Turning and Sometimes Cutting Corners

 We are in mid-July now, and it seems that the summer is flying by fast.  At this time, I am in the process of waiting for sales from my two recent published books to manifest, as today I have just sent the cookbook to press and I have the proof copy of Genesis which I got on Saturday.  The Genesis book all in all turned out OK, but it had some formatting issues which I corrected before I sell the first copy of it.  Both are on the market now in Amazon, and we'll see how things go with them.

Given my current situation, income retention is important.  While I have a nice little fund set aside to keep me taken care of for the next month, I need to make sure I can get some more income soon.  This means I have spent the past few days applying for a lot of positions, and now it's just waiting until one comes in.  Barbara is now without a car too, which doesn't help matters much as it means more Uber expenses for a while, so that needs to be taken into consideration as well.  It's a bit of a tight spot, and that is why the proverbial "cutting corners" comes into focus, as I have to adhere to a strict budget for at least the next couple of weeks.  But, God is faithful, so I am trusting he has this under his control. 

With both Genesis and the cookbook published now, I have taken care of at least two of my long-overdue projects, and I have one more book to put together before that is caught up.  This next publishing project is a book of my old sermons from years ago, which I had published in my blogs and thus they are able to be captured and pasted into a document in preparation for publishing.  There are not many of those - probably at most 20 - and as a publication project it will take less time to put together.  I plan on starting work on that next week so I can have it ready to go to press the following week.  With that, I will have 7 printed books now, of which three are marketed.  The next writing projects will not happen until I get resettled in a new place and have a new position, at which time I will have both the space and resources to acquire the needed source material to make those happen.  I am starting to become somewhat of a pro at publishing now, as this year alone I have three books published.  I plan on two more actual books, and then I want to focus, as I noted last time, on my life story project. 

Journals and a personal blog prove to be good reservoirs for books, as if you are able to be systematic enough and can organize it well, your books end up writing themselves.  Of course, one still has to do the work to write them, but articles can be a building-block to a book.  I am finding that formula has served me well.  And, that is the proverbial "turning a corner" aspect of the discussion - I am going from an informal journalist to a published author with books on the market now.  That means now that I want to give a master class in writing a book at this point.

I was fortunate to have a number of good teachers over the years who encouraged me to write.  I think back to Guy Dispanet Jr., for instance, who was my sixth-grade teacher at Grassy Lick School in Kirby, WV, back in the day.   Mr. Dispanet was strict, but he also invested in students he really believed in too, and I went essentially from failing fifth grade with him to ending up being the editor of the class paper in sixth grade.  I owe much to Mr. Dispanet for that. 

Another teacher I have written about in the past was a substitute teacher I had when I was in middle school by the name of Thomas Engleman.  Mr. Engleman was a tall but empathetic guy who was of part American Indian heritage, and he sported a long ponytail to proudly express that heritage.  He really invested much into me as well - thanks to him, I was able to eventually take saxophone lessons for one thing - and he too was a great mentor over the years.  Although he passed away about 10 years ago, I was able to talk to him one last time back in 1996 I believe and he told me he was proud of what I had accomplished - that meant more than anything.  Although he is now passed to his eternal reward, I still hold a fond place in my heart for Mr. Engleman, as he was truly a teacher that took his calling seriously.

In high school I had two good English teachers, mother and daughter.  The mother was the late Ms. Vivian McConnell, who was my 12th-grade English teacher (I told her story in an earlier post from a few years back).  Her daughter, Mrs. Dawn Milne, was a teacher I had for three different classes during my junior and senior years - she was my 11th-grade English teacher, and then I had her again for Journalism and Humanities in 12 grade.  Both of these ladies were phenomenal as educators, and they knew how to inspire their students.  When I published my books last week, Mrs. Milne was my biggest cheering section, vowing to buy one of the books once they hit the market.  As can be noticed, I still keep in touch with her via social media, and although she is now retired, she still is an amazing human being and I will always consider her one of my best teachers.  All of these and others were the ones who encouraged me to write more, and I am deeply indebted to them. 

The role of a good educator is as a sort of provider of the toolbox you need to create your own work - they give you the structure, and they show you the way to communicate yourself in such a manner that it is effective to an audience.  All of the above teachers I had were excellent at doing that, and I still utilize a lot of tactical and practical things they taught me even today. As an educator myself, I also wanted to pass that along to my students, and at times it can seem mundane, tedious, and a source of hubris for them - I still recall my students groaning at weekly assignments and could almost hear them sighing "Oh Lord, not another reflection paper!"  Honestly, part of my personal pedagogy is making my kids write, and I made them write a lot!  The idea was not for them to parrot back material to me, but to actually challenge them to read it, reflect upon it, and then express it in writing - that involves an oft-neglected skill these days called critical thinking.  As much as they hated the reflection assignments, many of them also ended up creating some quality work.  A rule of thumb for teachers is that you never grade students on opinions - they are human beings entitled to think for themselves, so we are not to force them to think certain ways - but on comprehension.  As a teacher, you may read assignments from your students you vehemently disagree with, but if they can articulate those opinions in an effective way, you have done your job as a teacher with them.  This therefore not only entails grammar, but the classical disciplines of logic and rhetoric as well.  Some of that was instilled in me from an early age by my own teachers, but I also picked up a lot along the way myself.  That leads to a couple of other aspects to the lesson I want to share. 

The idea of effective writing is to write honestly.  Even if your forte is fiction, at the base of that is a strong desire to communicate honest convictions in the plot and characters of the writing.  This is where keeping a personal journal comes in.  I have mentioned that I have kept a regular personal journal for 30 years as of this year, and the only regret I had was that I didn't start it sooner.  In the past few years, I have written in it less frequently, but I still keep one.  The thing about a personal journal is that you can write in it without pretensions - it is just you, the blank page, and God - and therefore you can be as detailed and open as you like.  Like many people who have kept personal journals over the years though, you always have that nagging thought in the back of your mind that some day, someone is going to read it.  This is true, but by the time they do you will probably be long gone anyway, so who cares?  I have a personal covenant with anyone who will oversee my estate to NOT disclose my journals unless it is to a physical descendant, and even then, they should have some sort of clause that limits what they can share.  Being honest is a journal is integral to being a good journalist, and therefore that is your starting point.

Second, it is important to be detailed.  Recall and write down as much as possible, especially while it is still fresh on your mind.  Over generations, a lot of good ideas have been lost because people failed to write the inspiration for them down, and that is tragic.  Note dates, times, and other minute details vividly, as they could prove valuable later.  A good detailed account of anything will capture your reader's attention. 

Third, and perhaps the most important, is a detail we often try to ignore.  Basically, it means that your first draft - or an informal journal entry - doesn't have to be perfect as long as honesty and detail are present.  If you decide to take the thought and expand upon it later, you can refine it then.  Those informal and imperfect ramblings are providing a skeleton to your body when you put the whole thing together eventually, and that is what you are wanting - something to work from.  Many of my blogs, articles, and books started just like that, as a rough skeleton I refined later into a finished product.  Imperfection is not bad in other words, but is something that lays a foundation. 

There is an important final point that ties into all this, and it is simple - be yourself!  There are too many people trying to write things that ape what someone else did, and try to hijack the styles of other writers.  Frankly, that is not necessary at all.   Avoid trying to sound like Shakespeare or Hemingway, and also don't clog your writing with buzzwords and cliche phraseology - it makes you sound artificial.  Let me relate something to this now. 

When I was teaching at my last school, our administration went sort of goo-ga over a book called Spark Brilliance.  For anyone familiar with this thing, it is a program that is like a lot of those boring, repetitive corporate fads companies like to implement, and after spending thousands of dollars on that garbage, in time the books end up collecting dust on a shelf in the basement because they fail.  Corporate self-help and motivational programs are some of the worst wastes of time anyone could invest in, and the authors of that garbage think they are cutting-edge and revolutionary, only to find out later they are just like any other similar program.  These types of programs are also rooted in a very non-Christian system called New Thought too, and essentially they are meant to artificially inflate self-esteem so you will be a more productive means to a corporate end.  This means that ultimately they are depersonalizing, kitschy, and stupid, not to mention maybe even heretical if you are coming from a Christian worldview.  Yet, as our administration tried to build an ideological cult around this junk, the majority of us who were teachers, as well as many of the students, hated it - my good friend Steve, who taught Spanish at the time, even quipped about how much he could potentially get for that dumb book at a thrift store if he sold it (I jokingly told him he may get a quarter from it, and we both had a good laugh from that).  Programs like this are full of pretentious jargon, and they also attempt to deny a person as a creative individual by promoting teachers in particular as corporate drones.   I decided to actually keep my book of this, as there are things I can look at later and attack, and there are a couple of observations about junk like this I wanted to bring to light.  First, any program like Spark Brilliance may have some good things in it, but they are more than likely obscured by all the pretentious jargon in the book itself.  Second, even the good things in a book like that are either one of two ideas.  First, they are probably just common-sense measures that you don't need a whole program to learn.  Secondly, they are more than likely things that were hijacked by the authors from similar failed programs, as if the author thinks they can improve upon a failed model.  If you are doing your own personal writing, please avoid junk like this if you come across it, and only use it in the sense of a cautionary tale if at all. 

Anyway, that is the writing lesson (I had to redo the end of it, because Baltimoronism is at work in the local Xfinity network that we access internet from - they screw up everything) and these are the takeaways:

1. Be honest

2. Be detailed

3. Don't strive for perfection in a first draft, but rather a framework to work with.

4. Avoid pretentious jargon and buzzwords.

If you do that, you should be successful in your writing.  Thanks again until next time. 

Random Thoughts

 It has been almost a week since my last visit, and there is a lot going on that perhaps deserves discussion.  I have no real structure to this conversation today, so I will just let it flow.  

To start off, I think mentioning my publishing efforts would be in order.  A few days ago, I sent the Genesis study off to printing through Amazon Kindle, a service I haven't used before.  Whereas in the past Lulu has been my source of self-publishing, I thought I would try something different this time, and it seems to be progressing.  The Genesis study, if you will recall, is based on a series I taught at an adult Sunday School class at St. Mary's Anglican Church in Florida some years back.  It comprises about 38 lessons, and to publish it was a challenge indeed!   Since the book basically wrote itself, all I had to do was essentially copy the lessons from my blog, edit and format them, and then add question sections at the end of each lesson.  Copying and pasting sounds easy, but when you are working with a touch-screen laptop that doesn't have proper mouse function, it can be challenging in all honesty.  After cussing out the computer several times while trying to capture and paste these items, I did finally achieve the objective, but as an act of self-inflicted punishment, I also wanted to start work on my other "bucket list" item, which is my own cookbook of original recipes.  So, this week I am doing that, and oh what fun!  I have a while to go with that yet, as I just have the first couple of chapters captured, and there are at least 7 more to go yet.  I will explain that process now.

The cookbook is a bit different in that it is divided into sections - beef, pork, chicken, etc.  What this entails is going through my food blog, capturing the recipes for each type of dish, and then pasting them into the proper chapter sections.  As of today - Thursday - I have just the beef and pork sections finished, and will be working on poultry, game, and probably seafood tomorrow.  After capturing, formatting, and editing all of that, I then want to add a couple of other new recipes I haven't ever published, especially my mustard paste I do for beef and lamb, as well as the Armenian chaiman recipe I have too.  The book itself will be relatively smaller - I am anticipating a max of about 100 pages - but it will be my cookbook, printed and possibly published as well.  Cooking, and especially creating recipes that cater to my particular culinary quirks, has been an interest of mine from an early age, so it is good to put this into a printed book finally.  If all goes well, I should have it ready to go to press next week at around this time, and we'll see how that works.

A third publishing venture I want to complete during the summer is a book of my old sermons too.  Back in my early 20s, I used to preach in a lot of churches, and I have all those hard-copy sermons still and have placed them in my blog also.  I think a small booklet of those would be a good thing too, so I plan on doing that.  Again, like Genesis and the cookbook, this one kind of wrote itself, and just needs to be organized into a printed format that is bound and publishable.  By the end of July, I should have that one completed as well and ready to send to press.  

These three book ventures - Genesis, the cookbook, and my sermons - have been in my bucket list to do for a long time, and now that time allows me to work on them I am going to get them done now.  I have about one or two other writing projects I want to do, one being a big band music book and the other being a book of my reflections and research in regard to my involvement over the years with Middle Eastern Christian communities, the role of the Jewish people in the course of history, and some apocalyptic ideas I wanted to explore further.  These two books will have to be started from scratch, as I don't have all the material I need to work on them yet, and therefore I will save them for when I get moved and settled into a better place where I can plan somewhat more cohesively.  Had I not lost my original library in Hagerstown, I would have had most of this stuff now to work on, but things happen unfortunately.  So, once I get those done, what is next?  Let me get into that now.

The ultimate writing endeavor I want to undertake is my own life story.  I have been writing stuff down in regard to that for the better of 30 years now, and I also have extensive journals I have kept as well as other things to provide source material.  I also have amassed a small library of other supplemental material - family histories on the various surnames in my background, local histories, etc. - that will be invaluable for providing background and context to the overall story.  That one will take a lot of time to transcribe about 5 volumes of the skeletal framework of my story, as well as inserting new information, formatting (I am using a Turabian format on that work), and turning it into what will probably be a multi-volume set - I am anticipating two to three books out of that one.  I will now detail the plan I have in mind.

The first part of that project will be a sort of family background - I have an extensive family tree I can now trace back about 1800 years, and I want to provide a summary of all that.  However, I don't want it to be just a collection of pedigree charts and stats - which I will have too - but also I want to interject family stories and other colorful information.   The second part of the project is my personal story, and it will begin from my birth until I am 60, or at least that is the plan.  I am choosing 60 as a cutoff point for a lot of my writing as by that point I am anticipating being in the place I should be in, and thus I can settle and consolidate information to make things happen.  The plan is to have all that completed by the time I am 65.  Once all that is finished, I plan on archiving all my personal papers with someone I can trust, and then making at least 3 copies of all my work - one is mine, one is to be donated to my hometown library in Parsons, and the third I will designate for my heir, whoever that will be.   I am also hoping to at some point find a way to have all my personal papers digitized as well, so that they can be better preserved - that will be a monumental task in itself, so I am enlisting some help for that as I have several binders and bins of material I would like to preserve on a drive of some sort.  This means that for anyone who comes after me who wants to research family or local history, they will have a rich reservoir to draw from.  It took a lot of hard work for me to do all this, so I want to make it easier for the next generation to find what they need too. 

There is a certain morbidity in talking about these types of things, and often if I start to get too far ahead of myself, I start to give myself a headache and need to regroup.  However, I feel I am at a place in my life now where I need to start thinking about these things, and thankfully I have been laying groundwork for decades.  Much of my research and other things has gone back 40 years or more, and if I had one regret, it was that I didn't start sooner.  I have kept calendar records since my high school days, and I have been journaling since I was probably around 26 years old now.   Additionally, I have kept every school record, tax record, medical record, and other things for years, and have volumes of those saved and organized as well.  Even with the chaos that happened in October 2024 when I almost lost everything, I made it a priority to get my personal papers packed and preserved first, so they have been with me this whole time.  Not having a permanent home of my own has complicated things somewhat, but thankfully it's not impossible to take things where I need them to go.  But, I think with putting things on a flash drive so they are easier to carry may be a good thing in the long run too, and then stash the original copies in a place where no one can bother them until I need them.  I started that process already with my music collection, and so far I have almost every recording I used to own preserved on flash drives in a small case that I can fit into my hand.  I still have a smaller collection of both CDs and LP records, but the bigger part of my collection is very much preserved now.   However, I will need some help in the future to really put all these plans into motion, and that will be an ongoing exploration. 

I have been looking at things like imemories.com to see what they do, and while they will restore pictures, VHS, and DVDs,  I don't technically see anything about digitizing documents or anything.  So, I will be exploring that further later.  Digitizing the bins and bins of personal papers, photos, and media I have will be a long-term challenge that I will want to possibly contract help for, and I also want to make sure I have the funds to make it happen as that could be a project costing thousands of dollars. I think for a start it would be good to maybe take a lot of the old VHS and DVDs I have, get them digitized first on a drive, and then add them to my personal archive for later.  After I get moved and resettled, I will start researching that some more as well.

I have a lot of mixed feelings as I write this - I am intimidated at the bigger picture when I see it, I also am being made aware of my own mortality as well, and I also garner a bit of peace knowing my hard work can be preserved and useful to someone.  I am not sure overall what is going to happen, and I also cannot predict my own time when I pass into my eternal reward, but I want to prepare as much as I can for all of that. I am 56 years old after all, and for the most part I have only had two grandparents that made it past the age of 80.  While in many ways I care for myself better than my forebears did, I also am uncertain of what will happen in the immediate future - which is why I now want to offer some closing advice to younger people who may read this.

I cannot emphasize enough how integral it is to preserve everything - you may be called a packrat or  a hoarder for doing so, but it is an important responsibility that should not be entered into lightly.   Also, start doing this as young as possible - if you are still a child yet, it is not too late to start keeping personal journals and also a pocket calendar of some sort to write day-to-day things down on.  And, also save all of your school projects - any papers or other projects you create, save them.  Also, save things like tax records, employment documents, medical records, educational records, and other things - they come in handy on a practical day-to-day basis as well as preserving for posterity.   Once you start that process, think also of permanency - you don't want to lose any of that stuff, so find a place that is secure and guarantees you won't lose it due to circumstance.  Also, write a life story for yourself - the way I do this is to do a reflection of several pages at the end of a year in a notebook, so that you have those things fresh in your memory and can document them.  Finally, take advantage of modern technology, as it can be your most valuable asset.  If you can preserve things electronically, do it.  Paper tends to deteriorate over time, and if you scan things and save them electronically, it extends their life.   It may mean a shoebox full of flash drives in time, but that's OK - you will have an entire library that fits into one hand at your complete disposal, and it will be something you can hold onto even in the worst of circumstances.  Taking measures like this will ensure your legacy is preserved, even if something happens in the future that may threaten to destroy it.  

Thank you for allowing me to share today, and I will see you next visit. 

Independence Day

 As I am writing this, it is the 4th of July, and not just any 4th - this marks 250 years (a quarter of a millennium) that the United States has existed as a nation.  I still remember the bicentennial back in 1976 - I was 6 years old then, and on the verge of starting my 1st-grade school year then.  Hard to believe it has been 50 years since all that!  Of course, the 4th is all about celebrating what it means to be American, and there are indeed things we can be thankful for.  However, in the past few decades, I haven't felt as patriotic as I used to - not that I hate my country or anything, but I don't like the direction it seems to be taking.  Unlike 1976, when a lot more patriotism was evident, 2026 is a time when our nation has deep divisions, and to be honest, I don't think at the rate we are going that we may last another 50 years.  That sounds morbid, I know, but the USA is not ancient China or imperial Rome - we are relative new kids on the block compared with many ancient civilizations.  We are not the nation we were in 1776, or even 1976 - this is a different world.  For better or worse, that is the fact.  

Added to this is the fact that it was about 102 degrees out today, so it was too hot to move so we spent most of the day inside watching TV.  We did, however, have a decent dinner - luckily there was a good barbecue place called Libby's here in town that serves a decent brisket (I still like Mission BBQ's and Sonny's better, but it was not bad).  Besides Independence Day, there are things to discuss as well about what is going on in life, so let me get into that a bit.  

I am finally in the last stages of finishing up my Genesis text, and it will be out for printing this week coming as all I need to do is italicize some Greek and Hebrew terms and then assemble the bibliography and get the proper page numbers for the table of contents.  Once I do that, I can upload it and get it published.  My next project after this is the cookbook I want to publish, and by month's end it should be ready as well.  In the meantime also, I have some work to look for, and I also have a few other projects to work on too.  

Due to a summer storm outside, I am going to be short with today's thoughts, but I will be back again in the near future,   See you next visit! 

Technical Issues and Other Observations

 As I am typing this now, I am on my old computer rather than the school-issued one I just paid a hundred bucks for but isn't working correctly.  I have been having a lot of technical issues with both of these damned machines the past couple of days, and to be honest, I have spent a lot of time cussing out the Chinese, Bill Gates, the city of Baltimore, my useless landlord, and my former employer for all being issues in my dilemma.  Part of what I have had to do is set up my thermal printer yet again to get it to work right, and in the past 48 hours I am starting to think that "going off the grid" is not a bad idea.  Technology is a mixed blessing - it is integral to life now, but it is also the biggest pain in the butt to deal with too.  If that was not enough, the toilet in our bathroom here at the house also has backed up again, which meant snaking it out, plunging it, etc. - that is becoming a ritual every two weeks now.  That is the consequence of having a cheap landlord with a sketchy history who wants to play handyman to cut corners, and then blame his tenants.  It has made me about reach my limits in all honesty.

Despite all of these stupid technology issues, all is not bad though.  I have been working on my Genesis study, which is almost done once I add the question sections to it and also finalize the table of contents and the bibliography.  I have about 21 more chapters to add questions to, and should complete that by the end of this week provided there are no more technology glitches involved.  Fortunately, I have that saved on a flash drive, so it is preserved regardless, but it has still been painful.  It is one of two books I want to complete this year, and once they are done and in bound printed volumes, then I can sit back and relax a tic until I start a new project.  The good news about Genesis and the cookbook is that the bulk of the work has been completed, and all I have to do is mainly formatting.  However, formatting is not as easy as it looks, especially when technology is not cooperating well.  I know, I know - I perhaps should be less flustered and more grateful, and truly I am the latter, but it still is a challenge trying to get things done.  Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let me get to a few thoughts for this week.

The first thought I have has to do with a research project I may have for a future article here.  As you know, Pentecostal/Charismatic history has been an interest of mine for well over 30 years now, and when people delve into that, one tends to look at predecessor movements that foreshadowed a given movement.  In the case of Pentecostalism, it was primarily the Catholic Apostolic Church (also called "Irvingite") movement of the 1830s that is seen as its most notable precedent, but charismatic phenomena have been a part of Christian history since the earliest days.  Yesterday, my replacement copy of an important book arrived that shed some light on some of this, and the book was Sergey A. Ivanov's Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (New York: Oxford, 2006).  This important book was published originally in Russia in 1994, and then translated into English by Simon Franklin later before its release.  I had a copy of this before in Hagerstown but lost it with so much else, but thankfully I was able to obtain another for a fairly decent price last week on Ebay.  The book deals specifically with a certain group of Eastern and Western saints called in Slavonic Yurodivi, or "fools for Christ," and the thing that sets these individuals apart was eccentric - and by normal standards, downright psychotic - behaviors that are seen as gifts rather than illnesses.  Many of them did some odd things, including walking around naked in the winter, sleeping on heaps of dung, and throwing rocks at people they understood as corrupt.  Yet, they also were holy people who lived exemplary lives, and thus why they are saints.  Many of these individuals also were possessed with spiritual gifts of some sort that could be comparable to Pentecostal phenomena, and that includes speaking in tongues.  Indeed, Ivanov records such an instance of this in the book that I will get into at some point, and what is interesting about it is that it is not the typical glossolalic utterances one associates with Pentecostalism - rather, it was in a language unknown to the speaker but understood by the listeners as their native tongue.  Oddly, this was the way this particular gift and manifestation was originally understood by the early Pentecostals too, and at least one legacy Pentecostal denomination - the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, OR - still understands tongues in this way, as did a number of Wesleyan/Holiness antecedents to Pentecostalism. It is also of note that at least one noted Assemblies of God author, Ralph W. Harris, actually wrote a whole book on this specific manifestation of speaking in tongues back in 1973 entitled Spoken By the Spirit, and it is a catalog of various events where languages unknown to the speaker were evidenced by native speakers of those same languages - it also emphasizes that tongues may have an evangelical dimension as well.  The valuable insight Harris has was surprisingly affordable at the time of its original publication  - it sold for $1.25 then.  I was able to print it for a lot less - free! - thanks to availability at the Flower Pentecostal Research Center in Springfield, MO, where my good friend Dr. Darren Rogers is a curator. I shared this information to just make a couple of clarifying observations about my own position now on all this.

If I were to be classified, it would be as "post-Pentecostal" because I am a former Pentecostal who became Catholic almost 30 years ago, and in all honesty I have not attended a Pentecostal or Charismatic congregation regularly since 1995, although I have been to a few revivals and conferences here and there.  I say "post-Pentecostal" because I do still believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I even practice some of them myself, but I am not by any stretch a Pentecostal anymore, viewing myself instead as a fairly conservative and somewhat traditional Catholic who just happens to take the supernatural seriously.  And, to be honest, there is no conflict with my acquired Catholic identity either, as in Catholic history there are instances of saints who could do some supernatural things which could be identified as "Pentecostal" to some degree.  I am also very influenced by the 1830s CAC movement as well, and have adopted a lot of what I saw in researching it into my own faith where it doesn't conflict with Magisterial teaching.  Given also my background in Convergence as well, I believe there is a way to incorporate revivalism and a more spontaneous aspect of Christianity with traditional Catholic practice, and a big part of what I have been doing in recent years is to try to formulate a model to make that reality - Catholics actually do have a type of revival meeting during the year called a "parish mission," and there is potential with that as some people involved in Catholic Charismatic Renewal may have been a catalyst for those being a regular aspect of parish life too.  And, this is where the more long-term idea is coming in - I want to eventually be able to formulate something that can be a model for both Charismatic and traditional Catholic practice without compromising either (especially the latter), and I feel it is possible, and even integral, to the health of the Church.  There are problems to sort out though which require more in-depth examination, and I wanted to deal with a couple I see now.

One of the problems is worship.  I am of the opinion that reverent, traditional liturgical worship and practice is more than sufficient for one's religious practice, so there are not any "improvements" necessary there.  Also, the trajectory of many Pentecostal/Charismatic churches in recent years has been almost chaotic, with dark sanctuaries, loud rock music in the name of "worship," and also some weird and sometimes unbiblical theology associated with the more hypercharismatic wings of those movements  - things such as esoteric New Thought-influenced "word of faith" stuff as well as the potentially abusive aspects of the modern "Apostolic Reformation" movement which itself is a variation of the controversial Discipleship/Shepherding Movement (and its Fundamentalist counterparts like Bill Gothard).  For more on that from a nuanced yet sound perspective, I would recommend apologist Melissa Dougherty's book Happy Lies, as well as her extensive and very informative YouTube videos, as this girl has really done her homework and I would highly recommend her work.  Those concerns, as well as my own survival of an abusive Foursquare church years ago, are why I think how I do, as I want to preserve the potentially good and Biblical in a movement but also know how to discard unhealthy garbage that has attached itself to Pentecostalism, particularly in the past 30 or so years.  And that leads to my second observation.

Recent issues in the Roman Catholic Church have also gotten me thinking too - I have seen some disturbing social trends, including the recent controversy with Leo and the SSPX, and I am frankly concerned for the official Church as a whole.   While many Catholic parishes are sound in their teachings and are faithful to the Magisterium, I worry that theological and political liberalism is tainting our faith after seeing it firsthand at the Jesuit school I worked at.  Evangelization is either being jettisoned or even redefined as "social justice" by some influential Catholic figures, and it also seems like the heresy of "liberation theology" is on the rise again.  I am in the discernment process now of seeing whether or not I want to stay Roman Catholic or not, at least as far as the official Vatican Church is concerned.  I am still faithfully Catholic, and that won't change, but the Catholic faith I have is historic and sound, and I am not changing it because of what Popes Leo or Francis said in an unofficial capacity.  For me right now, the SSPX is on the correct side of that debate, and Leo is wrong in what he is doing - for those that think every Pope's actions must be accepted without criticism (I am growing sick of that too, as it seems like the "Christian Zionist" crowd has a similar view of Israel - both of these are wrong), I challenge you to read Magisterial documents, read Scripture, and do your own "deep dive" into what authentic Catholicism is and then measure Leo's and Francis's papacies against that. Where the current and former Popes have been right, we can accept - where they erred, we can reject.  For those who think every fart out of Leo's backside is divinely-inspired, let me say something to you - the Pope is still a human being, and even a representative of Christ on earth can fall short due to human limitations.  As a Catholic, it is integral this fact is understood, because it will save you a lot of heartbreak later.  Anyway, at some point I will have more to say on this, but you get the idea for now. 

I have went on and on this morning about some sundry things, but you get an idea of my mindset recently.  Also, before I wrap up today, I need to ask your prayers for my own personal situation, as I have some decisions to make as well as needing some divine guidance.  Thanks again, and will see you next time. 

Learning of a New Cult

 It is mid-week as I write this, and I am for one thing very exhausted right now - with the school year winding down a couple of weeks ago as well as getting some stuff moved here out of storage, the fatigue is catching up to me and I want to just sleep a lot.  But, there are things to be done so that cannot happen, although I am going to bed earlier so I can get a more productive rest at night.  The reason I wanted to talk about this topic today has to do with a podcast I saw by a young lady named Sommer Sanchez.   Sommer's podcast profiles some obscure cults and strange criminal cases that arose from them, and her research has ranged from the more higher profile cases such as the Matamoros occultic sacrifices of Adolfo Costanzo in 1989 to lesser-known groups that few have heard of.  This young lady has done her homework for sure, and she touched on one of these groups that got my attention.  As you know, I have researched Pentecostal history very extensively, and in doing so I thought I knew practically every sect that existed, but this one Sommer touched upon was something totally new to me.  So, I wanted to share some about it here. 

In the earliest days of Pentecostalism there was a great surge of this movement that happened in the Appalachian region, and it produced two different Pentecostal traditions.  The first was the Wesleyan/Holiness groups such as the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, and the larger group that shares its history, the Pentecostal Holiness Church.  The second was a group in western North Carolina that later became the various Church of God denominations.  The Church of God tradition was one that had some interesting offshoots, as the serpent-handlers came out of that tradition (or one group of them - a Oneness group of serpent handlers had a different origin in the state of Alabama at around the same time as the Church of God faction, the latter led by a preacher by the name of George Went Hensley. In time, the Oneness faction would become the dominant group of serpent handlers, but Church of God heritage serpent handlers do still exist).  The serpent handlers were also noted for other equally risky practices such as drinking poisons like battery acid and strychnine, as well as handling live fire.  As risky and odd as those practices are though, they are limited to those who possess the faith and a strict code does exist among them about making sure they are "in the Spirit" when they undertake those practices.  I have actually gotten to know many of the people in that movement as personal friends over the years, and basically they are pretty decent folks despite the stigma that surrounds their unique religious expressions. Other groups, such as one called the Neverdies in my home state of West Virginia, believe in a form of reincarnation (where they got that from I am not sure - there is very little information on their group, if they even still exist).  In many cases, many of these practices are not anything controversial outside the hype, and their beliefs can be somewhat heretical but still not anything to worry much about.  Then, I watched Sommer's video, and perhaps the most bizarre group of people calling themselves Pentecostal got my attention.   This is a group that ventured into the unthinkable, and they are the focus of this discussion. 

This movement, called I believe the Church of the Unknown Tongue or something like that, no longer exists but it was confined to the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky when it did.  The man whose name comes up first is a more conventional preacher by the name of William Duty who had begun conducting Pentecostal revivals in the area of Johnson County in Eastern Kentucky.  While Duty claimed to have been part of an earlier group inspired by the Azuza Street meetings, it turned out that he was essentially a pecuniary-minded opportunist who saw revivalism as something to exploit and gain some cash from, and he honed his skills to make him appear as a powerful evangelist.  At one of these meetings, a young farmer named John Mills was impacted by Duty's "ministry" and enthusiastically became his disciple.  In time, Duty wanted John to plant a church in the latter's hometown, a place called Tomahawk, and for a while it worked until some congregational disagreements led in John's leaving the church, then striking out on his own and gathering a small group of followers in nearby Martin County.  Things went pretty normal for a while, as John was just a typical mountain Holiness preacher with a devoted following, but the death of his daughter in 1929 caused him to snap, and the group he "pastored" fundamentally changed for the worse.  This is the part, four years later, that creates the uniqueness of this story.

The group John founded was noted for ecstatic dancing, a lot of tongues, and long periods of fasting.  John took on a totalitarian mantle over the group, and even the slightest dissent or disagreement brought dire consequences.  As John became more unhinged and his group became more isolated, he began to manifest these weird "prophetic words" to do some bizarre things.  One occasion was noted as John directing his followers to strip completely naked and dance around a bonfire while shouting in tongues, and this aroused some noise complaints from neighbors.  In 1933 though, this climaxed when, after an extended fast, John got this "prophetic word" to offer a human sacrifice to God - the original target was his old mentor Duty, but later his mother was the victim.  After selecting several "virgin sacrifices" to be offered, two of whom were young girls escaped and alerted the local authorities to what was going on.  When the cops arrived at the house where John's group was holding "church," they saw a group of John's followers dancing around the strangled body of John's mother Lucinda, who had been ritually strangled by her son.  He was sent to prison for life shortly after, although he was released on parole in 1941 before moving first to Akron, OH, and then back to his home turf where he was in several marriages that ended in divorce before he died in 1968.   Those are just raw details of the story, as for more on this you can read H.H. Reed's book, Tongues of Deception (Groveport, OH: Cruiser Press, 2023), as well as a more summative account at https://cultencyclopedia.com/2026/01/28/cult-of-the-unknown-tongues-1933/.  The story was shocking, and it demonstrates that more than one type of sect identifying as "Pentecostal" exists, although most mainstream Pentecostals would disavow such sects as they would not dream of such atrocities.  John Mills also puts me in mind of Yvonne Navarro's fictional teen character Jason Spiro in her 1995 novel Deadrush, as the two share a lot of similar traits. I find this story both of interest to Pentecostal/Charismatic studies as well as the broader field of Appalachian Religion, as it adds some interesting flavor to the narrative too.  However, I also see the danger of stereotypes of mountain religion based on individuals like this, so the person who researches this would need to have some level of knowledge of both these disciplines in order to properly understand the context. 

The main issue with Pentecostalism as a whole is that it seems to be a harbor for the sensational, be it fictionally created or actual individuals.  The expressive nature of Pentecostal practices opens a door for excesses and misunderstandings, and while the vast number of actual Pentecostals don't go to extremes, the stigma of things like this still hangs over Pentecostalism as a movement.   Of course, huckster TV preachers who embrace unbiblical things like "Word/Faith" theologies don't help either, as many televangelists share a lot in common with the huckster William Duty who corrupted John Mills rather than representing authentic Christianity.  A lot more could be said on that, but I just wanted to conclude with a couple of my own thoughts on this.

I grew up in a Pentecostal tradition, and thus I understand it.  Also, there are things about Pentecostal faith I feel are necessary - the emphasis on the role of the supernatural, for instance, is something many Enlightenment-minded mainstream denominations have lost, and there is a challenge to live out faith in a more vibrant way.  In that regard, I never lost my Pentecostal roots, although my Catholic faith today has helped me to refine them a lot.  However, on the other side of that, an emotionally-charged religious setting can be an open invitation for excessive practices, heretical teachings, and even opportunistic fraudsters who find ways to profit off of religious faith.  In order not to create more John Mills types, it is time that maybe we contain the influence of hucksters like Joel Osteen and Robert Tilton that help create them.  Any rate, this will probably not be my last reflection on Pentecostalism, but it does help to share some interesting things I discovered in my own research.  Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time. 

Feeling Out of Place

 This weekend has been a busy one for us.  We finally removed the rest of our belongings from the storage unit in Martinsburg, and the living room downstairs has a mess of bins that need to be organized now.  That work saved us about $80 monthly in storage fees, and I also wanted to give a shout-out to our parish over in Charles Town, St. James, and our wonderful priest there, Fr. Timothy Grassi.  They were gracious enough to loan us a large moving truck to get the rest of the stuff over here, and I am eternally grateful for that.  This also leads the way for an imminent move for us from Baltimore, and that cannot come soon enough.  The process of moving yesterday, for instance, led to an issue out on the street here with a certain demographic of people who live here - I won't get into that, but in all honesty, I am really wanting to go back to someplace where I feel more like I belong, as Baltimore as a city really stinks.  Let me explain what happened.

Since moving here back in late 2024, I have had more than my share of rude, nasty people in this city, and it unfortunately comes from a certain demographic.  Again, I won't elaborate on what that demographic is, because it would cause a considerable amount of controversy if I did.  The situation came to a head yesterday when we were attempting to unload our moving truck out here.  Let me get into that story.

 We live on a pretty narrow street in this section of town, but it is a narrow street that people seem to labor under the delusion is a thoroughfare.  This means that parking is at a premium, and it is not uncommon to have to park across the street from your own house - that is something that needs to change, first off. However, in addition, there is not much room for deliveries, moving vans, or other large transportation to do what they need to do, and that caused a problem yesterday.  We had to park in the middle of the street yesterday, and due to Barbara's health issues, she was somewhat limited as to what she could do, so it was up to me to singlehandedly unload a significant load of our stuff off the truck.  With one person, that takes time, and what complicated things further were people who don't even live on this street all of a sudden thinking this was I-95, and they were trying to come down this street in droves.  Some of these nasty, uncouth people got very combative with us, and I was not having it - I told these idiots to essentially either help out or shut up, and while we got cussings, horns blown at us, and other things, I didn't care.  This attitude with people in this city is inexcusable, and it is one reason why Baltimore is actually one of the crappiest cities in the country to live.  Compared with the rest of Maryland - and even the Baltimore suburbs - inner-city Baltimore is one of the nastiest, rudest, and dirtiest places to live, and the day I move out of here officially will be a day of celebration for us.  I actually made a quip to Barbara that the US would be a better place if cities like Baltimore ceased to exist.  And, the incident yesterday was only one of several incidents and individuals I could mention in the past year alone.

Between dealing with things I had to deal with at my former school I taught at (both from administration and some students - long story!), a micromanaging landlord who shows favoritism (and also has a bit of a legal skeleton in his closet), and the attitudes of others in this city - a short woman at the DVD who reminded me of an ill-tempered daschund, the various bums, porch pirates, and other buzzards one deals with at stores and elsewhere, and delivery people who don't care whether they do their jobs or not - make me pray to get out of here soon.  I may have noted some time ago that moving to this area of the city was not a first choice, and it felt temporary from the day I moved in to be completely honest.  So, feeling like this, what does it mean?  Let us explore that somewhat.

In the course of life, you start to understand that a season is about to end - you just feel it happening.  I knew, for instance, when our time in Florida was done in 2016, and although it wasn't under the best of circumstances, I now see it as the same when we moved from Hagerstown. As unpleasant as living in Baltimore has been in the past couple of years, I am of the understanding that for a season this was where I was supposed to be, and I accepted it. That is why my tenure at my school ended after 2 years, and to me that was a sign that this season was about to conclude.  At this point, I don't have a clue as to where I am going to be going, and a lot is contingent upon the job I land.  In that regard, I am open to what God wants, but the waiting is hard - I described it as being like sitting at a stale red light waiting for it to change.  There is an out coming soon I know, but may God give me the patience for waiting for it.  It seems clear that overall Baltimore is about as sick of me as I am of it, so moving out of here will be of mutual benefit, I guarantee that.  Any rate, just wanted to share that today.

Thanks again for allowing me to vent - it has been a bit frustrating lately, and I am starting to feel the weight of that more.  I will be back again soon, so feel free to visit anytime. 

Changing Dynamics

 I wanted to share some thoughts about something today that is on my mind, as it has been a bit of a recurring thought for me recently.   If anyone knows family dynamics, there is something about them which defines what a cohesive family is, and that is something I wanted to touch on now.  The common misconception is that family is just DNA or blood, but that may not be the case, and I wanted to get into that now. 

I come from a fairly large extended family, although my immediate family is small and I am technically the only surviving member of that - I currently have no direct ancestors that are living, and the reality of that sunk into me over the past few years.  As far as extended family though, I have a huge number of cousins, many of which live within a short distance of me.  However, I never see them, they don't really talk to me, and I might as well not exist to them in all honesty.  This is why I say that DNA  and blood can define biological family, but not necessarily true family.  You need something more for that, and I wanted to touch on that now. 

Barbara is my ex-wife, yet we are still amazingly close and are there for each other.  Will we ever be romantically linked again?  At this point I doubt that, but we are by any definition family.  This new dimension of family I have entered into starts with her, but there are some others who I will bring into it later as they are the foundation of a new chapter of life for me personally, but also for Barbara.  If I were to describe my life with Barbara now, she is like a sister to me - we love each other still like brother and sister, and we do look out for and care for each other.  It sort of invalidates a common assumption that ex-spouses must hate each other - I think that fallacy has poisoned society, and it causes a lot of unnecessary tension that doesn't need to be necessary.  Barbara and I both know that something happened in our 27 years of marriage where we didn't really have that intimate bond a husband and wife should have - we were both victims of circumstance, and from the earliest days of our marriage interference from outsiders who had no business in our lives created a situation where we never fully connected in the way a husband and wife should.  But, before we even dated, Barbara and I were friends, a friendship that will soon encompass 40 years.  I want to talk about a little bit of that story now, as it has a big role to play in the current family dynamic I wanted to talk about.

I first met Barbara in early 1990 - I was in my second semester at what is now the Baptist University of Florida (then it was called Florida Baptist Theological College) in the small peanut-farming town of Graceville in the Florida Panhandle.  Being that our school was a Christian college, we had segregated dorms, with the girls housed on one end of campus and the two men's dorms in the middle of the campus then.  The girls' dorms looked like military barracks, and they were shared with a few married couples' housing units.  Barbara, who had arrived on campus in 1984, approximately 5 years before I did, was housed in one of those units with two other girls who had started when I did - they were both local girls named Daphne and Rachel.  I actually kind of liked Rachel then, and we even had a sort of informal date one night with Daphne and her then-boyfriend Rob, as we were all new students at the time and had a sort of bond between all of us.  Rachel was a sweet local girl, and she was beautiful in a sort of modest way that made her endearing.  After a couple of months, I finally got the nerve to ask her out officially, and went to where her dorm was on the other end of the campus.  Back then, if you visited the girls' dorms (and vice versa), your conversation was limited to the front step.  I had this whole spiel planned to ask Rachel to be my girlfriend then, and when I got to her door, I knocked on it.  The person who answered was a slightly chubby girl with Coke-bottle glasses and her hair in curlers from a recent shower, and she was chowing down on pickled herring for a snack - that was my first formal meeting of Barbara.  We ended up talking, and turns out we had a lot of things in common, but I didn't feel romantic in any ways toward her - rather, I just liked talking to her as she seemed to take me seriously as a person.  You have to understand the 20-year-old me then - I was a shy, skinny West Virginia boy with a squeaky voice and I dressed like I was 60 then despite my much younger age.  I didn't think many girls would take an interest in me, because I embodied the classic geek look.  Later, I found out that at least 3 girls were eyeing me on campus then - one was a demure little Laotian girl named Chia, and the other one was another new girl who had started on campus at the same time I did.  Chia was cute too, and in retrospect I may have found her to be a perfect soulmate.  But, I ended up talking to Barbara, and we developed a very platonic friendship.  In time, Barbara actually started attending the Foursquare church in Alabama where I was a member, and she would also eventually leave the school and would spend the next year or two living in a roach-infested apartment in Dothan, AL, during which time our relationship became official.  When we did eventually marry in 1992, she still lived in that place, and it was our home until we left that summer to move to Lakeland, FL, where I would finish out my college education at Southeastern University there.   As to how we ended up going from friends to dating, I will save that story for another time.  However, that is how Barbara and I met, on the doorstep of her dorm room on a cool Florida February night.  

Almost 40 years knowing each other tends to create a strong bond, and although we did end up married and stayed married for 27 years, our friendship preceded our marriage and long outlasted it too.  As it seemed like everyone in my family was either dying off or just lost contact, I was starting to feel frighteningly alone - the one constant though was Barbara, and we remained close even when adversity tried to divide us.  We ended up essentially becoming each other's family, as our own families just sort of distanced themselves from us.  In reflecting on this recently, this is where I began to understand that a new family dynamic was being created, and other people are in that orbit now although they are far away at this time.  However, I feel God will somehow bring us all together, and out of a group of broken, misplaced people will rise a new family dynamic.  Some of these newer people are destined to become family now - I am actually seeing someone special, and will reveal more about who she is later, but she is an amazing woman.  Barbara also has a situation where she might be having a new family situation in her lap as well, and that too is up to her as to when to reveal that.  Nonetheless, we all have a close networking between us now, and it will be exciting to see what that will look like once everything falls into place.  

The lesson here is a simple one - family doesn't have to be defined by blood necessarily, as often a loving support structure can evolve that includes people not biologically connected, and it has all the attributes of a family.  In some cases, that dynamic is stronger than blood ties because people genuinely care for and look out for each other, even when their own blood forsakes them.   It is similar with the Church too - when we accept Christ and are baptized, we become part of not just a religious community, but also an extended family.  If the Church functions as the Church, a solid familial structure will take root and it encourages and strengthens all who are part of it.  While generations of biological families can belong to a church too, it is the community a church fosters which is its greatest strength.  That, I believe, is the ultimate lesson to take away from this.

That was mainly what I wanted to share today, so I will see you next visit.