Being of a certain age, a baby boomer, I remember when the movie, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, premiered and it was, somewhat, scandalous in that the word bastard was used.

My Mom’s favorite movie of 1939 was, Gone With The Wind, where Rhett Butler replied to Scarlet O’Hara’s question to him, at the conclusion of the movie, ‘frankly Scarlet I don’t give a damn.’

The student who, openly cursed in school, was considered the ‘bad seed’ or ‘from the wrong side of the tracks.’

The F Word was used in only the most risqué of circumstances and it was considered a religious sacrilege to use God’s Name in Vain.

I walked out on one of the Back to the Future movies…as there were some curse words used in the dialogue.  Aaron and Jonathon have not forgotten the disappointment of the protest…to this day.

I recall when a youth never referred to their elders by their first name, unless they had been given special permission to do so by the respected senior.

When you visited a retail establishment or were served by a waiter or waitress or at anytime that you said thank you to the person serving you…there was one simple reply…you’re welcome…not, the popular, ‘no problem.’

Now, you may be thinking that Jay is old and needs to modernize.  You would be right, in many ways, but good etiquette is the oil of human interaction that keeps each of us appreciative and respectful of our mutual worth and human dignity.

When I was driving prospective chancellor candidate, Dr. Jo Ann Argersinger, from one campus appointment to another, I remember a news article on the car radio coming on…just as she entered the automobile, that was discussing former President Bill Clinton’s sexual liaison with Ms. Monica Lewinsky.  I quickly turned the radio off and I was embarrassed that Dr. Argersinger had heard any part of the broadcast as the subject matter was corse and offensive.

It seems that the current news regarding President Trump and his alleged sexual relations with both a porn star and a playmate…at one time…would have been an assault on our senses.

Chaos is the operational construct of our day and indeed our government.

We hear…sometimes daily…of additional woman and graphic details of,  in excess of, 20 women and our president.  These include accusations of, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and hush money and non disclosure agreements, between the president and women who assert consensual sexual relationship with Mr. Trump.

The president, in his law suit against Stormy Daniels, asserts that he is Donald Trump or David Dennison…an alias.

Recently we lost one of the greatest minds of our time…or any time.  Theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking was our Albert Einstein.

Dr. Hawking was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 1963.

Stephen Hawking revealed more about our universe than most christian ministers and philosophies have even considered.

For any, narrow minded person and a proponent of christianity, to proclaim that Hawking would experience ‘hell’ due to his denial of God…fails to understand the magnificence of what he revealed to humanity and its’ magnification and glorification of the vastness of God.

I was watching a great documentary about the famous playwright, Arthur Miller, by his daughter, Rebecca Miller.

‘But at the end of this film, when she asks Miller what makes a ‘great play,’ he responds: ‘It’s the process of approaching the unwritten and the unspoken and the unspeakable, and the closer you get to it, the more life there seems to be.’   Newsday

‘His last words to her come from his journals.  It is about coyotes wandering near the Roxbury, Connecticut, home where he spent so much of his life: ‘We are all connected, watching one another, even the trees.’   Newsday

One of the most fascinating utterances that I heard Mr. Miller say was that he strove to write lines, for his plays, that would illustrate what was unsaid…or between the lines.

I think that the striving to magnify what is left unsaid is to turn the spotlight on life.

We make choices daily.  Our life path is clearly drawn by the twists and turns of our decisions and by our reactions too the reversals and opportunities that confront us on our journey.

If you would inquire of a 90 year old as to their understanding of their life experience…they might answer that often it seemed like shadows and markers of something grand and glorious and yet not quite attainable.

‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’  I Corinthians 13:12  KJV

‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’   Albert Einstein

‘Suppose the you are on your death bed (don’t take it otherwise) not exactly a death bed but on a road after being hit by some speeding car, then the car stops and a beautiful girl comes out of the car, worried (obviously), running towards you.  But you are lying there tied to a mere thread of conscious, saw her and immediately loose consciousness.  Then while you are unconscious you were dreaming, right from the start i.e. that is your birth, you were a happy child (whatever your life story really is), went to a good school, got good grades, then college, you met the same girl who came out of the car after hitting you, you fell in love, immediately, she also liked you.’

‘You both fell in love deeply, married together, had many cheerful experiences in life, in short it was the life worth living.’

‘But since you were very happy something had to happen, you both had gone for a long drive and enjoying the moment, then a speeding car becomes the cause of your wife’s death.’

‘Then with a jolt you wake up in a hospital, beside you is the same girl, weeping for what she had done, and you are smiling, happy from inside that she’s alive, that it was only a dream.’

‘But really was that just a dream or our whole meaningful life in a dream?’   Rahul Gupta   Quora   Movie: Stay

To be a christian or to be the adherent of many of the world’s religions is to believe that there is a reality after death that is…different…and exciting and filled with happiness and peace and light.

Certainly, there is a spiritual component to the christian teachings of the afterlife.  Many christians believe in, unseen, angels and a God that sees them and is aware of them and cares about their problems and challenges and concerns…I am one of those people.

Thus, is it so difficult to believe the the lines of our Play of Life…are illustrative of a much greater truth…that is left unsaid.

‘All the world’s a stage , And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts…’   As You Like It, William Shakespeare

The Spring Equinox 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere will be at 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday, March, 20, Central Time.

I have heard newscasters and others on television, pronounce both Saturday and Sunday and today as the first day of spring.

We have snow in the weather forecast for the hours of 7:00 a.m. too 11:00 a.m. tomorrow.

It has been a cold winter.  The coldest our area of the country has experienced in 20 years.

Spring, always, makes me think of the future.  No matter the level of ice and snow and frigid cold that has occurred in our lives…spring brings the promise of new life and new beginnings.

It is easy for we humans to get ourselves into a ditch, or a rut, and subsequently believe that we have attained our epitome and our zenith and the future is simply a maintenance project.

However, life teaches us that promises and the surprises and the challenges of life are meant to continue until the hooded figure with the scythe comes to say hello.

Winston Churchill was 66 years old when he first became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

‘Harlan Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders, was 62 when he franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952.  He sold the franchise business for $2 million 12 years later.’   Business Insider

‘Diana Nyad had dreamed of swimming across the Straits of Florida ever since she was 8 years old, reports CNN.  After 5 tries spanning 35 years, on Monday, September 2, 2013, she finally accomplished her dream, becoming the first person to swim from Florida to Cuba without a protective shark cage.  Her messages about late-life success: ‘One is we should never, ever give up.  Two is you never are too old to chase your dreams.’    Diana Nyad was 64 when she performed her record breaking swim.  Senior Living Blog

Cycles can be broken.  Success can be captured from what, at first appeared, to be the jaws of failure.

I was fired from a job when I was 20 and I felt devastated.  I had given the job everything that I humanly could…and yet it was not enough.  Shortly after this reversal in my life, I was hired at SIU and enjoyed an over 32 year successful career.

Southern Illinois University has a rich and illustrious history.  It houses academic disciplines that are world renown and it’s alumni list is full of notable professionals in every field of endeavor.

Of late, the University has lost confidence in its’ self.  We have accepted that we will never be what we were at our paramount success.  We have been told that we are rural…we are suffering from less high school students to recruit…and we have decided to contemplate our mirrored visage…rather than to look forward and be confident and secure in the knowledge of the quality institution that our rich history portrays.

Perhaps it is time to wake up and decide that our second chapter or even our third chapter will be the best of our life’s story.

Perhaps is is time to release worry and fear and strife and hate…and embrace love and promise and success and life.

Since the days of Grade School, I have wanted to be a writer.

From the days of writing book reports to the days of English Composition in Mrs. Barton’s class  too writing for a church newsletter…or writing in, my favorite professor, Carol’s course, at SIU.

Writing was one of my favorite, necessary jobs, during my management career at the University.  I have, often felt, that I communicate more efficiently in writing than verbally.  Also, I enjoy endeavoring to write in different styles or in another voice.

Have you ever heard the axiom, ‘ a writer…writes?’  I have found this to be, indeed, true for me since my retirement, over seven years ago.

‘Ernest Hemingway had said that ‘there is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’   MC’s Whispers

I am pleased with my writing when I leave a little portion of myself on the paper.

Writing is a satisfying experience when it comes for a place of honesty…that includes both joy and sorrow…happiness and pain.

The laptop and the exercise of writing has become, almost a daily obsession, for me…a magnificent obsession.

The more that I write…the more that I want to write.

I have two, primary places, for writing.  The first would be a portion of our deck, that we had screened in a few years ago, that overlooks our pond.  I find it both extremely peaceful and always inspirational.

The second writing place is our Loft, which again overlooks the pond, and where we placed my desk, looking out of a large triangle shaped window, not long before my retirement in 2010.

Nature inspires me.  It’s unparalleled beauty can reset my compass…at anytime.

No all writers are Stephen King.

Enjoyable writing is a bit of an organic process and is intuitive.

Writing is somewhat similar to the christian life.  Some would have you believe that to be a christian that you must follow the rules and precepts that a group of, historically, men, have set down as the, strict, form, of christianity that must be followed…religiously….if you want to succeed in obtaining Heaven.

When in reality we are all God’s creation… and he loves us all…

in all of our diversity and subtle nuances…

So, it is with writing.  It should reflect who the writer is.  It should reflect the writer’s truth.  It should be celebrated for it’s uniqueness and brilliance and a reflection of the kaleidoscope of our human experience.

‘A Brooks Tale’

The boy felt like he had been there before.

He noticed the lovely tree lined street, that his house was on, and it seemed so familiar.  His house was comfortable with a lot of music and laughter.

The boy’s friends were numerous and fun.  He thought Susie was pretty and Steve was a master puppeteer.

His Dad was there, in the evening, and he seemed ten foot tall.  He was mysterious and dressed in black and he hoisted the boy on to his broad shoulders and the boy thought that he was the king of the world.

There was sadness in the home…at first hidden and then revealed suddenly.  Something was amiss…but the boy could not discern the problem and he busied himself playing and watching the marionette shows and enjoying hearing Susie tell him how sweet that he was.

The teenager enjoyed church and church work.  Most of his friends were associated with his involvement in church.  He enjoyed reading the Bible and the positive reinforcement that he received from his minister and his peers and the many elderly parishioners that he visited with on a weekly basis.

When the teenager had nothing…his minister told him that he would be a leader of many people.  The teenager laughed.

One afternoon a quiet girl told the teenager that she believed that he would be a success and a leader of people.

The minister told the teenager that he had an old soul.

The teenager, often, understood the problems and issues of adults and related to them…much easier than those of his peers.

The man was asked if he would lead a university department of over 300 people.

The man was humbled and honored…and shocked.

The man’s wife had told him, when he began in the department, as a janitor, that one day he would lead the organization.

The man had watched the university’s president’s assistant interact with many in the university community.

The thought, came to him, that one day he would have the opportunity to have a job assisting the universities’ leader.

Years later, the universities’ chancellor offered the man a job assisting her…and she was terminated, in an untimely manner, before the job could be obtained.

The man had a pastor, for many years, and the first thought that the man had when he met the pastor…was that he liked her very much and that he wanted to help her.

The man lost the pastor…but his original feelings for her and her ministry…were realized at the very end of her pastorate.

The man became older and thought about his health and the health of his wife and his sons…and wondered how long his story would go?

Wake up dear…you are going to be late…the woman told the man.

‘My goodness,’ the man said.

‘I had the same strange dream again…where I was young…and then suddenly old…and then worried about dieing,’ he said.

‘I wonder if it is something that your are eating,’ the woman said.

When I was a child I learned the poem of solace, that was supposed to salve the hurts of hateful words…spoken by bullies.

‘Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’

Of course, we all learn early on that words do hurt and that those who proudly claim that they are not affected by mean and sarcastic and juvenile name calling…are some of those that are hurt the most.

In school we, painfully accepted, that there were, among us, the emotionally stilted and people that were so insecure that they must belittle and make fun of and name call others…in order to fill some vast vacancy in their soul.  People who felt so small and insignificant that their recourse was to create and compound those feelings in another human being and thus to feel like that they were at least better than the poor individual that they chose to persecute.

As a rule, when a teacher or a principal or an adult and an authority figure saw what was transpiring…they came to the aid of the person who was being bullied and instructed the bully to cease and desist.

What if, when a person was being bullied, the teacher and the adult and authority figure and the Principal and the Superintendent joined in and became the Bully in Chief?

I was the Assistant Superintendent of Building Services for twelve years.  On more than one occasion I had to dissuade and even order members of my staff to not do something or say something that my boss, the Superintendent, had encouraged them to do.

Racial slurs….fighting…and swimming in the Pulliam Pool after hours…were neither right nor defendable and they were, indeed, infractions that could lead to suspension and termination.  Yet, the members of my, and the Superintendent’s staff, assured me that since their boss, and mine, had assured them that they would be alright that they felt secure in indulging in the the prohibited activities.

History teaches us what power words have…in the mouth of the powerful.

‘Adolf Hitler had provided clues to his ambition to commit mass genocide as early as 1922, telling journalist Josef Hell, ‘Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.’   Smithsonian.com

‘As soon as I have power to do so I will have gallows built in rows-at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example-as many as traffic allows.  Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit.  As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated.  Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.’    Statement to Josef Heil, 1922 quoted in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution pg. 17

‘Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites because we want to fight against the very opposite; materialism and mammonism…How can you not be an antisemite, being a socialist!’   Adolf Hitler  Why We Are Anti-Semites, ‘August 15, 1920 speech in Munich at the Hofbrauhaus.  Translated from Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeigeschichte, 16. Jahrg., 4.H.(Oct 1968), pp. 390-420. Edited by Carolyn Yeager.  [2]

‘President Donald Trump mocked California Rep. Maxine Waters during a freewheeling speech Saturday night, saying she had a ‘very low IQ.’   CNN

‘President Donald J. Trump hosted a Make America Great Again rally this evening in Pennsylvania.  Per usual, the Donald’s flamboyant and charismatic personality charmed the standing room only crown.  However, the loudest reaction and most amused came when the president referred to NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd as a ‘sleepy eyed’ ‘sleeping son of a bitch.’   Townhall

Members of the media have received death threats as a direct result of president Trump’s continued pronouncements of fake news and calling out individuals, on a regular basis, for ridicule and catcalls and taunts.

I took Journalism classes at SIU…it is a noble profession and unworthy of the disdain and danger that the professionals in this Constitutionally recognized field are members of.

Most human relations seem academic…until they are on our doorstep…then…suddenly…they are crisis.

Note: Photos are from the Free Photo Library

Jonathon and I went to our local watering hole…’where everybody knows your name,’ and I had my usual…Dragon’s Milk.

We missed the third musketeer, Aaron, and the fourth, Mary Jane, but we carried on…the best that we could.

The bartender knows us so well that she begins pouring up my beverage of choice before I sit down.

I do not drink too much…two usually.

After that, a trip to Plaza Records is in order.  They have the most wonderful used records that, often, are so clean that they do not appear to have ever been on a turntable.

Our friend, Chris, works there.  His friendly demeanor causes us to want too purchase Vinyl.

Today, I obtained a Nina Simone album and a boxed set of jazz artists from the Smithsonian.

I often think of the father, in one of my favorite Christmas movies, A Christmas Tale, and his love for jazz music on vinyl.  The movie is French and I identify with the old jazz aficionado.

And…Chris even gave us a discount.

As the old commercial stated, as a Russian actor exclaimed…’What a Country!’

I, often, reflect on the miracle of life that is before our eyes and ears and senses each day of our existence.

We walked campus earlier and took note of the Red Bud trees that are blooming.  I am sitting at my desk and looking out my loft window and watching a Great Blue Heron search for fish in our pond.

Our planet is so magnificent that if your were summarily dropped, or deposited, on to our Earth from another world…you would be breathless with awe and delight and wonder at the unique beauty that you were surrounded by.

‘Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right.’   Zig Ziglar

I believe that a key to happiness is to help others in need.

The more that we can get out of ourselves and focus on our fellow human travelers…the increase in our contentment.

My friend, Jeff L., is a great example of helping others who are less fortunate than he.

Jeff grew up homeless on the streets of Chicago.  Not long after he became a christian he began putting the golden rule into practice.  When we visited he and Margo, in the United Kingdom, I noticed how he was constantly reaching out to whoever that he met and offering them, potential, opportunity in the company that he is the CEO of.  The looks of wonder and delight and the, palpable, intrigue emanating from the people that Jeff was speaking with was something to behold.

My friend, Elizabeth, is, daily, trying to find new ways to assist and help her colleagues at Southern Illinois University.

‘But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and so the evil.’

‘Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.’

‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’

‘Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.  For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.’  Luke 6: 35-38   KJV

‘Famed actor Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a photo of himself sleeping on the street under his famous bronze statue, and sadly wrote ‘How times have changed’…

‘Trying to teach everyone that when you’re ‘important’ in the people’s eyes, everyone is your ‘Friend’ but once you don’t benefit their interests, you won’t matter.’

‘You are not always who you think you will always be, nothing lasts forever.’   Ovilia Mendonca  Facebook   Photo: E News

Indeed, fame and power, and money and popularity are fleeting.

I observe, with great interest, the preening and prancing of the powerful.

I had the pleasure of becoming friends with several university leaders during my over thirty-two year career at SIU.  I watched the, obvious, sycophantic shuffling of those who sought to be ensconced in the good graces of both chancellors and presidents.  I also witnessed the, not so obvious, apparent, good will of others…who seemingly wanted to assist the leader and in the methodology of their apparent, ‘good will’, receive a hefty pay raise for their altruistic efforts.

Then, when the leader is no longer in power and unable to facilitate additional money or prestige or power for the supplicants…they melt away like the snow of a spring day.

So, the question is…is our identity our job or our profession or position…or do we identify ourselves uniquely as a one of a kind creation in a world of wannabes and facsimiles and poor imitations?

I was on campus, the other day, and spring is coming again and a time of renewal and rededication to living our unique and unparalleled lives as God intended for us to live them.

‘I am not a stranger to the dark

Hide away, they say

Cause we don’t want your broken parts

I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars

Run away, they say

No one’ll love you as you are

But I won’t let them break me down to the dust

I know that there’s a place for us

For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down

I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out

I am brave, I am bruised

I am who I’m meant to be, this is me

Look out cause here I come

And I’m marching on to the beat I drum

I’m not scared to be seen

I make no apologies, this is me’

This Is Me   Keala Settle, The Greatest Showman Ensemble

This morning, Pastor Janice, in her last sermon to us, spoke regarding what it must feel like to be exiled.

‘Exile – expel or bar (someone) from their native country, typically for political reasons.’   Dictionary

‘So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel.  And Judah was carried away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.’   I Chronicles 9:1

‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.’

‘We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.’

‘For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’   Psalm 137: 1-3

How does it feel to be a stranger…an exile…in your own land?

A couple of years ago I read a blog, written by one of my friends from the United Kingdom, where she had been admonished to ‘go back where she came from’…but she came from the UK?  Her perceived ethnicity had caused a prejudiced person to assume that she did not belong in their country of origin.

The United States is comprised of people from every country on the face of the Earth.  The geological facts are that in a few years, Anglo Saxons will be a minority in this country.

When, some, exclaim the clarion call to make America great again…they mean that they desire white people to be in the ascendancy and people of color to be subservient to them.

Upon ancestral examination these people would discover that their forefathers and foremothers were immigrants…and exiles…from their lands of origin.

President Trump’s ancestors are of Germanic origin.

Countless multitudes flee hunger and deprivation and genocide…in the hope that the beacon of freedom and safe haven still shines in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

‘Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lighting, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES.  From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’  cries she

With silent lips.  ‘Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

The New Colossus   Emma Lazarus   Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.’   Proverbs 31:8  NIV

Pastor Janice…spoke for those who have no voice…we shall miss her…