‘The Woods Are Lovely, Dark, and Deep, and I Have Miles To Go…Before I Sleep.’
A journey through an October Woods!
I enjoyed a walk through Southern Illinois University’s Campus Woods earlier today. It was majestic and serene, as always. A gaggle of geese were happily honking as the squirrels were gathering nuts.
I have always loved the Robert Frost poem from which the title of this blog is taken. How often we need a walk in the woods to re-set our compass and to renew our goals and fellowship with God’s creation.
And so I have an affinity for the fall and the woods and the ‘vintage monsters’ and science fiction movies of my youth.
Autumn is a perfect time to reflect on our pleasant memories and to plan new and enriching endeavors to exite our imaginations and energize our spirits!
We must work to outrun the guy, below, until it is our time to exit!
Go Have a Dragon’s Milk Stout
A heart touching blog from Jonathon. He and Aaron and Mary Jane are the lights of my life!
A special sort of appreciation ought to be given to the ones in our lives who have loved us unconditionally and have always been there for us throughout it all. When I was a small boy, dealing with asthma, my father would wake me in the middle of the night to hand off my inhaler to me because I was having an asthma attack. My dad has been there for all of my graduations. We have the pictures to prove it. When I was diagnosed with bipolar my father visited me every day I was in the hospital. Mom came with him. I don’t believe anyone else had parents or family or friends that visited them daily. My dad has always been there with a camera and a smile for myself and our family. In two days Dad will turn 62!
In honor of Dad’s birthday our family has already…
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62 Is Knocking On My Door!
I visited with with my lifelong friend, Steve, yesterday on the telephone. We share the the same birthday…October 24th. He is five years older than me. Steve and I became friends in the little village of Elkville, Illinois in the early 1970’s. Neither of us had two pennies to rub together. I still smile at the memory of Steve asking me if I would like an order of biscuits and gravy at the Maid Rite restaurant in DuQuoin, Illinois…as we were driving through town. I said that I most assuredly would and thought what a nice offer that my friend had suggested! When we entered the eatery and sat down at a table, the waitress asked us if we would like coffee, and we answered in unison…yes! We then proclaimed, ‘Two orders of your finest biscuits and gravy!’ When she departed…Steve said to me…’you are springing for this aren’t you?’ I replied that I was penniless and he replied that so was he! Needless to say…we rose to our feet and exited the, once promising endeavor, for our car and a speedy exit!
Aaron gave me a silver chain for my nearly 62 year old neck. Do I like it….I love it! Every time that I put it on…I feel like that I am 59!
Jonathon purchased some vintage LP’s for me, The Weavers and Hank Willams, along with some very special, Paris, long matches for the occasional cigar that I indulge in!
Often people hold the door for me, and I wonder is it because of my grey beard? I laugh when I consider that I seemed to go from, ‘one of the young people’…to senior citizen…and my middle age years are little more than a blur that is similar to peering out of the very fast locomotive that we rode in as we left London and traveled through the Chunnel to Paris, France. Houses and trees and landscape rushed by so quickly that it was disorienting!
I walked the campus of Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale today, and I thought of how much I loved the institution and the pleasant memories that it afforded me….that go back over 41 years. Actually my enthrallment with SIUC goes back to the mid 1960’s when I was a grade school student in Eldorado, Illinois and the McLeod Theatre performers would travel to Hillcrest School to perform a Play for us. I was mesmerized by the expert performances and I determined that I had to learn more about SIU!
I reflect on my teenage years in a little non-denominational church in Elkville and the friendships that I made and some that are enduring to this day. I considered, yesterday, when Steve and I were reminiscing, that I think of my friends from the moment that they became my friends. If someone is my friend…I never forget them…the friendship is never over….no matter how long it is between our reunions.
I remember Chicago…and my mom and dad. I remember dad carrying me on his shoulders…and I was the king of the world! I remember Danny and Pauly and Steve and Susie and Ivy and Jim and George and Helen. I can see my mom, Neva June, dancing the twist as Chubby Checker sang.
I can see Jeff and Margo and our wonderful excursions around; France and Italy and the United Kingdom. I warm my heart by the great joy that our renewed friendship created!
Soon I will be retired from SIUC for nine years. Talk about time flying! I am enjoying every minute between; traveling and photography and writing, often seven days per week, and walking my beloved campus! The days pass quickly…but I notice them more. I watch the changes in the trees and I read daily…and I volunteer…and I think about….a wonderful life….
A minister, who is called by God, is a wonderful person to be around! Probably from 12 – 22…I wanted to be a minister. I have never stopped wanting to help people in some way.
I contemplate…and I try….to make a difference…daily. Nothing gives me greater pleasure!
Life’s stage has many scene changes.
Amazing Grace
‘Amazing Grace’ is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725-1807).’
‘Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life’s path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by other’s reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant insubordination.’
‘He was pressed (conscripted) into service in the Royal Navy. After leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy. This moment marked his spiritual conversion but he continued slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether. He began studying Christian theology.’
‘Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. ‘Amazing Grace’ was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year’s Day of 1773. ‘
‘With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, ‘Amazing Grace is one of the most recognizable songs in he English-speaking world.’ Wikipedia
It is so easy to believe that our faith journey is the right journey and the only path to understanding God. We retreat into our christian/political corners…much as pugilist do in the boxing ring. When the bell peels out, for the next 3 minute round to begin…we rise from our stools with the cuts that we have received having been treated and our bruised and blue and blackened face…continuing to swell. We know that this time we will knock out our opponent and that we will receive the Champion Belt!
‘Amazing Grace’ is my favorite Christian hymn. It was for John Newton, the slave trader…it is for our political leaders….it is for all of us…in the darkest night of our soul!
‘As for Saul, he made havoc of he church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.’ Acts 8:3. KJV
Wonder
‘A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.’ Dictionary
Have you ever looked into a child’s eyes? If they are well cared for and loved…they are full of wonder! The world that they are surrounded by is all new and fresh and beautiful and inexplicable. They see the unexpected…everyday! Children do not want to go to sleep at night and they jump out of bed each morning, eager to begin a new day of exploration and discovery!
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Santa Claus is real to children due to the fact that virtually everything that they encounter is a new experience and a miracle and a mystery. Youngsters know that they can become anything that their hearts desire. It is easy to believe that a Leprechaun lives at the other end of the rainbow…and that he has a pot of gold with him!
We live on a planet that is comprised of approximately two thirds water. Most of it has never been seen by the human family. Not many of us have climbed Mr. Everest or visited the Antarctic or walked on a glacier.
We speak one language and understand little of other cultures or ethnicities, or have broken bread with a person of another race.
We are involved in our own belief system…that was passed down to us from our parents and that they inherited from their parents. We are suspect of other faiths…and yet we have never darkened the door to their church or mosque or temple. We have heard the gossip and the lies and the suppositions about our fellow travelers and we have been content to believe the whisperings and back-bitings and slander…rather than explore for ourselves to determine the truth.
Do we know our neighbor? I do not mean in the allegorical sense…I mean the person that lives next door to you? Have we investigated the wonder and beauty of not only feeding the homeless…but getting to know them?
When we look into the night sky, there are untold stars and planets looking back at us. If there is intelligent life on other worlds…perhaps they are biding their time…for the human family to first know each other…before they make their acquaintance?
I wonder what would happen if we would look into the eyes of our brothers and sisters….and see wonder…and ourselves looking back at us?
‘Do Not Piss On Me and Tell Me It Is Raining’
Now that is a bit of a harsh statement. I do not, as a rule, like quotes that use crude language. However, I have used the quote above since my colleague, Earl, said it to me many years ago. The word play…simply describes what I have experienced on numerous occasions during my life.
Politicians are excellent in assuring us that they have our best interest at heart, when in reality they have their own interest at heart…and we are merely pawns to move around the chess board when it enables their political success!
How many times have we been told, by our elected leaders, that we must send our young people to war? We are assured that we are fighting for freedom…and find out that we are fighting for oil!
There is nothing more insulting than to have a leader or a supervisor or a manager or an administrator…tell you a lie…to your face.
I worked for a boss, many years ago, that not only lied to me on a daily basis, but forgot the previous lie that he had told me and therefore developed a new one…at times on several occasions. One day I told the boss that he must settle on which story that he wanted me to tell the staff…as he had, thus far, told me three separate accounts!
I was meeting with one of the chancellors of Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale and was sitting and listening to the most outrageous fabrication of the truth…whereupon I admonished the leader that if he did not quit insulting my intelligence…that the meeting was over and that I was going to leave.
To not experience the respect for yourself as being a rationale and logical human being…is the height of insults!
President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, lied about the Tonkin Gulf attack, during the war in Vietnam…to facilitate the addition of thousands of Americans to the war effort.
After 50 thousand Americans lost their lives in Vietnam…we exited from the roof top of our embassy and left our South Vietnamese allies behind! We not only did not win the war…we lost it!
I have witnessed preachers and pastors assure their humble flocks that if they will just give until it hurts, of their finances,…that they will be blessed and made wealthy and healed of their maladies! I have seen the same people struggle to survive and to put food on their tables for themselves and their families!
In this world you must pay attention to the words that are coming out of a leader’s mouth and weigh those words against the empirical truth that you know is right.
When you see a political leader admit to lawbreaking and wrongdoing and assure the American people that they not only have the right to do so…but they have the right to do anything that they want! You must think for yourself and admit that the understanding that you have seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears…supersedes the rhetoric that issues fourth from a leader that may be, ‘Pissing on You and Telling You That it is Raining!’
What Is Man?
The beginning of a Billy Bump alternate reality, adventure!
Billy B. and Carl were having a tough time in second grade. Rather, Billy was having the tough time as Carl seemed to warm up to the newest mathematical wonder of equations. Billy B. had taken his homework to his mom and asked her for her help and after two hours of agony…she admitted that she did not understand them and that furthermore she had not experienced them during her time in school. She went on to ruminate on what the second grade teacher, Ms. Blackwell, had been drinking to think that seven year olds were ready for this involved mathematics? Jane announced the she was going to visit Mrs. Blackwell and determine if she could do the equations and if she could…she could illustrate to her how they were to be ciphered!
The next morning Carl was smiling like the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland! His eyes were…
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Colleagues and Friends
I saw my former colleague this afternoon at our local McDonalds restaurant. Mike was one of the hardest workers that I have known. His humble manner and quiet disposition caused him to be the kind of person that you could place in any campus building, and he would work successfully and without incident. He was appreciative of the opportunity that was afforded to him by Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale and he worked like his career depended on his professionalism and work-ethic!
As we were leaving Mike told me that he had enjoyed working with me and that I always treated him right. He made my day! For you see…it was my honor to work with him!
Mike was illustrative of the Building Services staff at SIUC. I have never been associated with a finer group of skilled technicians and a group of elite, as the Marines would say, ‘Shock Troops’ who worked so diligently to keep their University alive and thriving!
I reflect, often, on the hidden gems of our school. The Building Services staff is not given to seeking praise or applause. They labor quietly behind the scenes to ensure that our
Campus is clean and well maintained. No administrator is watching when they bring food in each evening to feed the student workers on their housekeeping crews. No one is keeping records when the civil service staff is mentoring their students colleagues and encouraging them and being a surrogate mom or dad to them.
Oftentimes our university leaders are focusing on major plans for the revitalization and renewal of SIUC…and they are meeting with important people and officials with official titles…and the Academic Cabinet is toiling over the knotty conundrum of recruitment and retention….while the Building Service Workers are inviting their students, who have nowhere to go, to their homes for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
There are many heroes in this world…many are unseen and unheralded!
The Happy Traveler 