roberto Bolano
August 7, 2024
Good morning, Son. So, how can we live in the moment while learning of and from the past and while being mindful of and preparing for the future? Well, it’s kind of like building a brick wall, I suppose. The present is the brink we are laying at the moment. The past is the foundation upon which we build and the experience we hold within us from working on previous projects – the lessons we’ve learned and the tricks of the trade we’ve acquired. The future is where we are building that wall to – the plan for what the finished product is supposed to look like.
If we had no experience laying bricks – no trade secrets under our belts it would make us so much less efficient at laying the brick that is currently in our hands, don’t you think, Son? And if we had no foundation upon which to build or if that foundation was unlevel or unstable, don’t you think that would compromise things when you’re, say, half way up the wall or so?
Similarly, Son, if we just… in the moment… decided that we wanted to build a brick wall and started mixing mortar, slapping it on bricks, and putting those bricks in place where we… in the moment… decided we wanted a brick wall, how do you think that would turn out with no plan or forethought? Would such a wall – such a brick wall even have a foundation upon which to build? No, Son, we need a plan if we are to have anything approaching quality – something materialism is sorely lacking or, at least, causing to be in short supply wherever it is implemented as a means to its own end.
Sometimes, situations do arise that make the rigid confines of a plan difficult or impossible to stick to. In fact, more times than not, that is the case. I’ve heard God laugh many times in my 62 years’ of wandering this Earth – ha! This is where living in the moment, having learned from the past, and having a plan for the future comes into play.
Without the experience of lessons learned and the knowledge of the overall plan – where we are going – we might have a hard time figuring out exactly how we should proceed in the here and now with this situation that requires us to… deviate from the plan. Oh, we might wing it and make something happen, but, Son, that might be completely obvious to even the most casual of observers when the project is finished and we are all standing back and… “admiring” the “brick wall”.
Would you want someone to… just wing it when setting the broken bone of your leg? I doubt it! I doubt you’d want someone just winging it when building you a brick wall either if you were paying them cold, hard, fiat cash for them to do so. There is something to be said for competency, Son, but you won’t hear “materialism” ever tooting its horn! Materialism is a spot-lighted disco ball in an otherwise dark world.
Son, we can only live natural, organic, authentic, and competent lives in the here and now if we have learned from our mistakes and gained the experience to deal with the unexpected of the moment. We can only know what to do in the moment if we know where it is that we are, ultimately going. Otherwise we just… wander lost, not knowing where next we should step. Now, just as there’s something to be said for competency, there is also something to be said for wandering – for adlibbing – for the artistic flare. And that’s the path we shall take… next time, my son. I love you!
Not all those who wander are lost.
- J.R.R. Tolkien
Wherever you are, be all there.
- Jim Elliot
August 8, 2024
Good morning, Son. The path we shall wander today very well may tear the veil of the matrix, allowing us glimpses of the glitches there within that clue us in to the fact that we are living in a matrix… of lies! As I said during the last few steps of yesterday’s journey, there is something to be said of wandering, adlibbing, and artistic flare, but there is also the need for hard work, planning, studying, and preparation. The two are not mutually excluding.
This reminds me of the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible where Jesus visits their home at the invitation of Martha who concerns herself with preparations while her sister, Mary, concerns herself with Jesus. Jesus seems to appreciate Mary’s attention over Martha’s preparations, and that is understandable… in the moment. See Luke 10: 38-42, but later, in Luke 22: 36, Jesus shows appreciation for preparation when He instructs His disciples to take a money bag, knapsack, and sword.
There is a time and a place for everything, Son, as Ecclesiastes 3 tells us. This world is not an eternal springtime! There are seasons – seasons not only of climatic fluctuation, but also of difficulty. There are joyous occasions, like the occasions of you and your sister’s birth and birthdays; and there are also occasions of tragedy as in the occasions of your deaths. No amount of preparation can prepare you for something like that! It’s just something you have to go through, being supported… in the moment… by friends and family and Marthas and Marys. Some people visit with you… and that helps. Some people do things for you… and that also helps.
So, you see, Son, there is need for both – preparation and surviving on what was prepared. There are times to help and there are times to be helped. There are times to wander aimlessly around, enjoying the views and just taking it all in, and there are times to march headlong and determined toward the goal. There are times to adlib and just make it up as you go, and there are times to stick to the script – to adhere to the plan. The key, my son, is knowing the difference between those times.
Artistic interpretation of the reality in which we wander is only possible when there is a break in the struggle to survive the harsh extremes of the seasons within that reality. One is not likely to stop and capture the pristine beauty of a snowscape with oil on canvass when that one is starving and freezing, now is he? But… oh how beautiful is a thick, fresh cover of virgin snow over a landscape?
We talk of reality. We capture our reality with oil on canvass. We snap photos of it with our cameras or on our phones. We view it on TikTok and Facebook and YouTube… oh… wait… is that reality? Where does reality end and virtuality begin? How can we tell the difference? Where does hard work and preparation end and fun and games begin? Where do we draw the line, and how do we determine that? How do we determine how hard to draw that line? These are questions that should make us stand up and question, “What is real? What is important?”
We shall continue our wandering along this path at a later time. Time is ticking and pushing me along with it, Son. Your mother and I shall attempt to journey up to your old stomping grounds in South Carolina tomorrow morning. I hope that injection she got two days ago will give her enough relief to endure the trip. We have many… preparations to make so that we can go and visit and commune with those who knew and loved you there and who have worked so hard and selflessly to prepare your memorial benches for others to have a place to sit and commune… with you… and, possibly, have God commune with them. Until next time, Son, I love you.
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
- Henry Miller
August 9, 2024
Good morning, Son. Well, today we shall ditch the drudgery of work, take Penn and Chewy for a luxury extended stay in a condo kennel at Gluckstadt Animal Hospital where they shall receive a day at the spa on Monday (baths) and Penn gets the pleasure of his annual vaccines, and we, then, hit the road, hopefully by eight o’clock, for Long Creek, South Carolina! Miss Teri will feed the feral cats while we are gone and Rudy and Charlie will have access to plenty of food and water as well via the cat door. I have been watering the heck out of every tree, bush, and flower bed since I got home from work yesterday, so maybe all that will be okay in all this hot, dry weather we’ve been having down here. Preparations have been made. Let the “fun and games” begin.
So, Son, how do we determine what is important in life? How do we tell what is real? However God created this universe, whether through a slow, natural process of evolution or by… breaking His own natural laws of physics and, “Poof…” instantaneously doing so, God created the natural world – not the artificial, domesticated world of man. Man did that. Man created cities and societies and kingdoms and kings and laws and courts and… ain’t things so very much the better for it? I mean… just look at this glorious life in August of 2024 that we now have. It’s great! Is it not?
Anyone who cannot see that things are deteriorating at an ever increasing pace is a fool, and that’s all there is to it! The human race is going to hell in a hand basket (whatever that means), and we are taking the natural world with us! Perhaps we should look in the rearview mirror as we pass through this ever deteriorating landscape through which humanity is taking us. Perhaps we should see that it is lusher and greener behind us. Perhaps we should realize that utopia is not ahead of us – just over the next hill on the horizon so quickly approaching us in the windshield of the vehicle of humanity. No! Not that there is a utopia to be found – a literal, physical utopia – but it is most definitely not in the direction we are currently going! Let’s just tap the brakes.
As previously explored on this journey, Son, utopia is a frame of mind. It is a condition of the spirit. It is something found within – not something from without that you come upon during your wanderings upon this Earth. It is not something others can create for you and then share with you like a membership to a club or something. No! You are the genesis of utopia! It begins within you! You carry it everywhere you wander from then on.
That utopia cannot be found in things. You won’t find it in society. Laws cannot make it. Courts cannot define it. Monarchs cannot enforce it. It is not found in eternal springtimes or perpetual comfort… although a good air conditioning system during the month of August in the South comes pretty darn close! The point is, Son, that no matter how much of the bling and bright, shiny stuff the serpent convinces you to buy from him because you need it to make your life better… it will never ignite the eternal fire of utopia within you! Only communion with your Creator can do that! Daylight is breaking. Time to feed Penn and Chewy, get them to their condo kennel, and… hit the road. I love you, Son.
I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
August 10, 2024
Good morning, Son, from Chattooga River Lodge! We arrived around seven yesterday evening – whew! What a trip! Why any sane person would want to live anywhere near Atlanta, Georgia is beyond me! The traffic there is another whole level above insane! It makes Nightmare on Elm Street look like a stroll through the park with Mary Poppins. Ugh! Anyway, we made it – PTL!
We met up with Olivia and Mark, Katie, Josh, and, of course, Mat. We sat by the fire, had some drinks, shared some stories, shed some tears, and laughed… and healed some too I suppose. You really found a place among some good – some really good people up here in the hills and hollers of Long Creek, South Carolina! I love them! I am really starting to pick up what you were laying down about this place.
I just finished my first cup of coffee sitting here outside room number five with the crows a cawing back and forth to one another. It is so rejuvenating – replenishing. It really takes me back – not to anything specific – just back to other times. As I was sitting here, this couple, about my age, walks by with a giant German Shepherd named Boone – gorgeous dog! He practically wanted to climb up in my lap. I bet he was in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds though. Anyway, their names were David and Judy, and they were from Gainesville, Florida. We talked a bit as I was sitting here writing, so I explained about how and why I was journaling to you. We talked some more as God eased opened the door for us to do so.
I met a guy last night that was a river guide up here back in the eighties and nineties. Randy was his name, and, boy, did he have some stories to tell! We talked until after midnight (very unusual for me). I sure wish that I had sat and talked with you – I sure wish that we could have sat and talked like that. Son, I regret that so very much! I love you. God, I wish you were still wandering these hills and hollers and laying the foundations upon which future stories could and would be told by you to others around a fire like those that were told me by Randy last night.
Life is either a great adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller
August 11, 2024
Good morning, Son. Well, we got your bench installed at Chattooga River Campground yesterday. Man, am I ever feeling it this morning! This old man ain’t used to hauling stuff up and down all these hills and hollers and stepping over all these big, old rocks of South Carolina! The bench looks great, and I absolutely love the site they picked out for it! It’s about two hundred feet down the hiking trail at the back of the campground and is sandwiched between the hiking trail and the creek, not twenty feet from either. It’s perfect for contemplating, meditation, reflection, or just relaxing and letting your troubles wash away with the babbling of the brook.
I do wish, though, that there was a bench for you on the campus of Chattooga River Lodge. I understand why it was put where it was put, but it sure would be nice to have that same possibility at the Lodge without having to hike for it. It was thought that your memorial bench might not be held with the same degree of reverence outside The Tavern as it would be held inside Mother Nature. Mat did mention having a map made showing the destination location of your bench to give the people that were so inclined an incentive to go there. So that might turn out to be a better alternative anyway.
We were going to Bull Sluice yesterday after the bench install to get wet, cool off, and relax our weary bodies, but the AI on your mom’s phone took us to the campus of Wildwater instead… so we decided to visit your bench there before going on. Mom called Olivia to get better directions to Bull Sluice as we were walking to your bench and she said she was passing by there at that very moment, so she just whipped up in there to meet up with us.
Olivia showed us around Wildwater and pointed out some of the things that had been important to you, we placed a concrete turtle on the concrete pad beneath your bench, and we then went into the company store there to buy some Wildwater memorabilia. When we checked out, Miss Julie gave us your employee discount. Auntie Jules and Uncle Robert were with us and she gave them the discount too. We were all so touched by that gesture! We then got back in our cars and Olivia lead us to the real Bull Sluice. It was so nice to finally get in the water, cool off, and relax!
After that, we went back to the room and rested a bit before meeting back up with everyone who had been in on the install at 6:30 for food, beverages, and fellowship. It was a good time! I love your friends, Son. They are… family now. Son, I want you to know that your family misses you very much!
Hopefully today’s journey will be at a more leisurely pace than was yesterday’s. Dakota is coming down to visit with us today. We will meet back up with Katie and Olivia, take him to the two bench sites, and show him around a little farmer’s market / vendor’s fair that they are having in a field over by The Gauge Coffeehouse / Humble Pie. That should be fun – hot, but fun – LOL
Oh, wow! I just met our neighbor in room number six. He came out of his room all sleepy-headed to go up to the bathhouse, noticed me writing, asked if I was a writer, I told him about you and what I was doing, and his mouth fell open and his eyes got wide. He then said, “I lost my son on May 20th.” Neither of us could believe the coincidence of us having booked rooms right next to one another. Later, after he’d come back from the bathhouse, we talked and shared for more than and hour, and we came to believe that it wasn’t that we couldn’t believe in the coincidence of us having booked rooms right next to one another, we couldn’t believe it was a coincidence at all – amazing! I love you, Son!
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
- Confucius
August 12, 2024
Good morning, Son. Today we head home… or back to where we live. The more I hang out in Long Creek and get to know the people here, the more this feels like home. Mom and I took Dakota, Katie, and Olivia out to see your bench at the Campground, and we also went to that farmer’s market / vendor’s fair I was talking about. It was small, but they had some pretty good stuff. I bought a few handmade knives and some locally made pottery. We also got a couple different varieties of local honey, some homemade pickles and some homemade bread from Alex. It was a good time for all.
We then came back to the Lodge, had some food and beverages in the Tavern (while it poured down rain), then took a break and rested a bit before meeting back up later on in the evening to start it all over again. James joined us after he got off work. I really like him. He cracks me up! I don’t want to pack the car and go back home… or back to where we live and work, but, Son, I reckon we must.
It’s cool out here this morning. I guess that rain yesterday afternoon really cooled things off. The crows are cawing again this morning. That’s such a reminiscent sound. It doesn’t really remind me of anything in particular. It just reminds me of the past in general… I guess – the crows cawing, that is. I don’t know whether it’s the crows cawing or if it’s that hollowness in the air this time of year – that end of summer / beginning of fall thing that allows you to hear things from far off. Sounds just seems to travel further this time of year when conditions are just so… you know?
I sure wish you were here, sitting across this table from me, sipping a cup of coffee, and enjoying the sounds of late summer in Appalachia, communing, perhaps, with your father or, perhaps even, with your Father in between sips and sounds and sights. I miss you, Son. I love you, Son, and I love your home here… your family here… our family here.
Sometimes it’s time to get away from it all and experience things in a completely different way.
- Kim Mance
August 13, 2024
Well, Son, we are back in Madison, Mississippi – the place where we hang our hats at night. We made it just in time for me to rush up to Gluckstadt and get Penn and Chewy before they closed their doors for the evening. I think your mom and I were happier to see them than they were to see us. Penn looked as if he may have been asleep when they went and got him. He probably was. Either that, or they really had a good time in their… condo kennel – LOL
Before hitting the road yesterday, we met Katie, Dakota, and Olivia up at The Gauge Coffeehouse / Humble Pie, visited, and coffees and some breakfast. Trey and Cricket said hey, and Cricket even came over, sat down, and visited with us for a minute in between customers. Paul was there behind the counter, and I believe I remember him telling stories of you, but I can’t swear to it – all those stories eventually kind of run together having so many of them thrown at you by so many different people over such a short amount of time.
We met Trey and Cricket’s precious little girls – OMG! We even bought some “artwork” from them as we were leaving. The younger daughter (5-ish) had some reasonable pricing on her “artwork” – like a dollar each. The older one (8-ish), though, like to have not even made a sell. Her pricing was a little more exorbitant – like starting a $2.50 and going all the way up to $101.00! And she wouldn’t budge on her prices either! We all laughed, and we then bought the cheapest one she had… and then she asked if we wanted our change! We laughed again, and then I told her I guess we could leave her a fifty cent tip. I then returned to her little sister’s table and tipped her a dollar for being less shrewd.
After that, we hugged everybody, said our goodbyes, and hit the road, stopping only to check out the view at Tallulah Falls Gorge… other than for gas and bathroom breaks. Well, Son, I’m going to try to get a little of this weekend’s journey entered into the online version of A Wanderer’s Journal so that others can join in with us as we journey this wandering path together. Perhaps we can get more back into our routine tomorrow. I love you, my son. It’s hard to believe that you have now been gone from this world for four months.
I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.
- Susan Sontag
August 14, 2024
Good morning, Son. This trip to South Carolina to install your bench at the Campground and fellowship with your friends who made the idea of memorializing you with these benches into the reality of memorializing your life in Long Creek with these benches has made me stop and reflect upon my life here. Is this enough? Have I done enough? Am I enough? What is my purpose here? Am I fulfilling that purpose? How is it that my wandering son has accomplished all this – has brought the community of Long Creek, South Carolina together like this without so much as even trying to do so, while I, like an improperly poled magnet, just seem to push people away harder and faster the closer I try to get to them?
This is truly something of a miracle, Son. Thank you for teaching me this. I only wish that I had learned my lesson before – when it could have helped you continue your journey of wandering the face of this Earth, spreading your very own brand of magic wherever you went. God truly does work in mysterious ways, does He not?
I am often reminded of this story whenever there is talk of how God does work: There was once this militantly atheistic professor teaching a class that a young marine, fresh from active duty, was taking… by chance. This professor loved to brag about how there was no God – that everything was just a product of chance. He sat upon a stool at the front of the classroom and dared God to remove him from his perch upon the stool.
The young marine had had enough. He got out of his seat, gathered his belongings, and proceeded to the door when the over confident professor began to harangue the class further about how there was no God because, if there was, He would have removed him from his stool rather than allowing believers to just walk away whenever they didn’t get to hear what they wanted to hear.
The marine took his hand off the doorknob, turned around, walked over to the professor’s desk at the front of the classroom, placed his things on the desk, and then punched the professor, knocking him off his stool. Stunned, the professor looked up from the floor and, rubbing his jaw, said, “What’d you do that for?” To which the young marine replied, “God was busy, so He sent me.” That… my son, is how God works – through us.
Son, I am so sorry that I did not hear God telling me that you needed me. I am so sorry that I failed to hear His still, small voice whispering that you were in trouble. I am so sorry that I didn’t report to you and say with all confidence and conviction, “God was busy, He sent me!” I am so sorry, Son! I am so sorry! I love you! Wander on, my son. Wander forever on!
It feels good to be lost in the right direction.
- Unknown
August 15, 2024
Good morning, Son. We got rain yesterday! And, not just a shower either. It rained hard for a while – yay! Some people say, “PTL!” for something like that, but God makes the rain to fall on the good and the evil alike, does He not? So, what gives? What are we supposed to do? Mom & I rewatched that movie, “Facing the Giants,” a couple of weeks ago. I’d forgotten how a good a movie that was!
In that movie, there is this high school football coach at a small, Christian school who’s team is in the middle of a, like, four or five year’s long losing streak. He has all sorts of financial and personal problems of his own going on. His wife desperately wants children, he finds out that he can’t have children, and he then discovers that he is in very real danger of losing his job as well.
He falls down upon his knees, pleading with God, “Why?” He asks God to show him the way and he will follow it. He gets the epiphany that, in all things, he is to do his best and let God deal with the results, and, no matter what those results are, he is to praise God for them because he did his best – he plowed his field and God either made it rain upon it… or He did not.
That’s all we can do, Son – plow our field. We cannot make it rain. We can water it with water hoses and such, but nothing is better for a garden’s growth and vitality than a good, old, soaking rain! Only God can do that… although there are conspiracy theories about there being man-made weather control technologies out there now-a-days, but I digress. That’s a discussion for another wandering day’s journey.
So, God whispers into the ears of our souls – eternally whispers – and our duty is to hear and then to listen to what is whispered and then to act upon what is heard. That, in and of itself, is a hard thing to do in this “noisy” world of distractions that are constantly hissed at us by the serpents in shadows. We are to weed out the distractions – we are to circumcise ourselves of what is unneeded and is distracting and is, ultimately, harmful to us, and then we are to do our best – not just… go through the motions. If something is so unworthy of our full attention and our best efforts, should we even be doing it at all?
Ouch! That one really hits home! How much of my life is spent on “cruise control”? How much do I do that is just enough to get by? Son, how do you do that? How do you make me stop and reflect upon my life here upon this Earth when you are no longer even upon it? You truly are A Different Man. You truly are making me into A Different Man as well. I love you, Son. Thank you for being… A Different Man.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Lao Tzu
July 16, 2024
Where shall we wander today, my son? First thing, I shall wander back into the kitchen where I left my cup of coffee. I’ll be right back. Now then, let’s wander. I so wish that I could exhibit more of that carefree, wandering spirit that you did – that you and many in the Long Creek area do. I have so longed for a community of likeminded folk in which I could feel relaxed and comfortable and trusting enough with to just be myself and… go with the flow – go with the prevailing flow of the crowd, but I have always felt that that flow – that that crowd was pushing me, and everyone else in it, over the face of a cliff.
It was, ultimately, from my perspective, a destructive direction in which to travel. It wasn’t even… wandering. It was just… trudging along. I would have none of it; thus, I have never found that community of likeminded folk the way that you seem to have found in Long Creek. You father is fairly unique in this regard. There aren’t many who do think like I do. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not, but… I think it beats being pushed over the face of a cliff. Maybe I’m just weird.
Perhaps you were on to something up there in South Carolina. Those folks in and around the Long Creek area are about as close as I’ve come to finding such a group with whom to surround myself. They don’t seem to be as materialistic and as infatuated with… following the crowd as the folks down here seem to be. They are much more earthy, down to earth, and concerned with art – not pictures or paintings or sculptures, but with the art of whatever it is that they are doing. They are more concerned with producing something that comes from within their soul than they are with consuming what is mass produced by serpents leading hoards off cliffs. That is something I can get behind – the former, not the later.
Folks up there also seem to be more spiritual and less religious than people down here are. I feel like one is the consequence of the other. I’m just not sure whether the chicken or the egg came first. I guess it’s sort of like everything else. One action compliments a certain attribute, while other actions compliment different attributes. If you exercise regularly and eat properly, you feel better and are healthier.
I want to – I need to do both – exercise physically and spiritually more routinely and eat… or consume less quantity and better quality sustenance for my body and my soul. I must push back from the table of bounty that is filled with junk food and junk… “noise” that the “ears of my soul” are “hearing” with way too much frequency! It truly is hard, my son, to strain your ear to hear that still, small voice of the Creator while you are within this hurricane that is… life upon this Earth. Wander on, my precious son! Wander forever on! I love you.
It’s good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
- Ernest Hemingway
August 17, 2024
Oh, Son, I have done something wrong! While in South Carolina for your bench installation, I would commonly have a George Dickel Sour Mash Whiskey to sip while relaxing at the Tavern in the evenings. Many times, while doing so, I would scan behind the bar for something new or unusual to try. Sunday evening, I noticed a Mason jar of something on the top shelf. I asked to see it and the bar tender obliged and even offered me a taste. It was Apple Pie Moonshine, and, boy… was it good! It was as good as its name!
It was too good, in fact. It was too sweet – not something that you could just sip on all night. I got the bright idea to mix a shot of the Apple Pie Moonshine and a shot of the George Dickel Sour Mash together. That was a big mistake! Not only was it good, but you could actually sit there and sip on ’em all night… and I did, but that is not what I am talking about when I said that I had done something wrong.
I really liked that George Dickel Sour Mash when I discovered it at the Tavern the night of your memorial on April 17th, and I have been unsuccessfully looking for it down here ever since. Well… I found it! But that isn’t even what I did that was wrong. I asked the clerk who was checking me out if they happened to have any Apple Pie Moonshine, and, without missing a beat, he walked out from behind the counter and took me straight to a whole rack of flavored Moonshines.
I bought the Apple Pie, and that… is where I went wrong! I shouldn’t have brought that devil into my house! By the way, that devil’s name is: Apple Dickel Shine. So much for a wandering spiritual journey this morning, eh, Son? I love you. I love you more than Apple Dickel Shine! Perhaps tonight I can lay off the spirits and, in the morning, be more in the spirit to wander more… spiritually. The devil does distract, doesn’t he?
Why not go out on a limb? that’s where the fruit is.
- Mark Twain
August 18, 2024
Good morning, Son. your old man is feeling it this morning – old! My joints are all hurting, I can barely walk, and I just ache all over. When I was young, I never thought I’d live to be thirty-five years old. Now, I am nearly sixty-three, and your grandmother almost made it to ninety! At the rate all these aches and pains are adding to the character of my senior years, I can’t imagine living to be ninety years old! That’s nearly another third of a century from now, but, then again, when I was younger, I couldn’t imagine living beyond my first third of a century, and yet… here we are.
I certainly wish that you had made it through that first tumultuous third of a century and into the calmer, more focused second third. I can’t imagine what you were feeling or going through on the day that you did what you did to take yourself out of the rat race that is life upon this Earth, but, just so you’ll know, if I never mentioned it to you, your old man did have similar feelings at your age, or maybe feelings that were approaching those you were having… I guess. They were in my twenty-sixth year and I wrote about them in a couple of poems called “Twenty-six Cents” and “Leaf In the Water“.
Son, I still don’t know where I am going. I am still… wandering this Earth. I am as lost as anybody else. All I can know is what I have seen – the perspectives that this wandering journey that I am on has offered me. Some have wandered more than others. Their eyes have beheld more. Others have wandered differently than have we. Their eyes have beheld different things than have ours.
We are all but leaves upon the water. We are travelling perpetually downstream. This cannot be stopped! Though we try congregating behind this log or that, though we rot and decay, becoming the nutrients for the future, though we wash ashore and are dried by the sun only to, then, be blown back into the water by the winds of time, we cannot stop the flow. The water rolls forever on. It will reach the sea – that great reservoir of all there is. Is humanity any different, Son? Though you no longer travel along with us upon these waters bound for the sea, there is no doubt that we shall wind up in that eternal reservoir together. I so love and miss you, Son – you and your sister
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
August 19, 2024
Good morning, Son. I am still feeling old and worn out this morning. Perhaps I need to do another fast and get all this crap out of my system. I definitely need to get back out on the road again and exercise this old body. I haven’t done so since before we went to South Carolina for your bench installation. It’s just too hot! It is like in the mid-seventies and so humid every morning. I don’t even want to go outside let alone go out side to exercise!
We’ve go about another month or so of this to endure before we get any sort of reprieve from it what-so-ever! I cannot wait! Not that I am wishing my life away – just the summer – ugh! How anybody can like summer is beyond me, but… it is a season… and we have to go through it.
I awoke late this morning and I am moving slowly, so this is liable to be a really short trip today. As I bear this late summer heat and humidity, I am paused to think how we have the blessing of air-conditioning. Animals have no such luxury and must bear the full brunt of summer. They have no reprieve from it at all. Even in the evenings and nighttime the air is overly warm, muggy, and filled with annoying mosquitoes.
Perhaps I am just spoiled. Perhaps we are all spoiled to the conveniences of modern life. Animals have no such privilege… except for our animals that we spoil. Lord knows Penn and Chewy are spoiled! Many times, when I try to coax them to go outside in this heat, they just lay there on their dog beds and cut their eyes up at me incredulously as if to say, “Have you lost your mind?”
This, I believe, is opening up a new trailhead. Peering down it, I can see glimpses of evolution, creation, science, religion, survival of the fittest, death of the least fit, circumcision, and bites of forbidden fruits. This may not just be a day hike. We may have to camp along the trail for several nights along this trail.
While this may not be a topic that is entirely new to you, Son, I believe that certain aspects of it will be new to you, like how it is all tied together. Everything is connected! The only reason there seems to be such division between things like science and religion is because the serpents have distorted everything and divided us along those distorted lines from the shadows in which they dwell. For now, I must prepare to meet the heat of the day. I love you, Son!
I am in love with cities I’ve never been to.
- Unknown
August 20, 2024
Mornin’, Son. Ha! Right before feeding the feral cats this morning, Chewy rand the bell to go outside, so I let him out the backdoor. I figured he could stay out there long enough for me to feed the cats. So… I go out front, shake the plastic container of cat food to call them in (even though they were already all there), and proceed to placing the cat food pans down for them. Next thing I know, Chewy comes right up in the middle of all those feral cats and sticks his nose in the pan as if he is one of them – ha! The feral cats all scatter, and I collect Chewy and take him back inside the house. I’d failed to recall that Chewy can squeeze his fat little self under the new gate, and, I guess, he came a runnin’ when he heard the cat food shaker. Ha!
Anyway, it is nearly a full moon. I think it’ll be full tomorrow (actually, it was full yesterday). I don’t quite understand the online moon phase thingy. It says that we are currently at a seventy-five percent moon phase and the next full moon isn’t until September 18th. I’m no math wiz, but… that doesn’t add up. I think they screw around with all that stuff to throw us off our natural rhythms. I think that is the primary reason for these idiotic daylight savings time changes.
I love that old Indian saying (if that is even a real thing) that goes: “Only a white man would think that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it onto the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” I think it is just another example of them screwing with us by implementing some ridiculous “rule” that we all have to follow, telling us it is for our own good, and the laughing at us when we wholeheartedly embrace it! How daylight savings time is still even a thing is beyond me!
Anyway… I digress. We had a bit of a storm night before last, and, I guess, it came ahead of a little cold front. It’s really nice out there this morning and, with the full moon upon us, I am really starting to miss the passing of the road beneath my feet, so, I think, Son, that I shall answer the calling. I’ll try a short jaunt on the road to ease my old body back into it and then attempt to get this short jaunt of a journal entry uploaded before I have to answer role call for… “the man”. We shall delve back into things at a later time. I love you, Son.
Not all those who wander are lost.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
August 21, 2024
Good morning, Son. I decided to switch things up this morning. I reset my 4:30 alarm to 4:00… but I awoke at 3:50 anyway. I do that frequently, so I just decided, “Why not make that my target ‘Rise & Shine’ time anyway?” So I did and by four o’clock, the feral cats were chowing down on their breakfast, and I was stretching out my old body. I hit the road, did a couple laps around the “P” (the block), and am now sitting here with you… and it’s not even five o’clock yet! Yay – I did it!
Orion is starting to breach the eastern skyline ahead of the sun now, so it’s coming – fall! Yay again! I hate it once Orion has already started to set before I can even get outside in the mornings. That means the slow fade from the fall and winter seasons to the spring and summer seasons has begun. Not that I mind spring. Spring is great! But summer – yuck!
I am trying, Son, to circumcise myself of that which is unnecessary – all the unhealthy foods, the quantity of all those unhealthy foods, the Apple Dickel Shines, the stupid, idiotic TV, and my abstinence, of late, from physical exercise. Nature does the same thing, does She not? Isn’t that exactly what evolution is all about – weeding out the unnecessary – the fat and lethargic – the wasteful and inefficient?
Serpents in shadows dream of ways to divide humanity and then they sell that to humanity by telling each of those divisions that they are right and… divinely ordained. This is exactly what they have done with science and religion – not Nature and God, but science and religion. There is no conflict between God and His creation! Any argument to the contrary is pure propaganda designed to further the divide between the prevailing factions of humanity engaged in the battle – in this case, science and religion.
What better place to stage a coup than at the top? Science and religion are both supposed to be endeavors of humanity that search for truth . In truth, can there be conflict between the two… if they are truly searching for truth? No. They cannot, at their core, be mutually exclusive. They must compliment one another! Oh, sure, there can be disagreement on a topic, but open and free discussion, absent of agenda, will work that out and eventually the conviction of truth will discern the truth of the matter at hand… whatever that happens to be.
Only slithering back into the shadows to sling the piercing darts of propaganda can stop the light of truth from shining for all to see… and that is exactly what is going on and has been going on in our world for thousands of years! These sly serpents know the truth. They hoard it away, tossing but crumbs of it at us from time to time to keep us going and doing their bidding.
Should they want one faction of humanity to rise in power over another to accomplish some goal of theirs, all they need do is toss more of those crumbs of truth (and money) to that faction. When their objective is met, they the starve that faction of humanity to weaken it so that it does not continue to grow in power and rival theirs. Just look at history, Son. Science, religion, and all other aspects of humanity are used as weapons against humanity as the anvil and the hammer are used against a piece of metal to shape that metal to the blacksmith’s desire.
Anyone who cannot see that Christianity has been used as a tool to shape Western Civilization is a fool. Anybody that cannot see that science (and science fiction) has been a tool used to dismantle religion (Christianity in particular) is also a fool. It is so! Christianity has served its purpose in the plans of the vipers who once strengthened it to shape Western Civilization into the world power that it is… was.
Gone are the days of friendly competition where each competitor does his best and, if he does not win, he graciously bows out and allows the victor his moment of glory. Now-a-days, if one does not win, he sneaks off to the shadows and plots the demise of all who challenge him. It’s disgusting! We should reorient our focus from being right to uncovering the truth. The serpents in shadows want us to be right… or, at least, to think we are right. They certainly don’t want us uncovering the truth!
So, Son, how do we get out of this sand trap? We must first be aware that it is a sand trap. We must stop digging this hole that is collapsing in on us! We have got to realize that there are snakes in shadows and that they are our enemy – not the person with whom they have pitted us to fight with! Truth is what we should fight for! We should never support agenda or the person who supports it! We should only support what is right – what is true – not a person or his cause! This would be a beginning, Son, to getting ourselves out of… the sand trap we are in. I love you.
Wherever you are, be all there.
- Jim Elliot
Every adventure is worthwhile.
- Amelia Earhart
August 22, 2024
Good morning, Son. I had a big surprise waiting for me this morning as I was finishing my “run” this morning. Rather than just doing laps around the “P” (the block) this morning, I cut up to the foot of the bridge, ran up Post Oak to Pine Ridge and then back down to Pecan Creek to our street. As I was turning off Pine Ridge onto Pecan Creek, this big old, fluffy orange and white tomcat came out from behind that big oak tree by the driveway of that house on the corner with the pool in the backyard.
I thought, “My! What a brave cat – coming up to a total stranger ‘running’ down the street.” I kept on “running”, and, as I rounded the corner, I noticed it only had about half a tail. “Cinna!” I cried. “I haven’t seen you in like a year or more! I thought you were dead or had been picked up by animal control or something.” It was Mama Cat’s very first offspring. He was just a kitten when all that covid bull crap started and he was the reason I started my morning routine of feeding ferals. Glad to know he’s still around. Sure wish you were!
So, where to today – forbidden fruit, circumcision, survival of the fittest, death of the least fit? It’s all really the same stuff – different sides of the same coin. Flip a coin – any coin… except a two-headed coin – well… even that’d work. You still can’t get heads and tails at the same time. It’s just not possible, and yet that is exactly what we try to do and expect to happen when we continue to eat forbidden fruit and go to church and pray God’s blessing on everything below. It just ain’t gonna happen!
It’s like an alcoholic trying to drink himself into sobriety or a glutton trying to eat his way into a leaner, healthier body. But… living a materialistic lifestyle while praying for a spiritual revival is okay? And… searching for freedom in the screen of a smart phone is… smart? And… trusting that salvation will come upon the fulfilled promises of a professional liar that we elect because he lies what we want to hear is the answer?
We truly are insane! We are sick in the head to think it is possible to flip a coin and get heads and tails… at the same time! The serpent knows this… and he has used it over and over and over… and still… it works! We are fools! We are fools and nothing will change until we change, realize that we can’t have it both ways, and decide whether we want heaven on Earth… or hell. God has eternity to wait on this… we do not! I love you, my son. Talk to you tomorrow… Lord willin’. And… happy heavenly B-day, Wayne B.
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
- Henry Miller
1430
Well, Son it’s not tomorrow… yet. I had to bring Mom back to the pain management clinic to get another steroid injection… for what little good they do, so I thought I’d speak. I can’t stress enough how toxic materialism is the soul. I know you weren’t a necessarily materialistic person, but I don’t know whether you were aware just how this affects humanity on a corporate level. It trains humans to accept lies as a consequence of receiving some reward – like a dog receiving a treat for performing some trick. That’s what advertising is all about.
They can tell you all sorts of lies about whatever it is that they are trying to sell you, but as long as there is a shred of truth to the advertisement, this legitimizes the whole thing – the whole lie! “Contains real fruit juice” – all it has to have is one drop of fruit juice… and the statement is true! It can contain all sorts of really bad stuff, but so long as it has one drop of real fruit juice in it…. it’s 100% healthy! That’s the kind of lying they do!
Even it they don’t technically lie, they lie by controlling the narrative of the industry itself. Regulatory agencies are notorious for fudging the wording – shaping the definitions of words used by the industry so that they don’t mean what they typically mean in general use by the larger segment of the society that consumes the product that the industry in question produces. This whole thing is just sick! It’s like playing a game of chicken – trying to see how close you can come to hitting some target without actually hitting the target. “I’m not lying! Technically… I’m telling the truth. You’re the one who is lying… technically speaking!” Who thinks like this? Psychopaths and people who have sold their souls… for stuff! That’s who.
This mentality is a cancer that is eating into the very soul of humanity! I don’t think anyone is immune to it either. Am I? No, I most certainly am not. I struggle with “putting up with stuff” every day to keep from “rocking the boat and making waves.” Adam did not want to hurt Eve’s feelings, so he took of the fruit she gave to him and ate. This is, I think, where the term “nice” comes from. “Nice” people are not necessarily liars… but they certainly aren’t overly truthful people either, are they? I mean… they might hurt someone’s feelings if they are too liberal with the truth. We can’t have that now, can we?
I don’t know this for a fact, but I am fairly certain that the word “nice” is never used in the Bible – not once! Jesus certainly wasn’t “nice”. He never said, “Being nice will set you free.” He rightly said, “The truth will set you free.” Jesus was kind, He was compassionate, and He was just, but He was never… nice. He, unlike Adam, wouldn’t do something just to get along… and He wouldn’t not do something just to keep from “rocking the boat and making waves”. He made waves – big ones – tsunamis!
Would you have gone up in the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers? That wasn’t nice. Would you have told the rich man that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it would be for him to get into heaven? That wasn’t nice either. Would you have gone up in your church and called out your preacher before his own congregation about his errant theology? That certainly wouldn’t have been nice, and yet Jesus did exactly all these things and more! He was so not nice that they killed Him for it.
People don’t like people who are overly… truthful. People like people who tell them what they want to hear… even if it is not true. Hence the cult of personality surrounding politicians, entertainers, and media pundits. Hence… I am a loner! Not only am I a loner, but I am an utterly aloner! Many people would call me an asshole. I don’t care! It’s just that my BS detector is really, really sensitive. I don’t have time for people who wallow around in the stuff and then jump up and want to hug all over everybody with the BS dripping off of themselves like some sort of sick trophy or something! It’s just sick!
Give me real. Give me authentic. Give me genuine. I’d rather you hate me and tell me so than to act like you love me when you could really cares less. This type of thinking is a scourge on humanity and is getting worse with each passing generation, and it stems from the training we have received through materialism. We have been taught to accept lies for treats. With each passing generation, the treats are held higher and higher until now… we are able to stand upon the highest platform, bow before the serpent’s official, and receive our prize for our performance upon the field of competition as the announcer boasts over the intercom for all to hear, “Now receiving the gold medal for accepting lies, Humanity“… and the crowd goes wild! Mom is done. I gotta run. I love you, Son!
I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
August 23, 2024
Now… it’s tomorrow! Good morning, Son. I got my “run” in, but my hips were bothering me the whole way. Ah, the joys of growing old. But… I reckon we all have our little burdens to bear, huh, Son? Wish I had been there when yours got so heavy that it crushed you. I hate that the serpents were successful in hiding the real Jesus from you, preventing you from seeing just how He could have taken that burden from you and relieved that load from bearing down upon you so oppressively… whatever that load was.
I hate these serpents! Ah – this is all so clear in my mind! I wish that I could convey in an instant what I see to you – to the world in general. Serpents are the ones slithering in the shadows, hiding because they know what they are doing. They have long since sold their souls and are beyond redemption! Some think that no one is beyond redemption, but that is not so. There is the unpardonable sin. These serpents are aware that they have sold their souls. They are invested. They have stock in the plan of old. They… are all in! They are our true enemy and the ones we should be focused on fighting.
They have underlings, though, who may still be salvageable. These pawns and puppets may have sold their souls as well, but they may be able to “buy” them back so long as they are unaware of just what it is that they have done. Once they become aware that they have sold their souls, though, they must repent, lest they blaspheme the Spirit of the Creator and commit the unpardonable sin.
Satanic serpents are sly. They have been coaxing people, pawns, and puppets for millennia into taking bites of… forbidden fruit. They have perfected their craft. Son, Satanism is and old craft. This that I discuss with you each morning is what the Bible is, in large part, all about, but… it is ancient – the writings in the Bible. It is corrupt. It has been tampered with. The very serpents about whom the ancients wrote have steered its transcriptions over the years to camouflage themselves within the pages upon which they are written about, keeping them forever hidden in shadows of obscurity.
Satanism has morphed over the ages, but, like the scum floating upon the surface of any water, it has always, always remained on top no matter how high that… “water” has risen. How do we scrape the scum from the surface of our water when we are held so far beneath it? That is a question for another day’s journey. I must, for now, prepare to meet this day’s sun, fun, and work. I love you, my son! Until next time…
You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
- Christopher Columbus
August 24, 2024
Good Saturday morning, Son! I got my “run” in – whew! I managed all the way across the bridge and back this morning. Aching hips be damned! I have got to get this old body back up and running again. I’d love to be able to work back up to a full two mile run (without the quotation marks) every morning like I was doing a couple of years ago, but I’ve been backsliding and backsliding more and it’s getting really hard to climb back out of that at sixty-two… but I’m going to try!
So… how do we frogs swimming around in the mud at the bottom of the pond remove the pond scum on the surface of the pond that is blocking the sunlight from reaching us? That is the age-old question, is it not? Well, I’m going to be honest here, Son. It’s not going to be easy. That is for sure! It is much easier to remove weeds from your garden or flowerbeds one at a time or a few at a time every day, as you notice them than it is to let years go by and then having a… “work day” where you clean ’em all out at one time. You might as well just throw the baby out with the bath water and start all over from scratch because there comes a point in time when the weeds are so prevalent that you can’t even tell where the flowerbeds are. Son… we are there! We are at that time!
We have sat back and played nice for so long, thinking that if we just ignore it… it will go away. Well… it hasn’t! Tyrants thrive in such as that! Weeds grow in such a garden! Wolves hunt the unwary and chase the weak! The church has been neutered by the infiltration of this “Just play nice, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya” philosophy that she has adopted! She has decided that she doesn’t need all this pent up male aggression fogging up her image as she looks at herself in the stained-glass mirrors of her sanctuaries!
Adam has again decided that he’d rather not hurt Eve’s feelings than to obey God’s voice, whispering, “Be a man. Do what is right. You are a warrior. I put you here to fight evil and to protect the innocent from corruption by that evil wherever you encounter it as you wander this Earth.” Son, we have a “work day” coming! Years of apathy and watching weeds grow have made for us a monumental task! It is looming! It must be done! It is Armageddon. This, my son, is what I see. This, my son, is what John the revelator saw on the island of Patmos. It has been reveled. It is coming! I love you, Son. Until next time…
Sometimes it’s time to get away from it all and experience things in a completely different way.
- Kim Mance
August 25, 2024
Mornin’, Son. We drove to Grenada yesterday for Addie’s nineth birthday party. It was a fun trip, but I was so sleepy for much of it, and neither of us two old fuddy-duddies could get or be comfortable, so it’s good to be back home and to the comforts found therein. Many folks say they want to travel when they retire. Ha! Travelling is too much trouble! We left Penn and Chewy at home since it was a birthday party, so it was just a quick up and back day trip. Sorry we didn’t get out to the cemetery to see you and Kait, but Fall is nearing, the weather will be cooling, and, hopefully, we can do that next time we go up.
Did we answer our opening question from yesterday, “How do we frogs swimming around in the mud at the bottom of the pond remove the pond scum on the surface of the pond that is blocking the sunlight from reaching us?” I believe all we did yesterday was establish that it is going to be a tough job – that we are going to have a bit of a “work day” ahead of us. We didn’t ever really get into the how of the question, did we? Well, Son, the first step in any endeavor is to admit that there is an endeavor – admit that there is a job that needs to be done – admit that there is something broken that needs to be fixed. Without this step, no other steps will ever be taken… at least not towards a goal. There may be some wandering around… lost like… but no steps in the right direction.
So, Son, enough people must become aware that there that there is pond scum blocking the sunlight – that there are serpents in shadows poisoning humanity – that there are evil “elites” orchestrating the show – that there are powers and principalities running this world in opposition to God’s natural order of things… and then admit that something needs to be done about it – reckon that is a good summation of step one? I think so, but, that, in and of itself, is a monumental task!
There are so many who are so addicted to materialism! They simply cannot come to admit to themselves that Santa Claus is not real. They do not want to lose their cushy jobs that afford them all the bling that they see advertised on TV and on YouTube and on TikTok and on whatever else is out there now-a-days! They cannot stand seeing their friends sport something before all their other friends that they themselves do not have to sport. It truly is a sick addiction!
But we must continue our efforts, Son, to bring awareness of this addiction to the masses of the addicted in a way that enlightens them toward rather than frightens them away from realizing that a first step is needed. That is yet another monumental task before us! I am afraid, though, that, like it is with so many individual addicts, the corporate addict – the masses addicted to materialism – is going to have to… “hit bottom” before beginning to climb back up – before being able to admit that there is a problem that needs to be corrected. That means total societal collapse! I’m not looking forward to that one!
Son, I must here mention this: there are some groups of people who are immune to or, at least, resistant to the disease of materialism from which a sort of spiritual vaccine could be devised and distributed to the larger population; but these groups are hunted down and killed (spiritually speaking) whenever and wherever they are found by those serpents in shadows who wish no such cure to ever be found. These groups are rebels, cowboys, Indians, hippies, conservatives, Christians, Southerners, preppers, homesteaders, aboriginals, and/or any other alternative, off the mainstream, self-sufficient, free-thinking group of individuals who don’t need their… materialistic crap to survive! Son, I’m going to take a break. Day is dawning, dogs need to be fed, it’s Sunday, and I’ll just revisit you again later on today. I love you!
Wherever you go , go with all your heart.
- Confucius
1945
Good evening, Son. The dogs have had their supper, and, now, Charlie cat is in here bellowing his head off (I hope he gives me a little peace and quiet so that I can “talk” to you). Chewy dog is down in his back again. He’s done this before on a weekend, and I had to spend like six hundred bucks on him at an emergency vet clinic! But he is just so pitiful! You can tell he is in so much pain the way he just sits there, not wanting to get up or move around, and when he does move… well, it’s just pathetic. Luckily, we had some steroid tablets left over from a previous incident. I gave him one this morning and one this evening, and it seems to be helping, so that is good.
Anyway, these serpents that are running this world from the shadows want mind-numbed robots following routine. They don’t want free-thinking, self-reliant individuals with a soul and a conscience doing what is right. No! They just can’t have that! Son, this is the thing – this is the key issue facing humanity right now. If we cannot come to see this as a race of beings and then confront this thing head-on, we won’t be a race of beings for too terribly much longer. This is terminal! It’s as terminal as continuing to play Russian Roulette. There will come a point in time when we won’t just hear a “click” – eventually there will be a… “BANG!“
We have got to come to see this. We have got to then come to realize that a change is needed – that we must adopt a new frame of mind – that we must develop a new mentality – the mentality of the rebel… like Jesus did. He was the ultimate rebel. He was the Rebel He followed God’s voice and God’s voice alone in everything He did. He never compromised His principles for a person, a person’s feelings, or a person’s principles… particularly if that person’s principles were based on human concerns.
Jesus saw the big picture! He saw God’s picture. He saw eternity unfolding in the events of the moments and in the moments of the events of His life and in the lives of those around Him. We… have got to start doing this. We have got to start seeing the big picture – seeing God’s picture – seeing eternity in moments and visualizing God’s plan for eternity in singular events. Eternity is coming… but the only way we will ever see it is through God’s eyes. I think I’ll turn in now, Son. I love you. Good night.
It feels good to be lost in the right direction.
- Unknown
August 26, 2024
Good morning, Son. Your mother’s birthday is month from today . That is so hard to believe! Time surely does tick quicker now-a-days… or seems to anyway. I don’t know what to think about that. I can remember as a kid watching the time pass on a clock and thinking how excruciatingly long an hour was… or even fifteen minutes if there was something that far away that I was anxiously looking forward to. Anticipation is, I guess, a way more revered emotion in the young. The old merely anticipate death and taxes or the continuation of deterioration. Old folks have long since misplaced or have broken their… rose-colored glasses.
The old may be set in their ways. That is probably because we’ve seen it all and done it all, and there is no use getting all worked up and excited over something new… because there ain’t nothing new under this old sun. It’s only new to the young who have not yet seen it… whatever it is. Novelty sells… to the novice. The world is full… of novices. So… you’ve got the crotchety old and infirm or the blind-as-a-bat young and virile. What do you do with that?
The “elites” running this world empower the young and dumb… and they dump the old and worn-out onto the ash pile of the useless and the insignificant. Oh that the young and virile could see with the eyes of the old and infirm! Oh that their minds could be consumed with eternity rather than with the shiny bling of the momentary that serpents hold before their eyes to lead them as a donkey with a carrot dangling from a stick.
So, this world is built with strong backs and vigor, but where does the vision for what is being built come from? It certainly doesn’t come from the blindness of youth! The donkey goes where the carrot leads, and serpents control the carrots of this world. This, my son, is precisely why we must see with God’s eyes and hear His voice and follow His commands – because He has an entirely different set of blueprints for eternity than do the serpents who dangle carrots and lead this world from the shadows in which they slither. Bling and carrots will lead blind youth and donkeys to their demise. It’s time to unite mankind with God… and see! Until tomorrow, Son. I love you.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Lao Tzu
August 27, 2024
Good morning, Son. Back on July third and fifth, I discussed watching a video of a lecture that was given by Dr. Bart Ehrman about errancy in the Bible… or rather in the manuscripts that make up the Bible. In it, he discusses the technical aspects of how errors or inconsistencies were or may have been introduced into the texts of all the thousands of copies of copies of copies of ancient manuscripts in a very… scholarly way. Here, I pose a question: “If you are the most educated person in the world on a particular subject and have conducted more research than any other person in the world on that subject, and the subject of that subject is utter bullshit… what have you done? What better are you than some sop with a twig of grass hanging out of his teeth who uses the brain God gave him to think with… to actually think?”
Dr. Ehrman admits to all sorts of errors being introduced into the texts of the manuscripts that came to be the Bible, but he never once (that I’ve seen) discusses the possibility that any of it was intentionally and maliciously introduced. Well, yesterday, I watched (well, listened to) a couple more videos on this topic. In one of them, Dr. Ehrman was being interviewed by some girl with blue hair. During the interview, Dr. Ehrman reveals that he is now agnostic with strong leanings toward atheism. He goes on to say that this is due to studying all the errancy in the ancient manuscripts that make up the Bible that he has done over the years.
I take this a meaning that Dr. Ehrman never really believed in God. He believed in what others had to say about God, and if that was found to be in error, then God Himself was found to be in error… or, in other words, the structure that supported belief in God collapsed to dust. He… never… knew… God. He just knew a lot about what had been written and rewritten about God.
Son, this is the very thing I was talking about when I was talking about the Bible being a box into which we have placed God! It’s not that God is not in the Bible or did not inspire the writing of texts that came to be the Bible. He is and He did. I’m not saying don’t read the Bible. I was reading in it last night, but Dr. Ehrman, as educated and as scholarly as he is, fell for the trick and got caught in the trap. He based his belief in God on something external to himself. He based it on a thing – on a book.
The other video I watched… or listened to… was about the dating of the most ancient of the manuscripts… or fragments of manuscripts… that the four gospels of the New Testament came from. I did not get the production information on this video. Maybe I can do that today, but in this video, the narrator discusses how, realistically, all evidence points to dating these fragments to around one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty years after the death of Jesus… or rather the crucifixion of Jesus. All research on the matter, though, tries to push the date as far back and as close to the event as is possible without actually… lying about it. Isn’t that kind of like saying, “Contains real fruit juice,” while plopping one drop of real fruit juice into the container?
Son, I am a writer. I know what it means to take what God puts into my head and attempt to put it onto paper via the pencil I hold. The words are important in that they attempt to convey something. It is that something that is ultimately important and worthy of trying to get hold of – not the words themselves. Words change. The use of words change. The use of a particular idiom comes into and falls out of vogue. The idiom itself means something different than the words that are used to make up that idiom mean by themselves. Although words are important, as is the pencil used to write the words and the paper upon which the words are written, they are just tools used to convey an idea from one to another.
The idea – the message – the story is what is important, and that can and often times is changed with words. The question is whether that change was with intent… or by accident. If you know the story – if you understand the message – if you get the idea, you can tell whether the change in words is merely a different way of saying the same thing or… an attempt to say something different. If you know what is being said, you know if it is being said correctly. If you know the moral of the story, the story can change without changing the moral… or it can be changed to change the moral. Place you faith in the words themselves… and you will never know anything more than that – the words. I think I shall conclude right there for now. I love you, Son.
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
August 28, 2024
Good morning, Son. The feral cats are fed, the water sprinkler is going, Chewy is doing better with his back, and I’m starting the weening off process with his steroid tablets. Just another day on the farm – the funny farm. This world is just a jumble! It’s just a giant blur! Who knows what is real and what is AI generated based on an algorithm that’s designed to give you more of what you’ve previously searched for or watched or listened to or viewed?
I don’t believe any of it any more! I am searching for a needle in a haystack and AI turns it into looking for a needle in a needle stack! I hate AI and I hate serpents in shadows sewing all their lies with algorithms and creating giant stacks of… needles for us to sort through! This can’t go on for much longer, I’ve watched this balloon expand and expand and expand, and with each expansion I am amazed at just how much the latex can stretch without bursting. All hell is fixin’ to let loose! How can it not?
Son, all this that is going on is new only in that I am seeing it now – only in that we are just now seeing it with our mind’s eye. It… has been going on for millennia! This is, in large part, what the Old Testament is about. This is what crucified Jesus because He saw it and stood up to it. It’s new to us. It’s new to our eyes. It’s a new perspective to an awakening mass of humanity… but it is not new! It is as old as is the story of a serpent in a garden coaxing, luring a young, naive woman into biting… forbidden fruit.
This has all happened before. This bubble has expanded and popped many times in the past. Perhaps it has been popped by outside forces as in what happened in World War I and World War II when there were still “good” people left… on the outside… who could see the horrors going on on the inside of the bubble and so… popped it… to stop it.
But this is different. The world is… so small now – so busy – so opaque. There is no inside. There is no outside. No one can see what is going on. No one can see the horrors. Are there even any “good” people left? It’s all just a blur! And yet… the latex continues to expand. There is no one left to… pop it! It will… eventually burst from within! Heaven help us when it does!
Stephen texted me a picture of your bench at Wildwater last night. The metal roof is now on it. Those are such fantastic people (so I guess there are good people left in this world). I miss them and want to get back up there to see them again soon. I’d love to go in late October! Mom talked to Sherry who works in the gift shop at Wildwater yesterday, and she said that she just loved you! I cried like a baby (and am again now) when Mom told me about her conversation with her. I love you, Son. I wish you were still here, but… that almost seems like I am wishing ill will on you since this world is in the shape that it is in. Perhaps I should just say, “Until we are all reunited…”
It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
- Ernest Hemingway
August 29, 2024
Good morning, Son. It’s hard to believe that August is nearly gone. Looking at the date above, it’s hard to believe that we are twenty-four years into the twenty-first century! That’s nearly a quarter of the way through it! What is even harder to believe is that neither you nor your sister are here with us. I can do nothing but shake my head at that. I mean… I don’t know what either of you would be doing now or twenty-four years from now; I don’t know what either of you would have ultimately become or accomplished in your lives; I don’t know whether either one of you would have ever beget children of your own to continue the cycle of life; but… here we are… in this journal of our journey; and I know we wouldn’t be here… if the two of you… were.
God orchestrates His universe with some really weird rhythms that seem almost alien at times… from our perspectives… in the here… and now. I miss you, Son! I miss your sister! I miss the two of you wrestling in our living room. I miss the smiles on your faces, the witty banter of our family interaction, and the humorous spirit that both you and your sister possessed. I miss that joy – the joy of being part of that! God is weird! I am now a crotchety old man with a pencil and a journal book. From my perspective, that wasn’t a good trade. Maybe I am weird. Think I’ll stretch out and go for a “run”. I love you!
Not all those who wander are lost.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
August 30, 2024
Morin’, Son. Well, for the first time in a long time I am not running the sprinklers before work… and after work. We got a good rain yesterday evening. We even had a couple boomers of thunder. Penn and Chewy did not care too much for it, but I enjoyed it for a change. I think there’s a chance of rain every day through Monday or so and then it’s supposed to cool off a little with highs in like the 80s – yay!
I am looking forward to lows in the sixties, fifties, and forties even. I love it when you need a shirt sleeve or a hoodie to sit outside! I have no use for mornings where you have to sip your coffee naked (practically) and still have to have a fan blowing directly on you just to approach some semblance of comfort. Anyway… fall is just over the horizon – yay again!
Where are we off to today, Son? I guess we can just step on and see what appears around the next corner, huh? That’s the way the “elites” like it to be for us anyway. They sit up there in their ivory towers looking down upon us poor common folk going about our daily business just trying to live, laugh, love and earn a living, and they say, “Hmm… things are too quiet down there in the streets. There’s not enough disharmony, horn-honking, yelling, and screaming. Let’s stir things up a bit, shall we?” They then grin their dastardly grin and sinisterly rub their hands together as they plot and wargame the possibilities at their disposal.
Most people living, laughing, loving, and earning a living in the matrix do not really believe in such things – “elites” directing all that goes on below them from the penthouses of their ivory towers. Most people think things just happen, trends just arise willy-nilly from the ether, and diversity just grows naturally from the ground up. They are naïve. Eddies do occur along the periphery, but they would not exist at all with out impetus from the main current… which always comes from upstream. It controls all down below because it came from upon high. This is the same whether we are talking about rivers of water within valleys or rivers of history within humanity.
But… unlike rivers of water, the rivers of happenings within humanity do not have to follow the trends and eddies dictated to it by the force of the mainstream. We can choose to circle counter to the direction that is urged we rotate at the impetus of the current in the main channel… but that usually results in some drastic “reaction” by the mainstream. This reaction most often starts off as some “problem” – some obstruction to the flow – that is caused or created by them that control the flow of the mainstream and usually ends up with some “solution” being posed by those very same individuals that caused, created, or “noticed” the “problem” requiring a “solution” in the first place.
This is not a matter of some genius merely taking advantage of a situation that just randomly occurs. No! These “Problems”, “Actions”, and “Solutions” are engineered products that are vacuum-sealed and placed upon a shelf for storage until they are needed to accomplish a specific task that will complete another step in a strategic plan that was developed by the parents or the grandparents of the snakes currently regulating the flow within the mainstream of humanity. That is how these serpents in shadows think – long-term, multi-generationally, methodically, and strategically.
The average person does not think like this. We just aren’t capable of that type of thinking. We don’t just sit around obsessing over ways to get one over on the “elites” that are making life so hard on us. We just want to live, laugh, love, and earn a living… but we are just cattle to them! We are just a vehicle to deliver profit and power to them. That is how they think, and we will never have peace and be left alone to live, laugh, love, and attempt to earn a living so long as we are in their coral, being herded around from one holding pen to another, awaiting our turn to walk up the ramp of the slaughterhouse!
We have got to wake up and start thinking long-term, multi-generationally, methodically, strategically, and honestly, not about seeking vengeance, but about exacting justice for what they have done, are doing, and will continue to do if they are not stopped. To do otherwise is to merely stand in line upon the ramp of the slaughterhouse, watch the one at the front of the line receive a bolt to the forehead and then drop into a lifeless mass upon the floor, turn and peer out over the sea of humanity behind us, patiently waiting for their turn to move up and ahead in the line behind us, and then… move up one more position closer to… the front of that line.
It matters not what sort of gourmet chow they place in the troughs of the holding pens (the matrix), this is the grim reality we face… or to which we can close our eyes and not face. The choice is ours. I hate to leave you, Son, with such a gloomy scene as this, but this is where we are… in this journal and upon this Earth. The day beckons me to feed dogs and prepare for work. My holding pen awaits. Let me go see what treasures await me in the troughs therein. Until tomorrow. I love you.
Wherever you are, be all there.
- Jim Elliot
August 31, 2024
Good last day of August, Son. That is so hard to believe!
Hey, Son, I’m back. Did you miss me? This pencil spit out the first two sentences above, and I then sat here holding it for about five minutes before it finally said, “You idiot! You’re not even awake yet. Go for a walk or something, wake up, and then come back and hold me.” So… I did. The problem is, now it’s late, the dogs are restless and ready for breakfast, and the birds are singing and carrying on the way birds are prone to do when the sun starts peeking over the horizon, so there may be distractions to our… conversation.
I did manage to get a walk / “run” in around the big block. “Kait’s moon” was out and visible just over the tree line of the eastern sky as I was making the round – that “fingernail moon” – the last little fragment of the moon that you can see just before the new moon. She used to call it her moon for some reason or another. I don’t know why. I guess you never laid claim to any particular phase of the moon, so let’s just make the full moon your moon – or maybe the day prior to the official full moon since Kaitlin’s moon is the day prior to the new moon?
Okay, so now that I am awake and we got that out of the way, where to today? More gloom and doom, or shall we paint some brightly colored flowers, smiley faces, peace signs, and “Have A Nice Day” signs instead? Oh why can’t those snakes just leave us alone and let us live, laugh, love, and make a living? Why have they got to control everything and engineer our actions for us by engineering that which we react to? Why can’t the average Joe (Hey Joe) see that we don’t need to be led – we don’t need to be governed – we don’t need to be babysat?
Perhaps that is because it is easier to be led than it is to lead! The “elites” know this, so… they lead, but they don’t lead us for our benefit! I mean… think about it – why would they? Are there really rich nobility out there who do what they do for the benefit of all those beneath them? Cue the fairytale theme and narrate, “Once upon a time…” Do royalty really reign via divine right for the benefit of all mankind? Is the human race better off due to the assistance of the monarchy? Again, cue the fairytale theme and narrate, “Once upon a time…”
No! Son, just as God is in us – not in a book or in an organization of men – God desires us to be ruled from within via His Spirit. There is your divine right! God is not, has not, nor ever will infringe our freewill – not by the, so called, “divine right of kings to rule” nor by the charitable “acts of nobility” by the wealthy elite. Such things are fairytales that are told to children – children who need to be babysat. Are we, Son, children who need to be babysat? That is a question for us to answer. The “elites” – the “nobles” – the “kings” – the serpents in shadows already have their answer to that question… and that answer is, “Yes!” I shall talk to you later, Son. I love you.
Every adventure is worthwhile.
- Amelia Earhart
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