It is 64 degrees now in Little Egypt. Just a few days ago we experienced an ice storm. Time changes things. The Campus Woods Path walkers were out in force…they understood their good fortune and hurried to avail themselves of it. Life in the fast lane has never been my cup of tea…and even more so since I have retired. I have my own pace and sense of time. I prefer the minimalist lifestyle as long as I have my vintage toys. Home is a house to live in, a sense of place, and that feeling you get when you are at peace with yourself and all others.

Yesterday Pastor Kerry caused me to think of the ever-present need for positive change in our lives or progress. I have found that the more I attempt to understand my friends and neighbors, the more I grow internally. When I can look through the eyes of others I often can see how the world looks from their point of view. Empathy is vital in all facets of life.

Anger subsides when I understand why a person is angry with me. Perhaps I do not agree with their heated feelings regarding me or my actions…but I understand that it looks different from their point of view. We live in our computers and smartphones and television screens. We live in our heads! Kerry said yesterday that a study found that one in 7 men say that they do not have 1 friend. I do not doubt that at all and wonder if the figure is not greater than 1 in 7…as we are a segmented society by our conspiracy theories and fears and prejudices. Emails have revealed that the primary news anchors of a very popular network, knew that the contentions of the election in 2020 having been stolen were lies along with the assertion that a company’s voting machines were rigged. Their concern was not the truth but the fall of their stock portfolio by a reporter revealing the truth.

Have you ever watched old men preen and posture and glory in their perceived power? The saying is that power corrupts and that ultimate power corrupts ultimately.

‘Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ Matthew 6: 19-21. KJV

Jeremy had reached for the brass ring on the carousel of life…and he grasped it when he met Jennifer. He and Jennifer had started out pretty well. They had been raised in Eldorado and enjoyed a poor but safe childhood. They enjoyed going to the Orpheum Theatre and watching summer movies at the Starlight Drive Inn. Jeremy was a wiz in accounting and planned on attending Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale after his graduation from Eldorado High School. Jennifer was an artist and excelled in all of the art classes that were available to her. Jennifer painted every day and often late into the night. When she was not painting she was thinking of painting. She had been commissioned to paint a mural in town. Marriage Bells were planning on peeling just after commencement. Jeremy excelled at the piano. He played like a virtuoso. His brain seemed to function seamlessly as both a business/artistic mind. Jeremy played at local concerts as well as at Shryock Auditorium on the Campus of Southern Illinois University.

Jennifer brightened every room that she entered. Her glowing personality radiated onto everyone that she met. When someone met her they never forgot her. She was so brilliant in Art that she had been admitted to SIUC into their Art School. She was a cheerleader at EHS and loved cheering for the Eagles. If Jennifer had a bad day you would never know it by her sunny personality.

Jeremy had a secret…he suffered from terrible pain in his back. He wore a back brace that few knew of and it kept his posture ramrod straight. The pain was debilitating and often he wept before he performed a concert. Asprin or Tylenol did not touch the excruciating agony.

Dybbuk was Jeremy’s friend from Europe. He assured Jeremy that he had a pill that would ease his pain and that he would be able to perform his piano performances without any discomfort. Jeremy tried the pill and it worked. He was not only able to perform without any pain but he excelled to such an extent that after graduation he forgot accounting and set out on a Concert tour across the United States and across Europe. Jennifer grabbed her easel and her oil paints and off they went.

Jennifer questioned Jeremy about Dybbuk. How did he know him and what type of pill was he giving him that took away all of the pain in his back? Jennifer was worried about Jeremy as he never seemed to sleep and rarely ate more than a bit or two of food even when there were delicacies in front of him for the taking.

Jeremy became angry with Jennifer and told her to never question Dybbuk…as he was his best friend and understood him better than anyone…including her… Finally, Jeremy began to miss concerts…and rarely came home. His eyes had large black rings around them and his hands shook uncontrollably. Jeremy assured Jennifer that he was fine and had never felt better as Dybbuk was now traveling with them and was giving him injections in his back several times a day.

Jane had met Jennifer in London. She asked if she could speak with Jeremy and see if she could help. An intervention ensued and Jeremy was strangely docile as Jane explained to him that he was a drug addict and that she would take him to a hospital that would help him. She explained that Dybbuk was providing him with a mixture of opioids laced with fentanyl and if he did not receive assistance soon…he would die.

Jeremy was off the pain medication and had learned while in the hospital to deal with his back issues through physical therapy. He and Jennifer had decided to return to Carbondale and attend Southern Illinois University…as they had originally planned.

‘Where is Jane…I must thank her for convincing me to get help before it was too late,’ Jeremy said to Jennifer. ‘I do not know who you are talking about…when you decided to go to the hospital there was only you and I in the room…but you did seem to be talking with someone who I could not see…I just assumed it was the drugs,’ Jennifer said… ‘Well…I know Dybbuk is real…he even traveled with us,’ Jeremy exclaimed!

‘Jeremy…Dybbuk was your nickname for the Old Devil…when we were in grade school in Eldorado,’ Jennifer said…

I was absolutely bowled over today by the majesty of the abundant water in the creek at Giant City Park. Being a regular visitor to the Woods I have seen the creek bone dry. Today as it roared with its waterfalls and swift-moving streams…I could not take enough photos and short videos. I wonder what we did prior to our iPhones? So, we look forward to knowing God for ourselves throughout our lives. Now we may believe that the burden of Finding Jesus is his to bear. In point of fact God is beside us and walking with us everywhere that we walk.

Churches are at their zenith when the members of the congregation put arms and legs on the words of Christ. My friend from the United Kingdom writes about York and the Minster in that lovely city. I laughed to myself when she wrote recently about her experiences in York and I sent her the same comment that I had sent her a few weeks past. As I was writing the words I thought that sounds much like what I wrote the last time…but the memories of York and the magnificent Minster stir the same words and thoughts each time they travel through my old brain. I recall feeling as if we were in a bit of a magical and mystical place when we were in York. We literally were next to the Minster and the profound beauty of the edifice inspired me…much as the Cathedral Of Notre Dame in Paris did…when we visited a few years before.

I can feel friendless and lonely and alone…when someone reaches out to me with a kind word or a considerate thought and suddenly…I have found Jesus…once again. Our church has what is called a Laundry Project whereby members of the congregation and other kind souls provide quarters for those who may need them to purchase soap and operate the washers and dryers at our local laundry. Each time someone receives a few quarters for their real and present need of clean clothes…they see Jesus.

When we feel a bit lost and someone says join me for a chat or a cup of tea…or a listen to our thoughts…we have found Jesus…

The church is not complex…it is the simplicity of love. Money and power and political influence have been conflated with Christ…I feel that he must shake his head in wonder and disbelief. The Bible tells us that he was a friend to the friendless and that ‘The common people heard him gladly.’

Have you found the Lord…was a popular question when I was a younger man. Some would ask about the premise of the question while others would answer that they did not know he had been lost. We have heard so much religious talk that it often sounds like a ringing in the ears akin to tinnitus. It is possible to be a member of a church where the minister brags about the choice cut of steak that he had for dinner last night…while you are eating Cremora out of the jar. My blog yesterday regarding church hit a cord with some of my friends and I realized that dissatisfaction with what church has become as compared with what its ideals are…is vast.

God’s children…human beings…suffer in silence and in the open for all to see. Indeed the problem of food insecurity and hunger and sleeping rough…homelessness…is worse than it has ever been. The Plague of Mass Shootings has grown to the extent that the argument could be made that perhaps we are already in Dantes’s Inferno…and have only to awaken from our slumber to realize our dire predicament.

Sanctuary is. beautiful concept. ‘In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo saves Esmeralda from execution, rushes her to the cathedral, and cries, ‘Sanctuary!’ Many cries today for similar relief.

Bombs or butter we say…we do not have money for both. We do not want our homeless on our streets as they are unsightly and have an odor and they upset the tourists and residents of our shining city on a hill. We do not have shelter for them to go…unless it is very cold. Our society made them addicts and the price of living simply outpaced the poor a long long time ago. We decided that we could not afford to care for the disabled and the mentally ill and the widow and the orphan. ‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge. Are there no prisons?’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses?’ A Christmas Carol

Happy Valentines Day! I have been a member of one church or another for 55 years. I love going to church. I have served most of the regular offices of church leadership at one time or another. Yet I have been convinced for many years that church is not what takes you to Heaven. Throughout history, people have contorted their personalities and souls to fit the doctrine of the church that they were attending. Marriages have been severed and families have been broken apart. The narrow views of church leaders have often done more harm than good. By the time you hear what God is wanting to tell you…it is a bit like the old game of Telephone where what God said for you is completely mangled by the time the message reaches you through the earthly prejudices and bias of ministers. Church Doctrine is filtered through the sinful flesh of men and women. At times inspired by God and at other times inspired by the carnality of the flesh and bone of humanity.

I have witnessed the most base and earthly desires of ministers being sold as the will of God. Poor sincere members of the church are convinced to give up their finances until they have little left for their own needs. Churches can be Pyarimid Schemes where the minister at the top of the Pyramid gets richer while the poor people in the flock continue to become poorer and suffer the deprivation of those who have an abundance of faith…but in a human and not in God…

How did church leadership and harbingers of the truth decide that only some people fit the narrow mold of members of their congregation? Did Jesus tell his special messengers and Club Members that only the wealthy and the supplicants to the Doctrine need apply for membership in the exclusive clique?

Why would you upend your life and struggle to change who you are…as God created you…to please a man or woman who is so mercurial that today you may be in…and tomorrow you are out…

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…,’ does not mean that Christ died for the Chosen by birth or bank account or sexuality or ethnicity!

If you believe that you are God’s Child…do you really believe that you need an intermediary to talk to your Dad for you?

Spring is in the air. Winter…bah…humbug…what was it but a bad dream caused by a bit of undercooked meat or a sour stomach. So is life. We live much of our lives either in the past or planning for the future. The grit and determination of the present seem mundane when compared with the golden memories of our past or the august plans for our future. However…today is it…we exist in the nasty or nice now. The past is clouded by our rose-colored glasses and the future by our halcyon aspirations. How could today be special? It is Monday. It is a workday. It is a school day…it is laundry day… It is in its totality… your life…

‘Life seems a bit repetitious don’t you think,’ Neva J. said to Billy B. ‘Indeed I do many of the same things each day,’ Billy B. responded. ‘Why don’t we imagine our hopes for our best selves and take the first step down that road…today,’ Chet postulated. ‘I have always wanted to be a writer,’ Billy B. said. ‘Today is the day to write,’ replied Chet. ‘I would have liked having my own Antique Store…but I never seemed to get around to it,’ Neva J. commented. ‘Why not begin with listing some of the antiques that you want to sell on Facebook and eBay,’ Chet asked? ‘I want to travel and today I am going to call my Travel Agent and book a United Kingdom Cruise,’ laughed Chet with his eyes dancing!

‘These Book Signing events in New York are exciting,’ Billy B. said with a large smile on his face! Eager Bookstore Barnes and Noble customers were lined up around the block to have a moment to speak with Billy B. and get his autograph. He reflected on the days and months and years that he had devoted to writing each day. Writing had become an integral part of his life. For years before he had published a word when people asked him what he did…he would always answer…Writer.

‘Neva J. you have a wonderful Antique Store…where did you come up with the name of ‘Groundhog Day Antiques,’ asked the news anchor? ‘Well Billy B. and Chet and I had a discussion many years ago on a Monday in February…that truly our lives were but one day at a time and if we wanted to achieve something special…we had to begin to implement it beginning that day and each day thereafter,’ Neva J. said. ‘So, I was inspired by the Bill Murray Movie Groundhog Day’ and the sundry adjustments that his character made as he lived the same day over and over and over again,’ Neva J. continued. ‘Repetition…

is the best teacher and I continued to repeat the same principles for success in the Antique business each day for…now…many years…but the years were never in my mind…it was one day at a time,’ Neva J. said with a tear in her eye and a happy face.

Chet’s Travel Agency had a nice ring to it. He had so much business that he had to open offices thru out Southern Illinois. ‘And to think that it all started that day in February that was unseasonably warm and my conversation with Neva J. and Billy B. to treat each day as your life and to not put off anything that you want to achieve or do,’ laughed Chet.

I am watching a truly frightening documentary called, Stolen Youth, Inside the Cult At Sarah Lawrence. It follows with actual audio and video tape of Larry Ray and his mind control over a group of students. Ray had been a friend of former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and convinced several Sarah Lawrence students to move in with him and his daughter who attended the College. He portrayed himself as an adult with a lot that he could teach the young residents of the apartment. As his mental and physical abuse heightened his victims responded a bit like a person who has been placed in boiling water when it is first cold…before the heat is applied. By conditioning, they failed to notice when they began to boil. Mr. Ray subjected them to hours of interrogation coupled with lack of sleep and food or as one student said, We ate when Larry did and we slept when he told us that we could. Soon they were incapable of accepting anything as fact unless Larry told them that it was.

Ray convinced his cult members to apologize profusely to him for imagined wrongs that they had not done. He extorted money from them that they did not owe and they begged for loans from family and friends. They stopped socializing with anyone who was not a part of their group.

This type of obeisance may seem extremely rare…but it is much more prevalent than you would think. I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza was wanting to be hired for an executive position and had to purchase a new suit for the interview. George hid the 40-short suit that he wanted from another customer who also required a 40-short garment. When he pulled out the suit on sale day and his rival saw what he had done…the rival said that he was going to get back at George for hiding the suit that he desired. Now George had been told by the other executives that the boss appreciated that they all went along with the team and that they were team players. So…the interview was finished and they were having a shared piece of cake to commemorate George’s hiring by the boss. Suddenly George sees that his suit rival is the chef…and he knows that he must not take a bite of the celebratory cake as the chef glares at him with an evil grin… The cake had been poisoned and all got violently ill except George…and he did not get the job.

Mind control in many social arenas of life is prevalent. Some of the most charismatic and convincing people can have ulterior motives. Thousand stormed our capital in an attempted insurrection a little over two years ago. Many of the combatants believed that they were doing God’s work…

The Sun is shining and the birds are singing. I am becoming climatized to the cold weather…now that it is time for a warm-up. The Woods was active with people who were wishing for spring. The panoply of nature is preparing for its metamorphosis. I was pondering a bit regarding how limited our perceptions of reality are. Indeed we see the world through our own multi-colored glasses. It seems that the rich have difficulty seeing the poor and the poor can not fathom the other world of the rich. Some who enjoy leadership imagine Heaven as a continuation of their lofty earthly position and power. While others long for a little cottage on the beach near the ocean. My blogger friend commented regarding my blog of yesterday that the hidden world I mentioned was the most exciting of my narrative. Certainly, we look for a reality beyond what some have referred to as this ‘Veil Of Tears.’ I heard a psychiatrist say one time that he had a patient who spoke at length about her visits to Paris and how much she enjoyed the city. He went on to say that he did not know if indeed she was traveling to Paris or not…and that it was impossible to know. Perhaps what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and understand with our limited senses is but a shadow of our reality?

Once you become old as I have achieved…you realize that life is short. A book that I am reading speaks of how you empathize somewhat with those in old photos who have all died…but if you go back to another generation it is difficult to make the same connection. Our brains are limited by our surroundings and our life experience. I have discovered from the loss of loved ones and friends that keeping them alive in my memory requires a concerted effort. I wonder if those who believe that the demonstration of God’s love is golden and monetary and mansions on a hill…is a mental exercise enabling the belief that we are all alive in the mind of God?

Young people speak of their aspirations and old people speak of their memories. But it all happens in a nanosecond…

Our eternal optimism is fueled by a reality that we do not see. The Bible says that ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the hearts of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’

Too often we label those who have enhanced perception beyond the curtain of this life as different or perhaps ill…perhaps they are here as a witness to the complexities of God’s Creation…

You could almost call this time of year…the in-between. Meteorological winter is slowing down in our neck of the woods and spring has yet to arrive. The joy of Christmas is well passed and the summer plans are still in the planning stages. Snow and ice and plenteous pot-holes have been experienced. Many of the New Year Resolutions that were not easily accommodated by our habits and lifestyle have been forgotten. Yet happiness surrounds us and is there for the taking. A gathering of crows was engaged in crow-talk as I traversed the woods this morning. When they saw me coming they stepped up their dialogue. I was attempting to get close enough to get a photo of them…but they thought better of it.

Our church is soon to observe Lent…where we ponder our sins and shortcomings. A good cold weather activity. I had a mission to speak with the manager of Aldis this morning as it appeared that I had been charged twice for one grocery order. The two charges were different by one dime. I will get to the bottom of this travesty…I thought. The manager was very kind and went to his office for a detailed study of my concern. He returned to tell me that the day before yesterday I had made a purchase and that yesterday I made another…and that they differed by 10 cents. I thought that I could double down on my error and tell him that Aldis could be better… as a customer told me at SIUC many years ago. Instead, I thanked him with a humble grin and quickly withdrew from the field of battle.

I am reading the second of the two latest Cormac McCarthy books, Stella Maris, where the main character tells her psychiatrist that many people fail to accept that there is an unseen world. Now, this idea may seem simplistic to you but the reporters of bereaved loved ones who swear that they have seen and even spoken with their departed family and friends are difficult to ignore. Also, if you ascribe to a certainty in Heaven and you pray that there is no Hell…you believe in another unseen world.

MJ and I are looking forward to enjoying dinner with our dear friends Ryan and Elizabeth this afternoon. They are a bit like Dorian Gray as they do not age…while I continue to grow elderly. When I was preparing to retire from Southern Illinois University I was determined to leave quietly…just like I had entered the School over 32 years prior. My Director Phil Gatton kept asking me to agree to a retirement reception and I insisted that I preferred not to…until he explained that he did not know what he was going to tell Elizabeth who was asking him daily regarding it. I agreed and I am glad that I did.

Our New Year will be a teenager before we know it. It has been said that ‘Time waits for no man’ and I have found this to be true. The older I become I have found that life’s happiness is not contained in things. As a younger man, I strove to have nice things for MJ and Aaron, and Jonathon. I would be disingenuous if I did not admit that I strove to keep up with the Joneses…at least a bit. I felt keenly my lack against my peer’s fine automobiles and homes and financial success. Having grown up somewhat poor I wanted to shake the feeling of want that was my shadow as a child. By the time of my retirement over 12 years ago…I had learned that all that glitters is not gold and the chasing of more money is a hollow enterprise.

The Woods has been my pleasure for the past months. All of 2022 I engaged in a photo project of capturing images across Southern Illinois…with Eldorado as my primary focus…and seeking the knowledge of nature in Giant City State Park which is just down the road from my house.

Contentment is contained in the ordinary. The popular singer James Taylor told us that ‘the secret of life was enjoying the passing of time…and any fool can do it…there ain’t nothing to it.’ As I walk through the dead leaves and photograph their majestic colors I see the handiwork of God. I had a friend and colleague years ago who told me that instead of going to church on Sunday he went to the woods…I can see why at times. We place too many demands on each other. We expect standards of others that we do not keep ourselves. It has been assumed for several years that everyone must have a University education. Not all are a good fit for academic pursuits. Our measure of success is how much wealth we have acquired. Many churches preach that if you give…until it hurts…to the church…you will receive abundant monetary wealth. This vicious cycle is exemplified in poor hard working congregants giving and robbing from their family’s welfare…only to be told that the reason that they have not become rich is that they have not given enough…

Pleasing the narrow constraints of another human is not only confining but often impossible. Dictatorial humans are mercurial. Just about the time that you think that you have made the grade and fulfilled the requirements…the goalposts are moved and the game begins anew!

Please yourself first…and others will love you for your authenticity. We all are looking for the unique and the different and the person who truly does their own thing. That is why Waldo can be found in the crowd…