Returning to your first love

 i became a Christian many years ago. i've been to countless meetings, services, conferences, seminars...and attended seminary. meanwhile, i studied my Bible and determined that there was- in reality- a wide gap between how the New Testament described the body of believers on Earth and the way the "faithful" gathered and did business in America. That fact became the proverbial elephant in the room, even when I found myself in the pulpit, invited, on Sunday morning.

 the greatest group of believers i met with in my Christian "juvenile" or formative years was when i was an undergraduate. they met on Friday nights, at the beginning of the real Sabbath, and "did church" more like what i read in the New Testament. While there were elders, who, like those in the Bible were actually those who had more experience as a Christian, the gatherings never felt or reflected a modern American church service. Worship was central, fellowship essential, the Word and presence of God always there, and all the members of the body participated. 

 There was no need for elaborate miracles to create shock and awe. There was no need for someone running around the perimeter of the building. in fact, the group rented the space in the building they used and never owned a building. the community was active, interactive, and met freely wherever and whenever to fellowship, study the Word, and meet the needs of the community while we also met corporately.

 After I graduated, I searched for a fellowship of believers who met like the early church, or at least like my undergraduate fellowship. No one  came close. Not one group. Too many resembled the antithesis of what the Word preached. Too many, especially those who called themselves "Protestant," were steered by a mini-pope who made all important decisions, just like a priest. There was no community, no gathering apart from Sunday and/or Wednesday or Thursday. There were an extreme amount of assumptions in such organizations, with little to no Biblical basis for those assumptions. Many of these traditions were rooted in some other organization's operating procedures. The faithful were, therefore, clueless why we sang "Don't forget your family prayer" every Sunday night at the end of the service, or greeted one another with strange, archaic words following the service. 

Meanwhile, I prayed to God alone or with family, sought the Lord outside the building, and certainly worshipped the Lord outside the box. The box was suffocating, draining, and even depressing. Money went for an elevator, new roof, and expansions, while countless congregants had to go on welfare and died poor...because the church was about the building, not the body, not the Lord.  

Because the church did not reflect the Eklessia, the community of believers as described in the New Testament, I stepped out and followed the leading of God, which sometimes meant going to specific places He wanted me to go to...including those who needed a pastor that Sunday morning. I cannot count the times God did this. So, it did not surprise me when God did miracles, like saving a soul, or bringing in a drunk from off the streets. Instead of living in a building on Sundays and Thursdays, I was ready to move anywhere anytime at the Lord's leading. 

By that time, I was writing more, had finished three plays, with performances of all three, and was enjoying success. But God had other plans for me, even though I did not really want to move. Still, I knew it was God's will, even if it was certainly not mine nor my employer's will. When you have been a follower of the Lord for years, His leading is unmistakable.

So, I moved. In the first few months I hunted for a dynamic church where I could settle in and just enjoy the worship, sit back and relax.

I was minding my own business....but was on youtube one night...when I saw a bald-headed Danish man teaching about the history of the Church. Of course, having been in seminary, and having studied extensively the early church and early manuscripts, what He spoke was all I had been saying for years. It was all scripture, but in context in time and place. 

The megachurch was the antithesis of this. It resembled a KISS concert with scented fog, an elaborate costly light show, and extra-biblical worship that often originated from questionable Christian musicians. I put up with it, hoping to meet some fellow Christians even in this venue. 

When the pastor called for help developing a play, I met with the group, explaining who I was and what I could do for them, even as just an advisor. It was there that I learned that some megachurches are simply extensions of the pastor's ego and if you were not already his friend, you might as well leave. Which is exactly what I did during the meeting. 

Meanwhile, I was listening to this interesting Danish brother on the internet, and my heart felt God's tugging to return back to the Word and what it said about the gathering of believers as the early "church" met.

No matter where God has led me, I have looked for the real body of believers. I have met one on one in homes, and I have met with others in a parking lot. I have met others over a meal. In each setting, two or more were together meeting in His name, where He was with us. 

I have returned to living like a disciple, like an integral part of the community of the saints, not as a man wed to a building fund and a heretical way of living. I have returned to living in fellowship with believers committed to loving God first and foremost, in a life that I hope reflects worship every day.

like a bicycle with training wheels...

 Here in the hills, Autumn is rolling in, like a little girl on her bicycle with training wheels. Nothing is overly dramatic, nothing officially disastrous. The leaves don't know which way to go, whether to stay green, turn color, or fade into dust in the gentle air. While the corn is brittle in a blowing wind, the latter seems to have gone on vacation. 

 It is that time of year when it feels right to write in passive tense, as if now we can show more sentimentality, yet tell the story in third person. And while autumn tends to stir reminiscing, it leads into a season full of stories, including the greatest of them all. Such a time culminates in A Christmas Story and It's A Wonderful Life, reminding even the Pagan multitude that Autumn, though a slow-going story, transforms into winter, and ends in a celebration of the climax of all events in history.

 In my life, autumn has brought such clarity during reflection that it usually brings heightened creativity. It was during an autumn that I first wrote the opening lines to my first novel. It was during an autumn that I wrote my first play. It is, as they used to say, a season for inspiration, as all the world around whispers the coming of the dramatic, when winter comes calling at the cabin door... 

A helpful note for "your other history"

 Last night I wrote a slice-of-life fiction piece, your other history, that cannot be appreciated fully without incorporating the sounds contained therein. If you have heard Martucci's first piano concerto, listened to the sound of an old man's labored breathing as he is "out of it in his chair," and are familiar with the sounds of a computer update, the spin cycle on a washer...then you will be able to imagine more clearly the cacophony, the jumbled discordant symphony of life's sounds in a moment in time.

While sound is a powerful mnemonic link, smell is even more so. It is, scientifically, the most memorable scent. So, I threw in the old man's attachment to his "love," the woman he has lost, to add to the mixture of emotions encapsulated in that time frame.

I encourage you to listen to a rendition of G. Martucci's Paino Concert # 1, and at the same time, read "your other history" and feel what i felt when i wrote the piece...the crescendos...while the old man's functions faded...and, like the computer that suddenly goes into sleep mode, the sound dies within the room, and another steps in, and the old man slips into the eternal. 

your other history

He settled in, in the Lazy Boy. The crisp November night dipped into freezing, the windowpanes glistening...while a pattering of piano and strings emanated from a laptop on a nearby table. The pianist's punctuating crescendos like the long, then short, breaths of the old man... Martucci's Piano Concerto # 1...was now a symphony of life as he slipped into sleep.

A fiberglass cane lay on the floor next to an old Plat book, a 2013 road atlas, and a heavy old Dyson... full of fluff. Toothpicks sat in an ashtray near the old Victrola, the cabinet beneath with 78s from the 20's and 30's, their musty record covers deteriorating.

He'd forgotten to take the old Mason jar...the one he used as a drinking glass... back into the kitchen. He remembered how "she" would throw a fit every time he forgot to "put it away," as if this single episode would stop the clocks from running. 

But she was no longer here...while her scent fragranced the air for a few weeks...her clothes grew stale, and he found the longing to touch them dying from within. 

He still heard her in his mind, somewhere close to his ears...but her voice was fading.

Her clothes lay piled like an old forgotten reminder on their bed upstairs... in the bedroom he passed by every morning, content to leave the contents as they were. They were history. A tangible reminder.  Alone.

The Grandfather clock struck 12. A silence filled his ears. A soft silence...

And as the dawn crept in through the cracks in the curtains, the figure stiffened, and the electric meter turned and turned, oblivious to the world of flesh and bone. 

The school bus, like clockwork, passed by at 8:12, followed by the 18 year old girl, who lived next door, and drove her little white car the two blocks to the parking lot every day...like a child reciting a rosary, she lived life without thinking.

In the alley behind, the garbage truck stopped to empty the big blue plastic bin. 

Next door, the neighbor opened the back door, tapping down the steps like a dancer, his heart racing abnormally fast, coffee and chocolate blessing his veins.

Across the street, the newlyweds lingered on the front porch where the new Daddy-to-be said goodbyes two or three times and tried to forget how long he'd be away before climbing into his bright red truck.

The UPS truck, an exquisite brown, stopped in the street, and the driver removed an item from the back end. He shoved it onto the old man's front porch, then left.

As the kids came home from school, the white car returned to the curb out front. Later, the slightly pregnant Mommy met her new husband on their front porch. And the high-strung neighbor, running low on caffeine, slowly climbed his own back steps and hid in his own little house.

But in the house next door, where the lights burned bright, the freezer thawed, and the laptop did an update, a whitened old man, his mouth open like a flounder, left his birthday suit in the lazy boy chair and headed for another history...

The neighbor woman

she, so much older than the hills,

brought us lard-thickened cookies.

like eating stale cardboard,

they didn't go down with milk.

'twas all the same, these pucks of grain

she brought to us when one moved on

when sons were married and someone died

the cakes, the scones, the buns came over.

she cultivated a kindness, that she did

from deep in a generation long forgotten

the kind you knew would keep the kettle on

the kind that fed both kin and stranger.

but when my father passed to Tir Na N'Og

she brought us a ham that passed for barely edible

and I, my father's son, wrote a thank you letter

for delivering us from another table full of clutter.

and one day her own man suddenly slipped away,

and we had to return the kindness, the favors,

so, I concocted a lovely creation in my own loving way

to settle her ever-nervous female constitution.

and after many days she grew silent on her porch swing

though many nights she kept the house in light

that thinning frail waif of a decaying woman

with her nightmare blessings of culinary fright. 

 

Dingle Bay

no longer alone, at the beach edge

caressed by the bluish-white foam

she stirs my heart not my mind

too many emotions too few words

you're all i dream of deep down

as you roll in and roll out

cold kisses in the stiffened wind

another night on Dingle Bay.

Appalachian Night

the bobcat's caterwaulin'

the old dogs whimpering

the children like kittens cuddle

Mamaw tossing and turning,

timber settling in the stove

captured by young, yellow licks

another night in the cabin 

another night in the sticks.

out in cool-stone darkness

beyond the kitchen door

springs trickling through the holler

slipping slowly forward

like the old man that left them

thinking there was something more

bent on leaving lonesome water

bent on leaving feeling poor.

you can run away to the flat lands

where the money flows like grain

and the rent is more than what you make

and that food tastes all the same

you can leave that lonesome water

and mountain folk are out of sight

but you'll never find another place

like an Appalachian night.

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.