whatever happened to excellence?

you know you're in the middle of America when the first notable sign coming into town is not the green city limits sign, but the high school state championship sign. If you were state champions in Football, Basketball, Baseball, or Cross Country, that year is proudly displayed for school bragging rights. But what you won't see is a proud sign indicating that your school and town was # 1 in successful business owners, # 1 in tech entrepreneurs, or # 1 in inventors in the state. And, maybe, it is time to recognize that kind of excellence. After all, why do we have public schools in the first place?

any state department of education can give you a wealth of raw and analytical data. students not only go through a school system, their footprint, not just academic, follows them through that process. every student who has ever been to Millard Fillmore High can be tracked from freshman entry date and beyond. in less than six years, an estimation of a school's impact on students can be ascertained by following up and crunching numbers to determine what became of the class of '09. while this analysis cannot determine how much the teaching from that school did contribute to the success of that student body, it can reward that school and town for helping that class body reach such success by establishing championships for real world successes.

Imagine coming into town and seeing that your old school and town was awarded a state distinction for being # 1 in producing plumbers, engineers, or certified mechanics? How encouraging would it be to your school and community to have your school and town awarded #1 in patented inventions? # 1 in quality of life? Wouldn't that sign, that distinction, reflect a real school and community of excellence?

  

Crazy Days and Crazy Nights

 When you’re an undergrad, living in a college town known for anarchist wine and cheese parties, and you're sharing a house with three radical Pentecostal students, you never know what you're going to come home to. 

 I worked from Friday evening into early Saturday morning, at a hole-in-the-wall donut-hot dog shop. while many were partying uptown, i served stoner dogs and donuts to inebriated, drug-fueled students in the later hours of existence, going home in the wee hours just before dawn, when the city fell into a silence rarely seen.

Compounding the slow walk home, when faced with all-you-can-carry free "day-old" donuts, I would carry three waxed-paper bags of donuts in one hand and a 32 ounce mountain dew in the other. Dropping off one bag on my girlfriend's front steps, I would carry the two remaining bags home, finishing my caffeine drink as I climbed the front steps of the beige house, and wandered in to stash my donuts in the fridge. That morning, like most Saturdays, I lay down on our tie-dye couch cover on the living room sofa after gobbling a circa 4 AM cruller, only to awaken sharply to a wet patch on the back of my stinky shirt. 

Peering over the edge of the sofa, I smelled the wet carpet first. Just water. But a trail of it. Leading into the next room...and up the stairs. Hmm. 

By the time I opened the upper bathroom door, it was obvious. Someone must have been sloppy in the bathtub last night because there was water all over the floor. The light bulb revealed more danger as I maneuvered from one spot to another attempting to skirt the incident zone. Finally, gripping the side of our clawfoot tub, I discovered damp lint, curly hair, and what looked like an emptied bottle of anointing oil. It had all the earmarks of a serious Pentecostal Party.

I headed to my room, worn out from having to slap Stoner Dogs together at record pace to keep up with the night’s demand. I collapsed on my bed and fell asleep. When I woke, noon had passed, and the house seemed quiet. I ambled down the stairs to find our resident journalism major sitting on the couch nonchalantly reading a textbook in the same area I discovered serious water "damage" in the wee hours of the night. When I asked him about the evidence, he said that several people had followed him home from a fellowship where a young man expressed the need to be baptized. Seizing on the opportunity, our man had offered our bathtub…and a place on the sofa…

When I reflect on the antics of my housemates in those years, I am amused by how unpredictable our lives were. It seemed like we constantly entertained some wanderer, who often found themselves sleeping on our one-brick-leveled couch. From the Birdman with the weak bladder, the radio broadcast engineer who didn't like walking home alone, to the bespeckled Nazi Henchman look-alike (in Raider's Of The Lost Ark), the tie-dye covered sofa saw more characters than an old B movie. Meanwhile, we kept our clientele stuffed with ladles-full of hot chicken soup, Gem Soda (with a delightful amount of yellow food coloring) or Ski (a concoction so lethal you could watch the caffeine floating around in the bottle) and enough ice cream to build an igloo before crashing on the said sofa... 

Those may have been “crazy days and crazy nights,” but the most potent drug we possessed, other than caffeine, was our random humor...original music pieces featuring "the screen," slam-dancing to worship music, and poetry readings of the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

So, to come home to wet carpet, and a trail to...or from...the upstairs bathroom, was not so unusual that it should have surprised me. In fact, it was all good experience for the stranger things that came my way later in life...when I held an air hose at a toilet paper machine for ten hours at a time, when I appraised a white supremist campground for tax purposes, and when I ran away from the young Amish woman chasing me around the barnyard...until I could speed away home...

in the hiding place

the banjos played Dixieland

when my felt hat fell from grace

a little lad sliding beneath the table

scraping that black shiny place 

double cheese pizza plaster was

hiding in the long-legged space...

shoes and sandals, and feet and toes

forks and knives and things that slice

the sounds, the scenes, the moments galore

are a mix of memories that one must store.

the song unsung

your sad passing, it said

as if we would forget 

the song unsung.

as long as the shore is kissed 

by the storm's waves,

shaped by weathering, 

away beneath our days

like an old treasure 

caught undertow,

the memories out to sea

come back in a bottle-

sorrow still, in silent pain.

halting chaotic decay

 What is culture? Is it what sociologists and psychologists claim? Is it what public school teachers push? Or, is it what Hollywood and those like them believe?

The definition of a culture has changed. The New World Dictionary, 1927, stated that a culture is an enlightenment or development resulting from education and refinement. The primary meaning of a "cultured person" in 1927 was one who was enlightened or refined. 

Sociology, a science based upon certain predilections that may or may not be correct, has imported meanings into the cloud containing the standard definition of culture, to include what one in 1927 would categorize as a deviation, a vague and less tenuous attempt to categorize and systemize what culture actually is. Gone is the desire for improvement or refinement, replaced by characterization of a particular subgroup's behaviors, regardless of their moral or educational value, insisting the sum of those experiences and thoughts, from a vast populace with similar beliefs, somehow represents a culture. 

In the later part of the last century, for example, one could base popular music, art, and fashion that could be labeled according to period as a culture. In a sense, the old standard could be applied, however, the lack of improvement or educational development exposes the truth- that cannot be a true culture. 

We have replaced the desire for one's improvement and refinement with characteristics of a generalized theme of debased behavior and lifestyle. 

Can anyone rationally argue, based on the standard definition of culture that degenerative music, art, and fashion represents a culture? Is it not the opposite that it reveals? A lack of intelligence, excellence, a lack of refinement, a lack of sophistication is simply a lack of culture. Where culture does not exist, there is a tendency for society to descend into dysfunctionality. 

Disjointed music, based upon an excess of primitive percussion, does not reflect culture, it reflects a lack of it. A constant droning, a constant repetition, a constant disharmony is not refinement. A chaotic arrangement of poison-based art, adorning one's body, is the pinnacle of that lack of culture, that lack of refinement. 

In light of the loss of true refinement, we should rebel against that which the masses drink, that toxicity that clouds the mind and sends the soul toward Hell. True refinement is unadorned beauty, wearing the same unadorned skin as God gave you, singing in harmony as the angels sing in harmony, adhering to a higher level of moral rigor...pushing aside the decrepit, embracing the excellent.

There was a time I remember, when one of the purveyors of the current morass of culture-less propaganda, was preaching the need for refinement in the sense of being excellent. A grain of wisdom, a grain of beauty and richness was proposed as the pinnacle for a better education. For refinement. Yet, those wanting to control the future masses, rather than see them enlightened, threw out the virtues and exchanged the push for a more cultured life with a virus from the pit of Hell. This Leftist agenda, which was born in a foreign land, promised an elitist future where the few could rule and reign over peasant-like zombies who were uneducated and lacked a desire for refinement or culture. 

That evil has many sisters, including woke ideology, "democratic" socialism, and the like, always leading down a dark hallway to an end without culture, without hope, and without God.

In a truly great society, refined music, art, and literature speak volumes about the achievements of that land and era. It is time we return to the concept of culture as it was nearly 100 years ago and pursue and teach our young to pursue a world with refinement, not chaotic decay.

wreaking havoc

watching David Balducci defend the sanctity and integrity of human-originated writing in a congressional hearing reinforces my own musings about our common cyberfriend, the AI composer. That entity lacks soul, lacks spiritual insight, and lacks a trinitarian nature.

A man- or woman- is composed of three parts...body, soul, and spirit. The nature of the latter in different states of "heaven," when corporally moving like the wind and not bound by the material, remains a mystery to the human mind. Beyond that, it is completely discombobulating to one based in a cyber realm. While we, as humans, project our faith in what is spiritual, a cyber being cannot begin to understand, since understanding the human spirit will always remain intuitive. It is impossible for an AI to explain the spiritual utilizing language that adheres to the spiritual laws, transcending physical, whether in this realm or the next. We can, however, touch each one of the trinities, explain in fragile human words, and surpass the machine every time.  

Since this is the case, and like parallelism, the two can never arrive at an intersection of common experience, my writing, and your writing, when crafted with a trinitarian approach will always surpass the AI's performance. AI may completely obliterate many rational ways of explaining the material world, but humans rule when taking the story into the spiritual.

Because the spiritual, on this side of the veil, requires thought that AI cannot recreate within, nor duplicate in imitation, with any believable mesh of words and images, we owe it to ourselves to, like this run-on sentence, break barriers that AI will not be able to reproduce. 

When my thought processes produce a poetic fiction, or any other creative venture passing beyond the standard that AI has been programmed with, I can be assured that AI will not be able to create alternative pieces shadowing my works. 

For one like Steven King, or John Grisham, unlike James Joyce's Ulysses, that one's production is too relatable. The question for readers of the future is how relatable the human author's works should be to be read, rejoiced in, and celebrated. I harbor no ill will toward anyone if my work is generally too eccentric...for like the forementioned Joyce, my first goal as an author is not to be relatable, but to relate an experience that could resonate with some consumers, more often the more spiritually sensitive ones. I would rather create beyond the capability of an earthbound cyberfriend than imitate a style praised by the New York Times. Life is too short to imitate.

so, for some, the next few decades could wreak havoc on the literary catalogue of accepted morality. in actuality, we have entered an era no longer bound by the rules of creative decorum. how we snake our way through the snowdrifts of this slalom may determine what becomes of future tense, that world destined to be evaluated in a whole different set of values that must include parameters for AI story creation, copywrite, and fair use. 

the light in the basement

there's a light on in the basement next door. 

his grandmother turned it on in the latter hours of the evening, and when she forgot one night...it stayed on. no one questioned her. no one alerted her. and it outlived her.

it outlived the equally aged couple next door, the retired man across the street, and the presence of several neighbors. 

and then he came, the grandson. but the light remained, no matter what. 

winter came, with its icy fingers, and the window fogged up. ice covered the pane, and maybe the heart of the man exploring the basement, as he seemed rather reclusive.

but the light glowed.

and as winter turned to spring, and spring to summer, the flowers along the foundation bloomed. ivy appeared and climbed the chimney's face. peeled paint chips fell into the grass below. and the house aged. 

as summer baked the sidewalks, and children took to the garden hose, the grandson, rather than sitting on his porch, disappeared. his line of boots, shoes, and sandals remained near the back door. 

it is July, and the stars reign high in the night sky. but it is silence that pervades the neighborhood. another death, and sadness hides behind several doors. 

but there's a light on in the basement...still.

A Resolution

 can you imagine how different your life would have turned out if...you had heard the thoughts of those you encountered, particularly those who made life choices because of your life choices?

 and if that young woman, or young man, who "broke your heart" could have heard your thoughts, and read the intentions of your heart, would she, or he, have made the same choices? 

 cause and effect, like the cue ball angling toward the eight ball, heading for disaster, could be diverted by the precious thoughts of all there, at that time, at that place. but not in this world. but surely, in the next. but we are not there now.

 which brings me to the crux of the matter. how often have you re-visited that former friend, that former love, that former enemy and, in an attempt to find closure and peace, interacted as compassionate adults to uncover the panoramic view of that encounter? 

 as you age, you may find it healthier to go there, even if some of the participants do not join. is it not better to be free from unforgiveness, free from confusion, and free from guilt? we would do well to be disciples of peace rather than avengers of justice in the matter. better is a crust of bread shared in peace than a lavish table with enmity. 

 in theatre i used to challenge my acting students by placing them in the "park bench" scenario, an improv exercise where they were thrown, at a moment's notice, like life, into a situation where they were stuck on a park bench with one or more total strangers, each carrying his or her baggage and worldview. they were given very basic character premises, like one wandering through life, and then asked to respond. the exercise proved a character builder, an exercise in life, and an active seminar in dealing with people...not to mention a great exercise in honing acting skills...

 bringing together, either in person, on the phone, or online, "characters" from your past, you could also be engaging in "park bench." forced to face each other after years, separated by time, if there were walls between before, there should be no walls now. The past is not the present, if the present is staring in your face. i encourage you to move forward by recapturing the actors in the past in a scenario that could lead to understanding and peace, and resolution. life, this side of the veil, is indeed, too fleeting to leave without peace.

 

An expensive proposition

 Some of us need to have a yard sale, a garage sale, or a porch sale...a definitive downsizing...to know what is in the house. And, to find out where that receipt went, the one we need to take back...with that non-functioning blood pressure cuff to Walgreens. The cuff I don't even need.

Super stressed at one point, yer man can have symptoms of high blood pressure. If a doctor continues to take your blood pressure, like a worried grouchy father, you can almost guarantee it won't go be going down...as long as your sitting there spending a hundred fifty dollars just to sit in one of their rooms.

We are told to go in for a six-month checkup. For wellness. Whoever came up with that excuse had popsicles for brains because there's no good reason for it. The only one benefiting from it is the one benefiting from the money I paid them to have them ask me what is wrong. If I am going in for my wellness check, why is there something wrong?

It is a never-stopping merry-go-round, this thing they call "healthcare." We, the people, have to endure an industry that prescribes medicines with side effects that make you sick, that make you dizzy, lower your blood pressure, raise your blood pressure, make your face twitch, give you rashes, and interact with everything else you are on.

And, of course, the pharmacy texts you to demand you get a refill. A refill you may not need. Or want. When did the pharmacist suddenly try to take over my life? This is not good.

Last night, as I went to take a prescription my doctor told me I would need to take the rest of my life, I noticed that there were side effects that read like my morning waking up. Side effects I do not need. Nor does my body. 

I won't be taking that tonight before bed. If the side effect is worse than the condition, I think we have a problem. There are too many of these 'I think we have a problem" issues to continue to be that rat in the maze anymore. I am done with flippant diagnoses. I have passed the point of advocating for my health, I am taking it into my hands.

The best wellness is the one where your life includes a philosophy that is less stressful, a more naturally healthy life, without so many chemicals floating around in your body. My next doctor will be the one who adheres to that philosophy, not the one trying to control people's lives.

Escaping the Executions

in a high-rise apartment, 6500 miles from Tehran, Merat, a Persian man in his late 20s, closed the draperies to darken the room. he glanced at the closed door, and leaned forward...

"I went to army...but I served army just for fifty days."

my other friend, another Persian, motioned him to continue.

"There was regulation in Iran that when you finish high school...or after the university...then you have to serve in army corps two years. I finished. It was the beginning of the revolution.

I was a secretary. One day, the general came to our base and reported to us that the next day is our time to go to the street and shoot the revolutionary people. Those people were making riots, breaking glass. We were supposed to warn them, then separate them so we could shoot them. And I just couldn't do that. I never even shot an animal before.

Some people liked the Shah...and they would kill. Many people committed suicide, they could not shoot the people. I chose to escape.

I bought very fast, expensive car two days before. I drove to the mountains near Tehran, but not too far. I changed my clothes, buried my army clothes.

I cut the fence to escape and the guards saw me and warned me to stop. In the army they only shoot after the third warning. The guards warned me again when I finished cutting through it. I got up and started to run. The guards, they were young and didn't want to shoot anybody.

I ran, and walked, about eight miles. (Unfortunately), I had army haircut, so everybody would know I was a soldier...so I went to a shop and bought a wig. 

I drove home. My father kept me in hiding for two months. Then, one day, I went, with my wig on, to downtown Tehran.

I was walking and I saw a bunch of revolutionaries rioting. My fellow soldiers were there....ninety of them who used to sleep in the same place as I did...and they were shooting the revolutionaries. None of those people had the same faces, all of them were sad, some were crying and shooting.

You could not find a square foot of wall not painted with slogans like Death to the Shah, or Welcome Khomeini. In Tehran, two million people came from the villages into the city because Khomeini promised them everything, 'I will give you free house and free food, and free this and free that.' So, everyone who was hungry came to Tehran. Khomeini promised "In six months, I'm going to make this country like a garden." Many people were Leftists, and they were trying to get rid of the Shah, and with the force of Khomeini, they thought they could. They thought they could get rid of Khomeini too, but he liked the position.

When Khomeini came and the Shah left, everything was mixed up, nobody had records of anything. So, I was able to get a passport and have all my papers work out."

He took some papers out of a drawer. One document had a list from the religious courts banning Mr. Nadir from studying in a school because he was Bahai, not Muslim. The other document contained the names of many executed for their religious beliefs. There were several detailing mass executions, all done on the grounds of "not being a Muslim following Sharia law."

Forty years later, this interview I did as an undergrad, once presented to a writing class, no longer sits neglected in a file labelled "Historical Accounts." For this history has come full circle, as Israel and the United States attempt to cause the removal of that revolutionary regime, the one the Leftists could not control...

my nature preserve

 There are few things more titillating than a biodiverse nature preserve with a rippling creek, stones, and enough flora and fauna to bring on a sense of euphoria. One can find respite in a cozy little corner of the world, where solitude will heal the stress of your modern-age merry-go-round lifestyle. Even if that place is...in very own back yard.

And why not? Why frame a nature preserve, a slice of peace in a world gone mad, in the middle of nowhere...when it can be in your own 60 x 80 lot? Beyond the 40 x 60 with your domicile and detached garage, there's plenty of room left over for carving out a wild kingdom. 

Why mow the lawn when your back yard can be a botanist's wet dream, complete with every strange species of flowering and non-flowering plant available from the most bizarre of your local garden centers? Why wax poetic with just wood betony and feverfew? Add a healthy dose of Amazonia, Patagonia, and the far reaches of the globe with a variety of various banana plants, some frilly ferns, and brilliant flowers sure to enliven your neighborhood. 

Be the hit of your block by acquiring worldwide treasures with varieties of heather and gorse, Scottish thistles, and Japanese holly. And if you have enough room, why not add a Redwood in the middle of the back yard? It will give you and your descendants hundreds of years of enjoyment, and a deep sense of historical significance. 

Be sure to add a fringe of rhododendrons, azaleas, and flowering laurel, creating your own natural boundary lines. These will help prevent your wildlife from becoming invasive species in someone else's yard. Species that will provide hours of rapturous entertainment are your goal, so why not add a family of ferrets, a Scottish Terrier, and a fishpond? After a year of drought, you can turn that mini-pond into a very useful compost area to add your stray limbs, leaves, and rotten cantaloupe...all while enjoying the benefits of a government-sanctioned nature preserve.

So why not act while the time is ripe...while the flowers are blooming...while the birds are still singing...and before your Yard Nazis invade your poor pathetic lawn with their unprofessional and unconstitutional regulations your grandfathers would have fought a war over to repeal? Spring is here, and summer is coming on, and you must gather your flora and fauna now...before it is too late. 

second adolescence

you're crushed, like in high school...

sophomore year sitting in the back of class

shorter than anyone else

you lose your attention span

birds fly by the window to where you would go

you...beyond this room, beyond this interlude.

but your history...a senior in Latin class

the last one they ever had there

sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt

the words echoing in a narrow hallway

like a structure for the weary mind

or a recitation of your phone number

your mother made you repeat it 

until that lingering uneasiness left your soul...

you...who wandered aimlessly through adolescence.

you're crushed, like in a dusty old book

sitting alone in the crisp breeze at a picnic table

more silent than anyone else

more alone in this connected world

the children chattering like squirrels playing

you...waiting for the coming ice cream

a second adolescence has descended

and your mind is wandering aimlessly again.

Turkey and Noodles in an Apple Broth

 

There are few culinary disappointments like a turkey and noodle dinner that is about as tasteless as a cardboard box. The trick to making a turkey breast taste wonderful is what you cook it in and what you marry it to. In this case we are going to marry the turkey and noodles with a sweet future, one that will bring you memories even after the meal- the ceremony- is a distant dream. To do that, you will need specific ingredients:

1/2 pound of Inn Maid Noodles (egg noodles, preferably German or eastern European style)

54 ounces of Turkey Broth (2 cans of Walnut Creek Foods Turkey or Chicken Broth)

1 pound of turkey breast (1/4 pound meat per person)

2-3 cups of Simply Apple Juice (an Apple cider is even better). Just make sure it is not a processed, light apple juice which won't do for this

1/4 pound Kerrygold Butter

4 cloves of garlic

Ground peppercorns

Tarragon (1 tablespoon dried, 2 sprigs fresh)

Thyme and Rosemary to taste

Large saucepan, large pot to boil noodles and cook finished meal, large cooking fork to use with the turkey, large spoon for cooking noodles and finished product, serrated knife for cutting turkey breast, butter knife

This recipe serves four people 

In a large saucepan, place the turkey breast, apple juice or cider, ground peppercorns and tarragon. Place a lid on the pan and cook at a low-to-medium heat. Test it to see if it is done by taking a serrated knife and large fork and cutting through the meat to make sure nothing is pink. When the turkey breast appears cooked, set it aside. 

At the same time, or later if you have just one source of flame to cook over, in a large pot heat up your 54 ounces turkey or chicken broth until lightly boiling. Then, add the noodles and the "broth" (formed from the apple juice/cider and turkey cooking) in the saucepan. Cover and cook. Since all flames vary as far as how fast they cook an item, check occasionally. Add the rosemary and cut up cloves of garlic when it looks like the noodles are almost ready. The best thing to do, is to check the taste or appearance of the noodles. If they taste done, turn off the heat. Keep the lid on the pan and let the flavors steep for about 5-10 minutes. 

When the noodles have finished cooking, add thyme to taste if desired. I like to use thyme if it is fresh from my garden. Add the butter or add it in in individual bowls. Serve hot and fresh!

 

When life is kind of clunky

 I've a friend who just broke her elbow. She's getting on in years- into the Silver category. Not aged enough for "Gold," which usually involves a leakage issue, but leakage depends on several things.

Aging leads to a life of being clunky. Gravity seems to be taking more interest in our limbs, often taking pot-shots from our formerly favorite pieces of furniture...

Take the hall tree, for example. They're deadly. Now some of you won't even know what I am talking about, but your hall tree is a wooden or metal instrument standing in your way, or about to fall over and pin you to the floor. I would know, they fall more regularly than vending machines...

....and we know just how deadly they are. Between 2008 and 2021, statistics indicate that 36,600 people went to the emergency room because of an accident related to a vending machine, most from a machine falling over on them. (National Electronic Injury Surveillance System statistics)

But back to the dreaded hall tree. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, 20-30 people die every year from falling furniture. And those are just the most unfortunate. Over 20,000 people are injured, on average, every year in an incident related to furniture. I was one of them back in February, when an industrial-age metal lampstand took my foot (and job) out of commission for weeks. 

While I have searched for answers explaining why my older friends experience an increasingly sense of gravity's revenge, there seems to be no one in the medical profession who can make a positive correlation between a sense of increasing gravity and aging. 

Frankly, I think we are just not there in science, nor medicine. We have no 21st century Newton, expanding our knowledge on the basics of living on a spinning blue planet. An 80's wall philosopher, feeling some angst, postulated it this way...."There is no gravity. The earth sucks."

  

 

Silent Censorship

 Someone working at X tried to label this blog as "spam." 

Have I tried to sell swamp land in Florida to my readers from Singapore, China, and Indonesia? Or, is it someone who thinks free speech is a dangerous thing?

Maybe Elon needs to go back to X to straighten things out and let "Big Balls" and the rest of the crew at DOGE keep up the good work.

makes you wonder....how dangerous is free speech?

The taste of grace

It is a dangerous place to be if we think we are better than everyone else, if we think we have arrived at some spiritual point that we will never slip up, or if we think we belong to Jesus' own denomination and the others are incorrect. Such arrogance will lead those of such thinking straight into Hell. 

While the Bible does call the elect "saints," those who are sanctified through Christ, we have little to do with our being viewed that way. It is our submission to God, through repentance, that puts us into a state where we can be viewed as being "saints." It is The Christ who is the sole one who has made us appear saints in His eyes. You or I cannot work our way into a state of sainthood, of holiness, no matter how hard we try. Who can lead a godly life? Who can be above sin through the length of their lives? Can a monk, who shuts his mouth through a day and night, but may covet a piece of bread, thereby sinning? Or a nun, who denies the flesh, denies her emotions, and lives as if she is following a rote-by-numbers life? Without a close relationship- as the created with the creator, no nun can achieve a Christ-like state of bliss.

There was a time long ago when I read everything I could find written by a peculiar Catholic monk who seemed to have his head on straighter than anyone I had ever known. I was a bookish lad, surrounded by my grandparents' eclectic library, and had been exposed to the Latin Mass, contemporary mass, and several protestant interpretations of Christianity. I poured over Seeds of Contemplation, and "the contemplative life." I plowed through books written for a much more experienced audience, in an effort to find answers to the questions my mind asked late at night. 

But even as I gained answers, more questions came until I found solace in that mystery of mysteries, the actual Bible. No longer content to pursue the way of the monks (including persuading my mother to regularly purchase Monk's Bread that came from a monastery in Vermont), I found the Bible more Irish, in that some of it, you just settled on confirming that what you did not know would be a mystery until you passed beyond the veil to the real alternative to Tir Na N'Og, to eternal life. I learned to accept what might be vaguely Catholic in my answers, as if the deep questions were sometimes too much of "an ecumenical matter."

But coloration...whether denominational, cultural, or existential, faded as I read and studied the actual Bible and gave up concentrating on a particular shade of worldview. There was, within the actual text, a distinct worldview, not quite matching anyone's denominational take, nor a philosophy championed by a particular scholar. The text was the foundation, woven more intricately than a Solzhenitsyn novel, or moody like a Chekhov story, it had such emotion contained in deep, engrossing sentences and paragraphs. 

A student's lifelong search might be to understand the full meaning of "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It is, in my humble opinion, so deep, I have spent decades searching the depth of that well, while still finding more meaning beyond what I knew previously. And that is one sliver of the sweet cake contained in the New Testament alone. 

It is with a heart knowing I am only one of billions created, whom God has still chosen to love and forgive, that is humbling. How can one be full of pride realizing that truth? Grace, undeserved mercy, is humbling when you know you have not lived up to holiness. 

There is only one holy Creator, and everywhere I look, I see His artwork. In the faces He has created. In the eyes and smiles of strangers. In the world around. And while some is certainly a mystery, I know the taste of grace. It is unmistakable. It is what brings me to my knees. It is what blows away every haughty thought, every haughty answer. It is at the core of a life I hope will please my maker forever. I have not yet passed to a glorified state, that place where we will know eternity and the One we will call Father. But one day...we will know, as we are already known...