Perspectives on Politics and Other Things

 I wasn't planning on writing today, but a lot has been on my mind and I have a lot to catch up on since last having time to do so over a year ago.  So, I am just going to make some commentary on a few things I have been seeing lately.

A disclaimer first.  In the course of composing these articles here, oftentimes a couple of things happen.  For one, a lot of my content is "off the cuff," meaning I write it as I think it.  If I were to develop some ideas more later, I would probably do my own extensive edits on myself.  Secondly, and that being said, I apologize for the occasional typo you may see in these articles - at the end of each year, I cut, paste, and compile the year's work into an annual book, and in those I generally do a grammar and spell check so they will look better.  Spelling and grammatical errors happen for a variety of reasons, some of which include the computer I am working on sometimes "burping" when there is a power outage or something, and then a segment of the text gets either repetitive or omitted to a degree it doesn't make sense, so often I will catch that and fix it.  Self-publishing has been both an education and an adventure, both as far as blogging is concerned but also in publication of print books.  I still have much to learn to refine things in those areas, so bear with me there. 

So, in doing a number of perusings the past couple of days, there are some topics I just wanted to skim today.  For the first, I came across two different things that immediately grabbed my attention.  One is an organization called Christian Villages, which is largely made up of Evangelicals, and the second is one I came across the other day called Ark Homesteads, which has a similar mission but is Catholic.  In looking over those, I have a couple of observations.

To begin, I have always been attracted to the idea of self-sustaining Christian communities, as I think it would be a way to solidify relationships with like-minded people as well as providing a degree of structure one normally does not find in contemporary society.  These ideas have been around for a while, and there are some good models of success to look at with them - one is the town of Ave Maria in Florida, just as an example.  Ave Maria was started as a university by the guy who founded Domino's Pizza, Tom Monaghan.  In time, a whole community grew up around the university, and today it is actually a shining example of how Catholic social teaching can be lived out in a more structured setting.  While Ave Maria is probably the best one I know about that exists today, there could be smaller and lower-profile communities as well - that would surely be worth looking into.  I have a lot to say on this, so let me continue.

The problem with the concept is simple - it can be a potential for cultic activity too.  We saw that with Jonestown in the late 1970s, and I don't think anyone with any moral scruples wants to see that repeated again.  However, one thing to understand about Jonestown though is that it was not technically a Christian community - Jim Jones was a cult leader, an ideological Marxist, and he more or less used a religious face to advance his own nefarious agenda.  Despite that set of facts though, it is understandable why some people would not want to consider a Christian community of any sort.  Because we live in a fallen world, even a good idea can end up bearing tragic fruit if it is in the wrong hands, and that is what happened at Jonestown.  The idea of Christian community is something that has the potential for devolving into utopian fantasy as well, and if that bar is set too high, then the potential for future problems is there.  I believe this is one reason why perhaps the idea of a "Christian community" can scare people.  I get that totally, and that is what I want to look at in regard to the first group I looked at, Christian Villages.

The idea that birthed Christian Villages comes from a guy named Jon England and his wife Melanie.  If you will go to https://www.christianvillagesbook.com/book1774561831825, you will see he also wrote a book about it.  Intrigued by this, I joined his mailing list, but it didn't take long to see where the potential issues were, and I will get into that shortly.  In the book (which you can download as a digital copy for free), England talks about four stages that are necessary for the establishment of a Christian village:

1. Foundation

2. Formation

3. Fellowship

4. Fruitfulness

In order to achieve these, England notes that it will cost a lot of hard work, a loss of conveniences, and also a sacrifice of independence.  It is one of those types of books which seeks to model what the "first Christians" lived like, and there are things in it about accountability, communal living, and also some sort of authority.  In reading some of the material, England seems to be drawing from some poisoned wells such as Discipleship/Shepherding, the Bill Gothard-type model, and it seems like he wants to do some sort of totalitarian control over people who "covenant" with him in the experiment.  Those are some serious red flags, because it sounds like the potential for a cult, and I began to back away from it shortly after discovering what was in the material the book contains.  The wording is nice, true, but often an intent lies underneath the rhetoric, and that intent is what produces the fruit of whatever is being created.  I don't think England's intent is healthy at all.  And, that leads to a couple of other observations about this I want to make clear.

First, I still love the idea of an intentional Christian community by all means.  However, it must be truly Christian, and not built upon some idea of utopian perfection in the mind of its creator. This means you acknowledge those who are part of it as unique persons created in God's image, and you recognize that natural law grants them rights that cannot be violated - if someone tries, they act outside God's will.  Secondly, while it is OK to have dreams, there are two important and sometimes painful lessons I have learned over the years that will save someone a lot of heartache if they grasp them early.  The first is that utopian visions are a personal thing in the mind of the person who creates it, and maybe will not reflect the ideas of others.  Secondly, in this life you cannot expect perfection - you do your best, and nothing wrong with that, but be prepared for some things coming against you.  As communities are made up of concupiscent human beings for one thing, not every day will be perfect, and we will inevitably not agree on everything.  So, if one person is in control and imposes their will on others, it will create some problems.  I think England may be running a risk of this if he institutes his model, and I have already seen emails where he is demanding huge investments from people who are just curious about the idea, and that cannot be good.  Third, instead of trying to suppress differences, be a true community and listen to ideas - sometimes another person may have an idea you didn't think about and it may be an "aha" moment for the life of that community.  Respect and appreciation for differences - and I am talking about minor individual differences that characterize all of us - will prove more cohesive than divisive, and a good leader understands that.  If Jon England wants any success with his own vision, he will need to realize this quickly.  Otherwise, he will disintegrate into another potential Jim Jones. 

This is what I wanted to share about Jon England's Christian Village model, and now I want to contrast that with a Catholic intentional community model that has more potential in all honesty.

Ark Homesteads (see their website at https://www.arkhomesteads.com/) was the creation of a family, the Amezcuas.  Two brothers - Erick and Aaron - bought with their families a parcel of land in Missouri for approximately $53,000.  In contrast to the Englands, the Amezcuas have a very sustainable and realistic plan that started a community with their families, and now they want to offer the idea to other Catholics.  The brothers mentioned they did this in 2021 I believe, and they moved from California to rural Missouri because they essentially thought some things about the world were getting somewhat negative to deal with.  There is nothing remotely utopian about this family though - they recognize limitations in budgets, and they also are aware that in order to have a Catholic community, beliefs have to be in line with Magisterial teaching, and that means the potential of cultic development is minimized.  They also don't pressure people like the Englands do - they just tell their story, and they are still in the formative stages of creating these communities, such as the acquisition of land, etc.  The way their model works is that an interested family can buy a small parcel on a bigger tract of land at a fair price, and then build their own home according to their own plans.  At the center of that community will be a parish church, and I am assuming some other infrastructure such as schools, etc., will come into play as well.  My advice to the Amezcuas would be to seek good outside businesses to invest and set up shops and things as well, kind of like Tom Monaghan did with Ave Maria, and it could be a potential income source for the families who invest as well.  I might actually initiate a conversation with Erick and Aaron about that and see what they think.  

Intentional communities, then, are a good idea.  However, they must be implemented responsibly and properly, and a narcissistic dictator cannot be the person with the controlling interest or it devolves quickly into a cult.  I have more to say on this in the future, but just wanted to bring it to attention as it is an idea I have thought about myself for some time.  There is a sort of exhilaration about creating and self-sufficiency attached to owning a piece of land, but also the appeal of true community - a place where you have close friends and know they have your back - is part of it as well.  I have had some ideas of my own over the years that relate to this as well, including my own ideas about recycling, and at some point I think I will talk about that in another discussion given the length of this one already.  However, to wrap up this part of the discussion, I like the idea of both forging a legacy in land for future generations, as well as a decent community of people who live around you to both witness this as well as their own participation in building legacies of their own.  It is appealing. 

I never got to the political thing yet, but wanted to touch on that briefly now.  I have been reading things online from people I have known over the years, and I see something interesting.  Let me go on record first as saying that although I voted for Trump as President, and so far I believe he is the best choice for the job compared to everything else that is out there, I am not always in agreement with everything he does.  However, I am also not going to let disagreements on minors detract from the issues of major importance, as I feel that Trump is steering us overall in the right direction for once, and that is why I voted for him.  I have seen others though - many of whom are conservative by conviction - almost lament the "old days" of Obama and Biden's weird regimes, and that is disconcerting.  I have seen people who self-identify as "conservative" basically supporting unvetted illegal immigration, letting the LGBT agenda run rampant over our nation dictating new moralities that are in direct contradiction to Christian convictions, and even being soft on inner-city crime.  One of the most glaring people who do this is former VP Mike Pence.  I don't know, but despite the golden image Pence often displays, I just don't feel right about the man - something is off with him.  Sure, he says the right things, and he projects the image of an upstanding God-fearing guy and all, and to be honest, as a person he may actually be decent, but it is just that for me something does not seem quite right.  I see this with other self-styled "conservatives" too,  and I believe that is one reason why for many years the "woke Left" has dominated society and culture.  Thankfully, that has begun to change, and at least now it seems like "wokeness" is going out of vogue (even other Democrats are seeing how ludicrous it is).  Yet, you have the Mike Pences almost mourning its demise, as if they loved the enemies of our faith.  There are still a few of these even in the Trump administration - that Dr. Oz character is one of them, and I am convinced he is a Turkish agent as well as being disgusted with the way he has targeted Armenian-Americans in Los Angeles - and they are doing no one any favors.  Simply put, they are relics of the neo-con era of Bush Jr. and McCain, and they no longer have any relevance.  As we see the Left get more unhinged because they know they have lost the war, I also get disgusted at seeing so-called "Christians" and "Republicans" patting them on the back as they scream and saying "there, there" to them.  Faux conservatives have chosen their side, and they are using a person - Trump - to project their own stupidity upon while our nation tries to recover.  The neo-cons in particular - a group I could never personally support - are probably worse than the most radical Democratic Socialists because they are the ones making people like AOC possible.  This is why if Mike Pence were to just fall into a well of obscurity and disappear (which actually seems like what he has done) I don't think his presence would be missed all that much.  Like I said, I don't totally see eye-to-eye with Trump on everything either, but I also think for our nation right now he is what is needed - God doesn't expect a perfect saint to be a secular power in a nation, and Trump is definitely no saint!  But, God can still use people like Trump for the greater good, and that is what I am looking at.  Someone said a few years back that we don't elect pastors as President, but leaders.  Leaders fail, they are like most of humanity not perfect, but what we should be asking ourselves is if said leader is overall having a positive impact or not.  Trump's legacy will ultimately be based on that, and not what goofy things he may have done in his life over the years.  Remember also, it was not that long ago when Trump was the darling of those who are now trying to kill him - the Trump of 30 years ago was not a conservative Republican (and in all aspects, he still isn't in all honesty) and he was the darling of people like Hillary Clinton and those who slander him now.  We need to start separating fact from fiction, and be honest about Trump and others - they may not be our cup of tea personality-wise, but God allowed them to be where they are for a reason, and I see him as an answer to many prayers.  "Woke" is dying, as it is being exposed for the radical mess it is, and we largely have Donald Trump's presidency to thank for that.  Therefore, that is what I wanted to say when even so-called "conservative" voices tend to condemn Trump.  

This was a long post, and probably more could be said about it - I already see subsequent discussions in it in a couple of places.  However, thanks for bearing with me, and will see you next time. 

Perspectives On Country Music, a Documentary Video, and My Serpent-Handling Friends

 Just yesterday, I talked about two articles I was reading - one was on my dissertation committee member's article on the "Four Ugly Step-Sisters" and the other was on an obscure Pentecostal sect in my home state of West Virginia called the Neverdies.  It is my valiant attempt to add more cerebral content to my writing, and I wanted to sort of continue that today as there are a few things I would like to talk about.  I have a feeling there will be a lot more discussions like this, and that is OK.

To post a couple of corrections, I was referencing Chase the Devil and that segment in the film on the banjoist Virgil Anderson.  Turns out I need to make a couple of corrections.  For one, Virgil was from Kentucky, and not North Carolina.  Second, he worked in lumber camps in his younger years, and not in the mines.  But, the context is still the same, so I will now talk a bit about the rest of the film.   

Chase the Devil was a part of a video series called "Beats of the Heart" that dealt with cultural musical forms in various parts of the world.  It was released on the Shenachie Music label as a video series, and was originally produced in 1983.  Overall, the film is quite good, and it does give a general overview of the region of Appalachia as a whole.  I have it now on DVD (I had originally bought it on VHS years ago but upgraded later) and it is also available in its entirety on YouTube.  What I particularly liked about the video was that it also overlapped Appalachian religious traditions with the culture in general, so you have a little bit of secular music in there too as it relates to the context of the topic.  There is, for instance, a couple of scenes featuring an old reclusive miner who converted a coal tunnel into a house, and there is a bit of racy content on it - the old dude has an ex-rated calendar of a topless woman, for instance, hanging on his wall.  That was surprisingly not unheard of for older men of that generation though, as even my own paternal grandfather had a bit of a surprise of his own slipped behind a picture in his stuff that I inherited from Dad - the picture is of a big naked Hawaiian girl, which was a bit of a shock to find.  I am not sure why even otherwise decent old guys would have the occasional naked picture in their possession at that time - perhaps it was a reminder of how they sowed their own wild oats or something when they were in the military.  I never saw a point in anything like that, as I figured just having a normal picture of the woman I love was suitable enough.  After a while, you just seem to understand that it is a sort of "to each his own" thing and you accept it without carrying on that weird tradition yourself.  Another secular scene in the video had to do with a honky-tonk in some rural Tennessee town somewhere - a bunch of the locals were out on a Saturday night just drinking and dancing to some bad country music, and although they looked like they were having fun, the place itself just looked like a dive.  Of course, the song that the bad band was playing was the old "Honky Tonk Angels" song, which was, I suppose, fitting for the setting.  I grew up around some of that as a kid, and it never appealed much to me although the majority of the people who went to them were just local folks seeking a place to hang out, find a date, or just for something to do in an otherwise small town without a lot going on.  Of course, occasionally you'd get a guy or two that had too much to drink and a fight might break out, but it was rarer than many would think.  However, I never had much interest in "honky tonk culture," as a quiet jazz club was always more my thing and still is.  I don't fault many relatives and close friends I grew up with who liked them though, and I understand the culture behind it as it is part of me too.  Let's talk about that for a minute.

When you grow up in a certain culture, there are things that feel comfortable or familiar, but sometimes can feel one way but not both.  I was born and raised in Appalachia, so the culture is part of me.  I know the good, the bad, and the ugly, but also know a lot of just neutral aspects of it that were just there.  Even with things you don't particularly like personally, if they are part of your culture you still know them and understand them, and for me the honky-tonk is one of those things.  I am not a fan of country music for one thing - once you get beyond the realm of Riders in the Sky, the Sons of the Pioneers, or Bob Wills, you lose my interest - and that makes me a bit different from a lot of the people I grew up around.  I don't hate on country music, and if someone likes it, then enjoy it - I don't judge people's musical tastes and I hope they afford me the same courtesy.  That being said, I can tolerate country music as background noise, and in that respect it doesn't bother me.  As a kid for instance, Mom and I had no television in the house, and often the only entertainment we had was the local radio station, which happened to be WELD-AM in Fisher, WV, a tiny town on a back road just outside of Moorefield going southwest toward Petersburg.  With the exception of some local news, religious programming on Sundays, and a good "Polka Party" program on Saturdays, the format of WELD was all country music.  Even if you were like me and didn't particularly like the music, it was just part of the background and you dealt with it.  Country music was just a part of the local culture whether one liked it or not, so it was a matter of peaceful coexistence.  Also, I had started to develop a music interest of my own in vintage big bands, so I had avenues to escape if I wanted to listen to good music as I would soon have my own record player as well as a clock radio my dad gave me one year for Christmas that served me well for years.   Mom also had her own record player as well, and she was into this older 1950s-1960s country music - she loved Jim Reeves, Ray Price, Stonewall Jackson, and people like that, and she would listen to those records a lot too, often drinking and sitting around when she did.  I more or less ignored a lot of that as well too then, but on occasion there would be just a bad country song that would grate on my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard, and I want to talk about one of those now. 

I have been rewatching the old Designing Women sitcom series, which I do have on DVD but they are easier to watch on Hulu streaming.  I got into season 6, where Suzanne goes to Japan and the obnoxious Sugarbaker cousin Allison comes into the picture (what had happened was that Delta Burke, who played Suzanne and did an amazing job developing that character, had left the show and was replaced with Julia Duffy - Duffy loved playing these entitled, stuck-up nasty yappy little women and she was talented at playing characters you loved to hate).  During this time, Julia also loses her long-time love interest, the attorney Reese Watson (in real life Hal Holbrook was actually Dixie Carter's husband, so the chemistry was there naturally I believe) and then finds out she may have to have a hysterectomy and is admitted to a hospital where a strike is going on.  A long-haired and somewhat unusual doctor named Hacker (who is played by a no-talent country artist at the time named Gary Morris), is the surgeon chosen to do the procedure, and fortunately for Julia, she doesn't have to have that done.  However, she and Hacker develop this relationship because apparently his bedside manner is so compelling Julia falls for him, and one of the things he does is bring his guitar into the room and sings country songs to her (go figure - a country singer playing a surgeon singing country songs!).  While the dynamic is good acting, the song this guy sings is what really was grating on the nerves, and the name of the song is "Make the World Go Away," a song written by a guy named Hank Cochran around the year 1960 and then recorded by Ray Price in 1963.  Mom had that record, and Lord have mercy, she about wore it out.  The song is just bad - it was written for the honky-tonk, and its lyrics are so depressing you want to drink yourself into a stupor just hearing them.  Worse than the lyrics though is the tune - that tune is the most ghastly piece of music I think I have ever heard, and of course they would have to feature that song in this episode!  Looking at a bit of biographical information on Cochran, the dude was married 5 times, and he also owned a honky-tonk himself called Tootsie's Orchard Lounge in Nashville, and judging by the way he wrote that damn song, he must have been drinking up his profits.  This is also the guy who discovered weed-warped Willie Nelson too, so that says a lot.  If every copy on record of that damnable song were collected and incinerated, I would think the world would be a better place - I really hate that song!  My mother though loved it, and I remember as a kid hearing her play that thing over, and over, and over - the more drunk she got, the more she listened to it, and then she'd be singing to it too.  It would be around that time that I would plan on being somewhere outside the house so I would not have to hear it.  And, for a while that worked, but then fortunately I got my own record collection and could drown it out with some good music like Sinatra or Louis Prima.   To read this, you may think I hate country music, and most of it I do, but on occasion there are some good compositions that come from the genre that are worth notice, and I wanted to mention a few of those.

Obviously, Western Swing goes without saying - Western Swing is good stuff!  But, there are the occasional gems that come from country music which are not bad songs, and in the right hands they have potential.  For instance, I will be the first one to admit that Hank Williams Sr. was actually a talented songwriter - his tune "Jambalaya" makes an excellent big band and jazz arrangement (particularly Billy Vaughn's rendition of it - stellar record!).  Other country songs also make good classic material as well, with one in particular being the song "One Has My Name."  Now, the subject of the song is not the greatest - it is about a man who is cheating on his wife and struggling to figure out which one he really loves more, the one bearing his last name or the one who gives him a bit on the side as a diversion.  But, the tune of the song is nice, and it has potential.  Another song I actually see as a good country song is an oldie that was recorded by a guy named Cal Smith in the early 1950s entitled "Walkin' the Floor Over You."  The song itself is about a lovesick guy who is missing his girl so much that he loses sleep over her, which isn't exactly unrealistic (love does that to people).  However, the tune of the song is catchy, and I am frankly surprised more big band, pop, and jazz musicians never picked up on it.  And, perhaps one of the best hit country records came out in the 1940s when Eddy Arnold recorded "Bouquet of Roses" - that is actually not a bad record in all honesty.  And, lest I forget, a Lawrence Welk discovery, Lynn Anderson, recorded a very good modern country song in 1969 entitled "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" - I actually liked that one too.  And, also last but not least, I would be amiss if I didn't recognize perhaps one of the greatest guitar virtuosos that ever lived, that of course being Chet Atkins.  Chet Atkins though is widely respected by a lot of musical genres, as he was just, well, phenomenal.  These are a few examples of country recordings I would personally find to be appealing, but there is one more aspect to this I wanted to mention as well.

Nashville is considered by many to the the country music capital, but what many people don't realize is that a very excellent and famous bandleader also was based in Nashville, and ironically, some of his compositions ended up in the repertoire of country musicians later.  The guy I speak of is of course the pianist/bandleader/composer Francis Craig.  Craig had perhaps one of the best - if understated -orchestras of the era, and he is also the guy who is credited with discovering a lady named Dinah Shore too.  There are two major hits associated with Francis Craig - the first was his 1947 composition "Near You," which was also made a hit for pianist Roger Williams about a decade later.   The second was a song called "Beg Your Pardon," which he did a decent recording of with his own orchestra in 1948 but in my opinion the recording that bandleader Frankie Carle released the same year was the better of the two.   In ensuing years, a number of country music stars would record both of those as well, and the songs have become pop standards.  Nashville would also become the hub for a major group of country instrumentalists too who had talents of their own too that extended beyond country music - Chet Atkins of course was one of that group, but it also included pianist Floyd Cramer, trumpeter Danny Davis (who formed the Nashville Brass, which was essentially a country/western big band), saxist Boots Randolph (who became so popular that his famous recording "Yakety Sax" became British comedian Benny Hill's theme), and legend Grady Martin, who I believe at one time also forayed into the big band realm with his Slew-Foot Five in the early 1950s.  The melting-pot of American culture would naturally have led to some cross-fertilization of big band, jazz, and country music, and that is why like jazz, country music is uniquely American.  In that regard, it plays an integral part in regional history of our nation, and despite my personal tastes, it is worth still examining as a historical and artistic phenomenon. 

Now, back to Chase the Devil.  The country music culture, as this film notes, is intertwined with the Appalachian culture in general, and as noted by the producers of the film and as Jeremy Marre points out narrating, it influenced local religious music too.  While gospel music and country music are still quite distinct, they did influence each other as is evident by the number of country music acts (the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statler Brothers, etc.) who started out singing as gospel quartets in the churches there.  In most of Appalachia, there are three very distinct religious traditions that had an impact on the development of what came to be known as Southern Gospel - the Baptists, the Pentecostals, and the Methodists.  There are of course other religious traditions in the hills too - in northern Appalachia, the German-roots population there led to both Dunkard Brethren, United Brethren, and some Mennonites who contributed, and in other parts of the region you had Churches of Christ, Presbyterians, and small Wesleyan/Holiness groups like the Nazarenes too.  But, if you look at the religious heritage of most of the biggest gospel groups of the last century, many of them were either Baptists (like the Statesmen - Hovie Lister was a Baptist pastor) or Pentecostals (such as the Blackwoods, who were heritage Assemblies of God members).  That was not lost on the producers of the video either, as the opening segment features a very lively Pentecostal church in Hillsville, VA, and the closing segment features another similar church some 50 miles away in the town of Norton.  In between are the Baptists - mining activist Nimrod Workman, who was a Primitive Baptist, and the singers Dee and Delta Hicks, who were more than likely Southern Baptists of some sort.   Others featured in the video were obviously Pentecostals (Vern Oxford and Larry Richardson, for instance - I really appreciated Larry Richardson's segment, as he had a very refined singing style), and some were no longer religious at all (such as folk singer Hazel Dickens, who later also had an appearance in the film Songcatcher).  And, of course, the serpent-handlers were given a segment, and actually a decent one too - the narrator did not give the location of the church, but it was obviously the famous serpent-handling congregation in Carson Springs, TN, which in the early 1970s when this footage was taken was pastored by a young man named Alfred Ball, who shows up there.  The name of that church was the Holiness Church of God in Jesus's Name, and later on a former member of that church who became a minister in his own right, Jimmy Morrow, started a congregation nearby in the town of Edwina that carried on the serpent-handling tradition.  Jimmy Morrow is one I want to talk about for a bit, as he is fascinating. 

If the serpent-handling tradition was to have a vetted historian, Jimmy Morrow would be it.  He is the first serpent-handler I know of that wrote not only one, but two, books on the movement from the perspective of one who is part of it.  It is highly doubtful if Jimmy ever even finished high school, much less college, but he is also proof that you don't have to be lettered to write a decent history of something.  This guy had an archive in his house of practically every piece of information ever made available on his movement, and he also relied heavily on a lot of hand-written notes he kept from oral traditions of older members of this group.  He took the roots of the movement even back before the 1910 origination of it with George Went Hensley, and according to Jimmy there were people taking up serpents in church as far back as the mid-1800s.  And, he is not just basing his stuff on hearsay - this is a man who documents his sources, and he was so thorough that it would make a Harvard or Oxford historian proud.  I got his first book some years back, and I also was able to actually talk with him on the phone one time.  Jimmy was perhaps one of the warmest and most gracious individuals I had ever encountered, and he loved to visit and talk with people - I think my own phone conversation with him several years back lasted almost 2 hours.  He was a wealth of information on his faith, and thankfully he also had an actual academic who invested in him and took him seriously, the sociologist Ralph Hood.  Dr. Hood was instrumental, as a matter of fact, in getting Jimmy's book published, and unlike some elitist and stuffy academics you normally encounter, Hood actually treated his hosts with respect and he presented in his own work a fair and balanced account of this community, unlike the flakiness that Dennis Covington displayed in Salvation on Sand Mountain or the outright arrogance that Weston LaBarre had in his book on this movement.  Dr. Hood saw Jimmy and other serpent handlers as human beings, and he did not use them as mere research specimens, but he actually befriended them and established good relationships with many of them, including Jimmy.  If more academics would do this, it would make their work more credible.  I know that probably Dr. Hood had his own opinions and they more than likely radically differed with the people he encountered, but he also was respectful and showed an admirable empathy toward the people he talked to.  That goes a long way, especially with mountain people who can spot BS from a "country mile."  Jimmy passed away a few years back, and I actually regret not getting to chat more with him or to meet him in person - he would have been great to have as a close friend I believe, and the world lost a good mind when they lost him.  Fortunately, his legacy lives on in the two books he authored.  The second book I just learned of last year, and it is a smaller sequel to the first and is also not formally formattted - it consists of handwritten pages, but it is still interesting to read.  There are other members of that community I have had the privilege of talking to over the years, but of all of them I think Jimmy was perhaps one of the most intellectually stimulating - he was a man of little formal education and simple speech, but that belied a very fertile mind that was hungry to learn, and for that I think he deserves the honor of being called a historian in his own right. 

This will conclude a lot of these rambling thoughts for today (oy, I just thought about when it comes to putting together this years blog book - a lot of cutting and pasting!),  Thanks for bearing with me, and will see you soon. 

Catching Up on Some Reading

 Given I have had a little extra time between filling out applications for positions, publishing books, and taking care of some overdue projects, I have been able to catch up on some reading too.  I have some thoughts on a couple of articles I have been reading after being able to print them off (I love this thermal printer - no ink, no toner, etc.).  Between that and re-watching Designing Women (that show is a guilty indulgence - I have been a fan since high school despite some differences with a bit of the politics in the show.  And, Suzanne looks really good in that one blue dress she wore in earlier episodes - my goodness!) I have been treating my post-employment interlude as a time to get some organization done in many areas.  There are two articles in particular I wanted to give some reflection on today, so we'll get started.

The first is an article that piqued my interest, as one of the readers on my dissertation committee wrote it and he mentioned it as it also related to my content somewhat.  Dr. Broom (or "Doc" as many of his students call him) is a historian, and he knows political history like the proverbial back of his hand.  He came up with a good perspective on radical totalitarian ideologies, and I have been looking for his ideas in writing ever since I defended my own dissertation a couple of years ago.  I was able to finally find it this week, and I wanted to first summarize his points before I add my own perspective on them, because he sort of agrees on some level with my own fundamental thesis (I proposed that Fascism and Nazism were actually left-wing ideological movements, as they had more in common with the political Left than they did with the Right).  We don't 100% agree on the minute details obviously, and that's OK - the overall conclusion is the pivotal aspect that is integral.  The title of Doc Broom's reflections is "The Four Ugly Step-Sisters," and he notes two fundamental things that aided in the evolution of the four ideologies he notes:

1. A synthesis of the ideas of Rousseau (the general will), Godwin (greatest good for the greatest number), Hegel (there is no objective truth), and Darwin (the accidental nature of life without God) formed an ideological alchemy that gave rise to four related systems:

a. Socialism

b. Fascism

c. Nazism

d. Progressivism

2. The four above systems, Broom notes, are actually a form of secularized feudalism in that the individual serves the system in all of them.  I tend to agree with this, but here is where I take it a step further.  All four systems rely on the Kantian/Nietzschean concept of "struggle" to tear down what they consider an old order, and this in turn provides the impetus to impose their order on others.  Also, in regard to Darwin, Broom is right that he is an influence, but it is how he was the influence - Darwin's ideas were taken from the biological into the social/economic realm by individuals such as Herbert Spencer, and particularly when it comes to Fascism and Nazism, the biological and the social/economic realms are merged in this weird way through things such as eugenics and eventually even the emerging transhumanist movement.  Therefore, in each of these systems, struggle and chaos are what lead to the success of their consolidation on power, which is why the idea of "revolution" is part of all of them.  The individual becomes a means unto an end therefore, and the system becomes the end-all and be-all of everything.  

Looking at how political theory works, there are two beneficial forms of government - the monarchy and republicanism.  Both have their strengths, and neither is perfect, and in all honesty I am a political Monarchist myself and I find them to both have great strengths that compensate for their differences.  On the other hand, pure democracy, if it were implemented, would lead to a polarization and would facilitate the anarchic struggle which would enable a totalitarian system like one of these "Four Ugly Step-Sisters," and that is the point.  The United States is not, and has never been, a democracy - the Founding Fathers designed the American system as a republican system that relied on responsible representative government to ensure mob rule wouldn't be a consequence.  It is the one thing that makes the American system unique and undergirds the success of the system (up until recently, when more disciples of the "Four Ugly Stepsisters" started to get messed up in things, often with the backing of huge corporations - that is a topic in itself!).   I could go into that, but we'll save that for another discussion. 

Bottom line, I like Doc Broom's ideas, and I am very happy I was able to find them in print.  I wish I would have had this for my own dissertation work a couple of years ago, because it articulates some aspects of my own thesis.  Now I will move onto the second article I have read the past couple of days.

This second article was something I was trying to find out more about for years, as it has a lot to do with my interest as a church historian, particularly of smaller obscure groups.  As Pentecostal denominational history has been a thing that has garnered my interest for perhaps over 30 years now, I see a number of diverse groups within Pentecostalism, and some of them have interesting histories of their own within the broader movement - I wrote a whole book about those small denominations a few years back actually.  Many academics, who are looking at things from often a very secularized perspectivc that is predominantly hostile against religious traditions, paint groups like Pentecostals with a broad brush, and that frankly is not fair to the groups or to a given religious tradition as a whole. And, this is where I want to go with this discussion now.

Groups like Pentecostals are not monolithic by any measure - there are a huge diversity of denominations, fellowships, and even single independent congregations that each have unique histories, personalities, and traditions that are uniquely their own.  These range from the bigger and more mainstream denominations such as the Assemblies of God to small, obscure congregations that meet in bait shops and gas stations in more rural parts of America.  It's a lot of those small groups that capture the most interest, as they are mostly ignored or overlooked by much of mainstream scholarship.  A few of these groups have evolved some unique doctrines and practices - the serpent-handling congregations in my native Appalachia are a perfect example - and when I come across something like that I want to learn more about it.  One such group I learned about years ago that was based in my home state of West Virginia had as its formal name "The Church of the Everlasting Gospel," and they were popularly known by another name - the Neverdies.  The only mention I had seen of this obscure group was a small article in J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions years ago, and there are a couple of unusual doctrines these people had which got my attention.  First, I wanted to give a little history on the group first. 

A local Pentecostal preacher from the Charleston area by the name of Ted Oiler is considered the founder of this movement, and in the mid-20th century this preacher came across a book entitled The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was published around the year 1908 by a Disciples of Christ minister by the name of Levi Dowling.  Dowling was one of those people who espoused the Theosophical-derived idea of "Jesus going to India" which has become increasingly popular in some Christian circles today as well, and part of the adaptation of that view was an idea that Jesus taught the doctrine of reincarnation - obviously, this is false, and most reputable theologians reject this because it has a dubious source at best.  Oiler, who also was an advocate of Wesleyan/Holiness soteriology which was integral to early Pentecostal belief, adapted this probably from a combination of reading this as well as from something he probably heard in his travels, and the weird thing was that somehow it integrated into Wesleyan/Holiness perfectionism.  I am going to give my theory as to how this probably happened.

Two aspects of Pentecostalism could easily foray into a reincarnation doctrine, one being the idea of spiritual rebirth, and the other being the Holiness idea of sinless perfection.  For someone like Oiler, who probably was a lay preacher to start, it would be easy to conclude that spiritual rebirth could also extend to physical rebirth, and with that rebirth is an attainment of actual perfection - this means that hell would then be confined to the end of time, and people just keep coming back until they get it right, or "Biblical reincarnation" then.  This is similar to the way that some extreme Calvinists would also embrace Universalism, as indeed some Primitive Baptists in the same region actually did (Howard Dorgan, a renown Appalachian religious scholar, wrote a whole book on the Primitive Baptist Universalists that is actually quite thorough).  So, in other words, the Neverdies believe you grow in holiness by being physically "born again" as well as spiritually, and when a guy like Ted Oiler - a sincere but unlettered man who didn't have the discernment unfortunately to separate some theological wheat from chaff - gets his hands on a piece of literature like Dowling's book, it can lead to those conclusions easily.  The Neverdies, much like "The Church of the Unknown Tongue" that led to human sacrifice murders in the early 1930s in nearby Kentucky, represent what happens when some Pentecostals don't get the proper discipleship they need and later some of these people become ministers.  The same could be said of some Oneness Pentecostal groups and some of the serpent handlers as well, but as far as I am aware, most Oneness and serpent handlers don't believe in reincarnation or human sacrifice either.  I will show where this is going shortly, but now back to our Neverdie friends.

Oiler led the sect in West Virginia until he anointed his successor, one Henry Holstein of St. Albans, to pastor the Church of the Everlasting Gospel, the congregation he founded in Charleston that taught this doctrine.  Holstein passed away in 1975, which explains why I think I had a letter returned addressed to him some years ago when I wanted to write and find out more about this group (Melton's encyclopedia was a good resource, but it was way out of date as far as contact information for a lot of the groups he documented in it).  However, over the years I have still kept sort of an interest in this group, so it was fortuitous when I came across the article I found this past week.  Now, let me just give some perspective on some of this as it relates to our own spiritual development.

Religious faith - especially when one embraces the truth of the Gospel - is something that is a life-changing experience.  So, as a result, it is easy to get so enthusiastic about it that you can be like a sponge just soaking it up.  I know, because I have been there too and have also had my share of letdowns and disappointments.  The two components of one's faith - the cerebral discipleship aspect where you "study to show yourself approved" as well as the more emotional side of spirituality - are both integral to one's growth as a believer.  Unfortunately, what often happens is that we can veer to extremes.  One one hand, we become so caught up in the legalities and semantics that we end up being jaded and even doubting some important things that are integral to our faith, or we let our emotions take over and go off on some sort of "Pentecostal fit" and embrace anything and everything that sounds "spiritual" to us.  That latter aspect is what makes movements such as the Word of Faith heresy as well as some other problematic practices possible, and it can lead to an eventual crash when the reality starts to set in.  I want to give an example of something my ex-wife Barbara told me about when she was still new in her faith years ago.  Barbara became a very on-fire new Christian, and of course she wanted to read more of her Bible but at the time didn't have a grounding.  So, she read something in a passage of Scripture out of context and got this idea that you would go to hell if you ate meat!  So, fearing for her soul, she gave up eating meat for dinner.  Luckily, one of her sisters was a bit more grounded and helped her understand that the passage did not mean that, and thankfully Barbara outgrew that.  But, imagine if her sister didn't help straighten out that misunderstanding - Barbara would have been in for some health issues and other things later due to a misreading of a Bible passage.  Many a cult or sect has been started by similar experiences happening to people - the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others started with their founders misunderstanding Scripture passages, so it is not limited to small groups of hyper-Pentecostals in the hills either.  The most effective weapon Satan has in his arsenal is that he knows the Bible too, and because he knows it, he can even use God's word to mess with people and lead them astray.  And, that is why we must "study to show ourselves approved," and also one reason why often the Bible is described as a "two-edged sword" - if used correctly, it can transform lives, but if placed in the wrong hands, it can be abused in such a way that it actually can kill people (like John of the "Church of the Unknown Tongue" did in 1933 when he killed his own mother as a human sacrifice).  That leads to a couple of final observations.

The Church teaches a "Four-Fold Hermeneutic" of Scripture which ensures that it is understood as the Church has taught it over two thousand years, and I have emphasized this many times when I have had discussions in writing and in person - the Four-Fold Hermeneutic is Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical, and it is possible that one passage of Scripture can be two or more of these at once.  The context of Scripture is also important, and it is unwise to just string two verses together at random as it could have catastrophic consequences.  The well-worn example of this is taking two passages of Scripture - one is Matthew 27:5, which is the narrative about Judas Iscariot committing suicide after he betrayed Jesus.  The other is Luke 10:37, which has a simple command from Jesus to "go and do likewise."  In context, both of these Scriptures are relevant, but they are two different topics and don't belong together.  The second passage from Luke has to do with a parable Jesus was teaching about the display of mercy, and that is what he is referring to when he said "go and do likewise."  Also, chronologically, the Luke passage took place before the Matthew one did, so they are definitely not connected.  However, if you get an unsuspecting person, a new convert, who sees these two disparate verses paired together, imagine what goes through their mind - they are thinking God is commanding them to kill themselves!  While that is a more extreme example, it must be understood that stuff like this happens all the time.  Recently, for instance, I rewatched a DVD documentary I have that was filmed in 1983 entitled Chase the Devil, and it is about Appalachian religious traditions.  One of the people featured in it was an old musician from I believe was western North Carolina (I need to look that up to be sure) by the name of Virgil Anderson.  At one point in his life, Virgil came to understand that he needed to atone for things in his life, so on his property he actually built a small church, which the commentator Jeremy Marre said he did "as a penance."  On the steps of that little tarpaper church he constructed, Virgil is playing his banjo and singing a bluegrass tune called "Been Gone So Long" which he adapted from blues songs he heard his Black co-workers sing in the mines, and his rationale for that has good points and bad points.  The good point - and I agree - that Virgil made was that there is no harm in listening to non-religious music.  However, the bad point he used to justify it was a Scripture taken out of context that talks about the dangers of eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow we may die (Isaiah 22:13).  While, sure, you can say that this verse encourages people to enjoy life to the fullest (OK I guess in some contexts) the context of the verse as traditionally understood is that people waste time on petty pleasures while maybe neglecting things that are more important.  Those two things are not necessarily contradictory at all, because it is OK to have a little fun once in a while as long as you do so responsibly, but at the same time we need to also focus on the bigger picture of our lives  - they are short, and we need them to be meaningful as well.  So, while technically Virgil didn't get it wrong, he only got half the message on that verse.  Does that mean Virgil (who is probably long gone, as he was likely in his late 60s when that video was made in the early 1980s) was a bad guy?  I would have to say no - I think Virgil was probably basically a decent man, and I don't think he was a serial killer or anything.  He was just a retired old man who enjoyed simple pleasures of his life, and that is not a bad thing.  So, while Virgil didn't totally take this completely out of context, at the same time he didn't get the full message on what the verse was actually talking about. The context of the verse probably didn't damn Virgil to hell or anything, but it could be misconstrued if someone less-informed picked that line of reasoning up.  I want to eventually do a whole commentary at some point on that whole program, because Chase the Devil has a lot of interesting things in it that I feel we could learn from too.  But, that is for another day.  The lesson here is that if you are going to study Scripture, at least do so with proper guidance - misunderstanding a verse or two could in some cases have fatal consequences. 

I probably rambled more here than I intended to do, but I just wanted to share a few thoughts on a couple of very different topics I have been catching up reading about.  Thanks again for joining me, and will see you next time. 

Weekend Thoughts

 In all honesty, this has been a sort of quiet week, but a lot has been accomplished.  Three books are now published - Kindle Direct Printing does not know how to keep my formatting right on the books, but they are on the market now and I will see if I can adjust things later with them.  One big issue with self-publishing is that you can work hard on an original manuscript and these services - as good as they are, and I appreciate the opportunity they provide, don't get me wrong! - such as Lulu and KDP mess up perfect formatting!  But, you know what though?  At least some long-awaited projects are done, and perhaps later I can upgrade them maybe.  This now makes seven authored books I have printed, and there will be more in the future I am sure - I have two big ones in the works once some dust settles and I get the direction I will be going soon. Part of that is my new position I will be getting soon, and with that and interconnected to it is a new place to live.  This is life at this point, and it just feels like that 6-year transition I have been in has no ending, but nature dictates a final chapter to that saga, and hopefully we'll see it soon. 

I have also been spending some time repacking non-essential items into smaller bins to make them more manageable when it comes time for the inevitable move that will be happening.  Let's face facts - at age 56, I am not getting any younger now, and thus I need to make a potential move as efficient as possible without wearing my body out.  The last couple of moves have about done me in, and I may get some professional help with the next one just to make sure that is not my swan song.  But we are in a good place at this point, so again we'll see where it goes. 

Besides writing projects, repacking and organization, and putting in a lot of potential job applications, this has been my week so far.  So, what else has been on my mind besides that?  There is one thing I wanted to talk about, so we'll do that now.

I am already making plans for my next couple of books, and one of those book projects has to do with something that has been a key topic for me for almost 40 years now - Middle Eastern Christians, the role of the Jewish people, and some apocalyptic perspectives.  I want to write a book - and it will be a big book! - that encompasses all that, and this is something I want to do before my 60th birthday if possible.  One aspect of a project like that is organization - I want it to be scholarly, but also personal, and the key is to make both of those things happen and to make them a reality.  I have seen over the years how other writers have done that - Merrill McClain's work with Spanish Gypsies comes to mind, as does William Shirer's experiences in Nazi Germany just prior to WWII.  Now, when I was doing my dissertation work for my Ph.D., my dissertation chair, Dr. Skiles, more or less told me that Shirer's work was not a reliable scholarly source - it seems that many WWII historians don't think his work qualifies as being peer-reviewed.  My argument - which I also made to Dr. Skiles and he sort of agreed - was that perhaps Shirer's work was not meant to be a history text in the traditional sense, and rather it should be looked at as a primary source instead.  Primary source material has more leeway in historiographical analysis than does secondary or reference material, in that it is largely written from the author's perspective and is not meant to be scholastic.  Shirer's two books, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and The Nightmare Years, the latter being a sort of prequel to the first, were essentially his memoirs, and thus they are autobiographical although I believe they contain very relevant and readable information in regard to his experiences.  I have been an admirer of Shirer's work since I was a kid, and probably have read through The Nightmare Years over a dozen times.  I got my copy of it (which was unfortunately lost in our move from Hagerstown) back when I was 14 and it was a Book of the Month Club selection I got in one of those four books for a buck deals they had then.  While academics may not value his work (although Dr. Skiles did admit that Shirer's books were good reading, so that says something), there is a reason for that.  Shirer's books were not written for Ivy League professors - he wrote them for the guy who is relaxing in his armchair and loves history.  I am still sort of that guy, despite being an academic now myself.   I can write academic peer-reviewed material as well as the next Ph.D., but I also tend to write to make things interesting and readable, and I like injecting my own thoughts into a discussion too as I believe it makes me as a writer more human.  This is why my books I author are meant not for the Harvard professor, but for the casual reader who maybe has an avid interest in a certain topic.  I am going to tackle the issue of peer-review momentarily, as I have some things to say about that, but for now I want to talk about something I want to work into my book on Middle Eastern Christians once I start work on it.

In my early 20s, when I was still a young undergraduate student at Southeastern University, I had a vision.  It is a vision I haven't talked about a lot, but it still comes up in my thoughts every so often.  Since I was around 16 years old and learned about Armenians and later Assyrians, I have been a strong advocate for them.  In recent decades, it has laid sort of dormant as other issues in life have consumed my time, but I have never lost it.  As a young college student then, I was idealistic, and one of the things I envisioned then was being able to have the resources to create a highly self-sufficient community that would shelter Assyrians and others who were fleeing persecution.  I called it the Saint Isaac of Nineveh Village, and it was grandiose.  I even typed out a sort of proposal of it that I have packed among my personal papers, and I drew maps and everything.  While part of it was the idealistic ramblings of an idealistic young kid, and the cost to undertake such an endeavor could be in the billions of dollars, it is part of my story and I want to find a way to incorporate it into the book.  The idea would be amazing if it could be realized, but at my age now and the fact I am not a multi-billionaire, it may not happen in my lifetime.  So, I am leaving the idea for someone who can possibly refine it and make it happen, and that is part of the material of the book I plan to write too.  You see, stuff like that is what does inspire people, as dry academic discourse often will lose them if you are just merely discussing theories and employing an over-abundance of academic jargon.  The young people need to be able to read stuff like that and then gain inspiration for greatness, and that is where I feel I am called to operate.  Let me explore that more now before I give some opinions on the modern peer-review process.

There is a sort of exiliaration at aspiring to become an ideologue with a following - I know that sounds crazy, but think about that a minute.  When I reflect on great thinkers like Sir Roger Scruton, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Professor Plineo Correa de Oliviera,  I want to be that.  I want to not just be someone who shares a perspective, but I want followers and disciples!  That sounds crazy, and I probably will sound like a deranged cult leader to some, but think about it - to know you are impacting a young mind and they admire you enough to carry on your work, that is a good feeling.  I want to be a mentor, but also to be a real person - I don't want someone canonizing me a saint just because my views fired them up, but I want them to see me as just a normal human being with a vision for something.  It's one of the reasons I write all this stuff.  I often imagine a day in the future, long after I am gone, when some curious young person stumbles across a book I wrote or one of these articles - they read it, something resonates within them, and they then decide to become a "Throwerist."  What does that look like, and what does it mean?  I probably really sound crazy and a little narcissistic now, but I do think about the impact I may have on someone in future generations - I have published works out there now, and in 50 or 100 years someone is going to find them, read them, and hell, maybe even take some of my ramblings seriously!  In all honesty too, I want someone to read my stuff in detail, maybe even disagree on a few things but still see something that they can build upon, and if that happens my legacy lives.  I was rewatching a movie, Star Trek - First Contact, and I thought of my own legacy as kind of like the fictional Zephrem Cochrane in the Star Trek universe.  Cochrane, as any Trekkie knows, is the guy who invented the system that powers the USS Enterprise from the time Archer flies the first one a hundred years later until Picard retires it 300 years in the future.  That system, as any Trekkie knows, is warp drive.  Warp drive is in real life a nonexistent thing, because it is a propulsion system that breaks the light barrier and instead of measuring distances in miles for interstellar travel, it is in light years.  So, going from one side of a galaxy to another is like driving a car from New York to California in real time - it may take a few days, but you get there in good time. Will warp drive ever exist?  Who knows?  However, that is not what I was going to focus on, as instead it is about Cochrane himself.  When the Borg (a transhuman species who are the ultimate nemesis for all life in the galaxy) threaten to go back in time and conquer and assimilate earth, they create a time portal to go back to the time Cochrane lived to thwart what happened and change history in their favor.  23rd-century Picard and his crew meet 21st-century Zephrem Cochrane, and what they meet does not measure up to the mythology that has built up around his legacy - instead of being a visionary, Cochrane (who is played by the actor James Cromwell, who is a real talent and plays the part well) turns out to be a burnt-out, alcohol-fueled scientist who just wants to make a ton of money and retire on a tropical island where he can have endless orgies with beautiful native girls.  So, warp drive ends up being a business venture instead of a true vision, but eventually the future crew of the Enterprise bring Cochrane around, and the Borg are defeated and the future is secure.   Cochrane was a simple guy with a good idea, and didn't understand exactly what his legacy was going to be - frankly, he was at a point he didn't care!  I am not as jaded as Cochrane obviously, as I want a pivotal legacy, but I understand the humility involved that people end up respecting more than one's accomplishments.  That is the legacy I hope to pass on.  Of course, there will be opposition to one's progress, and when you get to the Ph.D. level a lot of that opposition comes from other Ph.Ds at times - this is where the gatekeeping farce of peer review comes into play.  Let's tackle that now.

Peer review is in the strictest sense a sort of validation of one's written scholarship by those who are on equal standing (hence, peers).  At one time, it was seen as a noble right-of-passage into academic discourse, and the very first peer-review one faces is their dissertation review committee.  I fortunately had a very good group in that regard, as my faculty chair Dr. Skiles was amazing, and the two readers (Dr. Glaze and Dr. Broom) were likewise phenomenal.  As part of that rite of passage, one undergoes readings, suggestions, and criticism from the committee, and the doctoral candidate then has to either accept or reject their recommendations and make the appropriate adjustments to their dissertation work.  It sort of prepares a Ph.D. candidate for what to expect when they prepare to publish in the future, and it is good practice.  If you meet the approval of your chair and the readers, you can officially preface your name with the title "Doctor" and all that's left is the official degree conferral.  That is an amazing moment when you experience it, and mine was - to hear a couple of senior academics address you as a peer with the title "Doctor" makes it all worth it, and that was perhaps one of the best moments of my life when I achieved that.  However, there are academic societies and organizations that don't take your work as seriously as your review committee did, and that is where peer review becomes frustrating.  In much of today's academic discourse, you have "gatekeepers" who are either UC Berkeley radicals with political agendas or Ivy League elitists who look down at your credentials as somehow beneath them because your university where you worked hard and earned a degree is not "Hahhh-vahhd" or "Yale," and thus you are beneath them.  Those types are the ones who control many academic societies, and when you read what they do approve as "equal," it has little or no relevance to the academic field they are supposed to represent.  My biggest pet peeve in this regard is a group called the Appalachian Studies Association.  I tried to get some stuff published in their journal a couple of years back, and the chairman of that group, a UC Berkeley hippie with no ties to the region whatsoever, told me my material was more suited for a travel brochure than their elite publication.  But, then I looked at one of their conferences - it featured a "drag queen" contest (what in hell did that have to do with Appalachian Studies??) and a bunch of talks that sought to discredit our Vice President J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy as a racist and ignorant rant or something - again, when you disparage the Vice President's book (which is a memoir, I must interject - Vance never intended his book to be a scholarly discourse!) when he is actually a native of the region he writes about but you're not, to me that ruins your credibility.  So, while bitching about the Vice President and lustfully ogling drag queens is considered "scholarly discourse," an actual article from someone who grew up in the region is casually dismissed as "travel brochure copy."  I really hope someone from the Appalachian Studies Association reads this and maybe they will see how inconsistent, irrelevant, and ridiculous they are. This is why I actually propose a different way for scholars to be published to avoid these establishment elitist gatekeepers.  There are opportunities out there, so it is just a matter of finding them.  

ASA is not the only such "academic society" that is like this - most of them are due to the political inclinations of academic elitists.  While there are notable exceptions, overall it is not a good thing at all when one looks at what passes for "scholastic" in this day and age.  But, so is the world we live. 

On that note, I will conclude my thoughts for today, and again, I appreciate your bearing with my ramblings.  We'll see you next time. 

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!