Back in 1969, long before I ever heard the word “neocon”, I scratched an early poem that went something like,
Old man;
Black board;
Medals on his chest.
Chalk squeaks,
Troops move,
Boys in coffins rest.
This embryonic anti-war sentiment was a very big change for me, for I was by nature fervently patriotic: As a boy I would stand up when the national anthem played on the radio, even if I was in a room alone. I very much wanted us to “win” the Vietnam War, but at age sixteen it was just starting to occur to me that in two years, (as a poor student unlikely to go it collage), some old man might decree that I instead go to a far away jungle. The above poem is the dawning of understanding.
It also is an indication that to question neocons is nothing new. Back then I was just learning the phrase “military industrial complex”, which I gather originated from a warning in President Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1959 or 1960. He’d been a general and knew what he was talking about, whereas I was sixteen and knew very little, but my point is that understanding is something vital. If you are going to fight it is important to know what you are fighting about.
Sadly, the media has been reduced to mere bleaters of propaganda, and, rather than increasing our understanding, often seems to want to prevent it. When Trump stated that neocons like Liz Chaney would think differently if, rather than sending young men off to die while she sat in a warm and safe room in Washington, she had to herself stand with a rifle facing nine rifles aiming back, the media intentionally distorted what he said, and reported Trump wanted Liz Chaney to face a firing squad.
This is absurd, because no one is ever handed a rifle before they face a firing squad. However so eager was the mainstream media to fuel misunderstanding that they trumpeted the falsehood. (The word “trumpeted” may gain a new definition.)
This has been going on too long. I myself have endured the phenomenon of “shadow banning”, because I wanted to increase understanding about Global Warming and, later, about the medical realities surrounding the China-virus. To be cancelled in this manner also is an attempt to prevent Understanding; Understanding which I was attempting to further.
I once was deemed a naive liberal because, in 1969, I believed in “Truth, Love and Understanding”. I was told back then that I had no awareness of how communists repress such beauty.
Now it is 56 years later, and so-called liberals are telling me censorship is a good thing, and that cancel-culture is necessary to remove weeds (such as myself) from the garden of complacency. They themselves repress the beauty.
Apparently some believe Understanding has fallen from grace. Instead it is important to intentionally misunderstand. When Trump says one thing, they report he has said something entirely different.
In fact, to deny reality in such a manner fits the definition of insanity, and also of evil.
Truth, Love and Understanding have always been good, remain good to this day, and will always remain good.
I’m tired of the battle to get real information accepted, in a society ruled by people who have a strange belief there is some bizarre good in being wrong.
They call it “propaganda”, but it boils down to attempting to brainwash people into believing Fake News is real news. When people object and speak the truth, they get cancelled. People are told that the only way they will make money is to tow the line, to mouth the balderdash of political correctness even when it is absurd, or else face being fired, marginalized, excommunicated, banned from the perks of polite company; people must parrot inanities. So inanities are all we get. Then the general public gets tired of being treated like they all have IQ’s of 45 and believe the balderdash. I get tired as well.
The media, (whoever “they” are), thinks it has the public all figured out, and calls people the “market.” They think they have only to advertise and the market will succumb to whatever their blandishments are; stupid people will obediently buy even absurd and useless objects. If told hula hoops are desirable, the sheep will buy hula hoops.
What they fail to understand is that, back in the day, few “experts” thought hula hoops were likely to sell. Most “experts” likely deemed hula hoops a bad investment. The public did not make hula hoops a profitable item because “experts” tweaked peon’s brains into buying them, but rather because the cheap advertisements of those times made hula hoops look like fun. Inexpensive fun. And people tried them out and discovered that, yes indeed, they were a laugh. Word spread. The salesman had a hit, and made a bundle.
The same is true for music. Some think that, if they buy all the recording studios, they will control all the artists, and be able to have a say in what the public calls a “hit.” Instead they spoil what they control.
For example, when I was young Walt Disney was still alive, and his emphasis was upon optimism and wholesomeness and good overcoming evil. He was a “hit”, (although perhaps he was not as hard-hitting concerning the difficult issues of those times as other film-makers were). He understood people don’t always want to be confronted by hard-hitting issues. Not only do they not want that, but they often don’t need that, and Walt gave them a place where they could relax and be happy. He made bundles of money simply by being a breath of fresh air. He also had a certain power to motivate optimism and wholesomeness and good. Then…..certain people coveted that power. After Walt died they thought that they might “control” as Walt had “controlled”, if they only could take over his company. So they took over. But what they they then attempted completely backfired, and they have lost billions of dollars and are in danger of bankrupting what once was a “cash cow.”
In like manner the brand of beer called “Bud Light” was a “cash cow”, but certain people felt that spicing their idea with the beer’s popularity might woo the public into accepting their idea. This too completely backfired. The beer’s sales dropped so precipitously that hundreds have lost their jobs.
Country music singers didn’t much like it when such manipulative, propaganda-prone people bought up the big recording studios where they recorded their songs. They did not like being told what they they could sing about. It was a wrench in the works, and made a hassle where there had been no hassle before. The quality of music suffered. To some degree even country music was dropping precipitously in its popularity.
At this point one tends to become depressed. Those who think they control the “market” are destroying the “market.” They are attempting to sell what people don’t want to buy. They offer the Fake News of propaganda, but people don’t want to buy it. Furthermore, even if people attempt to buy it (in an attempt to be “correct”) they find simply can’t buy it, because it is repellent to people’s hearts.
It is as if all that is attractive has been removed from a menu, and replaced with items that make a person want to gag. If you argue such disgusting stuff shouldn’t be served, you are cancelled, (which I suppose would be, in this analogy, tantamount to being booted from the restaurant).
I’m tired of this, as are many others, which has resulted in the phenomenon of “hits” appearing from outside of the major recording studios and major Hollywood studios. Anthony Moody’s “I’m Just Sayin'” rocketed to #1, though produced by an inconsequential and independent studio.
And the low budget “Sounds Of Freedom” exploded to become the most popular movie of the summer:
This should be seen as evidence that the so-called “sheep” can’t be told what to graze upon. They know what they like. Sheep like green grass, and object when you try to feed them horseshit. This does not require a high IQ.
Rather than understanding this basic reality, what the “Elite” tend to do is to either crush the song-writers and film-makers who appear from outside their control, or else try to seduce the film-makers and song-writers with money, getting them to sign contracts that control them. The elite are addicted to “control”, for they are myopic and can’t see beyond power.
It never seems to occur to such people that they don’t control. The people and the popularity they seek to control was not their doing. They did not make them or it. It was all made by the Maker.
The most recent person to appear out of the blue and, without any advertising and promotion (by those who like to feel they are in control), to become a “hit”, is Oliver Anthony, who rocketed from twenty “views” to ten million, in just six days.
One thing interesting to me is that many describe Oliver’s music not as “country music” but as a “folk songs”. When I was young “folk music” was basically owned by the left wing, and even by communists. Now “the folk” have become what the leaders call “conservative”, which has the left wing in a bit of a panic. The new Woody Guthrie is not on “their side”? How can that be?!!
I actually am praying for the people who succeed “against the rules”. It bears repeating: What the “Elite” tend to do is to either crush the song-writers and film-makers who appear from outside their control, or else to seduce the film-makers and song-writers. They seek to regain control of something they never actually controlled.
In a sense the “elite’s” theory of control is like a person who thinks the way to control his boat is to control the river. They imagine they will never have to get their oars wet, if they control the river. But some laws cannot be changed; they cannot make water flow uphill, and as they entertain their delusions their boat is bobbing inexorably downstream into the rapids above a waterfall.
To tweak this analogy: In order to control the river the “elite” build levees, and, in order to to make the levee’s dry dirt pack down better, they add some water to the dirt so it won’t crumble, and sticks together and packs better, but this only works up to a point; after the dirt reaches a certain level of moisture adding water turns it into mud, and it no longer holds water back. (You cannot build a levee out of chocolate syrup.) In other words, what once worked doesn’t work any more.
Propaganda eventually loses its effectiveness. People develop an immunity. Like after the boy “cried wolf” too many times, people are no longer motivated. Towards its end, all the hoopla the Soviet Union attempted to generate about “five year plans” generated little beyond a complete lack of enthusiasm among its workers; they had heard it all before and knew the words were empty.
In conclusion, the public is not as stupid as the elite think they are. Ordinary people may be disdained as “sheeple”, “bitter clingers” and “deplorables”, and may be scornfully described as being easily brainwashed and manipulated, but they are underestimated, for no credit is given to the human heart, and to the heart’s innate ability to recognize Truth, and also to recognize balderdash. Propaganda ceases to be effective, and is actually the antithesis of what moves people.
This leads one to the immediate question: What, then, actually does move people? What makes a hit be a hit? The answer is simple: Truth.
This leads me to thirst for more of the Truth, for it is obviously far more nourishing than balderdash. Beyond a certain point all political debating becomes tiresome, for the deck is stacked against Truth, and speaking Truth to power only gets you hassled. Therefore I hope I can be forgiven if I just wander off from all the uproar into obscure corners of thought where one can look about for Truth without creating angst.
One such remote place involved the arrowhead pictured at the start of this post, found while excavating a Swiss village that existed roughly 3250 years ago.
This is a nice and far away place, about as remote from current affairs as you can get. Yet even in the haze of this distance one can see the powers of Truth, surprising and amazing people, and forcing them to cast aside their preconceptions.
One newer development in archeology involves the ability to trace metal objects discovered in such sites back to where the metal was mined. Different mines have different trace metals mixed with their predominant ores, and therefore it becomes possible to know, for example, where the tin, mixed with copper to make bronze, came from.
It initially was felt that most metals were mined locally, under the assumption prehistoric people were bumpkins who didn’t get around much, however increasingly it became apparent ancient peoples traveled more widely than we formerly believed. For example, an ingot of tin from Cornwall was found in Sweden. In fact, the more metals were studied, the more widely traveled the people of the past seemed to become.
I delighted in the knowledge which modern science was able to extract from corroded, old artifacts, because it always annoyed me that, when I was younger, archeologists and anthropologists so often took a rather snooty attitude which saw themselves as more evolved than past peoples, who sometimes were treated as is they were not much more intellectual than chimpanzees. I was far more inclined to see past peoples as residents of a Golden Age which fell, an Atlantis that was ruined, an Avalon we should strive to return to. I was told I was a hopeless romantic and must learn to be factual, and that the facts were the facts.
Which were?
The facts were we didn’t have many facts. Somehow people took this bare minimum of Truth and used it to have no imagination. Because they had never left the drab hallways of academia, they projected that world-view onto people of the Bronze Age. I, however, was never accepted into such hallowed halls and ivory towers, and therefore, despite not being a particularly courageous soul, knew of storms at sea, and finding myself in far lands among very different peoples, and therefore I projected very different possibilities through the haze onto the peoples of the Bronze Age.
So, of course, it tickled me pink to see a bumpkin like myself was right, and the learned academics were wrong, when it came to ancient peoples. They certainly were not chimpanzees, and likely knew things we don’t. They traveled more than we would think possible, considering the restrictions of their technology, and engineered things we are amazed by, considering the limits of their technology, but what fascinated me most was their metallurgy.
I was initially lured backwards in time by my discovery that the Viking colony at L’Anse aux Meadows actually mined and smelted bog iron, in order to make nails for ships. I was surprised such technology existed among such a small group of people, so far away from Europe, especially as I knew the smelting of iron took a long time to appear in world history, due to the higher temperatures required in the process. My mind was drawn backwards two thousand years, and then five thousand years, and then twenty thousand years.
The first firing of clay apparently occurred when the glaciers was still burdening the land in the last ice age. With sea-levels 300 feet lower, it is likely many of the best coastal sites are now hidden under water, however up in the mountains of Czechoslovakia weights for fishing nets were needed, and it was easier to make a weight with a hole in it from clay, and to then fire the clay, than to drill holes in stones. As far as we know, this is when firing clay began, and all knowledge of metallurgy came through the firing of clay, as a side effect.
The progress came about slowly, which some suggest demonstrates the people were not very smart. I think perhaps it demonstrates they were smarter, because the societies they formed were very stable, and untroubled by the trauma of change. Most of the advancements that came about were due to the retreat of the ice age glaciers. They were climate changes that occurred outside society, and not because societies were as neurotic as ours now are, or so I think as my wondering wanders.
The creation of pottery occurred because herds of reindeer vanished to the north, and people either had to follow them, or move towards agricultural lifestyles in the vast prairies the glaciers left behind. This agricultural lifestyle necessitated storage pots, and then, to make the pots more impervious to water, hotter fires were required, and kilns replaced open fires. As fires became hotter various combinations of clay were experimented with, with various results, and likely it was through such experimentation that the smelting of ores entered men’s knowledge. The first metals had lower melting points.
The mixing of metals into alloys was likely accidentally discovered; the first bronze was likely created because at one site copper ore occurred naturally with arsenic, and likely this discovery was soon followed by the discovery arsenic was poisonous, and led to a preference to bronze made with tin. This led to tin being traded over long distances.
We know much because pottery survives shipwrecks, and amphorae of wine and oil were worth trading over long distances. Metals do not survive the corrosion of seawater as well, (unless it is gold or silver), and tin “rots” in cold weather, but we do come across some ancient artifacts preserved under the right conditions, and are able to sit back and wonder.
To me it seems that the inquisitive members of ancient societies would have come to know of far away lands, and differing ways of making pottery and fabric and metals, and even have toyed with possible advancements, while remaining members of a very stable and happy society. Some advancements likely were not made simply because they were not necessary. Truth was there and people were happy, and therefore a particular Truth, such as the fact iron is harder than bronze, was not yet needed. It was there, awaiting a future day.
Iron was known about, because we have a few examples of ancient artifacts made of iron, for example in the tombs of pharaohs. Pure iron does rarely occur in nature, but most originally came from meteorites. The actual smelting of iron began to be seen as much as three hundred years before the catastrophic end of the Bronze Age around 1200 BC, so the Truth about iron was available when needed, but I don’t want to wonder about that particular catastrophe. I’m trying to avoid the topic of catastrophes. I’d rather ponder more peaceful and changeless times, and think about the subject of the arrowhead found by the lake in Switzerland.
It makes sense that an arrowhead of meteoric iron should be found in that area, for a meteor called the Twannberg Meteorite fell nearby; six fragments have been found, but it is likely other fragments were discovered by people of the past, and put to use, though no objects were found prior to the arrowhead. So the arrowhead was carefully tested, and to the astonishment of all it did not come from the Twannberg Meteorite. It came from the Kaalijarv Meteorite on a Baltic Sea island in Estonia, more than a thousand miles away. This meteor hit with an explosion like Hiroshima’s, burning forests three miles away, and it’s largest chunk left a sizable crater.
The question then becomes, why would a person bring an arrowhead made of rare iron from one source of meteoric iron to another source of meteoric iron?
This is a Truth we likely will never know, but into my mind’s eye drifts a man of long ago seeking Truth. A wonderful fiction I’ll likely never write is unfolding as a fantasy in my brow. An Ode to an Arrowhead sings softly in my imagination.
People are capable of far more than the “elite” ever dream, in their scorn, and such capable people have at their fingertips Truth the elite, sadly, may never know.
When I was a kid someone made me a paper hat out of a sheet of newspaper. For some reason I thought to myself, “This hat looks like it would make a good boat.”
I assume we were in a park that had a pond, for as I remember I soon discovered my hat did make a good boat. At first. But soon the paper absorbed water, and not only got soggy, and floated lower and lower in the water, but it also fell apart when I poked it with a stick.
For some reason, watching Fraudulant Biden bumble through his meeting with the leader of Israel a couple days ago, I was reminded of my paper hat/boat. I wonder why that was? Please be my psychologist, and tell me.
Ever since the results of the 2020 election were so amazingly and blatantly distorted, the mainstream media has been attempting to convince people that the majority is a minority. This has been done by the non-stop repetition of minority propaganda, and the rigorous censorship of majority views. Apparently this was suppose to make the majority feel alone, isolated, marginalized, and that no one agreed with them. This theoretically would make the majority feel impotent, and they would lose the will to fight back.
Fine theory. But it missed an important point. Even without a single person on its side, Truth fights back.
When a majority is on its side, Truth has a tenacity that is terrifying to any minority based upon falsehood. Their paper boat slowly turns to mush.
Look carefully at Biden’s face, and consider the fact the man may be terrified.
It seems like Donald Trump has finally cracked up, after six years of unrelenting attack of the most foul and dishonest sort. My reaction is basically, “What took him so long?”
On “Truth Social” Trump stated, regarding the 2020 election, “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False and Fraudulent Elections”.
Trump stated the only two responses possible were to throw out the 2020 election results and declare him president, or to have a new election. Such drastic action is a step farther than Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War or Harry Truman’s seizure of Steel Mills in the Korean War.
I actually felt such personal outrage (about what seemed to me like obvious fraud) after the 2020 election that I expected action of this sort back then, while Trump still had the power of the presidency. So did the Democrats and Rinos, I think, which was why razor wire was erected around the Capital, and why the peaceful protests of the time of Biden’s inauguration have been misrepresented by the media as an “insurrection.”
Now it (Trump’s declaration of a veritable insurrection) seems like it is too little too late. For Trump to now say the 2020 election should be invalidated and he should be proclaimed president seems a bit like Napoleon crowning himself emperor, only Napoleon had the power to enact such an audacity. What power does Trump now have?
If the FBI felt they could raid Trump’s home three month’s ago, with no evidence of any real wrong doing, what will they do now? The media has gone silent after the initial flurry of indignation, and I fully expect Trump will soon be arrested.
Of course, there may be much going on we don’t know about. Nothing reported in the media has made much sense for years, whether it is the absurd meteorological “science” about Global Warming, or the absurd medical “science” surrounding the vaccine, or just about anything having to do with politics. Therefore it should come as no surprise when the actions of Trump make no sense.
I am reminded of a “prophecy” made by Kim Clement back in 2008 which stated that the United States would be “ruled by two presidents”. It drew some attention right after the election in 2020, when some felt it was being fulfilled, but then was largely ignored when it seemed it was discredited.
In any case, we seem to be experiencing the old Chinese curse, “May you live in Interesting Times.”
Unless I am mistaken, we are not hearing the usual cheering which follows an election victory by a majority. A few of the usual suspects, Hollywood hacks, are preening and triumphantly clucking, but there is a strange sullenness on the streets. One might even go so far as to suggest the majority lost.
Perhaps I am merely turning into a cantankerous old coot, but I suspect the voting machines were turned up full blast, when it comes to altering the correct count of the vote. It would be easy to check. If it is true that we, “Trust, but verify”, we need only hand-count a few, select machines, in unannounced precincts, and see if they match the given results. But of course, this is the very thing the “winners” will scrupulously avoid.
In any case, the hoped for “Red Wave” has seemingly turned into a “Red Grave.” Even Donald Trump seems especially bad tempered. One can hardly blame him. Trump has endured an onslaught from the “Swamp” for six years, attempted to fight fairly midst cheaters, and it is difficult to win elections when even the voting machines are rigged. He now says we should do away with the machines and hand-count ballots, but it seems a bit late for that advice.
Again, I may seem like a sore loser, and to be indulging in a “conspiracy theory”, when I suggest the voting machines were rigged. However, it worked in Venezuela, so why not try it here? To be honest, in my bones I feel the machines were rigged. The public is simply not behaving as one would expect, if the majority won.
It is said, “cheaters never prosper”, however at the moment they certainly must feel smug, if the voting machines were indeed tampered with.
In fact, this may be the darkest moment for the United States since the infant American army was booted out of New York City in 1776, and Washington suffered defeat after defeat as he was chased clear across New Jersy and the Delaware River, until he only had a few thousand troops left, and many of those few remaining soldiers would be leaving in a few weeks when their enlistments were up. The survival of the United States balanced on the point of a hair, only a few months after the Declaration of Independance was publicized, and then, right at that critical time, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet beginning,
These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
At this point I suppose it is good to remember historical times when might did not make right.
At the height of Assyrian Power, King Sennacherib had defeated all powers but a small city-state with its capital in Jerusalem, and he marched a huge army up to its walls. According to his history, he forced them to pay tribute and marched away. According to the people of Jerusalem, on a single night 185,000 of Sennacherib’s soldiers died, “slain by an angel of the Lord”, just outside the city walls. (Cholera? Poison in the well water?)
More recently, things looked bleak for Russia when Napoleon marched towards Moscow with an army of 450,000. Only 28,000 made it back from that debacle alive and fit to fight another day.
Cheaters never prosper.
However, this is not to say we are not about to endure a bitter winter, like Washington’s troops did in December 1776, and in Valley Forge in 1777, and following winters as well, before the sunshine of victory shone.
The sheer dishonesty rampant in the media these days reminds me of a prophecy in the seventh chapter of Book of Daniel, where an evil power in the future is described as attempting “to change the set times and laws.” In other words, such an evil power would disregard Truth. It would have the audacity to believe it has come up with a “better idea” than Truth.
One “set time and law” I’ve enjoyed the ups-and-downs of is: An old-fashioned marriage. Call me a fuddy-duddy if you will; I am not an admirer of the “alternative lifestyle”, I state this even though, as a gullible young hippy, I did dabble in the apparent escape-from-responsibility called “free love.” I quickly saw it wasn’t free, nor was it love. How did I escape from the escapism?
I’m not sure. I think it in part had to do with the examples set by my elders, which struck me as potent symbols long before I was capable of intellectually digesting or describing what the symbols meant.
On one hand I had a set of grandparents who met in second grade and, at age eight, announced they would marry, which seemed cute but absurd to their elders, because they were from very socially different backgrounds, yet eighty years later they were still together and apparently still in love. On the other hand, I had my parents, who were like a god and goddess the first ten years of my life, but then who shocked me with a very antagonistic divorce.
It may sound a bit audacious, but in my boyish view my parents suddenly acted very immature. They were embarrassing, whereas my grandparents were not. I could not have justified my impressions, but they were what they were. Only now, as an old man, can I see what the differences were.
The difference between marriage and divorce transcends they being mere opposites. They exist on (or in) utterly different dimensions, in different worlds. The love involved in marriage is so different from the selfishness involved in divorce the two subjects are themselves divorced, as the heavens are from the ocean’s depths, and as oil is from water.
I have recently had to endure the breakup of one of my children’s marriages, and the difference between love and selfishness was made blatant by the lawyers involved. I could remember when the young couple, in love, overlooked differences. They even found differences “cute”. Now, abruptly, those same differences became, “evidence.” What love had forgiven abruptly became “grounds for divorce”, and every slightest error was used to “build the case.” (Thank you very much, you bleeping lawyers.)
In Truth there is no better idea than love, but divorce thinks it has come up with a “better idea”. Wrong. But in my time, I have been guilty of turning away from love, so it is not like I am up on a high horse and looking down a long nose. I have seen myself put my selfishness ahead of others, and selfishness is seldom a friend of Love.
How is it Love has the power to overlook differences which selfishness finds intolerable? It is because Love operates from a separate universe than our worldly desires. Love utilizes the so-called “heart” which the “head” tends to brush aside. Yet the heart solves problems the head calls utterly unsurmountable.
The most unsurmountable difference humanity is faced with, greater than racial differences, greater than all religious differences, (even the differences between Isaac and Ishmael), greater than differences between capitalists and communists, between winners and losers, between haves and have-nots, between old and young, is the difference between men and woman. Nothing is more different, yet nothing is more natural than men and women coming together in a thing called “marriage.” It happens worldwide, often against considerable odds, and makes mincemeat of divisive powers who say we can’t get along.
I think divisive powers strongly disapprove of marriage, for they dislike anything which mocks their divisiveness. Nazis are mocked when one of their children loves a Jew, and Jews are mocked when one of their children loves a Nazi. But Love, as a power, could care less for our silly hatreds. On the cross Jesus had every reason to say, “Father, screw these bastards for what they’ve done to me,” but instead his amazing Love had him say, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
I try to say the same thing about the mainstream media, but I think many of them do know what they do. They are like a spouse ‘midst divorce proceedings, urged by lawyers to never confess a mistake and never forgive an error.
However, the “marriage” they are part of “breaking up” is the United States, which long was a two-party system where the two sides were married by Love. Yes. Love.
One of the aspects of a marriage is the humor both sides bring to their non-stop disagreements. For example, I recently heard a husband pretend to pompously announce, in a barrister voice, “A marriage cannot possibly succeed unless the wife, in ALL arguments, grants the husband the final word; in fact, grants the last TWO words; and they should be, (pause), ‘Yes, dear.'” Such humor walks hand in hand with love.
The unlikely survival of the United States through over two hundred years of tumultuous history has been largely due to the fact we are led by a marriage, not a despot. The debates in congress have involved the sharpest minds, able to split hairs, with plenty of humor. We are led by Love, not selfishness. I could drag you through example after example, but some find history boring. So, I’ll just shove the Truth in your face.
The mainstream media is controlled by an invisible despot who does not believe in a two-party system. Whoever this arrogant idiot is, he does not believe in marriage. He does not believe in Love. What this means is that, because God is Love, this despot is picking a fight with almighty Truth. (The despot is not as smart as he thinks.)
The election we are about to experience shows many signs of being a repudiation of this invisible idiot, this one-party-system which feels it is superior to the marriage called the United States. The one-party-system will likely be unable to accept such a repudiation. It will likely resort to altering the election’s results through voter fraud. Why not? It worked once, so why not again? However, the American people are far more on guard, concerning fraud, and there is likely to be greater push-back.
The brazen impunity with which “fake news” has been doled out is reaching a crisis point, where it may self-destruct, crumbling because it is rotten to begin with, and rot cannot replace the wholesome structures it usurps with anything wholesome, but only with further rot.
Into my mind’s eye comes this analogy: A thief steals a ladder, and uses it to climb to great heights, but removes rungs of the ladder to discourage pursuit, (and also to discourage copy-cats), and eventually reaches a point where the ladder has so few rungs left the two sides of the ladder start to wobble and shift, and the remaining rungs start to creak and crack, and then suddenly the thief is not standing on a ladder, but two very tall stilts. Because the thief has no idea how to walk on stilts, he goes wobbling out of control, and exits stage left, followed by a long descending howl and a crash.
In “Hamlet” Shakespeare used the phrase, “hoist with his own petard”, to create the ironic image of a bombmaker “lifted” by his own bomb’s explosive charge. (In the sly world of London slang which Shakespeare was so adept at using, the phrase could also mean being “lifted” by one’s own especially-loud fart.) It was not a fate one desired.
In like manner, the “better idea” which proponents of divorce always dangle as lures never result in the “freedom” they originally promised. I got to study my parents, who both got to live over thirty-five years “free” of each other after their separation, and they never were really free. Not that they didn’t live productive lives, and not that they didn’t meet new people who loved them and nursed them towards maturity. However, they never achieved complete amnesia, and never forgot the loops and nooses of their initial entanglement. If marriage is a battle, then those who think they escape the battle find they are haunted by ghosts and experience “flash backs” and “traumatic stress disorder.” The undealt-with must be dealt with. Often a second marriage sees the exact same problems that appeared in the first marriage reappear, and the second marriage becomes a second chance to “deal with it”.
In like manner, in the world of governance, any attempt to replace the marriage of a two-party-system with the divorce of a one-party dictatorship always seems like a “better idea” in a time of confusion, but over and over history shows us that society suffers when it resorts to such tyranny. The confusion and terror of the French Revolution turned to Napoleon, who seemed like a hero at first, but eventually led to the death of a million Frenchmen, and a France with fewer than nine men left alive for each ten women.
The lesson is there in history for those with eyes that see. The problem is that when you try to teach Truth to a tyrant, they censor it. Love is a dimension they refuse to allow to govern their lives. They are all head without heart, or, if they have a heart, they only allow it in places utterly removed from their workplace. In the dark of a movie theatre they may weep, but not at their bank as they foreclose on a widow.
The world of governance is currently seeing the idea of “globalism” arise as a sort of vast, one-party dictatorship, with only a single view allowed and all other views censored. The sanity of Truth is affronted by all sorts of attempts to “change the set times and laws”, with even the-sex-one-was-born-as called into question. This creates chaos and confusion, and also the tendency for people to long for a powerful leader to “make things right.” A globalist dictator likely will soon step forward and say, “I am your Napoleon.”
The world does not need a Napoleon. What the world needs now is Love, sweet Love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
In terms bankers understand, power involves control of material items, and this winter we may even see power asserted through materially forcing people to choose between heating and eating, and perhaps even see unnecessary starvation, and people unnecessarily freezing to death. However, the rescue will come. The bankers will not see it coming, for they do not accept the dimension the Rescuer exists on. It is not a material reality.
I can’t predict the way the cards will play out, or how and when Love will manifest. My guess is that “heart” will not likely come from centers of power, but from heartlands. Also, I guess the three nations most likely to resist the globalist Napoleon are the United States, India, and the tiny state of Israel. Lastly, in my own small way I hope to make a last stand and go down fighting for the magic of Love and of marriage, in this invisible war against brazen impunity.
I have felt for months that Fraudulent Biden will have to find some way to halt the midterm elections. The opposition to his leadership is too great and too obvious, and the electoral losses may be so extreme it will be hard for the “Elite” to ever recover. Once the Elite lose power there may well be exposures of corruption which those now in power fear being exposed. Loss may lead to greater losses. Pebbles can start avalanches. So, if it was possible to avoid an election, that alternative might seem preferable to reform, to those who have no desire to reform.
After all, in the eyes of some the electorate is too stupid to govern, and the idea of a democratic republic should be replaced by a dictatorship. The “Deplorables” should be replaced by the “Elite.” We should return to the concept of serfs ruled by a royalty.
So, I sat back and waited, with an attitude I fear is cynical. How would the elections be circumvented? Would there simply be widespread fraud? I doubted that, because too many eyes are watching this time.
Now, with the election only a month away, I watch a Russian pipeline sabotaged, and a major bridge to Crimea severed, and Fraudulent Biden speak in an inflammatory manner about nuclear war, and said, “Hmmm.”
And then I thought I’d write a headline to be ready for what’s next.
Amendment 4 – Protection from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Note the word “particularly”, and then compare that with the amazingly general and vauge description of what is to be seized in part “C” of the warrant.
Basically, the warrant allows the FBI to seize anything Trump wrote or received while president.
I’ll leave it to others to state whether this is a “fishing expedition” or not, and whether or not the possibility exists that evidence could have been “planted”, (especially as people were banned from serving as witnesses and onlookers), and whether or not the FBI has a shred of reliability left after it has been exposed as culpable to the processes that led to prior unfounded attacks on Trump.
Instead, I would like to address the question, “Why should Trump want to hide even a single paper?”
The simple fact of the matter is that we mortals are not perfect, and often need to go through a process of “feeling things out” before we arrive at a decision. During the “process” we may say things we would never say “in public”. We may stamp around and be wall-bangers. Those who love us wait until we are done ventilating, and then say something along the lines of, “You don’t really mean that.” And, speaking for myself, I tend to respond, “No, but it’s how I feel.”
Such emotional honesty is only possible with those who love you. It is a thing called “intimacy.” Such emotional honesty is not wise among those who hate you, and who want to harm you, for they will use such honesty as a proof you are a sinner.
The word “sin” has become politically incorrect, but the sad fact of the matter is that it is human to err. Saint John stated, “If we say we have no sin then the Truth is not in us.” It follows that our ability to confess our sin, in some safe space, is vital to our ability to grow, and even to exist, as humans.
This is not to say we accept sin as behavior we want to follow. After saving the adulterous woman from being stoned by telling the angry mob, “Let you who is without sin throw the first stone” Jesus told the woman who he had saved, “Go, and sin no more.”
There needs to be the recognition that sin is undesirable. If one attempts to justify sin and perpetuate sin, one faces a danger Saint Paul described as being “given to your sin.”
In fact, the good are as prone to sin as the bad, but the good fight what the bad promote.
To return to the subject of private papers, I have kept a diary since I was nine, and if the FBI wants to dig up evidence that I am not always sweet and saintly, or even sane, all they need to do is seize my private papers. In fact, just to tantalize them, here’s a page from 1965:
(The FBI might like to know why my older brother, who was 18 at the time, was coming home at two AM and entering the house through a third story window.)
I think it might do the FBI some good if they were forced to read my writing. All 60 years’ worth. If my poetry didn’t make them more sensitive, it might gag them, and either would be better than their current state.
But as far as your private papers are concerned, they are nobody’s business but your own. The U S Constitution defends your right to work things out in your own time and in your own way, and anyone who wants to limit or infringe upon that liberty can go take a flying leap.
It seems the United States is in a state of being denied, wherein what people want is not what they are getting. In a sense it is like fasting. People hunger and thirst for righteousness, but never seem to be fed.
Fasting is supposedly spiritual, when it isn’t done out of vanity, merely to improve appearances, but rather is done to break our addiction to worldly cravings.
I must confess I was never big on fasting. When young I had a revved-up metabolism and couldn’t put on weight even when I tried, (and I did try, attempting to increase my bulk for football.) Having this sort of metabolism makes you into a sort of eating machine at times, which doesn’t look all that spiritual. Yet then I might go a surprising period of time on nothing but coffee and cigarettes (and sometimes whisky) utterly indifferent to food, because I was “a writer”. (I will confess I learned to add lots and lots of powdered milk to my coffee, so I suppose the milk kept hunger at bay.) However, after one of these spells of being “a writer”, I’d be hit by a ravenous appetite and completely disgrace myself, in spiritual terms, by wolfing an entire large pizza like it was a cracker.
Therefore, I am no one to seek out as an authority on self-denial, and how it benefits the spiritual aspirant. To be quite honest, a lot of my “writing” is me complaining about how I don’t get what I want. (I am rather good at such complaining, if I do say so myself.)
Oddly, even though I never really sought self-denial, I did manage to wind up in some situations where I was a “suffering poet”. Largely this was because I was offensive. I didn’t mean to be offensive (most of the time) but there is something offensive about taking the attitude that you are special and should get what you want, especially when what you want is for everyone else to go to work nine to five as you stay home smoking and drinking coffee (sometimes spiked with whisky) being “a writer”. In any case, let it suffice to say I did not get what I wanted, and people made me feel less than welcome, when they didn’t just throw me out on my ear. This placed me in a position of self-denial even though that was the last thing I wanted.
One crisis I got myself into involved leaving New England in a sort of self-imposed exile, at age 27. I had offended just about everyone, including myself, and just packed all that seemed valuable into a tiny 1974 Toyota with a 1200 cc engine and headed off into the cruel world. I slept in that tiny vehicle fairly often, which I suppose is self-denial. And, (as even exiled Romans such as Ovid and Cicero admitted), exile had its benefits. Self-denial can uplift the spiritual seeker.
In any case, while thinking about the current suffering occurring in the United States, I recalled a poem I wrote before I left New England on my exile. In Rome people often accepted exile as a way to escape a more severe punishment, and the old poem was about the punishment (self-inflicted) I was enduring before I left. Something about America’s current suffering reminded me of that past, and I went searching for the old work in my yellowed papers.
Found it! It is an unusual poem for me, in that I reworked it several times. The first draft was from November 1978, the second draft from July 1979, and the final draft was from October 1980. In other words, this poem expressed the passion of a young man in his mid-twenties.
Anger's a sabre thrust into my heart;
My heart is a scabbard of pain.
I would draw out the long, bloody blade
And see all my enemies slain,
But blood is a terrible stain.
My fingertips shake with the strain.
Foolish men fawn for a dollar a day
And artists are driven to hiding.
Generals are riding fat horses that bray,
And therapists yawn at confiding
While counting up dollars deciding
What beaches to ruin residing
Within aluminum siding,
Then they go back to their guiding.
Where is the handle? I must draw the sword
And see that the dragon is thoroughly gored,
Yet how can I haul out that head-hacking blade
When the charger you sold me so recently brayed?
Sorrow, sweet sorrow, is clotting my throat
With stabbing I never could swallow.
I want to bail out. We're in the same boat.
Excuses have always been hollow.
Where is the scalpel a surgeon would use
And where is the surgeon who knows how to choose?
The enemy has to be slain
But blood is a terrible stain.
My fingertips shake with the strain.
Besides being a fairly good indication that I chose correctly, in deciding to depart a situation which was driving me bonkers over 40 years ago, the poem traces some depths of feeling one may experience, when the situation that is driving them bonkers is difficult to escape. And the current situation in the United States is driving people bonkers. It is also difficult to escape. People who are nowhere nearly as offensive as I was in my mid-twenties may be feeling like I felt, all those years ago.
This makes me wonder if there is any advice I can offer.
In one sense I have no advice. I have never figured out how to make the people driving me bonkers stop doing it. They are what they are. The only thing I can stop is to stop myself. I’m the only one I can change.
In 1980 the biggest change I made was to stop retreating to my mother’s basement, when I felt hurt, and instead to retreat in an outward direction. It seemed a very brave thing I was doing, but even little birds do it, when they leave the nest. My departure was actually retarded, when you consider I was in my mid-twenties, and few took it all that seriously, considering I had “left home” many times before. Few knew how serious I was, and that I was truly gone for good.
Leaving the nest is self-denial because one is denying themself the very real comforts offered by a mother. Such comforts are provided in a nigh instinctual way and can be addictive. For example, my dirty socks would vanish and then reappear cleaned in the top drawer of my bureau neatly balled. This may seem like a little thing, but it never happened again, and, after forty years, recalling such kindness makes me nostalgic. But at the time I took it for granted and it made me lazy, dependent, and disgusted with myself. Moving from my mother’s basement was like leaving a dank dungeon and soaring into the open sky. Where is the self-denial in that? (I suppose it is in the fact the open sky can get stormy, and then one wants to head home.)
In the above example it can be seen that self-denial is closely associated with freedom. It is part of a tension which forever exists between security and freedom, wonderfully portrayed by a couple of Saturday Evening Post covers by Norman Rockwell which appeared on consecutive weeks: (Notice the face is the same.)
In some ways this tension is as simple as the fact we get up in the morning and go back to bed in the evening. Life involves alternating desires. However, the factor I want to focus on is the self-denial.
In order to be a sort of yogi and to qualify as “spiritual” the self-denial must encompass both sides of an alternating duality; IE: when you want to get up you must stay in bed, and when you want to stay in bed you must get up. This sort of “fasting” is annoying as heck. It is a swift way to turn even bright spirits into sourpusses. It can only be done when the yogi involved is fiercely determined to reach some preconceived transcendental state, and, even then, is full of hazards.
I did try some of this self-denial when in my twenties and I learned something of the hazards. It is a bit like enduring the pain of jogging to get yourself in shape. One problem I ran into was that I tended to lose my desire and to see my resolution fade, and to in a sense “fall off the wagon”. (This was not like falling off a horse, wherein you get back on where you fell off, but more like the game of snakes-and-ladders; you go slithering down a slippery slope and have to start over from the very bottom.) Then a second problem was that the very few times I did bungle into the periphery of some sort of transcendental state it tended to scare my socks off; I wanted to run away and be normal again. Lastly was that, (most of the time), such self-denial wrung the joy from my life and left me a sourpuss, and a crank. This was so far from the nirvana I was seeking that it actually was what propelled me from my mother’s basement.
This brings me to the subject of what was propelling me. I felt as if I was to some degree out of control. This seemed irresponsible, but to some degree we cannot take control of everything. Some days the fish simply are not biting, and no amount of yelling at the water can change their minds. And the same is true of hitchhiking. Some days the traffic will not stop, and neither yelling nor smirking convinces anyone. It is at such times one finds themselves muttering to the sky, and to the possibility of a Power besides ourselves, who controls.
As a young intellectual I strove to be logical, and to doubt the existence of anything which could not be scientifically replicated, but my Atheism was troubled by a series of events which could not be replicated but could also not be denied, for they saved my life. Midst my “bad luck” were odd experiences of “good luck”. Eventually this led to a series of inner crises and I “got religion”, which made me in some ways even more offensive than before. I was even more likely to sit around writing as others went to work when I thought God would care for me. But eventually I became aware God didn’t automatically gratify my desires, and was as libel, and in fact more libel, to utilize self-denial. For example, the only time God washed my socks and put them in the top drawer was when God manifested as Mom. The rest of the time the socks stayed dirty.
It is upsetting to some when God doesn’t respond to prayers like He is some sort of vending machine, wherein you put in your prayer and the answered prayer plops out at the bottom. After such disappointment, one must take matters into their own hands. This is fine when the problem is dirty socks; one simply learns to wash their own socks. However, it is not so easy when things get out of control, and your best efforts come up empty.
In my case, (along the lines of fishing when the fish weren’t biting, and hitchhiking when nobody stops,) coming-up-empty often occurred when looking for a job. Many times, I was one of those fellows who waits outside an unemployment office hoping for spot labor. I didn’t feel in control of my destiny, especially on those days when there was no work, and, on those days, God heard a fair amount of grumbling.
I well know the temptation one then feels to be corrupted; God may say you’ll earn no money that day, but one is tempted to rob a bank.
To be honest I suppose I must reluctantly confess that I have succumbed to temptations to some degree.
As a teen I sowed some very wild oats, but once I “got religion” my moral failures never progressed much beyond smoking and drinking too much, a few failed romances, and some petty theft, (and I did repay the market I shoplifted cigarettes from). While I did feel the urges to be corrupt, they never won me over to the degree one sees among politicians in “The Swamp.” I tested the waters of corruption and was repelled.
I’m not sure why this was the case. It could be that I simply wasn’t deemed worthy of spending the time, by those who do the tempting. One good thing about being flat broke is that few see you as being worthy of seduction.
It also could be I was protected. After all, once I “got religion” I had given my life to the Lord (to some degree), which means I had admitted I couldn’t control life and needed help. And what happens next?
Once you have such a Superman watching over you, perhaps you get protected even when you don’t want to be protected, as was the case when certain gorgeous women walked by. When lonely I was not at all inclined towards self-denial, but had to endure it. The Good Shepherd was guiding his sheep, even if the sheep was a black sheep.
Eventually it sunk into me that a lot of the self-denial I was experiencing was actually good for me. In the 1970’s and early 1980’s I endured a fair amount of mockery from even my closest friends for being something of a prude. Then, starting around 1982, a lot of the fellow “writers” who had mocked me started dropping dead of AIDS (which was a reletively swift and unpleasant way to die back then, with no cure). Then self-denial didn’t seem like such a misfortune, and indeed more like a miracle.
Of course, I always wanted the miracles to be more pampering. One story I often tell involves a Christmas miracle. I was five dollars short on my rent and a green, rumpled piece of paper came blowing across a parking lot. As I stooped to pick it up, I could see it was money, and was fairly certain it was a five, which it was. Even though I felt a warm glow all over I felt comfortable enough with my Creator to joke, “Couldn’t You have managed a hundred?” But I’ve heard it said that when you are thirsty God gives water, not lemonade, and to me this has seemed true.
This brings me back to the subject of self-denial, and the fact I seemed to get more self-denial than gratification, which must mean that, if the Good Shepherd is in charge, there is more good in not getting what you want than in getting what you want.
Why should this be?
I think this is true because getting what you desire seldom satisfies. You usually just want more. We tend to be creatures of habit, and the way to freedom from addiction is not to get what you are addicted to. This is not to say some habits are not good habits: When a bad habit enslaves us we tend to call it “being stuck in a rut” however a better habit is described as being “in the groove”, but even good habits limit our freedom, and I think God wants us free.
It helps me to understand how habits enslave when I describe a “desire” as a “craving”. Craving sounds more beastly, and even undesirable (which is wonderfully ambiguous, as you are saying desire is not what you should desire.) People who can admit they “desire” are less likely to confess they “crave.” But, if you don’t think craving controls you, just hold your breath for sixty seconds. Soon breathing, which you ordinarily don’t even think about, becomes the only thing you can think about.
Craving can be seen as a distraction. It is like when you have a job to do, but just then a very attractive person walks by. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, nor what your sexual preference is, you are distracted. And from God’s perspective, humanity is a herd of distracted cats. He is the only One able to herd them.
One thing God seems to seek to do is to free us from our cravings. And it turns out that such freedom is far more likely to occur when we don’t get what we desire. For example, when even the most zealous suiter is disdained over and over, and is finally arrested as a stalker, the zeal must seek a different channel, even if it doesn’t completely fade like the final ember of a fire. Typically, the suiter settles for second best, and rather than a “lover” becomes a “friend”. If they can’t be number one in the beloved’s life, and can’t actually massage the beloved’s shoulders, they must settle for making this a better world for the beloved to live in, by uplifting other people they formerly wouldn’t bother with.
Having our desire frustrated is painful, but it frees us from needing to have a specific desire fulfilled in a specific way. One thing I have noticed in people who have been through great suffering is that they are less demanding and are more able to be happy with less. They are satisfied with water and don’t demand lemonade. Rather than restless they know more of peace. Rather than post-traumatic-stress they know post-traumatic-resignation.
I have had trouble being resigned because I am a battler and tend to be more inspired by pep talks, like Winston Churchhill’s famous “Never Surrender” speech when England was threatened by Hitler. I also liked the prophet Issaih’s defiance of the Assyrians when they besieged Jerusalem. I did not like the prophet Jeramiah’s advice when the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem a few decades later, for his advice was, “Surrender, for this time you are up against God’s Will. You must accept the punishment of captivity and exile.”
Surrender is a bad thing when it is a surrender to slavery, but God does not want us to be slaves. God is the only One worthy of surrendering to, for He knows best when our desires should be thwarted and when they should be gratified, and how best to move us to a point where our minds are unclouded by cravings, and our hearts are free to love.
One interesting thing about the relatively poor people who the “elite” call “deplorables” is that the poor seem more able to put their own desires aside. A factoid which never made sense to me is that the poor give more to charity than the rich, in terms of a percentage of their income. (In fact, some rich will not give to charity unless they themselves profit in some way, which is not charity at all.) How can this be true?
It has occurred to me that the poor, without the slightest wish to be yogis, have had to see their desires denied over and over again, until the habit of craving is worn down, and they no longer expect gratification. Then, because their minds are not clotted with cravings, they are more able to hear their hearts. The poor workingman’s heart defies his intellect’s banker’s-budget, when he impulsively hands half his sandwich to a hungry, onlooking child. In this and a thousand other small ways the so-called “deplorable” are not deplorable at all, and in fact are more loving than, and are spiritually superior to, the so-called “elite.”
Blessed are the poor. Because they do not require gratification to be happy, they are often happier than billionaires. They live in a world wherein quaint values the elite call “old fashioned”, but which are actually ancient and eternal, rule. So maybe not getting your desires gratified is a good thing.
The elite, who are constantly sating their desires for wealth and power and fame and sex and drugs, discover gratification does not lead to freedom, and instead become more and more addicted to their desires. In spiritual terms this insidiously matures into a colossal mistake, for even when they imagine they are enslaving others they in fact are enslaving themselves. Even when they think they are smarter they are in fact becoming increasingly ignorant. Even when they think they see clearly, they are blinded by desire. And even when they think they gain control they are losing self-control; in seeking power they become spiritually powerless.
Hopefully you see where my thought is leading. It is a complete contradiction of the values which rule the elite. It denies that which the American mainstream media attempts to say is the only sensible way to think.
The foxes push saints from pulpits to preach
To the chickens, but their sly idealism
Is cynicism. They actually teach
The opposite of what they say. To them
Hypocrisy's second nature. They don't know
How fresh and clean Truth is. They cannot see
How blind they are. They think it wise to sow
Thistles, and create their own tragedy.
See them now, puffed in pulpits, so sure that
They're collecting dainties, like gamblers sweep
Winnings from a table, chewing pure fat
That drips from chins. Meanwhile chickens keep
Their distance: In fact, the pews are now empty.
The outfoxed fox snarls, for he can't tempt me.
Tired of this anger I'm carrying
I turn to You, my Lord, and plead my case:
Mankind creates divorces out of marrying
And turns the sweetest blush into disgrace.
Your generosity is met with greed.
Your colossal kindness met with hate.
They snatch away the milk that babies need
And dream their tyranny will make them great.
Am I to sit and turn the other cheek?
Must goodness zip its lip as hellfires singe?
How is it You in silence will not speak
As bigmouths blare the bull that makes me cringe?
I pray my suffering's like that of fasting.
I hurt today for joy that's everlasting.
The national and world news seems so bad that at times I find myself gasping for relief, and one relief I find is to take small children at my Childcare on a hike. Partly the relief involves the simple fact small children require constant attention, and I have few braincells left to think about the cost of gasoline or suffering in Ukraine. But another source of relief is more subtle.
Yesterday I had a couple “former students” visit after five years. Brothers, the older was at the threshold of adolescence, and ordinarily in such circumstances I find a strange amnesia has set in. I am looked at across a vast chasm, as if fifty years had passed. However, for some reason no such amnesia affected the brothers, and they regaled me with fond memories they had, including some things I did (and stories I told) which I myself had no recollection of. At one point the older brother looked about the pasture, where small children played in the distance, and folded his arms, smiled, and pronounced, “The Childcare: Where there’s not a care in the world.”
I was touched to be remembered in such a way, but it also made me think, for, when I am hiking with small children, I often feel I’m in a different dimension, utterly alien to the world of adults. It is not merely that war mongers have no use for old men and small children, but also that, old men and small children have no use for war mongers.
I led a gang of three-to-five-year-olds
Into deep woods, where we followed old stone walls
To a slanting, fallen tree with hand-holds
Better than any jungle-gym's. The hallowed halls
Of looming trunks hushed to hear the laughter,
And silent deer and foxes peered from down
The corridors of trees, seeking after
The joy. No crows croaked; no eagle's frown
Disapproved; no jays cried harshly, "Thief! Thief!"
There was only the sound of children at play,
And perhaps my long sigh of thankful relief.
This poor old world hears news day after day
That tires the heart. It relieves to be free
Of such souring news, and watch kids in a tree.
Sunrise's Swansong 