Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Our Children

 

Last Sunday my son’s SUV was parked behind my truck so I took it to go shoot some hoops at the local schoolyard.

He’d wanted “bubba tires” on it when he got it a couple years past. I’d met him half way knowing those tires are problematic and make a gob of noise. He was agreeable but clearly disappointed.

It was like riding in a darn buckboard wagon. RUM, RUM RUM RUM RUM … Christ it was loud and bumpy. I’ve always tried to do the most I can for them. They are old enough now where the whole thing is to get them off the payroll.

I got to thinking about him driving this thing back and forth to Boone and suddenly I misted up. Hell I’m misting up now and it causes me to wonder.

When I was 12 my Father took me to work and said, “Boy … I raised you this far. You’ll be earning your keep from here on out.”

He wasn’t nasty about it. He was just stating a fact of life as he knew it. The tale is he was plowing behind a mule at 12.  Tow headed and somewhat small, in the S.C heat he toiled from dawn to dusk. The story has been verified countless times. Having lifted a manual plow to feel its heft I can only wonder how he did it.

I didn’t want things to be that way for my children. So riding in that raggedy old SUV my heart traveled back to that sandy loam of sweat and tears and endless labor and I wanted to cry.

I want to cry for my little boy. Not long ago my wife had some 8 mm film put to jump drive. I watched a skinny version of my confused self wash them in a basinet. I watched them play and fall and look up at us in wonder.

So maybe it won’t be much longer until they are completely off the payroll. That’ll be a good thing because I’m no spring chicken and they’ll need to find their own way but I’ve learned something these past few days.

I don’t give a damn about the past. I could care less what I had to do or my father or his father before him. I will give to these boys until my last breath and thank God for every day I can.

I'd be willing to bet there's quite a few of you that feel the same.

 

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Sins of the Father



When I was 16 years old I was angry. Frustrated, I had stepped onto a road of rage that would last some 20 or so years.

We used to cruise Shoney’s and McDonalds listening to loud rock, looking for a fight, excitement. “Burn down the mission,” was our mindset.

There was a Billy Graham revival at the coliseum. I despised religion. I had lived in violence and alcoholism all my young life while religious people wagged their condemning fingers and stood idly by on the premise that a man’s home was his castle and it was wrong to interfere.

Truth was (and I knew better) they were just afraid, just like I was. Just like we were.

I’d heard Billy Graham this and Billy Graham that until it popped the now bursting bubble of my resentment and I exploded under the bright light of that profane, circus colored Mc Donald’s.

“F—K BILLY GRAHAM. F—K Billy Graham," I screamed. He’s nothing but a bible thumping HYPOCRITE and you are ALL BLIND SHEEP running off a cliff,” until they snatched my skinny arms back between my shoulder blades, cuffed me and threw me into the back of a squad car.

I raged there, kicking and screaming until exhaustion set in. My voice began to break and crack and I lay down on my side still cuffed and wept in my sweat,  face against the filthy vinyl seat, the wet laboring breath of defeated youth roaring in my ears like a storm.

Many years later … another life and I went to a spiritual retreat in Montreat, NC. By then I had experienced real hypocrisy. Hell, I had been the biggest hypocrite of all.

Dr. Graham had spent many years just up the mountain. He was still living. Walking the shaded streets of the retreat center, I apologized to God and all his messengers and asked for forgiveness.

I still don’t agree with the finger wagging. I find traditional, Calvinist religion limited at best yet I have learned one fundamental thing.

There are many paths to the summit yet the goal is the same.

Whether it is Dr. Graham, Ghandi, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, seven red headed aunts or a wounded but devout father …  God sends his messengers in many forms.

What matters is that we are on a path to the summit and are aware of it because you see,  we are all headed there.

Turns out, we just have to listen. Maybe if we hang on, rather than sobs of defeat, we will hear the voice of God.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Dear Charlie


Dear Charlie,

It’s been 45 years since you peered over the rail of the top bunk before “lights out” and told me you were going “in country” in the morning. 
You were just a boy with a shaved head that night under the glaring light in your skivvies’; lightly muscled yet white as a porcelain vase.
We heard later your squad did not make it back.
I’ve thought of you often looking down at me from that bunk and how I could tell you didn’t want to go.

I think of you when I think of all the guys sloshing through the jungle exhausted just waiting for a bullet or booby trap.

I think of you when I remember reading the bulk of infantry sick calls in Nam were for immersion foot. Ya’ll’s feet stayed wet so much when you’d remove your socks the meat would come off with them.

I thought of you the night I got drunk with the Vet in the wheel chair and he told me he wished the explosion had killed him.

You see, a buddy and I joined the Navy because we were on the last draft and didn’t want to ground pound with an M16 for the “Man” who we knew was lying.

Students had died at Kent State. I’ve always felt like they should have received a medal.

There was a black and white movie when I was a kid about the Sullivan family in WW ll.  Six brothers from the same family died in the war. They passed a law after so nothing like that could happen again.

So I figure if you had a brother at least your family didn’t lose him or them too.

Sometimes I think of the farmers during the Civil War … just the small farmer; No slaves,  just him, his wife and kids trying to scratch a living out of the land with their bare hands … that day when the two soldiers showed up riding from across the field and you ended up riding off on the old mule never to return.

Sometimes I think of you when in my dreams I see the merchant in the tri-cornered hat and knee britches marching awkwardly out of town because even he knows the bite of taxes and the redcoats armed and glaring in the streets and bars.His store eventually bending to the gravity of age until the old porch collapsed and the boys broke out all the windows in their youthful ignorance.

I love you, Charlie and I’m sorry. I don’t think the day will ever come when boys and girls don’t have to go to war. I’m just grateful I can sit here this Memorial Day weekend and write this.

So I think of you now, Charlie … lying there beneath one of the thousands of white headstones with the small flags flapping like a bird's wings in the garden of our remembrance.

Can’t help but rue the price of freedom.

Can’t help but think of you when it’s time to go to work, teach my sons, kiss my wife’s forehead.

May our grief be a testament to your sacrifice? Might our remembrance include your family and friends? Might our hearts swell with pride when we stand in that voting booth? May we choose with profound ethic, reasoned thought and a hope for a future built upon the graves of all who have given the ultimate sacrifice?

“Thank you” seems so little to say, Charlie. So I’ll say it but promise you that I will live each breath trying to repay all of you and those who love you that still walk the earth and all those that will go again into the jungle and desert and wood.


God bless you, Charlie. God bless America.


Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Evacuation of Saigon



A couple of buddies from Deck Division and I took 10 days leave and flew a “mac hop” (Military Air Command) to Taiwan. Okinawa was boring with just beach and Quonset huts on a remote side of the island.

We’re eating breakfast one morning, reading the Stars and Stripes and my buddy Geddis hollers,
“The freakin’ Blue Ridge is headed to Nam!”

A little panicked we make a mac hop out of Taipei to Okinawa, spend a couple days there in one of those Quonset huts, fly to Subic Bay then camp on the forecastle of an LST for 48 hours till we see a huge convoy of lights in the distance.

We jump a Chinook to the Blue Ridge to meet the Chief who yells above the scree and whop of the monster Chinook’s props,

“Where the hell you yahoo’s been”

“Taipei on leave, Chief” we all scream back.

He jerks his thumb toward the superstructure and yells,

“Stow your gear and get to battle stations!”

I blaze into the red glow of the ships bowels, slide down the ladders top speed, stow my gear and race back up the ladders two at a time to the starboard sponson deck where the small boats are being released from the davits in a rolling sea. There's  a steady rumble I at first think is thunder only to realize later it’s bombs erupting in Saigon as the North Vietnamese release hell on the citizens and military there.

We’re 7th Fleet Amphib Command so surrounded by a convoy. Ships lights and helos light up the tossing sea, riddled with white caps. The whop of all the helos is deafening. I’m jacked with adrenaline as 3rd Class Boatswain Eber reaches the headphones out to me and yells,
“Thank God, I been at this for hours. You take over for a while!”

I put on the headset and get blasted with the wildest array of yelling and props and noise I’v e ever heard in my life much less Navy career and it hits home.

This is f__king war, We are at war and people are dying and I been raising hell in Taipei.”
So we “turn to”. Daylight and we drop the boats into a still tossing sea. Hueys are trying to land on our helo deck made for one bird at a time. Turns out they have run into the abandoned  Air America airport and commandeered these helos. The grunts didn’t have time to fuel but left the keys trying to do what they could to help cause we’ve abandoned these people and all of us know it.
There’s a heavy brood just underneath as we work our asses off. No room to land they are trying to land in the nets and crashing. It’s a cluster and dangerous as hell so they start throttling in one direction and diving out the other side.

Helos come crashing just feet from where they have gone in. There are women and babies and kids along with regular army and some questionable characters of all types.
We’re fishing them out of the water under guard and spiriting them forward to the enclosed forecastle after searching them. Both on the sponson decks and main we’re piling up all manner of firearms and blades.

Next morning I hear they are going to push a dead helo off the deck into the drink cause folks are still trying to land in the nets. I run topside to see some 2nd Div guys pushing a helo over the side. When it hits there’s a WHOP you can hear from the bridge 200 feet up.

Theres a pile of weapons chest high and as big as the “paint” on the basketball court. There’ M16s, AKS, handguns, machetes, switchblades … you name it.

A huey touches down and off comes a young woman carrying a baby. She’s got on elephant bell bottoms and a sequined t-shirt. The baby’s screamin bloody murder. A green uniform is next. I figure him for ARVN ( regular South Vietnamese Army) There’s old men and women, kids and some street thug looking characters.

We’re hearing they are shooting civilians in the street.

At “midrats” that night (midnight rations) the scuttlebutt ( rumor) is that the President of South Vietnam is coming in on a helo at dawn. I gotta see this and don’t have watch so at dawn show up on the after deck.

 Another Huey plops down and out pops this diminutive guy in officers khakis and cover with two briefcases handcuffed to each arm that look like they’re about to pull his shoulders out of socket. He’s poker faced and sweating like a pig staring straight ahead as a Chief guides him into the aft hatch and out of sight.

Word is later the briefcases were filled with gold bars from the South Vietnamese treasury.
Later that day I’m working main deck midship and everybody starts hollering.

“HELO!” there’s been a lull after a couple days. Suddenly this Huey comes barreling in faster than normal. My nether regions  draw up and I’m already ducking when that damn helo bounces off the deck and lurches forward and the whop whop is pierced by a crash like a semi “t-bonin” somebody. Overhead there’s a shew, shew shEW SHEW SHew shew and another crash. We all knew to hit the deck. My elbows were bloody from hitting the nonskid surface. The props on the helo had connected with the aft tower and chunks had gone spinning forward until they ricocheted off the deck into the sea or caught in the railings.

Later I was called to the galley with a few guys. They’ve filled up 30 gallon aluminum trash cans with spaghetti and we haul those up to the forecastle ( pronounce foke sl). Marines are standing guard at the port and starboard hatches. Our grunt torques the hatch open to reveal a freakin sea of people.
They’re jammed in pretty tight.  Turned out we had 200 folks in there taking them to the Phillipines. All those faces looked up at me; all asian, young and old, big and small. Babies crying, folks coughing , they were laying in the angle irons, squatting, standing. When they realized what we were doing, many began to rise and move toward us. I’d seen hunger in Asia. I’d never seen hunger in this many eyes at one time.

The grunt told them to back up and clear a space. He’s holding the M16 across his chest close as we sit the grub down.  Thing is, grunts usually sort of bark at you. This was different … like he was talking to a naughty little brother.

As I’m ducking back through the hatch I cast a glance. I swear it was the girl in the sequined t-shirt with the bell bottoms. She’s holding that baby like the marine’s holding that M16. Her eyes are glistening as our gaze meets. I had to pay attention because you’ll brain yourself passing through a hatch so had to look away … at least physically look away.

In some ways our gazes locked forever. I see her sitting there cross legged sometimes, looking up at me. She was about my age. I’m no genius but it was pretty obvious she’s just living for that baby. Makes you wonder if it was a soldier’s baby. Makes you wonder a lot of things.
Something else froze in time out of that mash of days and turmoil; Nuyen Van Thieu steppin out of that Huey hanging on to those briefcases for dear life.

Somehow I don’t think he was hanging on for the sake of those people in the forecastle.
The general consensus is we shouldn’t have been there. Of course hindsight’s 100%. Thing is if you’re going to back a country; if you’re going to commit, then I’ll fight for that girl until there’s nothing left of me.

Wish our guys didn’t have to die for those briefcases though.

50, 000 service personnel died in Viet Nam. I for one will stop this anniversary. I’ll go down to our local Viet Nam wall, bow my head and say thank you. I’ll also say I’m sorry … to all those soldiers, sailors and airmen … and to that girl.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Brute?


Am I really this loud brute,
This used car salesman,
Twanging my way through?

What is the quiet space between?
Who is praying before dawn,
between sleep, and waking,
that all are protected?

Where did the child under the house go?
Cool red clay staining his knees,
As they called from the sunshine,
Come out, come out,
We’re going to the circus!

Then their laughter, muffled behind slammed doors,
 As the engine roared, then faded away,
Into summer light.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Cousins


When we were adolescent, she got mad at me as she was prone to do and scratched my face.
I could tell when she did it she was sorry. The mirror of her eyes suggested  there was blood. She had wounded her cousin but couldn’t take it back or apologize because her rage was in the way.

Later she was kind to me and we read the Sunday “funnies” splayed out on the linoleum floor.

Mom and I would go to visit my Aunt and Uncle on the other side of town. My cousin was older and  I looked up to him . I was red haired and freckled. He was dark haired and handsome and wore his clothes well.

His sister (she was my cousin too of course) would watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and scream and cry hysterically. She was school smart. We weren't at all sure what was going on but just decided to be concerned. 

Even though he was super cool, he’d always spend time with me. He had a way of making me feel wanted … like he was glad I was there. We’d wrestle on the worn carpet. I had a temper with a jacked up motor so I’d give it my all as he laughed,  grinding me into the carpet. When we’d leave I’d have rug burns and a full heart.

Another cousin was coming to Mamaw's. I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Last I remembered she had been sitting on the gargantuan back seat  of a car as I looked over my shoulder from the front  to speak. She was alone there,  her skirt spread around her like some fairy tale princess. She was pretty and clever.

We were 16 years old and I wanted my best friend to meet her. She had become even lovelier and laughed that disarming raspy laugh as we joked and she teased us. I suspected she was amused by our blushing naiveté.

Later we sat on the steps of the old farmhouse while she played the guitar and sang. I was proud … always have been … still am.

Grayed and somewhat wiser, I was there when we gathered at a local eatery after the funeral of a beloved Uncle. There were two more generations now.  She was younger,  a feisty brunette; what we in the South like to call a” pistol.”

A cousin close to my age and I were discussing our childhoods after these many passing years. It was known that mine had been “challenging”. He shared some things that came as a surprise.

The “little Pistol” turned to me, tears in her eyes,

“I had no idea. Please tell me. I want to know what your lives were like.”

Over the next weeks, I tried.  I’m not sure if it helped. I only know that I had seen her love for family in those misty eyes. She just wanted to know the truth. She had not had a lot of contact with those of us much older and only knew the stories the aunts told and a few black and white photos.  I suspect she felt that knowing our stories would help her understand how she had come to be who she was.

We figured it out one time. I have somewhere north of 30 paternal cousins.

I think about them often. One of the few redeeming graces of social media is that I at least have a window into their lives.

I could tell stories until “the cows come home.”

My twin sons were born. She came with her Mother and sat on the floor of the nursery and held them ... played with them. I barely knew her. I’d been gone rambling those many years as she grew. Yet she had come ... wanted to come. 

He doesn’t come to the reunions. Truth is his childhood was the roughest of all. We roomed together for a while in our twenties on the outskirts of town. We had so many things in common I think it confused us a bit.  The confusion was the thing we had in common the most.

Her Mother was so kind it showed even before she spoke. She was the same yet beleaguered from the beginning by illness, yet her beauty and kindness never waned.  It’s been too long. I suspect the years have had their toll like with all of us yet i know the kindness will still live in those sparkling eyes.

In the rising dawn I sat and asked God to come to me. What came were their faces until they diffused into light and we were running, laughing in a field behind the old two story schoolhouse and heard the grownups calling …. Come home, come home … it’s time to say the blessing.


Friday, April 10, 2020

Mamas



                                                                  Mamas

Aubrey was a precocious child. It was boring at Mama Grace’s house. The old two story seemed to talk with wrap around porches. A steep "servant’s stairway" up the back way, off the porch outside the kitchen was interesting but the anxious women wouldn’t let him play there.

He’d get bored with the two giant pecan trees and you couldn’t crawl in the scuppernong brush because of the briars.

They’d seem to forget about him for a while so he’d snuck down to the muddy pond. Sweat running down his spine and his temples he’d toss stuff in. Minnows scurried from the muddy leaves at the shore and he’d wonder what they were running from? He sure wouldn’t hurt them.

Mama had warned him time and again not to go near the pond.

“You’ll fall in and drown like the other little boy did. “  She’d say.

He suspected since the “little boy” wasn’t given a name it wasn’t true but it sort of scared him anyway.

“What you doin’ down there, boy?” came a raspy voice from behind. It startled him so bad, he tensed and felt pee try to dribble, 

Turning he saw a big black lady sitting there on the porch of the small cabin. The tired porch roof drooped, wood planking the color of a cloudy day.

She was a cascade of folds in her faded dress and tattered straw hat. Seemed like every black lady he’d ever seen had a tin pot full of string beans they were snapping  by their foot.

“I’m not doin’ anything wrong,” he lied. 

“Come here. Let me talk to you a bit.”

“Yes, Mam,” as he trudged head down in guilt up the rise to the porch.

She was poured onto an old wooden rocker same color as the planks.

She motioned to a wicker stool by the pot of string beans and he sat in the shade there with her.
Funny, it was cooler here with a soft breeze. He could understand why she liked it there, gazing out into the heat.

“You know that pond can be dangerous for a little ‘ un, right?”

“Yes, Mam” he mumbled. “Mama says.”

“I know yo Mama says, cuz she told me you’d likely come down here and to keep an eye.”

Seemed to him his Mama knew most everybody. The man at the general store always knew he was coming. One time he’d dallied at the cemetery looking at the headstones and Mr. Joyner had' for the first time ever' seemed a bit cross.

“Where you been, Aubrey? Shoulda been here a bit ago”

Near as he could figure it was probably best to obey his Mama. ‘Specially if it was gonna make friendly people cross.

They sat for a while. She was quiet. The only sound was those beans snappin’ and the crickets and frogs at the pond. Well …  the ever present old crow was fussin’ as usual.

He waited a little. He was bored again but he didn’t want to hurt the lady's feelings. Then he had an idea.

“My name’s Aubrey.”

Yes, Honey, I know. My name’s Mae. I’ve known yo Mama since she wasn’t much older than you." 

“Well, I’m gonna go up to the house before her and Mama Grace get too worried and go to calling.”

“Yes … you do that, Honey. Tell yo Mama, Mae said hello.”

His heart jumped. If he told his Mama, she’d know he’d snuck down to the pond.

As he walked slow gazing at the old house up the hill he got to thinking. This was like that thing they’d told him in Sunday School. You might think you’re being sneaky and getting away with something. Thing is, God’s always watching.

Near as he could tell ... Mama was a lot like God.



Wednesday, April 8, 2020

GOODBYE, JOHN.


I was about 20 years old and still in the Navy. A buddy on the Kitty Hawk was living in Chula Vista with a couple guys. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out why anybody would want to live in Chula Vista, but there we were.

He’d called and I’d showed up at the large garden apartment. We had grown up like brothers listening to Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith and Cream and such.
We went in the Navy together but got separated so had not seen each other for a while. After a couple shooters, some beer and a little herbal medicine my buddy started to put on an album.

He asked, “You want to listen to some John Prine?”

“Who the hell’s John Prine?” I said.

I’d been listening to a lot of Allman Brothers, Goose Creek Symphony, Leon Russell ...

“Damn, Scott. You don’t know who John Prine is?”

“I been hangin’ out with a bunch of deck apes, Buddy. Guess the subtler nuances have gone by.”

A sort of folksy ballad thing was playing by now. I wasn’t overly impressed. You couldn’t dance to it. Didn’t make you want to stomp your foot or beat your thigh.

So we rattle on with Prine singing in the background until it came,

“daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.”

Through the fog, I got to thinking. This guy’s not just talking about strip mining. Mister Peabody’s hauled off a lot more than coal.

Years later I got straightened out and had kids. They were  budding
adolescent and music was growing more prevalent. We’d always sung hymns and country stuff like my folks sang while riding down the highway. 

One was prone to ask me about music I thought was important …. that I liked. Of course I told him about The Allman Brothers’ and Led Zeppelin, mostly rock, then from out of the blue I caught myself singing the chorus to John Prine’s “Paradise”. 

Needless to say, he was quite taken. 

I guess Mr. Peabody did haul off an awful lot. Thing is, if we survive long enough, looks like we can walk a good bit of it back home. 

Thank you, John.

See you on the other side. 




Tuesday, March 31, 2020

LISTEN



Do you hear echoes within?
 I suspect most do; Family, money, romance. 
The list is infinite.
For a while now, I hear, “listen.” 
I have always talked too much, like a motor running. 

In the silence, I am free. The echo caresses, listen … listen.
What might we listen for;   birds calling out a symphony, 
wind tossing pollen laden trees,
 the creak of the house as it settles its bones?

 I fall inward to breath; in … out … inhale … exhale.
The masters say,  observe the space between,
 the space where swirls of light murmer in the darkness,
" come to me … come to me … now."

Blending in vibration, He comes:  
Conscious,  subconscious, super conscious. 
We join the supernal universe. 
“I am”, the sound of God.

Listen, Silence's truth, 
beyond flesh and bone. We are He,
 one and the same.
Made in the image of Father, 
seeking,
listening,
 always, 
always,
 returning,
 home.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

DICHOTOMY?





A while back an activist friend posted her experience and it troubled me. As a meat eater, I was touched and sought to balance my perspective knowing that in this life there is yin and yang, ebb and flow, dark and light.

I reached out to a family member that I know is kind, loving and hard working, steeped in generations of farming life and experience.

Knowing many are home bound with more time than usual I post this now in the hopes that it might carry a message. I came away wishing my activist friend could visit the farm and meet the farmer.

Herein lays the core of what I would say. Like in my twenty’s when a friend came out as gay, or loving  a family with a transgender child or having an African American friend or a Muslim friend: when you put a face to ideology, when relationship bleeds into perspective we find the truth.


                                                                         ACTIVIST/YOGA TEACHER

     
 Y’all my heart f______g hurts. I witnessed so much suffering today, completely unnecessary misery. Fellow activists and I stood in the unrelenting heat (90+ degrees in Tar Heel this afternoon) to document truckloads of pigs and chickens on their way to slaughter. Packed tightly together, crammed up against hot metal bars, unable to move or find any relief. Terrified, exhausted, sick, dehydrated, dying, and some already dead, I’m sure. Their eyes all seemed to ask “Why?”, and that’s what I want to know, too. These are living, breathing, feeling beings, but to most people, they are nothing more than commodities. In the cold, dark world of animal agriculture, their only value lies in how many dollars and cents can be made from each pound of their tortured flesh. They know nothing but deprivation, abuse, and sorrow. Saying I’m disgusted with humanity for allowing this to continue doesn’t even begin to cover it. My soul cries for these poor creatures every moment of every day. I wish they could be seen as the precious individuals that they all are. With every fiber of my being, I wish this atrocity would end for once and for all, and I hope you will join me in co-creating a world in which all are treated with kindness and compassion.

                                                                                   FARMER


Yes, I often wish there were more humane ways on the commercial end of farming. We would have a big problem in this world with feeding the masses in an economically advantageous manner without the technology used today. The current processes were created for sustainability, and though they might not seem like the best options, they meet the demands. Those that can afford to purchase more humanely raised meat should do so to support small time heritage farms like mine, but the problem is that people don’t want to pay for it. It is extremely difficult for farmers like me to survive. Think about this... a farmer today makes the same for a bushel of wheat or corn as in the 80s, but it cost more to produce. Monsanto allows farmers to get more bushels per acre that are resistant to disease and bugs, so the farmer can increase yield and retain some bit of profit. Then small farmers go to buy that same bushel of grain for their animals and the cost has tripled. Many of my friends have already watched their farms go under because they can’t afford to feed their animals. What about pastured animals? Cheap way to feed, right? Well, unless you move to Missouri, you are going to pay $10,000 per acre or more for “farmland” around here. I make nothing off my animals. I essentially do it out of love. Sadly, a big heart doesn’t pay the bills. I understand how those on the outside looking in must feel about commercial farmers and killing of animals, but they shouldn’t assume that we like it either. It is a necessity, because not everyone is willing to sacrifice and become vegan.


In summary, all forms of divisiveness are grounded in selfishness. There is a martial art called Aikido. The founder worked his way to a spiritual awakening, took the core of combat arts and created an art that sought to neutralize violence with a minimum of harm. The goal was to blend with the attacker in a way that took their balance and immobilized them without damage. This idea, to protect your perceived adversary permeates theology and war throughout history yet the common response is to run headlong into conflict with the intention to destroy.

 The truth is we are all rowing the same leaky boat. Either we find a way to blend our energy or we will either row in circles or sink. I suspect our goal should be to help each other until we all find our way to safely to shore..


Saturday, March 21, 2020

Covid 19: A Perspective


 In the throes of the Covid pandemic, I have been compelled to write something, anything meaningful, helpful.
Warm and fuzzy has its place but mostly when you are home and protected by the love of family. Out in the rugged world you have to be careful that your love does not digress into naivete or you are liable to get your ass kicked.
 I am fortunate to have a daily spiritual practice. My goal is, “Love God, clean house, serve others.” Nothing original, but for me the K.I. S.S. theory works best. (Keep it simple, Stupid)
As we move forward into the maw, if I could offer anything it would be this. When you are at a bottom there is a part of you that wants to give up. I spent half a lifetime trying not to fall to my knees only to realize I was constantly doing just that. What ended up mattering was what I do once I’m there.
Bottoms are kind of like falling into a shallow well. You are waste deep in water and there is light way above reaching into the darkness where you are. You are hungry, thirsty, wracked with pain from the fall and all you can do is look up at that light and scream HELP    HELP … PLEASE HELP ME!
Some give in to that despair and this life comes to an end. Others realize that they must wait. Once that realization occurs the human psyche will begin to organize, observe and in that stillness the answers will come.
Suddenly you become aware that you are standing in clear, clean water and all you have to do is drink. After the panic and subsequent surrender to your plight, the mind begins to still and in that clarity the light above begins to grow until the only thing that matters is that light.
The fact that your skin is crawling, you are bone cold, hunger is gnawing at your guts recedes and you  cease to be afraid because you have accepted the fact that all you can do is wait.
The light is hope. In the water we are reborn. Our minds cease to produce enemies and instead are transformed by a surrendering heart … a heart that has given itself over to hope until they hear your cry for help.
And in the light they come … HE comes and you are delivered from your darkness.
The hard part about all of this is the not knowing but from that ignorance is born the most powerful tool humans possess … love. When I say that word I am not talking warm and fuzzy. I am talking the love of a warrior that fights for his or her brothers and sisters and strives with every breath to serve them.
There is scripture that has beat steady these past few years and that is what I would offer here:
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13


Saturday, February 8, 2020

Playing In the Tub

I’m not sure if it’s time or age or a learning to wait, observe and listen or all of these things but of late I am ever mindful of our fragile natures.
I am surrounded by young men and both observe
and interact with them daily. In that process I see that though they strive with such ardor to appear strong and capable (and they in many ways are) they are affected by each comment, nuance, mood.
In their minds, explanation and direction become criticism. If one is not careful an attempt to teach becomes little more than an admonishment.
My goal is to teach without criticism. To guide as much as possible by example. Yet there is often a time when lecture is necessary to avoid problems.
Among one another they joke and tease. Yesterday that devolved into a battle between two of them in which attacking the softest spots of  became the goal. I must say that listening all I could think of was immaturity yet I let it go …. Listening … thinking.
The next morning I heard one apologize for his part but heard no response from the other. It is possible that he gestured yet I wonder. If you cannot speak your position is there any truth in it? I know that he is prone to grudges.
The apologizer is prone to bait others and tease a lot so I expect it began there but I realize that where it began doesn’t mean much.
We have our 3 year old God son for the weekend. Last night as I watched him play in the bath tub I couldn’t help but notice how attentive was his play. In that focus I saw vulnerability. My heart flew out to him as I recognized his future in a world that will not love him as much as I do.
Society will not be careful with his heart. This morning my heart goes out to these young men. What happened yesterday was that the child in the bathtub playing was slapped and left to process his feelings.
The last thing I had heard the grudge carrier say as he slammed out the door was, “It was an argument but I don’t see why you would want to demean somebody.”
I hear the message loud and clear.
Be careful with people’s hearts. From the grizzled construction worker to the Mother of children we are all  on one level just children playing in the tub.