There was a time, in a corner of a shingle of Christendom, when more than your fair share of men were "pregnant" with opportunity...bearing weight, pressing against the repressive confines of a fixed, but expanding wall...pregnant with purpose.
They were realizing a fundamentally inadequate position in the fallible human structure of a religious entity...so much so that your man was unable to break free without a supernatural birthing that shattered the pagan structure imposed upon him and those with him who did not fit into the structure assigned to him by an aristocracy out of touch with members, active congregants, and those seeking to do God's will.
It was, frankly, a pathetic period of regression, when whole denominations decayed, when vomit-worthy nominalism forced many from those within the movement. This egress from that denominationalism freed the expectant and birthed a more organic house church movement in the flailing West.
But, I am not fixated on that time, venue, nor the aftermath of that era. I am alluding to the same kind of repressed passion in the sense of a Creative in a complicated, anti-creative tech-friendly social environment that makes that Creative feel like a baby stuck within a womb, more than ready to be birthed onto the stage, into relevancy, and freedom.
Some of us have spotted that glimmer of hope, that foreshadowing that we shall come out of obscurity, pregnant with message and purpose, to speak to the hearts and minds of a generation drowning in mediocracy.
Wherever humanity embraces God-driven creativity, not the warmed leftovers of artificial intelligence, the soul is once again awakened by the written and spoken word, and imagination blooms. Character grows, compassion grows, community grows. When creativity is once again on stage, in action, fervent and connective, we all benefit, we all grow. It borders on a touch of the heavenly because our intellects break free from programmed thought.
Wherever men and women gather to interact with a purveyor of that compassionate Creativity, culture finds a home, and we rise above the downward movement of a society losing touch with the divine and the human.
I call on all those who desire to break free from this anti-creative, pro-machine world, who have a compassionate creativity to share with the world. There is a growing segment of western society longing for the creative word. It is time to return to a place of performance poetry, prose, and remembrance, to enrich society and bring back culture, a component of today's world that will die without a literary and vocal renaissance.
They told him "you can't grow that here" so many times that he purposely planted flowers, trees, and bushes in the ravine behind his house that defied every local landscape artist and every garden center.
Walking along the sidewalk outside the low wrought iron fence around the house lot, Bert planted Banana trees, orchids, and stuff that isn't supposed to grow in Ohio.
One day I was blessed to be able to meet Bert, his wife Susan, and photograph the house and gardens. And while they were inspired by a trip to the Chelsea Flower Show in London in 1990, it sounded like the local attitude toward his plans was what drove Bert to create Mission Oaks Gardens, acquire more land, and establish a Smithsonian Institute recognized American urban garden that has inspired the creation of many community gardens throughout the world.
Japanese Red Pine and Bald Cypress,
2018
Bert Hendley Jr. was a successful financial planner and a Master Gardener. He and his wife were instrumental in the founding of the Muskingum County Park District. Bert passed away in early 2024, and the gardens have shifted more toward the conifer and rhododendron plantation, away from some of the more stunning exotic flowers that once lined the garden trails...
you are caged by codes and regulations
all in the name of Health and Safety
power-mad manipulators ruling by control
ignorance and theft on a daily rampage
stealing your dignity, stealing your identity.
there is no freedom when a bully reigns
when your officials create illegal vendettas
destroying your every choice, your every right,
suppressing creativity, speech, and history
in decisions made in temples of immorality.
who fell for the science when the science wasn't fact?
who fell for the mantra when the mantra was a lie?
who fell for the checks when they printed worthless cash?
while you were sleeping,
it slithered through your grass.
now it lives, with more slithering things
in your yard, in your house, in your garage
while it feeds on fear and tyranny,
the original sin clothed in governing.
but you have not been crafted for peasantry
nor woven in the depths with hostile hands.
She hides in plain sight,
her brown blending
with earth...suddenly not so horizontal.
it is only because I stop to attend to my own nature,
that she appears at all…
which begs the question…
what else did I miss on my journey?
it is a question few ask until that rugged edge of time-
passing into an unplanned quadrant-
suddenly without a spouse, without a plan, without a head of hair.
somewhere between someone’s somewhere, and someone's nowhere.
on a road regularly driven in the center, to avoid wandering off
to fall precipitously hundreds of feet below
an unexplainable statistic
for this unfortunate soul, nature was kind to her
to cover her with creeping vines, soft leaves, and soft moss
where one can genuflect the vacancy marked by a cross.
For thou art more neath round yonder sun
Thou art more than dust and roses
Thou are the reflection of a Creator
Though thy bones rot beneath the sod.
If you woke up this morning, God gave you another day on Earth to do the right thing. You are not promised tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation.
If you are awake now, ready to go to bed, to sleep, remember, you have been given another night. If He wakes you tomorrow morning, will you give Him thanks for every person you meet? Will you share His love with those people you meet?
We were made to love as the creator loves- selflessly. While the enemy of our souls seeks to sow fear and hatred, reject the way of the worldly, and be the person God desires you to be. Love as Christ loves.
As a child, I would sit on the carpeted floor at the county library reading through juvenile books while my father would wander "the stacks," a cramped area where adults had to search through smaller books in a labyrinth of rows. It amazed me that I could, if given the opportunity, read through two or three books, then find others to take home, all while my father found himself lost in the stacks.
So many years later, I still remember the titles or faces of some of those books, with occasional flashes of memory, or a strange name appearing in my mind at the most unusual of times.
If I did not read all the books of Eilis Dillon, it wasn't because I did not want to. If I did not read every Madeline book, it wasn't because I tired of the little French watercolor, it was because someone had checked out the book I wanted.
I have fond memories of that library and the beige carpet. It was in that space that I found so many stories that probably helped contribute to my own storytelling skills at such a young age.
But it was not always that way. I remember the first readers in school. I remember some phonics, some mixture of sight recognition, but no one method of acquiring reading skills.
This was before I found solace on the beige carpet. I'd sit in the circle as we read aloud. "See Flip run. See Jane run. See Flip and Jane run." It was dull. It was stupid. And I was bored out of my mind. I could not understand why we only read three or four pages at a session.
Finally, one day, I took my book home with me. That day I read the rest of the entire reader. I went back to school the next day and wondered aloud why we weren't moving on to other books.
I went through On Cherry Street so fast the teacher was embarrassed. I went to the school library. While there were books in that library, there were few interesting ones, and certainly none with the kind of story that would enthrall a child who had passed all the reading levels "allowed" in his grade.
The education system there was so poor that many of us lost interest in the texts used.
But in the county library, I was free to roam like a buffalo on the plains. I had a home to roam while my father...or mother...was preoccupied looking for that one book. Meanwhile, I was accumulating enough books to need a bag to carry them all home.
If the books in that library helped give me a desire to be a reader, imagine what you can do by taking your child to the library. Let your child search through the level-appropriate books. Encourage them to take several books for the week.
Your son or daughter may not become an author, but they will gain an appreciation for reading, and thereby, an appreciation for learning. And reading is just the beginning of that journey.
The works presented on this site are mine, created by me without any touch of artificial intelligence. All individual works, in the form of posts, are copyrighted by International Copyright Law and are the property of Daithi Fleming. No portion may be used as part of a whole of original creation of another, in any disseminated form, but each passage must adhere to standard copyright laws, citing ownership of the passage quoted, and adhering to international law.
My profile narrative contains one line meant to remind readers of that protection. I am disseminating this information in this form because there are many throughout the world unaware of these international creative protections under the law.
I've spent a significant amount of time interacting with people of all sorts of professions- from truckdrivers to Dollar General cashiers- in the past two weeks. Also, I've been blessed to be part of discussions with thousands who have suffered from a changing economic landscape threatening the economic safety of hundreds of thousands of American citizens. These have been targeted by an increasingly hostile, anti-human agenda, proliferated by a technocentric advancement.
Companies, in this environment, care less about workers and more about technological advancements that squeeze out human labor, and human-dependence, and bypass them with apps and advanced technologies. Instead of a cashier doing her job at the grocery store, I am forced to do her job.
At the same time, those who have benefited from technological advances in their profession or those who have isolated themselves from human interaction, now pay insane fees to be able to sit at home and have a driving servant class bring their meals directly to them. Most of these making money from this relationship are currently humans; however, many companies have been using drones or robotic delivery in other areas to extricate the humane from the economic transaction.
Those replaced by an automation, or a new paradigm (making the customer work for the company they are paying for a service), find themselves in a world few predicted. Standard fields of employment disappear...often shocking quick, with no warning.
Many end up still employed, but so underemployed that they cannot make ends meet. And lately, I have heard from so many of these. I have heard their heartbreaking stories. More than ever before, men and women in their 50's and early 60's, who cannot retire with full social security benefits even though their employers have collapsed or are collapsing under the weight of this technocentric change.
Instead of paying people back for what they put into the social security system- they, and their employers- the government has taken years away from prospective retirees, shortchanging them, and putting restrictions on them while making money off of the taxpayer's own income.
In response, many have sold their homes, land, and resources and gone off to live a simpler life that the rest of the first world would not recognize as "an American lifestyle." There are whole communities of RVs, campers, and tiny homes scattered across the Rockies, the West, and even scattered here and there between the cities in every state. They live that way because they have lost everything to an out-of-control Pharmacological Elite who can and will surgically remove your savings from you while charging you medically incorrect billing from people coding at 2 AM in a little house down the road. (From one of those I personally met and would never trust to handle my hospital bill).
But that is only one aspect of the story. One slice of what is causing a great country to become more divided and more out of control than ever before.
Part 1
Pork Dijon With Wild Leeks
the humusy soil yielding
to my strokes and claws,
the prong harder than steel
yet made of wood
slicing, cutting the roots that bind
the tangled past unearthed
revealing bulbs, purple stems,
the green frond that salutes
the wind whipping the meadow,
cherishing the ramp as I dig.
and yet here i go again
sitting beside the exposed trunk
massive tree engulfed by a lake
watered with a garden hose,
producing mud by the pailful
as the plastic boats
spin out of control.
My hands dig deeper
into the soil of my youth.
what beckons me that I should
bruise the knees of my Wranglers
and drag a sack against the ground?
I am as the baby who delights in wonder
the toddler taking precious steps
the newlywed gathering roses
as I gather the bouquet
of the green, the purple, and the white.
I have been here before
in my secret dreams.
I am playing in the dirt
and I am free.
c 2012, Daithi Fleming
This Saturday, on the day before Orthodox Easter, in the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem, which supposedly has a small entrance to Christ's tomb, Orthodox Christians claim a white fire miraculously appears from inside that opening. An Orthodox patriarch, using an oil lamp in the opening, waits. After a humble prayer, the holy fire appears.
The holy fire is then passed to candles. Eyewitnesses state that for the first 33 minutes, the holy fire does not burn human skin, nor human hair.
On the internet, videos circulate showing the fire causing pain 34 minutes after the miracle appears.
So, what is this and why have so many within the Christian tradition never heard of this?
Within the chronicles of Orthodox history, there are supposed references dating back to the first century. But while that may be enough for a traditional Eastern Orthodox, what can be said from other sources. Are there any?
Throughout documented history, the Greek Orthodox authorities have been involved in the tradition. There have been dates where it did not happen, although rare. There were a thousand years ago. Those dates usually corresponded to a religious tension between Christian groups.
There are plenty of doubters. The patriarch is hiding his hand inside the tomb opening, so could it be manipulated inside the tomb? Could the flame be ignited from planted phosphorous from inside the tomb? And why is it that the Greek Orthodox patriarch is favored?
Whatever the truth, the "holy fire" that allegedly appears has more believers than you might first assume. Among others, there was at one time a tradition among Lutheran churches to have an "eternal flame" hanging somewhere in the sanctuary. I can attest to this as I witnessed this in my childhood. But, I was a child and found the mystery of the "eternal flame" just that, a mystery for others to discuss.
when the mud is so thick
and the world is so cold
look to the Heaven
to that city of Gold,
your reward awaits you
for all those long nights
you prayed for a miracle
for wrongs to become rights,
for all those long seasons
when hope kept you from fear
and you walked in the grey-light
your angels were there near,
for God has been watching,
indeed, God has been true,
so keep your eyes on Heaven
until God sees you through.
In a tech-centric world, the creative arts are tolerated. They are for those who do not fit the maze-like mentality of the Program Nirvana. Their talents lie outside the future of the global circular hive.
Consider the vast millions freed from box-like thinking, from a box-like world. Forty years ago, we peasants of the pen were still struggling with typewriters and word processors that slowed our creative geniuses crafting word-painted works.
Technology freed us from those containers, then stifled us by hiding us in the toy closet. Too many grown-ups gravitated toward that which would not be composed of word-pictures. Unless the screen observant followed code, the creative could not come out to play in the sand box, nor in the arcade. The code enforcers tolerated us, even enjoyed our works, but did not value nor compensate us with a superior value set.
Twenty-six years on from the aftermath of the Y2 embarrassment, the tech elite have not learned from their failures, nor their hubris. When word-painters are relegated to the fringes of "contemporary culture," a systematic decline is inevitable.
The AI Revolution, or "Data Center Revolution," is unraveling. The glaring holes in reliability have been exposed. When Wikipedia, Instagram, and You Tube are elevated as "factual data," rather than what they are, your AI entity becomes less reliable than the factual standards solidified in the age of the dictionary, encyclopedia, and statistical-based standard reliability source. Why do we need "data centers" where deviance is glorified as statistical?
Meanwhile, those seeking to enlighten the populace with stories illuminating the truth of human nature and reality, encouraging the creative, stirring the soul, find too many potential audiences mesmerized by the less human, the less kind and gentle, the less compassionate. As authors, driven by creativity, we need to offer them a positive alternative to the Narcissistic, an alternative to soul-less culture. So, let us throw off every obstacle, and create a compassionate alternative, a spirit-driven soul-filled excellence that artificial intelligence can never create. And in the end, the populace will open their eyes and see the world as realists, not those manipulated by a soul-less revolution seeking the degradation of the human spirit.