A Month Is Ending, and So Is My First Graduate Semester

It amazes me at how fast the year has really flown by!  We just celebrated Thanksgiving a week ago (and just finished up the leftovers of our turkey yesterday!) and it never fails - it seems like every year at around this time I catch a bug, which I am starting to recover from!  Although the year got off to a bumpy start, the good news is that it is ending much better than it started.

As you may have figured out by reading my earlier material, I started my Masters degree program in August, and at this juncture (November 29th) I am about to wrap up my first semester - one down, five to go!  It has taken some getting used to, as much has changed at the campus since I got my Bachelors there back in 1996, but I am finding my "groove" finally and the research projects are actually motivating me to do some much-needed study on things I have been wanting to do but never had the incentive.   I would surmise that as of the end of this semester, I have written probably a couple of hundred pages easily in research projects, critical reviews, and a couple of in-class presentations I was assigned, and as I write this I am finishing up my last two projects before the semester wraps up and I get a few weeks of much-needed rest to enjoy the holidays.   Next term should be much smoother now that I have my routine established.

One other aspect of this past few months has been the acquisition of a CD recorder, and I have been able to finally get a lot of my LP's onto CD, some of which have no prospect of reissue professionally.  I have been wanting to get one of those for years, and finally have been able to do so.  Of course, I have a lot of LP's to transfer yet, so it is a project that will take a while, but the good thing is that I have some good stuff on CD now that I have better access to listen to and enjoy more.  That project actually entails two aspects - one is vintage big band records, and the other is some of my old Gospel and Armenian/Assyrian music that is both on vinyl and cassette.   Like many things that stimulate good memories, this stuff does - hearing some old material on cassette I haven't listened to in years was particularly refreshing, whether it be the Chilingirian String Quartet's recording of Aslamazian's Armenian Suite, or Diane Bish's masterful rendition on the great Rufatti organ at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee, or other LP's of vintage material - soprano Sylvia Kutchukian's beautiful rendition of Armenian sacred music, Baptist evangelist Ed Reese's recordings of Gospel standards on an instrument called the Cordovox (an electronic accordion that also can play organ tones), or the earliest vintage LP's of such Christian music luminaries as Dino Kartsonakis (from 1963) and Phil Driscoll (from 1972).   As for my vintage big band collection, it is also good to get some material like Ernie Hecksher and Jose Melis, two bandleaders who have no CD reissues available, on disc.   However, I have to do these in small doses due to the fact school now has me pretty busy.  However, I anticipate doing about 30 more LP's in the coming few months.

Concerning the holidays, Christmas decorations are now up too, and the cats as usual think the Christmas tree is a big chew toy.  Let me ask you all something, and feel free to email me with the answer to this if you have it - why is it that cats like chewing on Christmas trees anyway??   For one thing, our tree is artificial, so it cannot taste all that nice.   And, then after chawing on the tree, these dang cats get sick and yack up bits of green stuff all over the floor, which is a mess to clean up.   What complicates that fact is that we have four of them, and all but one likes munching on the greenery!   However, despite the fact I would like to strangle them on occasion, I love our four furry children - even as a kid I have always been a cat person.  They are adorable, fun to watch, and at this point in my life I can't imagine what it would be like not having a cat in the house.   And, no offense to dog people, but I have much more patience with cats than I do dogs - my mother's shi-tzu, honestly, has got to be one of the most mentally-unbalanced of God's creatures; he seems to always be hungry and "horny" all the time (pardon the crassness of the latter term, but for alliterative purposes and also the fact there is not a better word that fits this creature, I had to use it!) - and, for some reason he has an unnatural affection for cats, as he is always trying to molest ours.  Of course, that never ends well, as he generally ends up getting the tar knocked out of him by our large male Snowshoe Siamese at least once during the course of a visit.  But, like people who vote for Obama (my apologies to any friends who did - nothing personal!) he didn't learn the first time!  If they had a Dr. Phil for pets, just saying, that person would get rich from just treating Mom's dog!

Meet "the Beast" - Mom's shi-tzu Cobby, eater of all and rider of cats!

Got a new show you all should watch too that I have gotten interested in over the past few months since we switched to satellite.  If any of you get RFD-TV, there is a show on at 11 PM on Saturdays called "Larry's Country Diner," and it is a must-see for anyone who likes a good, clean variety show with a down-home feel.   The show is actually set up as a diner that serves food, with the MC, Larry Black, overseeing the festivities of the program.  The highlight of the show is Nadine Nadine (no kidding - that is her name!), an elderly but sharp-tongued church lady who arrives to the tune of ragtime music with a print dress and matching hat carrying a big Bible that Charles Atlas would have a challenge lifting!  Although vintage country music is not my thing, this show is a haven for those who do appreciate it, as he often features as guests vintage country musicians such as Jim Ed Brown and others.  Of course, my favorite guests of his are Riders in The Sky - one of the best groups ever!  So, if you have nothing better to do on Saturday nights (Larry is on after the Molly B Polka Party which I also never miss), take a virtual visit to Larry's, where, as the tag line says, "the cameras are rolling and WE DON'T CARE!" 

 

The one and only Nadine!

 

 

Speaking of polkas, I have been watching Molly B's show on RFD religiously, as both myself and Oreo our cat love it.  What I found to be really good about that lately is that she is featuring more bands that play this style of polka called "Dutch Hop," and it is good stuff!   This is a style of polka you will hear a lot out in Colorado and adjacent areas, and is a product of the various groups of Volga Germans (Germans originally from Russia) that settled there over a century ago.   The distinction of this style is that it utilizes (thanks to the Russian influence) an instrument called a hammered dulcimer, which really gives the music a pretty sound.  This instrument has popped up in other musical genres before (notably in klezmer, where it is called a streifidl (Yiddish for "straw fiddle") but I never had the appreciation for it that I developed listening to these "Dutch Hop" bands.   Some of the better-known groups are the Polka Nuts (they are phenomenal!), John Fritzler, and the Dutch Hop Music Makers.   Google them if you wish to find out more information about them, or for a historical book and recordings on the genre, go to the Center For Volga German Studies website at http://cvgs.cu-portland.edu/.   I promise, once you hear "Dutch Hop" it will be a good experience to your ears!

 

A hammered dulcimer, the trademark instrument of "Dutch Hop" polka bands.

 

 

That is all I have to share for today, but hopefully will be visiting with you again soon before 2012 winds down (provided the Mayans were not correct - just joking!). And, if I miss some of you, may you have a blessed holiday season, and remember Who we are celebrating it for and why.



Election Reflections

November 6, 2012, has come and gone, and with it any possibility for America to recover any sense of greatness she once had.  Barack Obama is still on his throne for at least another four years, and this has many people concerned.  I myself am concerned too, and wanted to share some thoughts on the issue concerning it.  This is much more serious in tone than many things I have written here over the past year, yet it must be addressed.   I doubt if even all words here will be sufficient to say what needs to be said, but it is an attempt to try.

What will another four years of Obama mean for us, the average "Joe Schmo" whose demographic makes up what much of this nation is?  I recently watched Dinesh D'Souza's 2016 film, and that was frankly very enlightening.  D'Souza, a capable theoretician and accomplished scholar, recounted his own immigrant origins in India and contrasted them with Obama's, but the differences between them were like night and day.  D'Souza, along with Lebanese-born activist Brigitte Gabriel, Assyrian actress/activist Rosie Malek-Younan, and thousands of others, represents what America is all about - these people are proud Americans, they love and value our nation's heritage, and although many of them are naturalized citizens, they have brought a valuable contribution to our nation.  I am proud to call all of these wonderful individuals Americans, and many of them I am also honored to have as friends too.   I would also like to mention in that group as well some lesser-known people - my dear friend and Assyrian Church of the East Deacon John Khio, a parishioner in our parish by the name of Jeanne Radcliffe, another former parishioner of ours named Susan Winslow, and Subdeacon Najib Jacob, a Palestinian immigrant who faithfully serves at St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox parish in Pinellas Park, FL.  All of these people are dear friends, and I wouldn't trade my friendship with these dear people for all the gold in the world.   Many immigrants have enriched America greatly and helped her to become the great nation she once was, and that being said, I also want to go on record as saying that if anyone chooses to come to the US, and goes through the legal channels of doing so, they are welcome and I trust their giftings and talents will enhance the communities they settle in once they arrive.   God's blessings truly be with these people.

Then there is our "fearless leader" President, Barack Hussein Obama Jr.  Obama is proported to have been born in Hawaii, although much speculation has been evident over the past several years regarding his birth certificate.   His mother was an American (and a distant relative of mine, I might add), and his father was from Kenya.  Although Obama may have been born in America (d'Souza affirms that he was in the film) his mindset is anything but - his mentors were well-versed in anti-colonialist sentiments, Marxism, and Black Liberation theology, and he also received some of his education in a madrasa (Islamic parochial schools, which in recent years have been linked to recruiting/training Islamic militant terrorists) in Indonesia.  And, much of Obama's own policies - especially his increasing the deficit to twice the amount of all his predecessors combined, as well as his disdain for the military - reflect that anti-colonialist mentality.   And, that is really the root cause as to why so many people were worried when he won re-election by the electoral vote, which I have noted elsewhere has the usefulness of a foreskin, rather than the popular vote, which was overwhelmingly for Romney.  Lest anyone misunderstand, I don't see the electoral college as totally unnecessary, as the Constitution does allow for it, but in recent times the way that it currently operates renders it unethical.   It has initiated the question as to who comprises the electoral college, and why they do not reflect the popular vote like they were supposed to.   Some people I have talked to have even come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how they vote because the phantom menaces on the electoral college have the final say anyway.  Are they right?  I wonder about that myself, and perhaps I need to meditate more on that question.

Honestly, I have not felt that feeling like I felt on the morning of November 7th since the mid-1990's, when the whole Ruby Ridge/Waco thing happened, and in 1999 when another Democrat, Bill Clinton, attacked a sovereign Christian republic (Serbia) to defend a bunch of Moslem terrorists - Kosovo, I feel, is what led to 9/11, but that is just my feeling!  Yet, I have found it hypocritical that the same people who got so hawkish about Kosovo were the very ones to yell at Bush when he went in to take out Saddam Hussein in 2002 - these liberals sicken me at times with the blatant hypocrisy they harbor, and another thing about that was the deafening silence of people like Jesse Jackson, who likes crying "racism" at everything, being so silent back in the early 1990's when South Sudanese - mostly Black and Christian - were being slaughtered by the thousands by the militant Islamic government of Sudan.  South Sudanese scholar, Dr. Dominic Mohammed, nailed it when he asked the very excellent question - "Are Black Christians less valuable than White Muslims to these Americans?"   It does make one wonder, doesn't it??   Of course, in lieu of what has happened, Jesse Jackson today thankfully has all the relevance of a pet rock - he's all mouth, all about entitlements, and is more racist himself than those he accuses.   Not much, honestly, separates Jesse Jackson and his Black Panther friends from David Duke and the Kluckers - they are all evil, in my book.  And, evil doesn't differentiate skin color, contrary to these politically-correct thought police who like confusing disagreement with "racism."  Which now leads me to my next issue to discuss - will America as a republic stand?

In 1981 a guy by the name of Joel Garreau wrote a classic text on a discipline called bioregionalism entitled The Nine Nations of North America.  I originally read this back in 1999, and when I did it revolutionized my thinking.  Garreau is not even close to forecasting the dissolution of the US as a political entity, but what he does say is that America is not a single entity anyway, but rather a collection of nine regional "nations."   Each of these "nations" has its own economic base, its own culture and values, and even its own language in some cases.  I myself am a committed bioregionalist, but I will go on record as saying that I differ somewhat with Garreau's model in that I feel there are more than 9 "nations" - Texas and Hawaii, for instance, were once independent entities in their own right and still retain much of that mindset, while the Ozarks, Appalachia, and Utah all have very distinctive histories that are all their own. I would even propose that the South - which Garreau calls the "Nation of Dixie" - is not a homogenous unit either - Louisiana, Florida, and the Carolina Piedmont are all vastly different than the "Deep South" areas of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi (even among the latter, there is state pride - Alabamians and Georgians, for instance, have a sort of intense rivalry between them).  Then there are all the American Indian tribes - each one of them is already a separate nation - as well as enclaves of Blacks and Hispanics.   Even within states, there are differences - California, for instance, is almost like 3 different states itself.   Garreau expresses this variance well in the opening paragraphs of his book when he writes:

Consider, instead, the way North America really works.  It is Nine Nations.  Each has its capital and its distinctive web of power and influence.  A few are allies, many are adversaries.  Several have readily acknowledged national poets, and many have characteristic dialects and mannerisms.  Some are close to being raw frontiers; others have four centuries of history.  Each has a peculiar economy; each commands a certain emotional allegiance from its citizens.  These nations look different, feel different, and sound different from each other, and few of their boundaries match the political lines drawn upon our current maps.  Some are clearly divided topographically by mountains, deserts, and rivers.  Others are separated by architecture, music, language, and ways of making a living.  Each nation has its own list of desires.  Each nation knows how it plans to get what it needs from whoever's got it. (Joel Garreau, The Nine Nations of North America {New York:  Avon Books, 1981} pp. 1-2)

Garreau's map of the "Nine Nations" as he documents in his book

Geography, economy, semantics...many things differentiate one region from another.  Yet, we need to see how that would figure into the future of the US as a nation.   Will these bioregional distinctions become political reality?  Who's to say, but one thing is for certain - no empire is eternal, but only God's eternal kingdom is.  Which leads us into the next aspect of this discussion.

Is America going to disintegrate?  Many are talking about that now, although in recent years the 9/11 tragedy has deflected some attention from it.  However, with Obama in a second term, the subject is starting to resurface, as well as talk of re-forming the militia movement that gained so much notoriety in the mid-1990's.   Pat Buchanan and other writers argue that the influx of illegal immigrants and the aging/decline of native populations is a factor as well, basing the theory on much of what has happened in Europe.   He also correctly cites another reason for America's demise on the international stage, and this one is the factor many refuse to admit but it is true:

The detronement of God from American life was not done democratically, it was done dictatorially, and our forefathers would never have tolerated it.  Why did people of a once-fighting faith permit it, when prayer, Christmas carols, Bible reading, and posting the Ten Commandments were backed by huge majorities?   Because we live under a rule of judges, Congress is unwilling to confront.  if America has ceased to be a Christian country, it is because she has ceased to be a democratic country.  This is the real coup d'etat.  (Patrick Buchanan, Death of the West {New York:  Saint Martins Press, 2002} p. 188)

Republican democracy, as Buchanan notes, has its roots in Judeo-Christian principle.  The sanctity of life, freedom to follow one's conscience, and the liberty to worship as one is led to do so are values intrinsic to the American experience.  With the growing secularism rampant in American society today, it is no wonder that socialism and other things are gaining a sympathetic ear.  My Archbishop, Mark Haverland of the Anglican Catholic Church, even said in a number of his writings that the American Evangelical churches are following suit by conforming to culture, and thus even the Church has been secularized (this "Emerging Church" heresy I note in my theological articles at www.sacramentalpresenttruths.blogspot.com is the ultimate and latest expression of the secularizing tendency in American Christianity).  However, the thing is, not every person in every part of the nation is doing what New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the other major metro areas are dictating, and this is causing an ever-heating discontent just under the surface.  In time, that discontent could lead to division, and by division, I mean demographic/geographic division possibly along bioregional lines.   Are we ready for that? 

I would love more than anything to see the US get back to its roots, sans some of the mistakes of the past, and recapture the core values that made us great to begin with.  However, realistically, I don't think it will happen, and therefore I predict that one day - maybe closer than we think! - the US will dissolve as a political entity as its influence as a major power declines.   A number of small regional sovereign entities will replace the US as it once was, and in the long run this may be for the best.   To prove it is not far-fetched, this has happened before - remember the Western Roman Empire?  It was not conquered, nor did it fall by any great catastrophe - it slowly whittled away until in 476 AD the last emperor of the West, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by a "barbarian" chieftain and counsel by the name of Odoacer.  And, it didn't take a lot for that to happen either - he deposed and exiled the boy emperor, and politely sent the imperial symbols to the Eastern Emperor with the message that it was no longer necessary to appoint a successor.   America is on that road too, and it is only a matter of time.   Will it happen prior to 2016?  That remains to be seen, but inevitably it is going to happen someday.  We, as a nation, are just too big for our britches and the cumbersome bureaucracy we have, and the secularizing influences they have, is getting too hard to maintain and too much for the common citizen to bear.  If Obama has his way, he wants to institute a Third-World, anticolonialist, secular socialism that would in essence deconstruct the American system as we know it and replace it with something very sinister.  Thing is, most Americans would not stand for that, and would rise against it rather than accept it.  So, in all likelihood, if the ominous feelings many have about Obama have merit, we could see states, or regions of states, breaking away from the United States in the very near future.  Given the choice of secession or tyranny, I choose secession - America can best be preserved in remnants in that instance.   Question is though, where would I choose to place my loyalties if something like that were to happen?  Given my own heritage, my first choice would be advocating for an independent Appalachian state, but I would also support a Southern coalition too.   I personally hope that myself and many of the "naysayers" about all this stuff are wrong, because such a transition would be a mess, and I would much prefer to save and restore the US to what she should be rather than to see its dissolution.  But, if it comes down to it, I ultimately want to secure my and my family's freedom, and will do what it takes.   Will you?   The decision is one only you can make, but in lieu of the times,  I would suggest that you more thoroughly think about it.   God bless until next time. 

Retrospection

I just felt the need to write today about nothing in particular but just due to the fact I am feeling somewhat retrospective, meaning this could take a lot of unexpected directions.   Therefore, please bear with me. 

It has been a busy past few months, starting grad school and all, and to be honest it is starting to catch up to me.  Please don't get me wrong - I love being able to finally pursue my Master's after all these years of desiring to do so, but I have gotten to the point where I have to pace myself more lest burnout take effect.   That is true with other things as well.   In doing so, I am starting to get some focus back, and in months to come I will be adjusted I am sure to the routine and then it will be much more manageable. 

One significant event to note is that as of October 1st I have been collecting vintage records for 30 years - wow!  And, as I write this today, my collection currently stands at around 900 LP records and 1113 CD's.   The collection covers the gamut of what many call the "big band era," as that is my favorite type of music, but it is so much more encompassing - for instance, over the past 6 years I have gained a significant number of polka recordings too, which as I have argued are an underappreciated yet vital part of the big band legacy.   My biggest accomplishment though has come more recently as I have acquired the machine to record many of my LP's on CD, and that has also been quite a milestone.  Of course, there is no way in Sheol that I would be able - or need to, for that matter! - copy all 900 of my LP's onto CD.  For one thing, much of the material has been reissued in CD form already.  But, about 10% or so of my LP collection probably will never make it to CD reissue, and those are the ones I have been working on.  So far, I have 22 discs made, and there are currently 14 more planned, but I am going to pace myself - most of the recordings I will be doing on the weekends rather than during weekdays due to school and other responsibilities, and also it would get wearisome sitting there and doing those for an hour straight at a time sometimes during a day.  Modern technology has made the process easier, I will grant that, but it is still up to the operator to pay attention to tracking sequences, etc., and that does require a lot of attention.   But, fortunately this is not a project that is time-dependent; I own the machine now, and I can take the time to do good recordings without rushing and fussing.   So, it will probably be an ongoing project. 

I remember the very first record I got back in October of 1982 - it wasn't even a big band record, but was a Harry Belafonte recording Mom picked up for me at a local junk store called Fitzwater's in Rio, WV.   As many know the story, I cut my teeth on big band recordings by listening to a guy who played them on WBT-AM radio out of Charlotte, NC, by the name of Henry Boggen.   Henry had a show in those days that was on from 10 PM Sunday nights to 1 AM Monday mornings, and although he played a lot of big band material, he also played a lot of 1940's-1950's pop too (such as Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, etc.).  And, among those wax-stacks was the occasional Harry Belafonte record.  Mom assumed that I was looking for that sort of thing, and therefore since I was in school the day she went shopping, she picked that up for me for a quarter.  The album was not bad actually, although not one of my favorites, and today I have sort of outgrown that.  But, its significance is that it was the first recording of what I perceived as my music that I got.   The following month was actually when I got a lot of my first big band LP's (all of which I now have recorded on CD).   I still remember those nights of listening to Henry's show with great fondness - especially during the summer when school was out, I would sit at the kitchen table with the radio on, drinking instant coffee and eating potato chips, while the cool night breeze blew in the open window of our mobile home we lived in at the time.   Some nights Mom and I would play Yahtzee or cards while listening, or I would read a book, etc.   A lot of times though I just listened to the show, and as I did so once I started collecting records I would count how many songs Henry played that I had on record, and that was just a fun little pasttime I did.   Looking at my collection now, I see that I came a long way from the stuff Henry played, as about 60% of Henry's nightly program lineup is not even in my collection (nor is it anything I want either).  Yet, for a poor kid growing up in small-town West Virginia with little else to do, it created some fond memories for me. 

This is the first LP I ever got in my collection - totally unrelated to my more-developed musical preferences later, but still a milestone.

 

 

I miss a lot of things from those days when I was young too, as I am sure many of us do.  It becomes more apparent as one sees the way the world changes around them too.   Could it be maybe I am getting old?  Who is to say - I mean, I am approaching my 43rd birthday here in just about 3 weeks or so, and my age shows more than it used to.  For instance, if I painted my midriff yellow right now, it would look like I was wearing a floatation device!  And, I marvel at how grey my hair has gotten too - I look at myself in the mirror now and wonder who that geezer is staring back at me, only to realize it is me!  I also pee more (I get aggravated at how much time I spend in the bathroom - it's ridiculous!) and feel more tired and achy than I once did.   Funny thing too - I used to be able to walk for long distances, eat a whole pizza by myself, and I had the metabolism of a garden shrew at one time.   That too has changed.   But, I am not depressed about it - I accept growing older as a fact of life, and intend to do it gracefully and enjoy the journey.  The thankfulness I have now is that I am not younger - these kids today are in a world that is a mess compared to our generation.  They don't know the simple pleasures many of us enjoyed at their age, and I feel like they are missing out.  I grew up very poor - with a single mom and no income other than foodstamps and Dad's child support check every month, we didn't have much - but even in the midst of the necessity I had back then I still knew how to be creative with life.  I developed a love for reading at a young age, got into this great music I just talked about, and spent a lot of time as a kid fishing, gathering stuff in the woods, and catching all manner of critters from land and water - and, it was fun!  I also basically taught myself how to cook, I learned how to draw and do sketches, and in time I could converse in two other languages (German and Latin) before I graduated high school 23 years ago.   Nowadays, these kids have all this gadgetry and don't do much outside their own bedrooms - the thought of catching a live frog for instance would be repulsive to them, and they'd feel sorry for the fish if you caught one due to these stupid new "environmental sensitivities" (soon, it will even be "politically incorrect" to fish - Lord have mercy upon us!).  As for eating wild foods - ramps, wild garlic, poke greens, etc. - forget that too - if it isn't served at Starbuck's they probably won't eat it.   For all the technological advances today's youth have, I still have to wonder if maybe something still is lacking.  Kids are almost not allowed to be kids anymore - someone in one of my graduate-level classes mentioned recently - and a valid point, I might add - that many of the supposed ADHD diagnoses going around these days may just be simply kids being distracted by so much clutter in their lives - they text, they Google, they tweet, they spend all this time on MySpace and Facebook, and they have their ears crammed with Bluetooths, i-pod earpieces, etc.   Not to mention the video games, etc. too.  Technology is good, and it indeed can enhance one's quality of life, but only if it don't rob other aspects of life that also give quality - the hands-on and exploratory nature that a child has must be encouraged and developed, as this is where they grow.   I mean, really - whatever happened to chemistry sets, Sea Monkeys, Venus Flytrap kits, and ant farms as constructive things for kids??   Not to mention erector sets, Licoln logs, and for those of us who grew up in a church-influenced environment, those plastic Noah's Ark sets?  I miss all that stuff.   Most kids won't even know what it is.  And, good books too - authors like Robert Newton Peck, Beverly Cleary, and William Saroyan were characteristic of leisure reading in our generation, but most kids today wouldn't understand the worlds of those books.   I could also mention Saturday morning cartoons - we grew up with those, but you don't even see them on anymore unless you have satellite TV and get a channel like Boomerang, on which you can still watch stuff like "The Smurfs."   Heck, even Friday night sitcoms no longer exist!  It is definitely a different world - again, am I just showing my age or what?

 

 

Speaking of reading material, just last week I got in the mail a copy of a good book I read an excerpt of back in 1980 in a Readers Digest magazine entitled Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without A Number, by Argentinian journalist Jacobo Timerman.  I was reading this stuff at age 10, and it was really fascinating.   Timerman was a Russian-born Jewish writer whose family emigrated to Argentina, and in the early 1970's he got into some hot water for criticizing the regime of Juan Peron, and was thrown in prison.   The book chronicles his saga, and although a bit unpleasant to read (he goes into detail, for instance, about torture tactics his captors used, including stripping him naked, dousing him with water, and administering raw electric shock on his body) it is still enlightening.  Although a religious atheist, Timerman does acknowledge that if it weren't for a godly rabbi and a priest aiding him on occasion, he may not have survived.   Also throughout the book one gets the impression that anti-semitism was a factor in Timerman's imprisonment - the Peronist government did have some Nazi sympathies, and many Nazi war criminals found a welcome haven in Argentina following World War II, so this is not surprising.   And, although Timerman is himself a self-professed atheist, it raises some questions for us as Christians, in particular those of us who likewise have Jewish roots - if we were in that same position, being persecuted for our faith, would we be able to perservere like Timerman did?  Many Christians have suffered, and have even been martyred, in modern times in similar circumstances (people like Dietrich Boenhoffer, St. Maxmilian Kolbe, St. Edith Stein, and others come to mind here, as well as late Assyrian Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun, who was murdered in cold blood by the Kurdish criminal Simkoo during the World War I years).  But, in this day and age, where "political correctness" and inclusivism seem to even define Christian churches, I fear that the same type of courage and character of these great people may be lacking - many seek to accomodate the oppressors and make them into "good guys" rather than standing on their own convictions and addressing evils in society.   There are days, as a matter of fact, I often regret being here in this generation and wish I had been born in an earlier time - I know it is not realistic, and God has his plan for me being here "for such a time as this," but the limits of my humanity long for something far less crazy.   I am sure maybe others feel that way too, despite eschatological hopes and optimistic determination to create change for the better.  My best to those people, and in a sense I am one of them too, but at the rate our society is moving now, I wouldn't be expecting much that is earthshaking at this point.

 

 

So, that conversation took a rather dark turn, didn't it?  I guess it is time to bring it back around a little.  Now, what shall we discuss next?   As mentioned in some previous articles, I am in graduate school now, and it is an experience.  When talking about change, I note it at my alma mater, where I am also pursuing this graduate work.  I value high academic quality, and my college has that.  However, there are other changes on that campus in the past 16 years since I was there pursuing my undergraduate degree that to be honest are hard for me to swallow.  Those are beyond the focus of this writing though as they deal with spiritual issues, but the change has not escaped me.  Some things though remain constant.  One of those that was a refreshing discovery is a little Laotian guy who for years has hung out on campus, and yes, he is still there!  We all called him Sammy, although his real name was Thang-Kam SaiSi (I hope I spelled that right!) and he is practically a college mascot.   But, we all loved Sammy - he's a great guy, although he's had a few rough patches in his life that I will not divulge here he told me about in confidence years ago, and my guess would be that 20 years from now he will still be hanging around campus.  That is all I am going to say about him here, as I want to do a separate story about him later to acquaint you all with him better (some of my old classmates reading this already know him anyway).  However, people like Sammy are a bright spot in our otherwise hectic lives, and it is a blessing to see he is still hanging out on campus.  

 

 

I suppose it is time to conclude for now, but Lord willing I will write again soon.  My best to all who read this, and may you have a blessed week.

Post-Script - First Graduate-Level Course

Due to my new responsibilities as a graduate student, I have not been able to post as much, but I finally have a small break.  Classes are a little different for us in graduate-level, especially at the university I attend, due to the fact that they run in 8-week sessions, but that is fine.  I wanted to reflect a little today on my past 8 weeks, as it has been challenging but overall a good experience. 

As many of you reading this may know, my course of study is Theology, and the program I am in is what is called a MATS degree (Master of Arts in Theological Studies).   It is something I have been looking forward to for a long time, as it has been 16 years since I have gotten my undergraduate degree.  But, here we are - we have completed the first class, and two years yet to go! 

The first course I took was basically a graduate-level hermeneutics (for those not familiar with this discipline, it is the study of Biblical interpretation) course, although it was under a different name.  The professor, Dr. Ken Archer, was actually good and he was also a fantastic indidual to get to know as a person as well as an instructor.   However, the workload was intense - many, MANY pages of reading, and written responses on practically every chapter as well as an exegetical paper which turned out to be almost 35 pages for me.  However, despite the intensity, it was a good course and I would recommend it to anyone. 

If there were negatives, I would say that some of the theological/ideological views I came across in both the reading and the lecture material involved things I was at variance with.  To put it this way, I am doing this at the same Pentecostal college I earned my undergraduate degree, but it is much different than it would have been back at that time.  For one thing, there is a lot of sympathy in the faculty for what is called "postmodern theology," which essentially at times can be a little too inclusive for my taste (we read this one textbook for instance by this philosopher, Merold Westphal, which was just bizarre - this guy believed that Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx were "prophetic voices from God," and I thought Westphal had been ingesting too many toadstools out of his yard to even suggest such a thing).  Secondly, some of the professor's views were at variance with mine as well on some issues, but the good thing is that everything was discussed in a civil way, and Archer overall didn't seek to have 100% assent for his views even in class - he understood his role as being to equip us as his students with the tools we need to responsibly carry out the task, and in the end I believe that goal was accomplished.  I must admit though that his book on Pentecostal Hermeneutic was excellent, especially since it seems as if there has been a very positive and open attitude on his and other scholars' parts to engage the full Christian community - even us Catholics! - as fellow believers and that we can inspire each other's traditions with mutual respect.  I of course have taught that for years.   That is certainly a BIG leap from my earlier years in the undergraduate program when one of the Missions professors, Dr. Andreas Carrodeguas, was so anti-Catholic and vitriolic that I actually had to go to my faculty advisor to request that he tone down that rhetoric.   And as for Carrodeguas, let me give a little background.  He was a former Catholic priest who, desiring to marry, left the Church to become a Pentecostal, and when he did he got mixed up at the time in Jimmy Swaggart's circle and developed an anti-Catholic attitude that would have even made Jack Chick flinch.  Another Catholic apologist who also is a former Pentecostal, Tim Staples, actually had Carrodeguas as one of his instructors at JSBC, and at the time Staples was at that school, he became a Catholic and was immediately referred to "counseling" with Carrodeguas.  When Staples gave his conversion testimony at a conference we attended some years back, he mentioned that Carrodeguas became so violently angry at the very mention of the word "Catholic" that it was practically impossible to carry on a rational conversation with the man.  I found him to be pretty much the same way when I had him for an undergraduate missions course back in 1995 - although otherwise a quiet man with a great sense of humor, as well as possessing a great intellect, Carrodeguas nonetheless needed seriously to work through some issues.  Thankfully, today at that same college someone like Carrodeguas would not be entertained on campus, and in a sense that is a great thing.   However, I suppose that we need to pray for Dr. Carrodeguas, as a great mind like his can easily be overshadowed by personal biases and bad theology.  In the past several years, not much has been heard out of him, except that I believe he now is on the faculty at a Pentecostal college in Spain somewhere.

I have now been in the process of mapping out my course of action as far as a thesis is concerned, and what I have decided on is maybe doing something along the lines of creating a new spiritually-empowered model for independent Catholic/Anglican ecclesiology with the Catholic Apostolic Church movement of the 1830's as a model to use.  It will take some work formulating it, as there are other factors involved, but I will be talking more about that at length later on.   I have been purchasing a number of books to aid in the process over the past month, and think I almost have everything in my "toolbox" to start construction when the time arrives.   But, at most, that is 18 months away yet.  

I will try to visit a little more often as I am able, although don't expect me a lot!  The workload involved in graduate classes is a little more intensive, and thus time factors don't allow much of the leisure I once was afforded.  Any rate, take care, and we'll be seeing you soon.

Life As A Graduate Student

Just this past Monday, I embarked on a journey I wished I would have started some years ago, and that was my first day of class as a graduate student.   I am currently enrolled at my old alma mater, where I received my Bachelor of Arts in 1996, but I am now in what is called the Master of Arts in Theological Studies, or MATS, program.   Basically, it is a degree that would allow me to either teach in a church setting, an academic setting (provided I pursue a doctoral degree afterward), or to prepare for ordination.   It is very intensive - a lot of reading (I am currently completing almost 172 pages of required reading for just the first class session!), a lot of Greek later, and a lot of writing.   Therefore, over the next 18 months to two years I may not be writing these articles as much!

Despite initial challenges though, I am enjoying being back in the classroom again, as I sure did miss it.   However, even at the college I went to, a lot has changed - the attitude of the professors for one thing has its positives and negatives.  As a positive, they are definitely more approachable as human beings, but on the negative it almost seems as if everything - including cardinal beliefs - is all of a sudden up for grabs and debate.  Perhaps the professors are doing that to challenge us to be stronger in our beliefs and convictions, I don't know, but it can be a little unsettling at times.  What must be remembered though is that any higher education setting is meant to equip the student with the tools necessary for the vocation for which they are preparing, and absolute concurrence with a professor's views is neither required nor expected, not even from the professors themselves.  So, despite the rather "new Evangelical" position of many of the instructors at the college I am attending, I can still remain a staunch conservative traditionalist and don't have to compromise my convictions.  I am there to learn how to be better-equipped to carry out my calling, and not to be indoctrinated (thankfully, many of the professors will substantiate that, as they are not there to indoctrinate you anyway and will readily tell you), and if you are a student reading this now, take comfort in what I have said, because it is something you can benefit from as well.

That being said, I know God ordered my steps in pursuing this graduate-level degree, and it has been long in coming.  For a long time, I actually wondered if it would ever happen, but here I am, three days later after my first class!  It is a lot still to get my head around, being a graduate student now, but it promises to be a rewarding experience.  I bring with me something too now that I didn't have before as an undergrad - I am older, more realistic, and being it was a challenge to do it, I feel more committed to the endeavor than I did as an undergrad.   Those factors, I personally feel, will make this experience a lot more fruitful and worthwhile as well.  An interesting case-in-point is my first class, which is called "Biblical Exposition and Faith Integration," and basically what it is in lay terminology is a graduate-level hermeneutics course.   Back when I first had Hermeneutics (the science, if you will, of interpreting the biblical text by reading out of  {hence the term exegesis} rather than reading into {also known as isogesis} a given text or passage) as an undergrad over 20 years ago, it was one of the dullest, driest, most boring classes I had ever had, and although I passed the course, it was a challenge!   And, I didn't have near the workload with that class that I have with this one.   However, this past Monday night, the class I am in was smaller (we have about 14 I believe total), and the professor is very down-to-earth despite his impressive credentials, and he shows a genuine interest in his students and their success.   That really impressed me from the beginning, because in the past I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with professors who often came off as aloof, pompous, and "it's your money and your fault if you fail" attitude.   I don't see this at all with my current professor, who actually took the liberty and effort to get to know each of us, and that right there is something that is motivational, because a professor that cares about his students will get good results from his teaching.   It is only the first step on a lengthy journey to walking the aisle and getting the degree, but it is off to a good start thankfully.

That being said, let's see where I am at a year or now, to be realistic.  Will I still have the same enthusiasm for my studies?  Or, will it become routine?  Let us hope to retain that initial passion, because my duty is to finish the course set before me, and I will revisit at times here to let you all know how it goes.   Thanks again for reading, and will be seeing you.

Brunswick, Georgia - Summers In The South.

Downtown Brunswick, GA - I believe this is at Gloucester and Newcastle Streets.

Although I was born, raised, and spent the majority of my youth in West Virginia, I also grew up visiting my dad's family in the South too.  Dad, as did my late grandfather, a couple of aunts and uncles, and some cousins, lived in the small southern Georgia coastal city of Brunswick.  Visiting there as a kid was often a mixed experience, but overall it was a good place to get away for a change of scene.  To this day, I still remember it - the smell of the pulp mills out on US 17, the moss-draped trees, and the taste of those famous battered fries from Twin Oaks Barbecue.  And, I wanted to share a little about that here since some of my cousins have asked about some recollections of my memories with Dad.

I never really figured out how a lot of our family ended up in Brunswick, as my dad's family were originally from Butler and Crenshaw Counties in Alabama.  However, sometime in the late 1940's, Grandad and Granny ended up first in Jacksonville, FL (where my dad was born), and after their separation Grandad somehow ended up in Brunswick while Granny settled in Jacksonville.   And, Dad practically grew up in Georgia, as Grandad raised him more or less.

For a short time after Dad was discharged from his tenure in the Army, he and Mom were still married and we lived there for a fairly short time between 1972-1974.   If I recall correctly, Mom and Dad actually lived in a mobile home then somewhere off of US 17, a little north of town.  I was very young then, so my memory is somewhat fuzzy, but one thing I do remember is that Mom and Dad both worked during the day and I was enrolled in a local preschool in town called Mother Goose Nursery School, which years ago used to be on Norwich Street just across from where Greer Elementary is now.   The school of course closed down many years ago, but surprisingly the building was still standing last I checked into it. 

The original location of Mother Goose Nursery School, on Norwich Street, Brunswick, GA.

Unfortunately, in 1974 Mom and Dad divorced (it was a pretty nasty situation that I won't divulge here out of respect for both my parents) and Mom and I moved to Baltimore where she took care of one of my aunts that had MS then.  So, it was about 5 years or so when I visited Brunswick again, and things were a little different this time. 

In 1977, Dad had married his third wife, a fairly young Southern belle named Deborah Traylor, and a couple of years later my Grandad Thrower was terminally ill with cancer and wanted to see me before he passed on.  So, the arrangements were made, and in December of 1979 Dad and Deborah came up to Martinsburg, WV, where my mother and I were staying with my grandfather Dave, and I went back to Georgia with them.  What was supposed to be a couple of weeks ended up being seven months, as right after Christmas I got a call from Mom saying that it would be best for me to stay there a while because my step-grandmother Goldie also had terminal cancer and wouldn't last the year.  I was not happy about it, but was determined to make the best of it, which I did.  It was a rough go for me personally though, as I had to adjust to a lot of things I had not experienced before, including my overly-compensating new stepmother forcing me to eat stuff I found disgusting (potato salad, etc), and I was also under a strict regimen at school.  In some ways I hated it, but in others many good things came from it.  For one thing, I more or less gained some new grandparents, as Deborah's parents treated me like their own grandchild, and I thought they were the best.  Also, it was good to get to spend some time with Grandad Thrower and my cousins too - Grandad would not live another year, as he passed on in 1980, but at least I got to spend some time with him.  My only regret was that I didn't get to see more of him when he was alive. 

This is my stepmother Deborah, me at age 9, and Dad visiting Deborah's folks at their home.

Also, although Dad and Deborah's marriage ended in 1985, I still remained close to her and her family for many years, as they were good people, and Deborah still treated me like a son.  When I last saw Deborah in 2000, she was in declining health and was unfortunately a shadow of herself as I remembered her, and unfortunately she passed away in 2006.  At the time she lived with Grandmother Traylor, her mother, in Dahlonega, GA (this was where the Traylor family originally came from).  Deborah was young, somewhat inexperienced at the time, but I do have many fond memories of her - her bread pudding, for instance, was to die for!  Also, she wanted to make me into a little Southern gentleman, so she encouraged me to read Georgia history, as well as taking ballroom dancing and golf in school.   She was truly a second mother to me, and I do miss her. 

Speaking of school, when Mom and Dad agreed it would be best for me to finish the year out down by him, I was enrolled in Burroughs Mollett Elementary School, located a few blocks over from the house on Lee Street.   The teacher I had in my third-grade year there was a sweet and very longsuffering Black lady named Mrs. Moran, and at the time she was also expecting a baby and had to take maternity leave before the end of the school year, at which time a strict elderly teacher took her place.   School was actually fun then, and I made two friends right off.  One was a boy named Sim Taylor, who lived over on the next block from us on Union Street.  Sim and I had very similar backgrounds, and for some reason we hit it off and were best friends for the whole time I was there.   The other good friend I had was a girl who was big for her age named Caprice Watkins, and she used to spot me chocolate milk tickets all the time at lunch.  Dad and Deborah encouraged me to have good friends, and once I finished the chores and homework I was assigned, they would let me chat on the phone with them, or in the case of Sim, I could either go to his house or he could come over to ours.   I don't have the foggiest idea what happened to either of them, although Dad said he runs into Sim on occasion and he seems to be doing OK for himself.   Good friends certainly made things easier in what was a pretty crazy time in my young life then.

Dad and Deborah's old place at 2008 Ellis Street in Brunswick.  The place is abandoned now, as Dad sold it many years ago, but except for being painted blue and the lack of upkeep, it still looks pretty much the same.  Such a shame too, as it was a nice house!

Burroughs Molette Elementary School on Lee Street in Brunswick, where I completed my 3rd grade school year.

One other thing Deborah made sure of as well was that we attended church on Sundays, as she was brought up being a fairly devout Baptist.   The Traylors attended Beverly Shores Baptist Church over on Benedict Road, a small highway that ran east-west between US 17 and Altama Avenue, the latter being the shopping strip.  It was the first Southern Baptist church I had ever went to, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised!  You see, I was brought up by Mom and my other West Virginia relatives in a rather strict, conservative Holiness/Pentecostal tradition, and there were times seriously when going to church with Mom's folks would scare the hell out of me!  Although Beverly Shores was a fairly staunch, conservative congregation, the hellfire and strictness I was used to was not found there, and with Deborah's encouragement, I got involved in the Royal Ambassadors (a boys group that is roughly the Baptist equivalent of the Boy Scouts) and it was fun to have things to do in a Christian atmosphere with other kids my age.   It was a stroke of divine providence, I believe, that when I was born again seven years later, it was also in a Southern Baptist church with much the same spirit.   Of course, faith and church were ingrained in my being from an early age, and later in life I learned to appreciate the hellfire-and-brimstone religion of my past better, but I just had to be ready to accept it.  As far as I am aware, Beverly Shores is still an active congregation today, although they maintain a low profile on the internet.

Beverly Shores Baptist Church, Brunswick, GA

Of course, there were times when Dad didn't have the ambition to take me to my RA meetings at Beverly Shores, so I would attend the boys' group at the Nazarene Church where my buddy Sim and his family went to church over on Union Street.  That was pretty decent too, and the Nazarene version of the RA's was called the Caravans (the Assemblies of God also has a similar thing called the Royal Rangers, but I didn't hear about them as a kid).  Youth groups like that then were different than a lot of the entertainment-oriented junk you see in churches today - we had godly Christian adults and ministers that led those meetings, and you learned something even while you had fun.  That is not to say we didn't have fun in both the Caravans and Royal Ambassadors - we had movie nights too, as well as pizza outings, and that was actually neat.  However, you still were aware that these were church activities, and you behaved yourself accordingly. 

At the time, Deborah worked for the Fuller O'Brien Paint Company, which had a big facility over on US 17, and her dad drove a truck for them around the region.  During April of 1979, we got spring break from school and Grandad Traylor let me go on the big rig with him down to Naples, FL for a week.  That was one of the most fun experiences I have ever had, and that trip took me all the way through the state.  That was also my first actual trip to Tampa and St. Petersburg too, and I remember going over the Sunshine Skyway for the first time.  Now, many years later, Tampa is not one of my favorite places after living there for 13 years, and back then I would not have imagined I would live there one day.  Nonetheless, that big rig tour of Florida was an exciting thing for me then. 

Dad at the time had his own custodial business, where he cleaned a lot of shops and offices.  Often, when he picked me up from school, I got to go on the job with him, and that proved interesting.  One of the places he worked was the Skateland 17 rollerskating rink out on US 17, and I remember two interesting things about that. First, free sodas - got a lot of soda from the tap!  Also, while Dad did the floors in the skating rink, he told me I could occupy myself by looking for spare change, and I made out quite well sometimes.  I of course never actually skated - still can't, nor do I aspire to that either! - but it was still a pleasant memory. 

The old Skateland 17 rink off US 17, one of Dad's busiest clients back in the day.

Another thing I got to look forward to was Saturday night TV.  My weeknight bedtime was normally at 9 PM, but on Fridays and Saturdays I could stay up late.  Saturday was when two of my favorite shows then - "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" - were on, at 9 and 10 at night respectively.   Another show though Dad and I watched together was Franc White's "Southern Sportsman," which in my own West Virginia pronunciation I called the "South - eren Sportsman."   As of this week, unfortunately, Mr. White passed away, but I still fondly remember watching the show.  Being our family were avid fishermen anyway - Dad and I fished a lot that year, and thanks to him I really learned how to fish and develop the passion for it - it was the perfect show.   I was not allowed, much to my consternation, to collect critters like Mom let me do at home, but Dad and Deborah did allow me to keep a small fiddler crab I caught in a marsh over on St. Simons Island, and I called her Penny.  I had her up until almost when I left to come home that year, but unfortunately she died on me.  

Franc White, host of "The Southern Sportsman" that Dad and I watched on Saturdays together when I was a kid.

A lot of good restaurants that year too, and many of them still exist in Brunswick today.  One is Grandy's, a homestyle buffet restaurant that had been in Brunswick for years.  The other memorable one was Twin Oaks, over on Norwich Street, which was a landmark and Brunswick's most famous barbecue joint.   Twin Oaks was noted particularly for its battered French fries, although they also had some pretty decent fried chicken.  And, in Dad's business travels, he also gave custodial service to one of the local radio stations out on Jesup Highway where at the time my cousin Darlynne's beau, a nice fellow named Richard, worked.  Somehow, on one occasion Dad arranged with Richard to get me on the radio, and there was a contest going on to promote a new softdrink that had come out we all know now as MelloYellow.  I don't remember what I did, but somehow I won a whole case of the stuff!  I also was encouraged by dad to have a bank account, and he opened one for me at First Federal Bank in town, as they had a kids' banking thing then called the Kitty Klub that I got myself enrolled in (that account is long gone of course, but I still have my old Kitty Klub bank book!).  Overall, as I have said, those were some fun times.

Grandy's Buffet in Brunswick

Twin Oaks Barbecue, on Norwich Street in Brunswick.

I could not forget to mention one of the best Christmas gifts I have ever gotten as well.  In honor of my arrival that year, Deborah had worked on a very nice train set for me, and it was indeed something!  I only wish I could have brought it back with me that year, as it was the best thing - it had a little town built around it, and Deborah really outdid herself with it.  Dad, later in a financial bind after the marriage breakup, sold it.  Unfortunate, but at least I still have a good photo of it to remember it by:

My stay with Dad that year ended in June, and Mom and Grandad came down to pick me up and bring me back.  It had both its ups and downs, but overall that year it was a great experience with a lot I will always fondly remember.  I would not get back to Brunswick again for another 9 years, when I went for a couple of weeks in 1988 during my summer break, and then it was even a more memorable experience, but that is all for another chapter.  Although the overpowering and slightly pungent smell of pulpwood cooking could be a pain living there then, the smell of a pulp factory now evokes some pleasant memories too.   If you ever get the opportunity, please visit Brunswick and the outlying islands - called the Golden Isles, they consist of St. Simons, Sea Island, and Jekyll Island, and they are quaint to visit.   The charm of the South also permeates the area, as many store clerks and waitresses greet you with a friendly "Hey y'all!" that is endearing.   Any rate, this is a small slice of my childhood memories, although much more could be said, and hope you enjoyed reading them as I enjoyed remembering some of this stuff. 



















The Great Vision

Tomorrow is going to be August 7th, and it is a significant day because it commemorates the martyrs of the Assyrian people and nation, in particular those who were killed by in the village of Simele in Iraq in 1933 over a rock being thrown through a window, but also the slaughter of over 750,000 Assyrians by the Kurds under their evil leader, Simkoo, in the closing years of World War I.  The latter is particularly significant because one of the Assyrian people's greatest martyrs, their late patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun, was struck down in cold blood while leaving what was supposed to be peace talks.  For those interested in reading more about the Assyrian Holocaust of World War I, I recommend my dear friend Rosie Malek-Yonan's historical novel, The Crimson Field (Verdugo City, CA:  Pearlida Publishing, 2005).  There are other good books on this as well, including Assyrian author Fred Aprim's two books, Assyrians:  The Continuous Saga (2004) and Assyrians: From Bedr Khan To Saddam Hussein (2006).  Yet a third book is by another dear Assyrian friend of mine, Dr. Sargon Dadesho, and is older and entitled The Assyrian National Question At the United Nations (1988).   What has transpired regarding the Assyrians is about as intense as the Holocaust against the Jews under Hitler, and although not as numerous, as the Armenian Genocide that happened concurrently with the Assyrian tragedies in World War I, and perpertrated by the same people.  So, tomorrow, as you do your prayers or whatever it is you do, please remember the Assyrian nation.

My activism with the Assyrian people has been consistent now for almost 25 years, although I am not quite as active in it as I used to be regrettably.   My first contact with them came sometime around 1988 when I first started to learn about the Armenians, and it came via a quote about some "Assyrian Christians" in a booklet the Armenian Church's Archdiocese had sent me regarding the Genocide.  That piqued my interest, and later in Frank Mead's Handbook of Denominations in The US I found out that the Assyrian Church of the East had a presence here in the US, and I eventually, with help from the Office of Communications at the National Council of Churches, tracked them down in Chicago where one of their priests, Rev. Charles (Qasha) Klutz, was most helpful in supplying me with information on the Assyrian Church in the form of some periodicals and a booklet.   In a short time, I learned that there was a considerable population of Assyrian people in the US, mostly concentrated around Chicago and the cities of Modesto and Turlock in CA, and that they had a number of organizations - I even later found out they had two Pentecostal churches in the US, and in 1995 I had the privelege of actually preaching in the Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Turlock!  It would require a whole separate chapter to really detail the experience and involvement I have had regarding the Assyrian-American community, so I won't elaborate too much on that here.  However, it gives a background to what I want to focus on regarding this current writing, and now I want to continue with that.

Although I initially became aware of the modern Assyrians and their existence back in 1988, it was not until 1990 that it took on a whole new spiritual perspective for me.   Thanks to some exposure and reading of other literature from a couple of Assyrian organizations, I became aware of Isaiah 19:23-25, which states that in the future Assyria, much like the Jewish nation, would be restored, and the Assyrians in that passage are called "the work of My hands" by God Himself.   I of course came to believe that I had a calling to the Assyrians, and wanted to do something great for them and other Middle Eastern minorities that had suffered under Islamic torment for centuries.   Although at the time I was a Pentecostal Protestant and a Bible college student, the calling I felt I had was not necessarily an evangelical one - I came to understand that many Assyrians already knew the Gospel, and all they really needed was renewal of their own churches and not starting yet another cookie-cutter, Americanized denomination among them.  I saw instead that the Assyrians needed something greater than just sermons and religious tracts, and as I really mulled this over, I came to the conclusion that what the Assyrians and others really needed was a place of refuge from persecution until the day when they could see Isaiah 19:23-25 fulfilled.  And, that birthed the vision.

Taking the name of the 10th-century Assyrian Church Father, Saint Isaac of Nineveh, in 1995 I began to envision a village that of course would have been way beyond my control to make happen, but at the time I thought it was from God and proceeded to write down a proposal of several pages about this great experiment I wanted to do.  I called it, naturally, Saint Isaac of Nineveh Village, and the vision I had was of a totally self-sustainable community of approximately 1500 Assyrian Christian families, complete with its own infrastructure, and it would serve as a way-station, if you will, for Assyrian and other Christian refugees fleeing Islamic oppression in their homelands.  I also extended the vision to encompass Copts, Armenians, and others, but primarily it was to be an Assyrian community.  I began to envision so many things about this that my head almost exploded from the sheer overwhelming endeavor of it, and thus began one of the most ambitious dreams of my life.  

The original map I drew of the Saint Isaac of Nineveh Assyrian village I envisioned - I came up with this in 1995.

As I described in my original 1995 proposal, this village was based in part "on the kibbutz system in Israel, but somewhat more democratic," and its purpose was to "instill a new determination in the Assyrian nation, and (it) would ultimately be a beacon of freedom to many who are persecuted."  I envisioned a community then which would be self-governed, and the residents of it would be able to elect their own leadership from among themselves, operate their own churches and schools, and propagate its own cultural life.   And, I thought of it as a spiritual mandate, as I also stated in the little 6-page document I drafted the following:

"God has a wonderful plan for this nation called ASSYRIA, and with Isaiah 19:23-25 as a Biblical foundation, He has chosen me to be an instrument in the realization of His sovereign will."

The original 6-page draft of my vision and proposal

I really felt like this was a divine mandate then, although I was too young to realize the vast complexities it would have taken to make this stuff happen, as great as it was.   For instance, it would have taken literally billions of dollars in resources to even start something this immense, and that was not something I had a lot of access to then as a poor, struggling college student who was just newly-married at the time.   It was, however, a noble idea, and there is still a part of me today that would have loved to have seen this happen.   But, I was not as discerning, and didn't understand in my young, less-experienced state that yes, God may have given me the calling to the Assyrians (I believe to some extent I still have that calling today) but maybe not for something this immense.   Much of it was my imagination getting too far ahead of my limitations (I did that a lot then!).  But, I was driven by a passion that I often wish I still had, and I articulated in the same document two specific reasons why I felt lead to embark on a monumental vision like this:

1.  I attributed (and rightly so) my own heritage as a descendant of the Anusim to the Assyrian people, as I believed Abraham to be an Assyrian himself originally at the time (based on Genesis 11:31 to 12:5) and I used a quote from the late Israeli prime minister, David ben-Gurion, as my basis - he made a statement once, "The Assyrians, our ancestors," that I felt cemented a bond between Jews and Assyrians as blood kin.

2.  I also noted that much of the witness of the Christian Church was a partial fulfillment of Isaiah 19;23-25, based on first that it was in Antioch, an Assyrian-speaking city then, where the disciples of Christ were first called Christians (Acts 2:9).  Secondly, I based the missionary activity of the early Assyrian Christian Church as a premise that the Assyrians were "the work of God's hands" based on the fact that they were used by Him to spread the Gospel to so many people.  I still believe that to an extent even today, although I see it on a lot of other levels too.

One thing I was certain about though, and it is a conviction I carry even today - I was not going to go around shoving tracts in the faces of Assyrian people and trying to make them into cookie-cutter versions of American Evangelicalism, as back then (and to a lesser extent still today) I felt that Evangelicals often threw out the culture of those they ministered to because it wasn't in their eyes "Christian" enough, and thus I saw Evangelical missionary activity as more a spread of Americanization than I did a spread of the Gospel message.  I suppose now that I look at it, I come from roots that were similarly attacked by "Christian missions" in their day, as mainstream churches at the turn of the century often made inroads into Appalachia and would often scorn and condemn the local church traditions in favor of their own, which they viewed often as "enlightened" and "superior."   Unfortunately, there may have been some merit for my concerns, as today I still see it going on and oftentimes it is disturbing - Dr. Loyal Jones,  the renown Appalachian scholar, calls such people who engage in this cultural narcissism "agents of uplift."  I loved the Assyrian people as they were, and to me their Christian traditions were not something to just throw out in favor of some cheap Evangelical substitute, but rather just needed to be revitalized.  In time, I myself would leave the Evangelical/Pentecostal tradition, as even to this day I see ethnocentrism oftentimes being the driving force behind many missionary projects, and I don't see how destroying all the good things in a culture is in any way "spreading the Gospel."  I said then that "I consider myself a biblical Evangelical, not an institutional one," and to this day I believe that pretty much sums up my views.  Any rate, those were some of the convictions that drove my vision then.

Getting into the village itself, I want to describe some things about it I wanted to implement.  I had proposed a system of housing for refugee families that would involve them first living in large condo-like highrise apartments until they received the language and job training, as well as other steps to inculturate them into the community and get them on their feet.  Then, they would be relocated to single-family homes in the main area of the community, where they would take their place as part of the community.   In doing so, they would be allowed to open their own businesses if they wish, with the only stipulations being that each family paid a 1% income-based tax to maintain and upkeep the community infrastructure, and also each family would be required to contribute 10% to a trust, which upon the time they would choose to move on to either settling in the US or elsewhere, this money would be given to them to help them buy a house, set up their businesses, etc.   The idea was to help new Assyrian immigrants become self-sufficient, and in doing so they would be given the choice of either ultimately buying land adjacent to the village and becoming independent that way while still maintaining an active role in the community itself, or they could go wherever they felt led to go, with the full blessing of the ministry, and have a nestegg they themselves earned to set up a new life for themselves in the location of their choice.   I also proposed a co-op system in which the residents of the community would have the infrastructure they themselves built to help out each other.  Looking back on it, it was not a perfect plan, as there would have been bugs to work out obviously, but I saw it as a good plan. 

The spiritual life of the community as a whole would also have been something I would have emphasized, as each religious community would have its own parish church, and it could also operate schools, charitable organizations, etc.   I would have wanted the churches to have an active part in the welfare of the community too, and in doing so the clergy of those churches would also be community leaders.   I would, however, also have a huge cathedral-like church in the center of the village - I envisioned it on its own island in the center of a lake with a bridge leading over to it - based on drawings I had made of what I thought was to be my "dream church" at the time too.   The "big church" would be a shrine dedicated to the Simele martyrs, and would be interdenominational.   The cool part of this, however, was the feast days of the churches - on Good Friday, for instance, a village-wide Stations of The Cross would be said, with each of the individual parish churches being a station on the route, and the big church being the terminus of the Stations.  I actually had a dream about that once.  Ultimately, this would be a fully Christian community, and the faith of the people would be reflected in the community activities as well. 

As I look back on it, the idea itself was good, but it was also the product of the imagination of an idealistic young man who often thought not just outside the box, but outside his own means.  Will something like this ever have the possibility of happening?  Who knows - perhaps, but that is ultimately up to God himself.   However, although not as active in it as I once was, the Assyrian people still hold a special place in my heart, and now that I am older I can do things definitely within my abilities to make people aware of who the Assyrians are and of their national aspirations.   I also still believe there is a prophetic destiny for the Assyrians, and who is to say that maybe this crazy vision of mine might one day become a blueprint for some young Assyrian leader when they do have a homeland again.  That would bless my heart more than anything, and I really hope I live to see the day when a nation called Assyria is a geographic reality. 

As I close, again I make reference to the fact that tomorrow, August 7th, is Assyrian Martyrs Day.   Please keep the Assyrian people in your prayers, because with the rise of Islamic fanaticism these precious people are often innocent victims of genocide still today.   I will always love the Assyrian nation, and treat its people as if they were my own - God bless you, Assyria, the "work of His hands."