It is almost beyond comprehension that this year is already coming to an end! It seems like the older I get, the faster time goes. So, what kind of year has 2017 been to us anyway? To be honest, it has been quite a different year - a new chapter in life has opened, there have been many challenges, and also a lot of new things have taken place which have shown that we are indeed at a new place. Was 2017 a bad year though? Not at all actually - it has had its challenges for us, but I would not say it has been bad at all. In many ways, as a matter of fact, it has been one of the best years, although at times circumstances don't appear to reflect the fact. As mentioned, a lot of new things have happened, and if there were a theme to the events of the year, it would be "New Beginnings." Let me now touch on some highlights of the past year.
A New Place
The most radical aspect of this year is the fact we moved, and that move happened on the very first day of the year - last year at this time, as a matter of fact, we were in the midst of packing up the house and preparing for it. After spending an entire day on December 31st of last year doing the backbreaking task of loading our whole house into a Penske truck, it was at 8:30PM on that day that we pulled out of our driveway in Lakeland, FL, and we headed east on I-4 before turning north onto I-95 and leaving the state for good. When 2017 dawned on us that night, we were just north of Jacksonville heading toward the Georgia state line. That move was significant for several reasons, and it indeed signaled a new chapter for us. But, we need to go back in order to move forward in order to tell the story, so let's do that.
In August of 2016, I had reached a milestone of living 27 years in Florida, with the exception of two months in California and a few months in Dothan, AL in 1992. That time frame itself is of great surprise to me, as when I came to Florida initially I was a 19-year-old kid fresh out of high school and just starting college. That point in my life, much as this one has, closed another chapter on my life story as well - I had opened the door to adulthood that year and stepped out of the shelter of childhood. When I graduated high school in mid-1989, I recall being both excited and fearful, and the reality hit me like a ton of bricks when I was loading the last box of my belongings in Dad's van that year. I still remember standing out in front of the house on Salt Lick Road in Terra Alta that day - Mom was actually crying, as was the little nonagenarian lady Myrt who had more or less adopted me as a new grandchild, and a great adventure lay ahead. Arriving in Georgia that year on the same highway I left Florida just this past year (I-95), it was apparent that my life was changing. After a summer with Dad that year in Georgia, I arrived on the campus of Florida Baptist Theological College in Graceville, FL, on August 26, 1989, and that began my long sojourn in the state of Florida. Over the next 27 years, I would get married, earn my Bachelor's degree, and accomplish a lot of other things, but to be honest, Florida was beginning to seem like a dead-end to us - Barbara and I felt stuck there, a feeling we both had extending back as far as 1997 but that we ignored as life moved on with jobs and other responsibilities. It was due to a final crisis in 2015, when we almost lost our house, that we finally made the decision to make a big change for good, and we spent the better part of 2016 preparing for it. I remember that night in late December 2015 when we were facing eviction at that point from our house that Barbara and I stayed up all night talking about what we were going to do, praying to God for direction, and just really seeking some guidance, and at that point it came to both of us - we both saw Maryland as our destination, and it was decided at that point to just do it - move out for good, as Florida was not promising much to us nor did we have any real roots there anyway. After God miraculously delivered us from our rental crisis, as well as providing us both with good work, we began in earnest to prepare for this big move. It had its challenges, but 2016 was actually a good year to do it, and for the most part our preparations went smoothly. So, from that long night-long talk we had at the end of December 2015 until pulling out of the driveway on December 31st, 2016, we now had a purpose.
Many have asked us, "why Maryland?" The reason for that is simple - Maryland is an ideal location for us personally in that it is my home territory - where we live now is only minutes from the border of my home state of West Virginia. Also, Maryland presents opportunities we would not have had otherwise in Florida, although in the course of this year it has taken some time to tap into them. We have had our sights on this area since at least late 1997, so we knew for almost 20 years that this was where we needed to be. So, when we were finally faced with making a decision, it was as if the apple that had fallen off the tree and hit Sir Isaac Newton on the kopf had likewise knocked sense into us, although it took a near-catastrophe to get us here now. After really looking over our options, it was finally decided that Hagerstown would be the ideal location for us - it is at a convenient distance from everything we need, and it is also a nice town that is within 30 minutes or less of three other states. And that is how we ended up here.
Of course, this move was not without its sacrifices. The first of those occurred last year just prior to our move, when we had come up to Parsons to visit my grandparents while scouting out the area. It was of course wintery out, and on the Saturday we were to head back, a major snow storm had dumped a few inches of white stuff on Tucker County. So, early that morning, when we were leaving my grandfather's house just south of Parsons to head home, we took some bad advice from my stepmother to head east on what was to be Corridor H construction, which took us over Dry Fork Mountain between Elkins and Harman. About midway we started to notice that the roads had a lot of ice on them, and I cautioned Barbara that we needed to watch out for ice. Not 30 seconds after saying that, we hit a nasty patch of black ice and after a few spins out of control in the road, we flipped twice before finally French-kissing the north side of Dry Fork Mountain, which also landed us upright. Although we were not injured in that accident, it did total our Ford Ranger pickup we had owned for almost 8 years at that point, which was a tragic loss. But, thanks to some distant relatives who lived in the nearby community of Dry Fork who graciously gave us a lift to a local mechanic shop called Dave's Auto, we were taken care of - as an extra blessing, the owner's daughter-in-law was sweet enough to give us a lift into Elkins where we were able to rent a car to drive back home, a trip which was uneventful and in style, as the car they leased us was a 2015 Mustang, which was nice! And, in less than a week, our insurance company gave us a nice settlement, which we were also able to apply toward our moving expenses (along with a gracious loan from my dear sister-in-law Sue, which was a real blessing as well) and that kept us on-track. Although we have yet to invest in another vehicle, for now at least we have Mom's, which has been excellent in getting us around for the past year.
The move itself was also challenging too, as it was a lot of backbreaking work loading the Penske truck, which due to a miscalculation was undersized, so that meant we also had to leave several things behind. But, we got here. When we pulled into the Super 8 Motel on exit 9 off I-81 in Martinsburg, WV, which would be our home for the following week, we had about 65% of our former home in a Penske truck with us, and that was still enough to get us settled. Now, when we moved here, we had no clue as to where we would be eventually living, which is why we stayed in the motel in Martinsburg for the first week of 2017. During that time, we looked into several houses before settling on one that sort of came our way by an ad in the local paper - there was a huge mobile home park called Lakeside Village just south of Hagerstown, MD, which had some nice mobile homes open, and we made an appointment on Wednesday, January 4th, to check them out. We went, filled out the paperwork, and saw the new place, and on Friday we received the call that they offered us the lease, and we then spent all that Friday and early Saturday moving stuff into the new home - again, it was backbreaking work in 11-degree weather, and while chilly outwardly I was sweating like I was in a jungle under my coat, and would pay for that a couple of weeks later when I caught a nasty virus. But, we were home, and here we have been ever since - soon we'll be celebrating our first year in this place, and it has actually been overall a pleasant experience, as it is a nice park and generally easy on us, although a bit steep pricewise. At this point we are still acquiring new furnishings and have some more settling-in to do yet, but we've made progress.
Adjusting to living back in my home territory after living in Florida for 27 years has had its challenges, but overall I really believe it is the right thing to do and have no regrets. Honestly, it is just good to be back home, and as a new chapter in our lives has opened, we want to make it one of our best. We both anticipate that happening more so in 2018, as a lot of new things come our way as well.
Moving Forward
There are many other milestones that have happened the past year that need to be discussed as well, as they involve our church, my academic pursuits, and other things. A lot of transition is still taking place even now as I write this, so much will have to be observed as it comes together.
When we moved up here earlier this year, the original idea was to continue work in the ACC at what was to be our parish, St. Michael the Archangel in Frederick. We started out there at the beginning of the year, but a couple of months after our move, the parish church moved as well to a new building at an old Roman Catholic sanctuary dating from pre-Civil War times near the small community of Buckeystown, and at that point some changes started happening. As I am on the verge of completing my Master's degree, it was originally my hope to serve the Church as maybe a catechist and possibly seek Holy Orders as a permanent deacon, but circumstances occurred which sort of changed our focus. Although the Anglican Catholic Church has been a great communion to be part of the past 10 or so years, it also became apparent that I may not have much of a future serving there, and some other situations forced me back in June to take a long hard look at what I was doing and where I was going. As it happened, just down the road from our house in Hagerstown was a vibrant Roman Catholic parish, St. Joseph's, and after having a change in schedule during the summer months - Barb was working for a teen counseling program called Catoctin Adolescent Program in nearby Sabillasville, MD, and had to work some odd hours - it was more convenient for us to attend church closer to home, so we started attending Mass intermittently in June. This was the very thing that I was being shown as far as direction, and after deliberating over it, Barbara gave me some sound advice entailing the ACC - sometimes it is best to just "rip off the bandage." So, I did that - I effectively resigned my post on the Vestry of St. Michael's, as well as relinquishing my layreader responsibilities there, and we began attending St. Joseph's here on a regular basis. This was a rather easy transition, as I had already been confirmed Roman Catholic in the year 2000, and I took the steps to re-establish communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the transition was not difficult as I was still very much Catholic in convictions and theology anyway. So, we became registered parishioners of St. Joseph's, and in the bulletin a couple of months later there was an announcement that catechists were needed for their Parish School of Religion, and I responded - after a screening process, I was teaching my first class of 6th-graders in September, and not long after Barbara also was able to volunteer to teach 3rd-graders, and here we are! Teaching these kids has been very rewarding, as they are a fine group of young people and I found that I have more of a knack for doing this than I thought I had. I have also become a Knight of Columbus as well, and we are now fully integrated into parish life, which is nice. That opens more doors for me as well to put all this education I have to use, and I now look forward to that.
As for school, I am also excited to note that I have completed my final semester of coursework in my Master's program at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and upon taking the comprehensive exam in January I will anticipate having my degree. Attending Franciscan University has been one of the truly rewarding experiences of my past 4 years, as it has been spiritually enlightening, academically challenging, and just an overall awesome experience. As I finish up my final steps to get the degree I have worked for, I also plan on taking about a year off to recuperate before starting my doctoral program at Catholic University of America, as honestly I just need to take a break. Although academic achievement is enriching and rewarding, it also can be taxing, and lately I have also been feeling that. In the interim, I have to do some preparation work anyway for my doctoral studies, which entail taking a GRE exam later this coming year, as well as brushing up on both my German and Latin, both of which I had in high school but have gotten rusty but both of which are also very integral to my doctoral studies as reading efficiency in both is a requisite. To be quite honest, I am kind of sick of exams and tests, but they come with the territory - in order to get a quality education, one has to master the material in such a way as it can be applicable to the field one will work in. It is almost scary to think that by the time I receive my doctorate though I will be 53 years old! Imagine that - spending almost all my life with education; it seems at times as if it never ends! But, again, the rewards outweigh the challenges, and despite the hard work, as well as my being a target of misunderstanding by some unsupportive but mouthy family members who seem to take pleasure at condemning and criticizing my efforts, in the end it's going to all be worth it. And, with only a few people to thank for helping me along the way - God of course, as well as Barbara, to name two important ones - I am blessed that I have come as far as I have. And, the important lesson is that despite the wagging tongues of meddling relatives who like having opinions on everything but are of little use otherwise, it is important to press on and finish the task at hand. Discipline is a good thing, and it has its own rewards.
Milestones and Memories
There have been other accomplishments this year as well outside of church, school, and the move itself. One of those is a very important one that I want to spend a little time on now, as it has redefined who I am to a degree, and it is also one of the most exciting discoveries I have made in many years.
One of the major interests I have in my own life is my own roots - I have extensively researched my genealogy for many years, and still conduct some of that off and on as I am able. Over the past few months I was able to do a little bit of research, and what I came across brings many things into perspective for me personally. I have established already in the past that I am a blood descendant of a minor British aristocrat by the name of Sir Thomas West, who was the 3rd Baron DeLaWarre (he is also the man after whom the state of Delaware was named). Sir Thomas's own pedigree is an ancient one, with ties to the Plantagenets, Charlemagne, as well as other noble families across Europe. However, until this time, the major thing that caught my attention about my roots was that I was a descendant of St. Vladimir of Novgorod, who of course in AD 988 converted and Christianized Russia. That in itself would be impressive enough, but as this saga continually unfolds, there are more branches in the tree I have discovered. One of them is through an ancestral line of Sir Thomas West's called the Percy's, who were known as the Barons of Leicester. They, come to find out, have as their distant forebears two noble Armenian families, the Mamikonians and the Bagratids. It would take a lot of time to document how the intricacies of that all comes together (although I have charted it out as the line goes back over 1300 years), but it is personally significant to me, which is what I want to discuss now.
Armenian advocacy has been a part of who I am since at least 1988, when I first learned of both Armenians and Assyrians. Anyone who knows me knows that my work with Armenians and Assyrians is a very important aspect of my personal identity, and although I have been somewhat dormant with that over the past 20 or so years, I still have a very committed conviction about it. In doing much soul-searching regarding a new church, etc., this past summer, I had this pull to revisit my old passion for the Armenian cause, and interesting enough in April a movie hit the theatres called The Promise, which focuses on the events leading up to the tragic 1915 Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks in which 1.5 million Armenians, as well as huge numbers of Assyrians and Greeks, were martyred. That movie touched at something in my core being, and it was this year that I made a renewed commitment to supporting my Armenian and Assyrian friends in a way I haven't since about 20 years ago. At around the time The Promise opened at theatres around Easter, I also began to revisit some of my genealogical research as well, and that is where I believe God brought together so much about who and what I am - I was led somehow to discover this Armenian root I have in my own DNA, and upon doing so, it was as if a door was opened, and at the very core of my own being the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide became more personal to me than it ever has been - these were my people, in a real sense now, who were affected, and the revelation of that stirred within me feelings I cannot even describe, but there was a connection that happened unlike anything I had felt previous. As this all happened, a voice within me was almost shouting "You are Armenia!" This was something God knew that I needed to discover, as my passion had been lost for many years, but this rekindled it in such a way that I think about it again almost daily. In the coming year, I want to explore this even further, as it is a great gift I have been given that I was never aware of, and it brings together so many mysteries from over the years that now make perfect sense - I was drawn to Armenians all those years ago in high school because in a literal sense now I am Armenian myself. I now understand more of what Saroyan wrote about in his books, as well as what Komitas and Mirzoyan composed in their great musical masterpieces, and now when I watch movies like The Promise I can see my connection. There is so much that can be said of this, but it will have to wait for another time, as at the present there is still much to sort out. But, I will affirm that this is no accidental occurrence either - God has timings and seasons for everything, and this was the time to discover and reconnect to something which has been a mystery for many years. Thanks be to God for His wisdom in revealing all these things.
What Lies Ahead
As I write this, we are about to enter the holiday season. The house now smells of the lingering odors of Christmas cookies baking combined with the apple smell of a plug-in air freshener, and just behind me the newly-decorated Christmas tree stands dormant waiting to be turned on later tonight as it gets dark out. Also, outside there is a briskness in the 29-degree morning air, and the residue of a light dusting of snow that happened a couple of days ago still slightly lingers. For the first time in many years, it feels like the holidays. Living in Florida for almost 27 years, Christmas never really felt like Christmas, as on many holidays it was even 80 degrees out - you cannot take a holiday seriously when you have hibiscus blossoms and palm trees outside your doorstep. So, although there was some festive mood, it always seemed like something was missing. This year, for the first time in many years, I don't feel that - it feels like Christmas in this house today! It is a fitting end to a challenging but exciting year as the new chapter in our lives has really began to unfold. So, as I close today, I wish everyone reading this the most blessed of holiday seasons - including some old friends in Florida, who still have the misfortune of hibiscus blossoms and palm trees and not a snowball's chance you-know-where of any snow whatsoever. Christmas is more than climate, and it is more than how many cookies you can bake and eat, how many presents you give or receive, and it is definitely more than Santa Claus, flying reindeer, and talking snowmen - Christmas symbolizes for humanity a new chapter of our collective story; it is God's giving of Himself, by coming as a humble child in a manger in a small town in a distant land over 2000 years ago, so that we can be restored to Him. Let's keep that in focus even as the persistent pelting of commercialism and the bright lights and shiny tinsel on our Christmas trees can risk our distraction from that fundamental reason for the season. It is also my prayer that you who read this have a blessed 2018 ahead as it dawns on us in less than 3 weeks, and hopefully all of us can thrive in many ways this coming year. So, as you enjoy the beauty of the season, hopefully some of us can have that dusting of snow on Christmas morning as we awake from our slumber and open those festive packages we have been anticipating over the past several weeks. Have a good remainder of 2017, and a good start to 2018.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Monday, November 13, 2017
A New Profitable Industry
Recently, it has occurred to me that there is now a sure-fire way to make a few thousand bucks, and it requires no skill to do it. As a matter of fact, some of the most lucrative people embarking on this enterprise are sort of air-headed bimbos. So, what is this great opportunity in which you can be as dumb as a rock and make thousands of dollars? Apparently, it is sexual allegation cases.
A few weeks ago, Hollywood was turned on its ear when a noted director, Harvey Weinstein, was accused of molesting people he worked with, many people actually. Did he do it? Evidence seems to suggest the possibility, and often the casting couches of Hollyweird directors in the past have been waterfalls of the love-nectar of directors and producers with their stars. Whether he did what he did or not is not really the issue though - the real issue is the floodgates that opened once one accusation was made public, and now no one is immune from accusations as apparently everyone has been sexually assaulted by someone, at least according to the "mainstream" media. However, as was the case with the allegations against Bill Cosby, the volume and scope of these accusations is at such a ridiculous level that it doesn't sound right, and just very recently two iconic Republican politicians have been targets of similar allegations.
The first of these is Judge Roy Moore, who just won a Congressional race in his home state of Alabama. Judge Moore, who is a decent guy, is no stranger to controversy - about 15-20 years ago he was sued over a display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse which he bought with his own money and donated. Now, some tart has come forward and besmirched the good judge's name again, just before he officially takes office (oddly coincidental, don't you think?) by accusing him of sexually assaulting her. It is obvious that this is a smear campaign by the Left, who are now riding on the Weinstein incident's pettycoattails, to discredit a good leader who has the potential of restoring order to this morally disordered nation, and in doing so they have spineless and willing allies in such useless Republican "statesmen" as Mitch McConnell, whose effectiveness as Senate Majority Leader is about as successful as sales of the Edsel in its heyday. McConnell and his wimpy cohort of Republican "leaders" who said much but have done little have no credibility, and if I were "Stitchy Mitch" I would tread softly - he is not immune either to allegations himself. All he has to do is cross the wrong press figure, and all of a sudden there will be some curvy tart (probably one of Bill Clinton's former girlfriends) who will pop up and accuse him of harassment. All these dumb girls are not doing badly for making bad allegations that destroy reputations of good leaders are they? God know's Roy Moore's heart, and ultimately I believe Moore will be vindicated - however, it may get ugly before he does.
A few weeks ago, Hollywood was turned on its ear when a noted director, Harvey Weinstein, was accused of molesting people he worked with, many people actually. Did he do it? Evidence seems to suggest the possibility, and often the casting couches of Hollyweird directors in the past have been waterfalls of the love-nectar of directors and producers with their stars. Whether he did what he did or not is not really the issue though - the real issue is the floodgates that opened once one accusation was made public, and now no one is immune from accusations as apparently everyone has been sexually assaulted by someone, at least according to the "mainstream" media. However, as was the case with the allegations against Bill Cosby, the volume and scope of these accusations is at such a ridiculous level that it doesn't sound right, and just very recently two iconic Republican politicians have been targets of similar allegations.
The first of these is Judge Roy Moore, who just won a Congressional race in his home state of Alabama. Judge Moore, who is a decent guy, is no stranger to controversy - about 15-20 years ago he was sued over a display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse which he bought with his own money and donated. Now, some tart has come forward and besmirched the good judge's name again, just before he officially takes office (oddly coincidental, don't you think?) by accusing him of sexually assaulting her. It is obvious that this is a smear campaign by the Left, who are now riding on the Weinstein incident's pettycoattails, to discredit a good leader who has the potential of restoring order to this morally disordered nation, and in doing so they have spineless and willing allies in such useless Republican "statesmen" as Mitch McConnell, whose effectiveness as Senate Majority Leader is about as successful as sales of the Edsel in its heyday. McConnell and his wimpy cohort of Republican "leaders" who said much but have done little have no credibility, and if I were "Stitchy Mitch" I would tread softly - he is not immune either to allegations himself. All he has to do is cross the wrong press figure, and all of a sudden there will be some curvy tart (probably one of Bill Clinton's former girlfriends) who will pop up and accuse him of harassment. All these dumb girls are not doing badly for making bad allegations that destroy reputations of good leaders are they? God know's Roy Moore's heart, and ultimately I believe Moore will be vindicated - however, it may get ugly before he does.
Judge Roy Moore
The second victim of these allegations is even more shocking and unlikely, and that is former President George Bush Sr. Apparently not one, but two, paid skanks came forward to accuse the former President of goosing their fannies or something, which knowing Bush Sr's character is absurd. I have never been a fan of Bush Sr. - I personally never liked him much, and thought he was dull, had the personality of a garden snail, and as a leader he was not all that effective either. But, for heaven's sake, this is a bit too much - despite his limitations, I hardly think that poor old Bush Sr. ever copped a feel on a girl's bum aside from maybe his wife Barbara. Honestly, I think someone got him mixed up with this guy, who was his successor:
And, here is where that double-standard sets in. I find it interesting that they are trying to cull up crap on poor old dull George Bush the First, who hasn't even been in the public eye for years, but then old Slick Willie, who has a notorious reputation for womanizing and having sex with anything in a skirt, is not even mentioned. And, what of ol' "Uncle Joe" Biden, our former VP? He was touching underage girls all over, but nothing there either - hmmmm!! It is interesting how selective the press is about who it drags up allegations about, and if they like a public figure, then it is conveniently swept under the rug. It also is interesting that they dredged up poor old Bill Cosby as well (subject of an earlier article) while practically ignoring the sexploitation of other more recent stars who are noted for their promiscuity - Katy Perry, for one, brags about hers, and who knows what Rosie O'Donnell does when she and her friend Bill Clinton cruise the 'hood for chicks to pick up together. Oh, but they are untouchable - the press likes them. But, let someone threaten the established order and look what happens - there's hell to pay. Double standards - don't you love them?
A new elite class of wealthy young skanks will soon occupy high-end neighborhoods of many communities, and they have the reputations of innocent men they accused to thank for their ill-gotten booty. Imagine if a real investigation were conducted, and it would be discovered that many of the skanks hollering "sexual assault" against public figures they don't like were committing perjury and fraud - the prisons wouldn't be able to hold them all at this rate. However, it is long overdue that many living in fancy houses may need to be carted off to the "big house," and they need to remember that in time lies tend to betray themselves and the truth will prevail. It may take some time, but it will be inevitable. Problem is, in the meantime the reputations of honorable people who could have done much for society will be destroyed, and the evil that pervades our society now will continue unabated, and more damage will be done as our enemies will feel empowered after moving the last opposition to their agendas out of their way. But, judgement is coming, and Lord help the evil plotters and schemers, as well as the skanks and tramps they pay to destroy innocent people in the name of "sexual allegations."
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
The Thrower Music Collection Year 35
It is hard to believe that recently I have commemorated 35 years (October 1st) of collecting vintage big band records, and due to many factors I was delayed in giving the "state of the collection" address here this year, so I wanted to go ahead and do that now.
To start, let's get the boring statistics out of the way. As of October 1st, my music collection now stands at 918 LP records, 1236 CD recordings, 100 DVD's of vintage "soundies," concerts, and big band-related movies, and around 300 or so 78 RPM records. That means that since last year I have gained 6 new LP records, 29 new CD's, and only 3 new DVD's. Growth was not spectacular, but good given the fact that in January we moved back to my home turf after 27 years in Florida. The anticipated outlook is about the same for next year, as my collection is at a point where there will not be much spectacular growth although I am looking to get some good stuff regardless. Outside of the numbers though, a lot was significant about this past year, and I wanted to give some highlights.
To begin, I was fortunate enough to come across a vendor who has managed to reissue many rare LP's that I wanted to get on CD that honestly I thought would never be released. A couple in Arizona, Gary and Joan Sprunk, operate a service called My Music Boutique (or Arizol Music - their website in case you're interested is www.mymusicboutique.com), and they have reissued a number of rare LP's that many people have forgotten about. Big band recordings are often associated with the vintage 78's of their heyday, and while those are classic and definitely essential to a collection, what is often overlooked is the LP era of the 1950's and 1960's, during which many good original big band records were released, especially by the more "sweet" bands. The advantage to those is that many of them were either originally or later reissued albums which were stereo quality, meaning the sound is excellent on them. Some of the bands who were very prolific at recording excellent dance band LP's in that timeframe were Sammy Kaye, Guy Lombardo, Lester Lanin, Ernie Heckscher, Lawrence Welk (naturally!), Peter Duchin, Jan Garber, and the Elgart Brothers. A lot of good swing-oriented bands, such as Woody Herman and Les Brown, released some excellent material too. Collectors often overlook the value of these good records, and often they can be found by the dozens at thrift shops and junk stores in most towns. I would encourage you to start thinking about maybe getting a collection of those if you can do so, because in the very near future those will be antiques as well. And, that being said, I commend the Sprunks for taking on the great task of releasing many of those quality LP's as CD recordings, and I was fortunate to have purchased about a dozen of them over the past several months from them. Therefore, when you can, check out their website, as they are always coming up with new gems.
The second thing I wanted to reflect on is that with our move back to my home territory, something significant happened this year in regard to my music collection. Being we now live in Hagerstown, MD, I am actually quite excited to know that we are only about an hour or so away from the very store in Rio, WV, where I got my first records over 35 years ago, the famous "Rio Mall." Since moving back here, Barbara and I have managed two visits over there, and I bought my first LP there back in February since my last purchase there back in 1987. The LP was a reissue of Shep Fields's material from the 1960's, but it was a nice find nonetheless. And, surprisingly, they are still the exact same price I paid for them years ago - a quarter a record! The old Rio Mall has changed somewhat over the years, as they have added a second story and now also carry groceries, which is something they never had years ago. The records too have changed location - whereas they used to be in boxes in the front of the store back years ago adjacent to the counter, now they are in an adjoining room where the new grocery stock is at, and they have a lot of them. It was good to be able to visit there again after all these years - that place has been in business well over 50 years, and still going strong as the Fitzwater family still operates it. I even got to see Rick, who is the son of the owner, and wonder if he remembered me as the "record boy" who used to load up on those quarter LP's years ago? Rick was actually the guy who sold me most of my original collection, so he and I were used to doing a lucrative business back in the day. It is almost surreal to know that after 35 years I was finally able to visit the place where my massive collection had its origin, and that it is still going strong. No doubt now that we live fairly close I will be visiting them more in the future - Rick does have an antique accordion I want to get my hands on eventually, as he wants $100 for it, so maybe I might just do that soon. If all the factors are favorable, that may just happen too.
The third aspect of my collection this year is upgraded housing. Since we now live in a mobile home instead of a more spacious house like we have been used to, it is a bit cumbersome to haul around 19 boxes of records and 8 boxes of CD's, so I had to come up with a solution. So, a couple of months ago I was able to purchase two large metal cabinets, and they are shaping up to be the perfect housing for my extensive collection. The first cabinet at this point is together, and all the single LP records are in that one, as well as 2/3 of my 78's. The second cabinet is a work in progress, hopefully to be assembled by the week after this is published, and it will house my boxed LP sets, including my "Holy Grail" collection of the Franklin Mint 100-LP Greatest Recordings of the Big Band Era set that came out in the early 1980's. I recall, when I started collecting records, how that set was advertised in the various issues of Reader's Digest in those years, and I would look at that and literally drool because I wanted that collection so bad - if you love big band music, it is the crowning glory of a collector's library. They are housed in boxes of two records each (making 50 double albums) and the records are pressed in red vinyl. As big as it is, it doesn't contain everything, but it is perhaps the most ambitious and largest undertaking of big band reissues to ever hit the market. I finally got my collection in 2006, thanks to the miracle of internet purchasing called EBay, and that collection is now part of my overall collection, comprising almost 10% by itself of my LP's. So far, not even the CD era has produced anything that ambitious, and it would be interesting if someone did try to reissue that collection on CD's - how many CD's would it have? If I were to guess, I would say at about two LP's fitting on one CD, and two CD's per album, it could easily be a 25-case set of CD's if it were reissued. Definitely something to keep an eye out for in the future for sure!
As I reflect back on my collection over the years, I am thinking about many things. For instance, other than a few of us who are diehard collectors who really love vintage big bands, no one knows a lot about them anymore, which makes collection and preservation of this great music more crucial. Also, in the coming year, I am focusing on big bands as far as their roots, how they developed, etc. Do you know, for instance, that there were dance bands in the 1880's who recorded? Of course, there was Will Marion Cook, who only has one recorded work to his name (he is featured on a record by the legendary Ethel Waters in the 1920's as a pianist), but there were also people like Edward Issler and even Johann Strauss III, who for all intents and purposes had the first "society orchestra" that played his uncle's and grandfather's classic waltzes. Many of those recordings are on cylinders, and maybe I will come across some of those in the future as cylinder recordings are not something I have had much luck in finding over the years. Fortunately though, there are sites such as archive.org that have those vintage recordings available for download, and I have been able to capture them on flash drives. I am anticipating that someone - a diehard collector like myself - may see the importance of a CD reissue of that vintage stuff, and when such a person does, I will plan on getting it. Adding people like Edward Issler to my extensive collection, for instance, would be a great accomplishment for me. And, who knows, maybe I might get my hands on some cylinder recordings this year too - we'll see what happens.
To wrap up this end-of-year reflection as far as my collection is concerned, the question remains about where I will be going this year? My immediate goal is to more or less look out for some significant new releases that interest me, as well as tying up some loose ends in my Amazon wish list - I would love to add some newer material by Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin, for instance, and have that "waiting in the wings," so to speak. My other watch item this year is a recent 5-CD collection of all of the legendary accordionist Charles Magnante's vintage recordings, which is the product of accordion virtuoso and historian Dr. Henry Doktorski. Charles Magnante is significant to my collection in that he, like many soloists such as Rudy Wiedoeft and others, also are pivotal figures in the history and legacy of big bands. Therefore, his collection added to my library is a very imminent objective. I don't anticipate a lot of purchases this year, but will be always vigilant and keep my eyes open. Also, a couple of more trips to Rio may yield a few more LP's and 78's as well. Any rate, that is what my year was like as far as music collections are concerned, and I will see you all soon.
To start, let's get the boring statistics out of the way. As of October 1st, my music collection now stands at 918 LP records, 1236 CD recordings, 100 DVD's of vintage "soundies," concerts, and big band-related movies, and around 300 or so 78 RPM records. That means that since last year I have gained 6 new LP records, 29 new CD's, and only 3 new DVD's. Growth was not spectacular, but good given the fact that in January we moved back to my home turf after 27 years in Florida. The anticipated outlook is about the same for next year, as my collection is at a point where there will not be much spectacular growth although I am looking to get some good stuff regardless. Outside of the numbers though, a lot was significant about this past year, and I wanted to give some highlights.
To begin, I was fortunate enough to come across a vendor who has managed to reissue many rare LP's that I wanted to get on CD that honestly I thought would never be released. A couple in Arizona, Gary and Joan Sprunk, operate a service called My Music Boutique (or Arizol Music - their website in case you're interested is www.mymusicboutique.com), and they have reissued a number of rare LP's that many people have forgotten about. Big band recordings are often associated with the vintage 78's of their heyday, and while those are classic and definitely essential to a collection, what is often overlooked is the LP era of the 1950's and 1960's, during which many good original big band records were released, especially by the more "sweet" bands. The advantage to those is that many of them were either originally or later reissued albums which were stereo quality, meaning the sound is excellent on them. Some of the bands who were very prolific at recording excellent dance band LP's in that timeframe were Sammy Kaye, Guy Lombardo, Lester Lanin, Ernie Heckscher, Lawrence Welk (naturally!), Peter Duchin, Jan Garber, and the Elgart Brothers. A lot of good swing-oriented bands, such as Woody Herman and Les Brown, released some excellent material too. Collectors often overlook the value of these good records, and often they can be found by the dozens at thrift shops and junk stores in most towns. I would encourage you to start thinking about maybe getting a collection of those if you can do so, because in the very near future those will be antiques as well. And, that being said, I commend the Sprunks for taking on the great task of releasing many of those quality LP's as CD recordings, and I was fortunate to have purchased about a dozen of them over the past several months from them. Therefore, when you can, check out their website, as they are always coming up with new gems.
The second thing I wanted to reflect on is that with our move back to my home territory, something significant happened this year in regard to my music collection. Being we now live in Hagerstown, MD, I am actually quite excited to know that we are only about an hour or so away from the very store in Rio, WV, where I got my first records over 35 years ago, the famous "Rio Mall." Since moving back here, Barbara and I have managed two visits over there, and I bought my first LP there back in February since my last purchase there back in 1987. The LP was a reissue of Shep Fields's material from the 1960's, but it was a nice find nonetheless. And, surprisingly, they are still the exact same price I paid for them years ago - a quarter a record! The old Rio Mall has changed somewhat over the years, as they have added a second story and now also carry groceries, which is something they never had years ago. The records too have changed location - whereas they used to be in boxes in the front of the store back years ago adjacent to the counter, now they are in an adjoining room where the new grocery stock is at, and they have a lot of them. It was good to be able to visit there again after all these years - that place has been in business well over 50 years, and still going strong as the Fitzwater family still operates it. I even got to see Rick, who is the son of the owner, and wonder if he remembered me as the "record boy" who used to load up on those quarter LP's years ago? Rick was actually the guy who sold me most of my original collection, so he and I were used to doing a lucrative business back in the day. It is almost surreal to know that after 35 years I was finally able to visit the place where my massive collection had its origin, and that it is still going strong. No doubt now that we live fairly close I will be visiting them more in the future - Rick does have an antique accordion I want to get my hands on eventually, as he wants $100 for it, so maybe I might just do that soon. If all the factors are favorable, that may just happen too.
The third aspect of my collection this year is upgraded housing. Since we now live in a mobile home instead of a more spacious house like we have been used to, it is a bit cumbersome to haul around 19 boxes of records and 8 boxes of CD's, so I had to come up with a solution. So, a couple of months ago I was able to purchase two large metal cabinets, and they are shaping up to be the perfect housing for my extensive collection. The first cabinet at this point is together, and all the single LP records are in that one, as well as 2/3 of my 78's. The second cabinet is a work in progress, hopefully to be assembled by the week after this is published, and it will house my boxed LP sets, including my "Holy Grail" collection of the Franklin Mint 100-LP Greatest Recordings of the Big Band Era set that came out in the early 1980's. I recall, when I started collecting records, how that set was advertised in the various issues of Reader's Digest in those years, and I would look at that and literally drool because I wanted that collection so bad - if you love big band music, it is the crowning glory of a collector's library. They are housed in boxes of two records each (making 50 double albums) and the records are pressed in red vinyl. As big as it is, it doesn't contain everything, but it is perhaps the most ambitious and largest undertaking of big band reissues to ever hit the market. I finally got my collection in 2006, thanks to the miracle of internet purchasing called EBay, and that collection is now part of my overall collection, comprising almost 10% by itself of my LP's. So far, not even the CD era has produced anything that ambitious, and it would be interesting if someone did try to reissue that collection on CD's - how many CD's would it have? If I were to guess, I would say at about two LP's fitting on one CD, and two CD's per album, it could easily be a 25-case set of CD's if it were reissued. Definitely something to keep an eye out for in the future for sure!
As I reflect back on my collection over the years, I am thinking about many things. For instance, other than a few of us who are diehard collectors who really love vintage big bands, no one knows a lot about them anymore, which makes collection and preservation of this great music more crucial. Also, in the coming year, I am focusing on big bands as far as their roots, how they developed, etc. Do you know, for instance, that there were dance bands in the 1880's who recorded? Of course, there was Will Marion Cook, who only has one recorded work to his name (he is featured on a record by the legendary Ethel Waters in the 1920's as a pianist), but there were also people like Edward Issler and even Johann Strauss III, who for all intents and purposes had the first "society orchestra" that played his uncle's and grandfather's classic waltzes. Many of those recordings are on cylinders, and maybe I will come across some of those in the future as cylinder recordings are not something I have had much luck in finding over the years. Fortunately though, there are sites such as archive.org that have those vintage recordings available for download, and I have been able to capture them on flash drives. I am anticipating that someone - a diehard collector like myself - may see the importance of a CD reissue of that vintage stuff, and when such a person does, I will plan on getting it. Adding people like Edward Issler to my extensive collection, for instance, would be a great accomplishment for me. And, who knows, maybe I might get my hands on some cylinder recordings this year too - we'll see what happens.
To wrap up this end-of-year reflection as far as my collection is concerned, the question remains about where I will be going this year? My immediate goal is to more or less look out for some significant new releases that interest me, as well as tying up some loose ends in my Amazon wish list - I would love to add some newer material by Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin, for instance, and have that "waiting in the wings," so to speak. My other watch item this year is a recent 5-CD collection of all of the legendary accordionist Charles Magnante's vintage recordings, which is the product of accordion virtuoso and historian Dr. Henry Doktorski. Charles Magnante is significant to my collection in that he, like many soloists such as Rudy Wiedoeft and others, also are pivotal figures in the history and legacy of big bands. Therefore, his collection added to my library is a very imminent objective. I don't anticipate a lot of purchases this year, but will be always vigilant and keep my eyes open. Also, a couple of more trips to Rio may yield a few more LP's and 78's as well. Any rate, that is what my year was like as far as music collections are concerned, and I will see you all soon.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
A Major Announcement
2017 has been a year of a lot of changes for us. We moved from Florida, where we have lived for 27 years, back to the North - Hagerstown, MD. Hagerstown is about 2 hours east of where I was born and spent most of my early life, and it is seriously good to be back home again. It hasn't been without its challenges though - we still need a lot of furniture for the house yet, and we are still settling in even at 9 months later. But, it was the best decision we could have made, and no regrets. Our new chapter has also produced new beginnings for us in other areas too, so that is why I wanted to write this today - one of those new areas is a very big change, but it too is good.
If you have followed my story on all my pages, you will recall that in 2000, when I was 30 years old, I was confirmed and received my First Communion as an adult convert to the Catholic Church. For a few years afterward, we faithfully attended both the Cathedral of St. Jude in St. Petersburg, FL (where I was confirmed) as well as at a local Byzantine Catholic parish. In 2006 though, a series of events in our lives compelled us to attend a traditional Anglo-Catholic parish for about 10 years, and I honestly thought that would be our permanent church home - it was conservative, and I could still remain faithfully Catholic in conviction while fully participating in the parish we attended. So, for many years I served in various capacities in that particular jurisdiction, and actually did so until our recent move back to this area. At that point, some things happened.
First, although our initial parish in Frederick, MD, was the same as what we had been used to for about 10 years, something was not quite right about it and in time we finally decided to move on for various reasons. So, we found right down the street from our house a Roman Catholic parish called St. Joseph's, and earlier this summer we began attending as their Mass times were also compatible with Barbara's work schedule. In time, this eventually led to my taking the steps to return to the Roman Catholic Church, and I was welcomed back with open arms and hearts. That was therefore one reason.
A second reason has to do with my university where I am currently wrapping up a Master's degree, Franciscan University of Steubenville. After being somewhat disillusioned with the direction my alma mater, Southeastern University in Florida (where I had gotten my BA in 1996), I transferred out of the graduate program I had started there in 2012 and transferred to Steubenville. Learning so much about the Catholic faith began to make me recommit to my own Catholic convictions, and later it also became a very pivotal factor in choosing to come back home to the Church. And, here we are. There are of course other reasons, as well as more detail as to our reasons stated, but these two major reasons were the decisive factors in our return to the Catholic Church this year.
I bear no ill will or animosity against the faithful Anglicans I had fellowshipped with for all those years - we had gotten to know a number of good people, and they have been a blessing to us in more ways than I can document here. And, it is not against the Anglican tradition itself - the Anglican spiritual and liturgical tradition is a very rich one, and I also learned a lot from that too. However, with certain opportunities opening up as well as other factors, we have made the right decision.
So, it has been several months, and I now am thoroughly Roman Catholic again, and it feels right to be so - I have been able to tap back into a stability and solid faith that is also helping to strengthen me as well. And, I also get to use all that classroom work in a practical way - I have been commissioned as a 6th-grade catechist for our new parish, and am able to disciple an amazing group of about a dozen sharp young people. It is a reward in itself to be able to embark on the high calling of catechetical work that I have been in preparation for, rather than being merely a flunkie somewhere while waiting on the right moment, etc.
I still have a course to plot out, but it is coming together. Being on the verge of finishing my Master's at Steubenville and starting a doctoral program next fall at Catholic University of America, as well as my new membership in the Knights of Columbus and the Confraternity of St. Peter (an organization within the Roman Catholic Church that seeks to preserve the old Mass in Latin, called Tridentine), have integrated me well into our new parish.
I want my former Anglican folks to know I still think a lot of them, and many are still dear friends. Therefore, this in no way reflects upon anything about them - rather, it is just a different direction God has called us to. It took probably about four months of intense soul-searching to come to this place we are now, and I am probably at the most peace I have been personally in a while. It also will serve us as well being that doors can open for opportunities at this point that otherwise wouldn't have, and we have to go where we can achieve a balance of both fulfilling our vocation while retaining life stability. That is the primary reason we are here now.
I also know this will come as a shock to some, and I understand that completely. However, nothing has fundamentally changed much in my convictions - I was always Catholic first as far as my Christian identity is concerned, and that hasn't changed for at least 20 or more years. Now, I can be fully free to live that out, as well as also being more informed about what that faith is now, thanks in part to excellent instructors at Steubenville who have been a phenomenal witness - people such as Dr. Mark Miravalle, Dr. Petroc Willey, Dr. John Bergsma, Dr. James Pauley, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Regis Martin, and of course my ever-reliable admissions rep, Tom Weishaar. Them, as well as those two old Lebanese ladies - Freda Faris and Bertha Nassif - I used to walk to church back all those years ago when I was an awkward 16-year-old who was being prompted to conversion by the Holy Spirit Himself. Any rate, this brief announcement should hopefully answer any questions some may have had lately, and I thank you for understanding. God's blessings be with each of you reading this, and continue to remember myself and my family in your prayers as we begin to step through those doors God is opening for us.
If you have followed my story on all my pages, you will recall that in 2000, when I was 30 years old, I was confirmed and received my First Communion as an adult convert to the Catholic Church. For a few years afterward, we faithfully attended both the Cathedral of St. Jude in St. Petersburg, FL (where I was confirmed) as well as at a local Byzantine Catholic parish. In 2006 though, a series of events in our lives compelled us to attend a traditional Anglo-Catholic parish for about 10 years, and I honestly thought that would be our permanent church home - it was conservative, and I could still remain faithfully Catholic in conviction while fully participating in the parish we attended. So, for many years I served in various capacities in that particular jurisdiction, and actually did so until our recent move back to this area. At that point, some things happened.
First, although our initial parish in Frederick, MD, was the same as what we had been used to for about 10 years, something was not quite right about it and in time we finally decided to move on for various reasons. So, we found right down the street from our house a Roman Catholic parish called St. Joseph's, and earlier this summer we began attending as their Mass times were also compatible with Barbara's work schedule. In time, this eventually led to my taking the steps to return to the Roman Catholic Church, and I was welcomed back with open arms and hearts. That was therefore one reason.
A second reason has to do with my university where I am currently wrapping up a Master's degree, Franciscan University of Steubenville. After being somewhat disillusioned with the direction my alma mater, Southeastern University in Florida (where I had gotten my BA in 1996), I transferred out of the graduate program I had started there in 2012 and transferred to Steubenville. Learning so much about the Catholic faith began to make me recommit to my own Catholic convictions, and later it also became a very pivotal factor in choosing to come back home to the Church. And, here we are. There are of course other reasons, as well as more detail as to our reasons stated, but these two major reasons were the decisive factors in our return to the Catholic Church this year.
I bear no ill will or animosity against the faithful Anglicans I had fellowshipped with for all those years - we had gotten to know a number of good people, and they have been a blessing to us in more ways than I can document here. And, it is not against the Anglican tradition itself - the Anglican spiritual and liturgical tradition is a very rich one, and I also learned a lot from that too. However, with certain opportunities opening up as well as other factors, we have made the right decision.
Our new parish home, St. Joseph Church in Hagerstown, MD
So, it has been several months, and I now am thoroughly Roman Catholic again, and it feels right to be so - I have been able to tap back into a stability and solid faith that is also helping to strengthen me as well. And, I also get to use all that classroom work in a practical way - I have been commissioned as a 6th-grade catechist for our new parish, and am able to disciple an amazing group of about a dozen sharp young people. It is a reward in itself to be able to embark on the high calling of catechetical work that I have been in preparation for, rather than being merely a flunkie somewhere while waiting on the right moment, etc.
I still have a course to plot out, but it is coming together. Being on the verge of finishing my Master's at Steubenville and starting a doctoral program next fall at Catholic University of America, as well as my new membership in the Knights of Columbus and the Confraternity of St. Peter (an organization within the Roman Catholic Church that seeks to preserve the old Mass in Latin, called Tridentine), have integrated me well into our new parish.
I want my former Anglican folks to know I still think a lot of them, and many are still dear friends. Therefore, this in no way reflects upon anything about them - rather, it is just a different direction God has called us to. It took probably about four months of intense soul-searching to come to this place we are now, and I am probably at the most peace I have been personally in a while. It also will serve us as well being that doors can open for opportunities at this point that otherwise wouldn't have, and we have to go where we can achieve a balance of both fulfilling our vocation while retaining life stability. That is the primary reason we are here now.
I also know this will come as a shock to some, and I understand that completely. However, nothing has fundamentally changed much in my convictions - I was always Catholic first as far as my Christian identity is concerned, and that hasn't changed for at least 20 or more years. Now, I can be fully free to live that out, as well as also being more informed about what that faith is now, thanks in part to excellent instructors at Steubenville who have been a phenomenal witness - people such as Dr. Mark Miravalle, Dr. Petroc Willey, Dr. John Bergsma, Dr. James Pauley, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Regis Martin, and of course my ever-reliable admissions rep, Tom Weishaar. Them, as well as those two old Lebanese ladies - Freda Faris and Bertha Nassif - I used to walk to church back all those years ago when I was an awkward 16-year-old who was being prompted to conversion by the Holy Spirit Himself. Any rate, this brief announcement should hopefully answer any questions some may have had lately, and I thank you for understanding. God's blessings be with each of you reading this, and continue to remember myself and my family in your prayers as we begin to step through those doors God is opening for us.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Weighing in on Charlottesville
Over the past couple of weeks, a major flare-up happened in Charlottesville between two radically opposite but equally racist factions, and it has caused yet more division in our nation. I wanted to refrain from saying a lot right away because I wanted to make sure I was careful with what I said when I finally did speak on it, but now the time has come, and I wanted to offer some observations today on this whole mess.
The bruhaha stemmed over the right of a group of neo-Nazi and Klucker racists and so-called "White nationalists" to have a demonstration to oppose the targeting of statues and other monuments that commemorate the heroes of the Confederacy. When they gathered for their event, another group of racists organized by Black Lives Matter and the "anti-fascist fascists" called Antifa decided to hold a counter-demonstration, and that is when things got out of hand. To begin, neither the KKK or Antifa represent the majority of the American public. Secondly, despite what they call themselves, Antifa is just as racist and bad as the KKK, and to me they are two sides of the same ugly coin. Yet, for some reason, Antifa has been labeled by their allies in the secular press as being "cultural heroes," but they are anything but. Antifa has a goal of essentially eliminating anyone who doesn't think or behave like they do, and the incident at Charlottesville just gave them fuel for firing up. Many of us who are appalled at the performances of both these extremist factions have come to our own conclusions about what happened, and I wanted to present the two possibilities I think stirred up this mess, and in reality to a certain degree both possibilities may be plausible at the same time.
Some of my friends on social media have a legitimate suspicion that this whole thing may have been staged to incite anarchy, and although I am not personally sure, it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Consider for instance one person - Jason Kessler. Kessler was supposedly a leader in the White nationalist "Unite the Right" faction at Charlottesville, but he was also the guy who participated in the leftist "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations a few years back - now, how is it that a guy who is supposedly a White supremacist leader also be part of the that neo-hippie anarchist movement too?? The answer is CNN, on whose payroll Kessler is alleged to be. So, let's put a face on this guy to show you who he is:
So, this dorky-looking guy seems to not discriminate when it comes to radical politics, does he? What that means is that if this can be proven, Kessler is a paid agitator of the press to stir up public emotions over things the radicals want to do. And, like I said, it's not proven yet for sure, but it is not outside the realm of possibility either (information from "CNN Caught paying Charlottesville 'White Supremacy Leader," at https://www.only-politics.com/2017/08/25/cnn-caught-paying-charlottesville-white-supremacist-leader/ - accessed 8/28/2017). If this also turns out to be the case, it makes you wonder then how much other crap has the press incited over the years too.
A second possibility exists though as well, although not necessarily in conflict with the first. When Obama was elected in 2008, I remember reading somewhere that a high-ranking KKK leader said that Obama would be the best thing to happen for their movement since Reconstruction. Obama was one of those people who himself was a Black racist - he incited and encouraged everything from the hoopla over Trayvon Martin to the Ferguson riots, and that idiot wife of his, Michelle, even was telling school cafeteria programs to ban peanut butter sandwiches for being "racist."(Nathan Harden, "Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Racist, Warns Portland School Official," published 11/24/2013 at http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/24/peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-racist-warns-portland-school-official - accessed 8/28/2017) It led in time to even a small child being thrown out of school because of chocolate brownies (Alex Griswold, "School Calls Police After 9-Year-Old Makes 'Racist' Comment About Brownies." Published 6/29/2016 at https://www.mediaite.com/online/school-calls-police-after-9-year-old-makes-racist-comment-about-brownies/ - accessed 8/28/2017). So, according to the "political correctness police," food can be "racist" I suppose! Somehow, I don't see a jar of peanut butter or a box of Little Debbie brownies volunteering to put on white sheets and burn crosses in people's yards. But, the culture of "political correctness" has deemed anything that someone considers "offensive" worthy of being eliminated. And, the new target of that idiocy is Confederate statues.
In this toxic environment of "political correctness," much of the nonsense that is being perpetrated under the banner of "racist" is in reality being targeted against people now because of the color of their skin - now White people, even those not technically "White" but maybe have lighter skin, are being targeted, and many of them are starting to really take a beating from it. And, of course, when that happens, it fuels the flames of actual racists like the KKK and the Skinheads, who are starting to find a fertile recruiting field for their ranks, feeding on the weird stuff coming from the leftist crowd, and for at least 8 years being goaded on by a President who was essentially a racist himself. It is creating a dangerous situation, and all fingers point back to Obama on this one - had he not encouraged Ferguson, the crap that went down at Charlottesville would not have happened. And, I will say it - Black racists are creating White racists, and it is as if they want to start a race war in this country. And, many innocent people - Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, etc. - are going to end up being caught in the crosshairs of the extremists and will end up paying the price for the hatred of both sides of that battle. Thanks again, Obama! Colin Flaherty, in his excellent 2013 book White Girl Bleed a Lot (Washington, DC: WND Books) notes in chapter 2 that a new trend among Black thugs is something called the "Knockout Game," which essentially entails a gang of Black kids finding a defenseless White person and then proceeding to beat the crap out of that poor person until they pass out or even are killed. Flaherty also notes that these same Black criminals have been targeting Asian-Americans as well, preying on the defenseless, elderly, and very young (Flaherty, p. 15). The "Knockout Game," to put it bluntly, is the Black version of the lynch mob. However, instead of using ropes and trees, they use pipes and bats, but it is still the same evil intentions driving both. Another development Flaherty notes along these same lines is the "Flash Rob," which is a flash mob with criminal intent to loot and vandalize - this is what happened in Ferguson basically. Again, like any group that is terrorized or oppressed, a need eventually arises for the victims of these crimes to take action to defend themselves, and who do you think is waiting for them to make that decision? Your local Kluckers and Skinheads! Violence begets violence, and as Newtonian physics verifies, an action on the part of one extreme will provoke an equal and opposite reaction from the other, and there are members of the press, politicians, and others who end up really being the only winners out of the whole thing. Again, thank you Barack Obama!
Now, let's talk about these statues. The focal point of the whole Charlottesville mess was a statue of Robert E. Lee that was in a public area of the town, and for many years now political-correctness revisionists have been wanting to destroy and deface Confederate and other monuments that to them smack of "racism." Thing is, those statues have been around for ages, and they are a part of our history, love it or hate it. To eliminate areas of history like that is to essentially censor what people are allowed to learn for themselves, and it breeds a culture of ignorance. The Nazis did the same thing in the Third Reich when they banned art, music, and other cultural expressions by destroying them in big bonfires - the Nazis were wrong, and their political-correctness heirs in the US today are equally wrong of the same crime. It has even gotten so bad that an Asian-American sportscaster named Robert Lee was pulled from a University of Virginia football game because of his name! Lee is actually a common surname among Chinese-Americans, and it has nothing to do with the American Civil War or anything else - it is just a name. Yet, poor Robert Lee was punished for his name ("ESPN Pulls Asian-American Announcer From Virginia Football Game Because He Has a Confederate General's Name," published 8/22/2017 at http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/08/22/espn-pulls-asian-american-announcer-from-virginia-football-game-because-has-confederate-generals-name.html, accessed 8/27/2017). I don't know, but it seems like Mr. Lee was a victim of racism himself, and if I were him, I would sue those ding-dongs at ESPN for it. I guess though "racism" is in the eye of the beholder, at least in the fantasy-land of the "Progressive" politically-correct types (this is why marijuana is a bad drug too - smoking too much of it makes people do stupid things like this). And, that leads to the very issue that these idiots are "protesting," the legacy of slavery.
There are many schools of thought regarding why the Civil War was started, and the predominant one many of us have heard is that it was all about slavery. Admittedly, slavery was an issue, but it was not the whole enchilada, and even the narrative of slavery's role in the Civil War is sometimes flawed - the industrial North and the then-encroaching Federal bureaucracy were not interested in the rights or freedom of Blacks from slavery; the Feds wanted to take a piece of the revenue pie they thought the Southern planters were not giving them, and the industrialists wanted to get their part in cheap labor to line their own pockets. Don't get me wrong - slavery is wrong, it is dehumanizing, and it has never been sanctioned by the Judeo-Christian worldview. But, let's give those who say slavery was the primary cause their due. If it was, then what would the Federal Government gain from it? If it freed the slaves, it would lose tax revenue, right? And, Lincoln was not exactly a lover of Black people either - his solution was to ship them off to Liberia in Africa, remember. So, what was really going on here then was not slavery itself, but the revenue slavery generated and who it went to. So, if slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War, that is why. Also, the institution of slavery was blamed on every White person in the South, but there are a few facts to consider there as well. First, only the upper-crust 1% of the richest Southerners owned slaves. Secondly, some of those upper-crust planters were not exactly White themselves - a 17th-century Black man named Anthony Johnson was credited with being the first slaveholder in the US. Johnson was originally a Black indentured servant who was in the employ of a man surnamed Bennett, but acquired his freedom and began to build up land and wealth in southern Virginia. In March 1655, the colonial court of Virginia ruled in Johnson's favor that a man can be owned by another man, and that is how the "peculiar institution" began in the US - with a rich Black man (Clint Johnson, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006. pp. 81-83). On the other side of the slave chain, it was also historically established that the first slaves in what was to become the US were not Blacks either (that came later, thanks to Islamic slave traders - that is something Louis Farrakhan won't mention!) but were Irish, Romanichal Gypsies, and others from Europe. There was a time when the number of Irish and Gypsy slaves outnumbered Blacks too, but you don't hear about that, do you? Blacks, Cherokee, Whites - all had both slaves and slaveholders among them. Yet, this shakedown victim mentality (to use my friend and former parishioner Kenneth Timmerman's terminology) that is hawked by hucksters like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, James Cone, Obama, and others would have us believe that only Blacks were victims. For more on this, read especially about the Irish and Gypsy slaves shipped to the colonies by Cromwell in the 18th century at http://snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.de/2012/05/irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white.html.
By contrast, let's look at some of those "evil" Confederates that the nutjobs want to desecrate the memories of. Robert E. Lee comes to mind in particular - this is a man who freed all his slaves, and didn't have the conscience to support slavery as an institution, and he was an honored statesman. Then there is the most noted Confederate figure from my home state of West Virginia, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. He didn't own slaves, and even had a literacy program he instituted to help freed Blacks learn how to read. Yet, these men are considered "evil" while the same people who label them extol people like the alcoholic general and 18th President of the US, Ulysses S. Grant. Besides being a drunk, Grant was also anti-semitic - he refused to let Jewish troops serve in his own regiment - an order he issued on December 17, 1862, required the expulsion of all Jews from his War Department (Jonathan D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews. New York: Random House, 2012. p. 64). On the other hand, many Jewish veterans existed in Confederate ranks, notably Moses Ezekiel, a sculptor by trade who later opposed Grant's campaign for the White House as he understood how anti-semitic the alcoholic Union general was (Sarna, p. 68). Some of them even equated Grant with the evil Haman who came against the Jews in the Book of Esther, saying that his only "elevation" to office was to be ascending the stairs of a gallows (Sarna, 69). As it appears here, it looks like Jewish-Americans fared better in the Confederacy then than they did in the Union, but that is a story you won't hear either (ironic, as many of the alt-Left BLM and Antifa crowd are also some of the most anti-semitic, pro-Islamic hypocrites that exist). I would be willing to wager that Grant was not exactly an abolitionist either, as he had his own racist skeletons (as did Lincoln and others) that modern revisionist history fails to mention. At any rate, who is then getting honor these days - a virtuous Confederate general whose wife was the granddaughter of George Washington (Lee), or a drunk anti-semite with megalomaniac tendencies (Grant)? You decide.
I wanted to shed light on all of this to show how ridiculously biased many on the left side of the political spectrum really are, and that the ultimate problems with Charlottesville were birthed in Ferguson. So, whether staged or if actual White racists were involved, the sole responsibility for the friction that created those incidents rests in the hands of Obama and his fellow leftists, much in the same way that 9-11 was in reality a fruit of Clinton's policies, and not Bush Jr's - if Clinton hadn't armed KLA terrorists in Kosovo earlier with American weapons and dollars that ended up in bin Laden's hands, 9-11 may have at least been delayed for a few years. As President Trump rightly said (and mind you, I am no fan of his either!) the blame rests with both sides. Now, it is just time people start growing up and owning that responsibility. When they do, then this will not be happening any more:
The bruhaha stemmed over the right of a group of neo-Nazi and Klucker racists and so-called "White nationalists" to have a demonstration to oppose the targeting of statues and other monuments that commemorate the heroes of the Confederacy. When they gathered for their event, another group of racists organized by Black Lives Matter and the "anti-fascist fascists" called Antifa decided to hold a counter-demonstration, and that is when things got out of hand. To begin, neither the KKK or Antifa represent the majority of the American public. Secondly, despite what they call themselves, Antifa is just as racist and bad as the KKK, and to me they are two sides of the same ugly coin. Yet, for some reason, Antifa has been labeled by their allies in the secular press as being "cultural heroes," but they are anything but. Antifa has a goal of essentially eliminating anyone who doesn't think or behave like they do, and the incident at Charlottesville just gave them fuel for firing up. Many of us who are appalled at the performances of both these extremist factions have come to our own conclusions about what happened, and I wanted to present the two possibilities I think stirred up this mess, and in reality to a certain degree both possibilities may be plausible at the same time.
Some of my friends on social media have a legitimate suspicion that this whole thing may have been staged to incite anarchy, and although I am not personally sure, it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Consider for instance one person - Jason Kessler. Kessler was supposedly a leader in the White nationalist "Unite the Right" faction at Charlottesville, but he was also the guy who participated in the leftist "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations a few years back - now, how is it that a guy who is supposedly a White supremacist leader also be part of the that neo-hippie anarchist movement too?? The answer is CNN, on whose payroll Kessler is alleged to be. So, let's put a face on this guy to show you who he is:
So, this dorky-looking guy seems to not discriminate when it comes to radical politics, does he? What that means is that if this can be proven, Kessler is a paid agitator of the press to stir up public emotions over things the radicals want to do. And, like I said, it's not proven yet for sure, but it is not outside the realm of possibility either (information from "CNN Caught paying Charlottesville 'White Supremacy Leader," at https://www.only-politics.com/2017/08/25/cnn-caught-paying-charlottesville-white-supremacist-leader/ - accessed 8/28/2017). If this also turns out to be the case, it makes you wonder then how much other crap has the press incited over the years too.
A second possibility exists though as well, although not necessarily in conflict with the first. When Obama was elected in 2008, I remember reading somewhere that a high-ranking KKK leader said that Obama would be the best thing to happen for their movement since Reconstruction. Obama was one of those people who himself was a Black racist - he incited and encouraged everything from the hoopla over Trayvon Martin to the Ferguson riots, and that idiot wife of his, Michelle, even was telling school cafeteria programs to ban peanut butter sandwiches for being "racist."(Nathan Harden, "Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Racist, Warns Portland School Official," published 11/24/2013 at http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/24/peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-racist-warns-portland-school-official - accessed 8/28/2017) It led in time to even a small child being thrown out of school because of chocolate brownies (Alex Griswold, "School Calls Police After 9-Year-Old Makes 'Racist' Comment About Brownies." Published 6/29/2016 at https://www.mediaite.com/online/school-calls-police-after-9-year-old-makes-racist-comment-about-brownies/ - accessed 8/28/2017). So, according to the "political correctness police," food can be "racist" I suppose! Somehow, I don't see a jar of peanut butter or a box of Little Debbie brownies volunteering to put on white sheets and burn crosses in people's yards. But, the culture of "political correctness" has deemed anything that someone considers "offensive" worthy of being eliminated. And, the new target of that idiocy is Confederate statues.
In this toxic environment of "political correctness," much of the nonsense that is being perpetrated under the banner of "racist" is in reality being targeted against people now because of the color of their skin - now White people, even those not technically "White" but maybe have lighter skin, are being targeted, and many of them are starting to really take a beating from it. And, of course, when that happens, it fuels the flames of actual racists like the KKK and the Skinheads, who are starting to find a fertile recruiting field for their ranks, feeding on the weird stuff coming from the leftist crowd, and for at least 8 years being goaded on by a President who was essentially a racist himself. It is creating a dangerous situation, and all fingers point back to Obama on this one - had he not encouraged Ferguson, the crap that went down at Charlottesville would not have happened. And, I will say it - Black racists are creating White racists, and it is as if they want to start a race war in this country. And, many innocent people - Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, etc. - are going to end up being caught in the crosshairs of the extremists and will end up paying the price for the hatred of both sides of that battle. Thanks again, Obama! Colin Flaherty, in his excellent 2013 book White Girl Bleed a Lot (Washington, DC: WND Books) notes in chapter 2 that a new trend among Black thugs is something called the "Knockout Game," which essentially entails a gang of Black kids finding a defenseless White person and then proceeding to beat the crap out of that poor person until they pass out or even are killed. Flaherty also notes that these same Black criminals have been targeting Asian-Americans as well, preying on the defenseless, elderly, and very young (Flaherty, p. 15). The "Knockout Game," to put it bluntly, is the Black version of the lynch mob. However, instead of using ropes and trees, they use pipes and bats, but it is still the same evil intentions driving both. Another development Flaherty notes along these same lines is the "Flash Rob," which is a flash mob with criminal intent to loot and vandalize - this is what happened in Ferguson basically. Again, like any group that is terrorized or oppressed, a need eventually arises for the victims of these crimes to take action to defend themselves, and who do you think is waiting for them to make that decision? Your local Kluckers and Skinheads! Violence begets violence, and as Newtonian physics verifies, an action on the part of one extreme will provoke an equal and opposite reaction from the other, and there are members of the press, politicians, and others who end up really being the only winners out of the whole thing. Again, thank you Barack Obama!
Now, let's talk about these statues. The focal point of the whole Charlottesville mess was a statue of Robert E. Lee that was in a public area of the town, and for many years now political-correctness revisionists have been wanting to destroy and deface Confederate and other monuments that to them smack of "racism." Thing is, those statues have been around for ages, and they are a part of our history, love it or hate it. To eliminate areas of history like that is to essentially censor what people are allowed to learn for themselves, and it breeds a culture of ignorance. The Nazis did the same thing in the Third Reich when they banned art, music, and other cultural expressions by destroying them in big bonfires - the Nazis were wrong, and their political-correctness heirs in the US today are equally wrong of the same crime. It has even gotten so bad that an Asian-American sportscaster named Robert Lee was pulled from a University of Virginia football game because of his name! Lee is actually a common surname among Chinese-Americans, and it has nothing to do with the American Civil War or anything else - it is just a name. Yet, poor Robert Lee was punished for his name ("ESPN Pulls Asian-American Announcer From Virginia Football Game Because He Has a Confederate General's Name," published 8/22/2017 at http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/08/22/espn-pulls-asian-american-announcer-from-virginia-football-game-because-has-confederate-generals-name.html, accessed 8/27/2017). I don't know, but it seems like Mr. Lee was a victim of racism himself, and if I were him, I would sue those ding-dongs at ESPN for it. I guess though "racism" is in the eye of the beholder, at least in the fantasy-land of the "Progressive" politically-correct types (this is why marijuana is a bad drug too - smoking too much of it makes people do stupid things like this). And, that leads to the very issue that these idiots are "protesting," the legacy of slavery.
There are many schools of thought regarding why the Civil War was started, and the predominant one many of us have heard is that it was all about slavery. Admittedly, slavery was an issue, but it was not the whole enchilada, and even the narrative of slavery's role in the Civil War is sometimes flawed - the industrial North and the then-encroaching Federal bureaucracy were not interested in the rights or freedom of Blacks from slavery; the Feds wanted to take a piece of the revenue pie they thought the Southern planters were not giving them, and the industrialists wanted to get their part in cheap labor to line their own pockets. Don't get me wrong - slavery is wrong, it is dehumanizing, and it has never been sanctioned by the Judeo-Christian worldview. But, let's give those who say slavery was the primary cause their due. If it was, then what would the Federal Government gain from it? If it freed the slaves, it would lose tax revenue, right? And, Lincoln was not exactly a lover of Black people either - his solution was to ship them off to Liberia in Africa, remember. So, what was really going on here then was not slavery itself, but the revenue slavery generated and who it went to. So, if slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War, that is why. Also, the institution of slavery was blamed on every White person in the South, but there are a few facts to consider there as well. First, only the upper-crust 1% of the richest Southerners owned slaves. Secondly, some of those upper-crust planters were not exactly White themselves - a 17th-century Black man named Anthony Johnson was credited with being the first slaveholder in the US. Johnson was originally a Black indentured servant who was in the employ of a man surnamed Bennett, but acquired his freedom and began to build up land and wealth in southern Virginia. In March 1655, the colonial court of Virginia ruled in Johnson's favor that a man can be owned by another man, and that is how the "peculiar institution" began in the US - with a rich Black man (Clint Johnson, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006. pp. 81-83). On the other side of the slave chain, it was also historically established that the first slaves in what was to become the US were not Blacks either (that came later, thanks to Islamic slave traders - that is something Louis Farrakhan won't mention!) but were Irish, Romanichal Gypsies, and others from Europe. There was a time when the number of Irish and Gypsy slaves outnumbered Blacks too, but you don't hear about that, do you? Blacks, Cherokee, Whites - all had both slaves and slaveholders among them. Yet, this shakedown victim mentality (to use my friend and former parishioner Kenneth Timmerman's terminology) that is hawked by hucksters like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, James Cone, Obama, and others would have us believe that only Blacks were victims. For more on this, read especially about the Irish and Gypsy slaves shipped to the colonies by Cromwell in the 18th century at http://snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.de/2012/05/irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white.html.
By contrast, let's look at some of those "evil" Confederates that the nutjobs want to desecrate the memories of. Robert E. Lee comes to mind in particular - this is a man who freed all his slaves, and didn't have the conscience to support slavery as an institution, and he was an honored statesman. Then there is the most noted Confederate figure from my home state of West Virginia, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. He didn't own slaves, and even had a literacy program he instituted to help freed Blacks learn how to read. Yet, these men are considered "evil" while the same people who label them extol people like the alcoholic general and 18th President of the US, Ulysses S. Grant. Besides being a drunk, Grant was also anti-semitic - he refused to let Jewish troops serve in his own regiment - an order he issued on December 17, 1862, required the expulsion of all Jews from his War Department (Jonathan D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews. New York: Random House, 2012. p. 64). On the other hand, many Jewish veterans existed in Confederate ranks, notably Moses Ezekiel, a sculptor by trade who later opposed Grant's campaign for the White House as he understood how anti-semitic the alcoholic Union general was (Sarna, p. 68). Some of them even equated Grant with the evil Haman who came against the Jews in the Book of Esther, saying that his only "elevation" to office was to be ascending the stairs of a gallows (Sarna, 69). As it appears here, it looks like Jewish-Americans fared better in the Confederacy then than they did in the Union, but that is a story you won't hear either (ironic, as many of the alt-Left BLM and Antifa crowd are also some of the most anti-semitic, pro-Islamic hypocrites that exist). I would be willing to wager that Grant was not exactly an abolitionist either, as he had his own racist skeletons (as did Lincoln and others) that modern revisionist history fails to mention. At any rate, who is then getting honor these days - a virtuous Confederate general whose wife was the granddaughter of George Washington (Lee), or a drunk anti-semite with megalomaniac tendencies (Grant)? You decide.
I wanted to shed light on all of this to show how ridiculously biased many on the left side of the political spectrum really are, and that the ultimate problems with Charlottesville were birthed in Ferguson. So, whether staged or if actual White racists were involved, the sole responsibility for the friction that created those incidents rests in the hands of Obama and his fellow leftists, much in the same way that 9-11 was in reality a fruit of Clinton's policies, and not Bush Jr's - if Clinton hadn't armed KLA terrorists in Kosovo earlier with American weapons and dollars that ended up in bin Laden's hands, 9-11 may have at least been delayed for a few years. As President Trump rightly said (and mind you, I am no fan of his either!) the blame rests with both sides. Now, it is just time people start growing up and owning that responsibility. When they do, then this will not be happening any more:
Friday, July 21, 2017
"I Am of Armenia" and other Recent Reflections
A couple of months ago, at around the 102nd commemoration of the victims of the brutal genocide committed against Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and others by the barbaric Ottoman Turks and their successors the Kemalists, a movie was released entitled The Promise that documented with great historical accuracy those atrocities. I was unable to see The Promise at the theatre when it was showing, but on July 18th the DVD was released, and I managed to get my own copy of it and watch it. It was a powerful movie, and it chronicles a very serious tragedy against innocent ethnic groups that the Turkish government even today (more so with that psychopath Erdogan in power) denies and suppresses when it is addressed. The Turkish lobby has even recruited Congressional flunkies like that coward Steve Cohen of Tennessee to engage in historical revisionism denying what happened, and therefore a movie like this could not have come at a better time. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you do so - it is an intense picture, but it is also powerfully enlightening too.
I wanted to introduce that, as it provides a prelude for many things I want to discuss today. I want to first of all give my own story of how I became involved with advocacy for the Armenians and Assyrians, and then I want to progress into relating how that recently my own passion for this cause has been re-ignited in a very personal way after many years of dormancy. This is a bit of a complicated story to recount, and therefore I need to refer to my journals for some structure in putting it together.
I have been personally involved in advocacy for Armenians and Assyrians in particular for just about 30 years, as I began to become interested in their stories in my sophomore year of high school. There are several things that sparked this interest, and I want to begin by talking about some of those. First, there is my love of true history, which goes back to when I was very young. Remember - as do many of my old classmates I went to elementary school! - I was the kid who read a whole set of World Book Encyclopedias through several times (not to mention the old 1960's set of Grollier's my grandmother had at her house), and I developed a deeper sense of appreciation for history. It was my best subject all the way through school, and I still enjoy reading various aspects of it today. A second factor to mention is the Judeo-Christian mindset which was fostered by the environment I was raised in - although I didn't officially become a Christian myself until I was 16 years of age, I was exposed to faith and had read the entire Old Testament through by the time I was 12. It is a worldview that is very much a part of my personal identity, and still governs how I perceive things today, which is something I will not regret nor apologize for. That worldview also made me more appreciative of the Jewish people as well as quite interested in and empathetic to persecuted Christian minorities. As a result, I have always had a very dim view of Islam, and the more I learn the more Islam repulses me personally as a person of Christian faith. I also have a low opinion of secularization, although I am slightly more tolerant of it. A third factor of note in shaping my perspective on all this is my own roots. Although I didn't really discover all the riches of my family tree until much later (around the year 2004 to be exact) what I did know is that something about me was unique, but unfortunately I could never put my finger on what exactly that was nor could I substantiate myself in a conversation about it until very recently until I was able to chart a traceable and verifiable pedigree of my heritage which confirmed some things about myself I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams. Therefore, this combination of a love of historical research, a deeply-ingrained Judeo-Christian worldview and convictions, and a feeling of special purpose I had since I was quite young began to manifest itself in many facets of my own life, some progressively and some profoundly. And, that is where my work over the years with Armenians and Assyrians comes into the picture.
When I was in my sophomore year of high school in 1987, our class had a very gifted (although politically liberal!) teacher by the name of Ann Robb who, unbeknownst even to her, introduced me to something that would change my life. The class was a World Cultures high school course, and Miss Robb had a way of really drawing out people's interests in things, and she really got my attention for some reason when we were discussing in the class about Byzantium. When the Western Roman Empire just sort of disintegrated in the 6th century, Rome itself did not, but rather lived on in the East - due to its location though, the Empire became far less Roman and increasingly more Greek, and it was also a very Christian empire that fostered and preserved a very rich spiritual heritage that we see reflected in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches today. That incarnation of the Roman legacy lived on for almost another thousand years, until the Ottoman Turks shattered it in the year 1453. When I began learning more about the legacy of Byzantium, I fell in love with it - to me, it was the ideal Christian state. Ironically, at that time I was a Southern Baptist, but since an early age I was also drawn to sacramental/liturgical expressions of faith, and the Orthodox Church embodied something about that which I could not escape - the beauty of the liturgy, its richness, and the story of perseverance in the face of great adversity and persecution (first by Islam and later by Communism) attracted me, and in time it would lead to my own growth into a Catholic Christian identity. However, as I studied about Byzantium, I also learned of other very important Christian ethnic groups in the region which had suffered great oppression under Islamic domination, yet they survived, and that impressed me more. One of those groups was the Armenians, and I now want to talk about them briefly.
Until 1987, I had very little knowledge of who or what an Armenian was. The only two references I had came from a bad political cartoon and a popular Rosemary Clooney hit record from the early 1950's. The cartoon I recall seeing in an old Newsweek back around 1980-81, and it depicted an Armenian character trying to commit suicide with an electric razor. Looking back on it, I am stunned at the fact that a "mainstream" news publication like that would publish something so racist and nasty, and although I wanted to share it here for reference, I was kind of relieved I didn't find it in a Google search - that thing needed to be destroyed. The song in question by Rosemary Clooney on the other hand was her immensely big hit recording of a song called "Come on a-My House," which was actually composed by two Armenian-Americans, cartoonist legend Ross Bagdasarian (who created the character of David Seville of the Chipmunks) and his cousin, beloved author William Saroyan. The story behind Rosemary Clooney's recording of that song, which was the idea of Mitch Miller, who was the A & R man at Columbia Records at the time and threatened to can Clooney if she refused, was that when she recorded the song, it was supposed to be in an Armenian accent as inspired by its composers. Since Clooney had no clue as to what an Armenian was, she recorded the song singing with an Italian accent instead, and it made recording history. It is a cute song, featuring famed harpsichordist Johnny Guarneri's talent (Guarneri, over a decade earlier, was also featured with Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five, and their recording of "Summit Ridge Drive" is a big band classic), but it is the product of two very iconic Armenian-American composers. I knew of that also due to the fact I was collecting vintage music since I was 12. Those two references were the only thing to that point that I knew about Armenians, and that was scant at best. However, thanks to a gifted high school history teacher who stimulated my interest in the Byzantine legacy, I was about to learn a lot about them. But, I wanted to go back to that offensive cartoon for a bit, as I have my own axe to grind with that.
The fact that a major publication like Newsweek ever allowed such an offensive cartoon to be published revealed two things for me. First, although that was around 1980, it showed how much the US was manipulated by a powerful Turkish lobby (and this was even before Turkish concubines like Steve Cohen were elected to our Congress!), Second, it reveals that even back then, those who call themselves "liberals" or "progressives" are some of the biggest hypocrites when it comes to the whole issue of racism. Some of the crazy things they have been labeling as "racist" recently (peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate brownies, marble statues, and now even clean streets - for that I refer you to this article about a mentally-unbalanced Seattle councilman who had problems with cleaning disease-causing excrement and urine stains off public sidewalks; it can be found at http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/07/13/seattle-councilman-criticizes-plan-to-hose-excrement-off-sidewalks-because-its-racially-insensitive/?utm_content=bufferb6fde&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer) are so ridiculous that a sane person would not be able to keep a straight face hearing them drone on about it, but then they allow crap like an anti-Armenian cartoon to be published in a major "mainstream" news rag because Armenians are not as important as their powerful Turkish Islamic friends. It makes me think this world is getting either stupider, scarier, or both. I have also seen these same "progressives" wail and flail about perceived "anti-Islamism" in the US, but the same people totally ignore the slaughter of thousands of Assyrian Christians by the demonic hordes of ISIS. Women are degraded, treated as mere property, and depersonalized in the grossest way in Islamic lands, yet our self-professed "feminists" in this country are more obsessed with killing babies and the right of some hairy lesbians to cross-dress and inappropriately use men's rooms in public places. Really people? It is also ironic that these same "progressives" are hell-bent on condemning Israel for being in a land that their ancestors possessed for about 3900 years, yet they say nothing about the fact that Turks invaded and displaced Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and others who have been in Asia Minor for thousands of years. I guess barbaric Turkish Muslims are more important than persecuted Jews in their eyes - oh well! I have already done a study on my theological blog about why I believe Turkey is what Ezekiel 38-39 is talking about, but since writing that and seeing the erratic and unpredictable actions of Erdogan recently, I am more convinced than ever that Turkey fits that description of Gog/Magog in the passage. At some point, I will be revisiting that in my theological blogs, so check back on that one. Ironically, it is not just "progressive liberals" who act like this either - some self-professed conservatives are unfortunately equally as ignorant, and are willing to give Erdogan a free hand while having Cold War flashbacks at the very mention of Vladimir Putin's name - that makes even less sense to me. As Americans, we have one of the most ill-informed populations when it comes to current events and world issues, and both liberals and conservatives are guilty of that sin. That is why, thankfully, there are some of us who can see beyond certain manifestations of "group-think" and can see a fuller picture, and I thank my Armenian and Assyrian friends for helping me see it too. Now, back to the story.
As I mentioned, it was through reading about the Byzantine legacy that I learned about Armenians, and I decided to contact the Eastern Diocese of their Church in New York to get more information. Shortly after writing and sending the letter, I received a huge package of material, chock-full of booklets, pamphlets, and other material, from the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church. Within that material was a small booklet about the Armenian Genocide, and I read that first. Mind you, I was 17 years old at this point and had never heard about any of this, so I was learning about the Genocide for the first time in my life. As I read this material, I was horrified - the atrocities committed against Armenians by the Turks for simply being Armenians was on a horrifying scale that would not be seen again until Hitler initiated the "Final Solution" some 24 years later in Nazi Germany (and, come to find out, what the Turks did to Armenians and others inspired Hitler's own atrocities against the Jews too). I had never been particularly fond of the Turks anyway, but what I was starting to learn really caused me to have indignation against them - I had always seen them as somewhat barbaric, too Muslim, and even untrustworthy (before any butt-hurt "political correct" police nail me for that statement, let me also say that I know good Turks too who are decent human beings, and this in no way should be construed to be reflected upon them as a race, but rather condemns an official act of their empire against groups of people they hated). Then, as I continued reading, I came across some other references to these "Assyrians" of the Hakkari Mountains of Eastern Turkey who were also slaughtered by the thousands, and that really got my attention. This now leads to the next part of the story.
In reading both the Old Testament and my various history textbooks I had been assigned to read up to that point, I knew of the ancient Assyrian Empire of antiquity. This is the empire of a ruthlessly-efficient warrior people who at one time conquered most of the civilized Near East, led by great kings such as Shalmanezer, Ashurbanipal, Tiglath-Pileser III, and Sargon II. These were also the people noted for the famous "winged bull" statues like the one below:
I also knew the Assyrians were the people the Prophet Jonah preached to in their capital city of Nineveh, causing one of the greatest spiritual renewal movements of all time. But, outside of that, I knew little if anything. If you read most history books on the subject (even religious ones), the Assyrian Empire was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 612 BC, and for some reason most historians had the Assyrians as a people just sort of going "poof!" and disappearing off the face of the earth. For one thing, that makes no sense whatsoever, because no nation, even a conquered one, just simply vanishes - logic dictates that the Assyrians had to have survived and gone somewhere. As it turns out, they actually did - in subsequent centuries after the fall of the classical Assyrian Empire, the remnants of the Assyrians eventually formed several small kingdoms, of note being the Kingdom of Oeshroene, which was centered around the city of Edessa, and a little further east the Kingdom of Adiabene. These two little states would later become significant, as they would be the first people to accept the message of the Gospel en masse, and there is a whole legend even behind that - legend has it that one of their kings, Abgar Ukomo (meaning "the Black," possibly due to a skin discoloration from a debilitating disease), was said to have heard about Jesus from traveling merchants, and that Jesus was facing a lot of flak from the Jewish religious leaders. Somewhat touched by the story, Abgar offers to let Jesus come to his kingdom, as His message would be welcomed, and he sent a letter to Jesus communicating this information. Jesus was obviously touched by the gesture of this sincere king, but had to decline due to the nature of the Kerygma, but He supposedly sent to Abgar a cloth with the likeness of His face on it, and when Abgar received that cloth, it healed him. After that, the king and his whole nation accepted the Christian message, hence why Assyrians are predominantly Christian even to this day. Many people dismiss the Abgar story as semi-fiction or even all fiction, but there seems to be a Gospel passage that collaborates the story in John 12:20. The passage records that a certain number of "Greeks" (which may refer to any Gentile people and not merely ethnic Greeks) who came up for a Jewish religious festival in Jerusalem, and they approached St. Philip the Deacon and Apostle about it. When Jesus heard, His response was that His mission of salvation needed to be fulfilled, as He predicted His own death in the passage. This being the case, could those "Greeks" have been in reality Abgar's emissaries? That is definitely worth a theological discussion, and I mention it here because it could give some relevance to the Abgar narrative too. The Assyrians today point to that moment as being when they as a people became Christian, and it definitely may have some substance. Anyway, those were some things that convinced me that Assyrians still existed, and as the story progresses, I would get to know many of them in the coming years.
I have been personally involved in advocacy for Armenians and Assyrians in particular for just about 30 years, as I began to become interested in their stories in my sophomore year of high school. There are several things that sparked this interest, and I want to begin by talking about some of those. First, there is my love of true history, which goes back to when I was very young. Remember - as do many of my old classmates I went to elementary school! - I was the kid who read a whole set of World Book Encyclopedias through several times (not to mention the old 1960's set of Grollier's my grandmother had at her house), and I developed a deeper sense of appreciation for history. It was my best subject all the way through school, and I still enjoy reading various aspects of it today. A second factor to mention is the Judeo-Christian mindset which was fostered by the environment I was raised in - although I didn't officially become a Christian myself until I was 16 years of age, I was exposed to faith and had read the entire Old Testament through by the time I was 12. It is a worldview that is very much a part of my personal identity, and still governs how I perceive things today, which is something I will not regret nor apologize for. That worldview also made me more appreciative of the Jewish people as well as quite interested in and empathetic to persecuted Christian minorities. As a result, I have always had a very dim view of Islam, and the more I learn the more Islam repulses me personally as a person of Christian faith. I also have a low opinion of secularization, although I am slightly more tolerant of it. A third factor of note in shaping my perspective on all this is my own roots. Although I didn't really discover all the riches of my family tree until much later (around the year 2004 to be exact) what I did know is that something about me was unique, but unfortunately I could never put my finger on what exactly that was nor could I substantiate myself in a conversation about it until very recently until I was able to chart a traceable and verifiable pedigree of my heritage which confirmed some things about myself I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams. Therefore, this combination of a love of historical research, a deeply-ingrained Judeo-Christian worldview and convictions, and a feeling of special purpose I had since I was quite young began to manifest itself in many facets of my own life, some progressively and some profoundly. And, that is where my work over the years with Armenians and Assyrians comes into the picture.
When I was in my sophomore year of high school in 1987, our class had a very gifted (although politically liberal!) teacher by the name of Ann Robb who, unbeknownst even to her, introduced me to something that would change my life. The class was a World Cultures high school course, and Miss Robb had a way of really drawing out people's interests in things, and she really got my attention for some reason when we were discussing in the class about Byzantium. When the Western Roman Empire just sort of disintegrated in the 6th century, Rome itself did not, but rather lived on in the East - due to its location though, the Empire became far less Roman and increasingly more Greek, and it was also a very Christian empire that fostered and preserved a very rich spiritual heritage that we see reflected in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches today. That incarnation of the Roman legacy lived on for almost another thousand years, until the Ottoman Turks shattered it in the year 1453. When I began learning more about the legacy of Byzantium, I fell in love with it - to me, it was the ideal Christian state. Ironically, at that time I was a Southern Baptist, but since an early age I was also drawn to sacramental/liturgical expressions of faith, and the Orthodox Church embodied something about that which I could not escape - the beauty of the liturgy, its richness, and the story of perseverance in the face of great adversity and persecution (first by Islam and later by Communism) attracted me, and in time it would lead to my own growth into a Catholic Christian identity. However, as I studied about Byzantium, I also learned of other very important Christian ethnic groups in the region which had suffered great oppression under Islamic domination, yet they survived, and that impressed me more. One of those groups was the Armenians, and I now want to talk about them briefly.
Until 1987, I had very little knowledge of who or what an Armenian was. The only two references I had came from a bad political cartoon and a popular Rosemary Clooney hit record from the early 1950's. The cartoon I recall seeing in an old Newsweek back around 1980-81, and it depicted an Armenian character trying to commit suicide with an electric razor. Looking back on it, I am stunned at the fact that a "mainstream" news publication like that would publish something so racist and nasty, and although I wanted to share it here for reference, I was kind of relieved I didn't find it in a Google search - that thing needed to be destroyed. The song in question by Rosemary Clooney on the other hand was her immensely big hit recording of a song called "Come on a-My House," which was actually composed by two Armenian-Americans, cartoonist legend Ross Bagdasarian (who created the character of David Seville of the Chipmunks) and his cousin, beloved author William Saroyan. The story behind Rosemary Clooney's recording of that song, which was the idea of Mitch Miller, who was the A & R man at Columbia Records at the time and threatened to can Clooney if she refused, was that when she recorded the song, it was supposed to be in an Armenian accent as inspired by its composers. Since Clooney had no clue as to what an Armenian was, she recorded the song singing with an Italian accent instead, and it made recording history. It is a cute song, featuring famed harpsichordist Johnny Guarneri's talent (Guarneri, over a decade earlier, was also featured with Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five, and their recording of "Summit Ridge Drive" is a big band classic), but it is the product of two very iconic Armenian-American composers. I knew of that also due to the fact I was collecting vintage music since I was 12. Those two references were the only thing to that point that I knew about Armenians, and that was scant at best. However, thanks to a gifted high school history teacher who stimulated my interest in the Byzantine legacy, I was about to learn a lot about them. But, I wanted to go back to that offensive cartoon for a bit, as I have my own axe to grind with that.
The fact that a major publication like Newsweek ever allowed such an offensive cartoon to be published revealed two things for me. First, although that was around 1980, it showed how much the US was manipulated by a powerful Turkish lobby (and this was even before Turkish concubines like Steve Cohen were elected to our Congress!), Second, it reveals that even back then, those who call themselves "liberals" or "progressives" are some of the biggest hypocrites when it comes to the whole issue of racism. Some of the crazy things they have been labeling as "racist" recently (peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate brownies, marble statues, and now even clean streets - for that I refer you to this article about a mentally-unbalanced Seattle councilman who had problems with cleaning disease-causing excrement and urine stains off public sidewalks; it can be found at http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/07/13/seattle-councilman-criticizes-plan-to-hose-excrement-off-sidewalks-because-its-racially-insensitive/?utm_content=bufferb6fde&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer) are so ridiculous that a sane person would not be able to keep a straight face hearing them drone on about it, but then they allow crap like an anti-Armenian cartoon to be published in a major "mainstream" news rag because Armenians are not as important as their powerful Turkish Islamic friends. It makes me think this world is getting either stupider, scarier, or both. I have also seen these same "progressives" wail and flail about perceived "anti-Islamism" in the US, but the same people totally ignore the slaughter of thousands of Assyrian Christians by the demonic hordes of ISIS. Women are degraded, treated as mere property, and depersonalized in the grossest way in Islamic lands, yet our self-professed "feminists" in this country are more obsessed with killing babies and the right of some hairy lesbians to cross-dress and inappropriately use men's rooms in public places. Really people? It is also ironic that these same "progressives" are hell-bent on condemning Israel for being in a land that their ancestors possessed for about 3900 years, yet they say nothing about the fact that Turks invaded and displaced Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and others who have been in Asia Minor for thousands of years. I guess barbaric Turkish Muslims are more important than persecuted Jews in their eyes - oh well! I have already done a study on my theological blog about why I believe Turkey is what Ezekiel 38-39 is talking about, but since writing that and seeing the erratic and unpredictable actions of Erdogan recently, I am more convinced than ever that Turkey fits that description of Gog/Magog in the passage. At some point, I will be revisiting that in my theological blogs, so check back on that one. Ironically, it is not just "progressive liberals" who act like this either - some self-professed conservatives are unfortunately equally as ignorant, and are willing to give Erdogan a free hand while having Cold War flashbacks at the very mention of Vladimir Putin's name - that makes even less sense to me. As Americans, we have one of the most ill-informed populations when it comes to current events and world issues, and both liberals and conservatives are guilty of that sin. That is why, thankfully, there are some of us who can see beyond certain manifestations of "group-think" and can see a fuller picture, and I thank my Armenian and Assyrian friends for helping me see it too. Now, back to the story.
As I mentioned, it was through reading about the Byzantine legacy that I learned about Armenians, and I decided to contact the Eastern Diocese of their Church in New York to get more information. Shortly after writing and sending the letter, I received a huge package of material, chock-full of booklets, pamphlets, and other material, from the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church. Within that material was a small booklet about the Armenian Genocide, and I read that first. Mind you, I was 17 years old at this point and had never heard about any of this, so I was learning about the Genocide for the first time in my life. As I read this material, I was horrified - the atrocities committed against Armenians by the Turks for simply being Armenians was on a horrifying scale that would not be seen again until Hitler initiated the "Final Solution" some 24 years later in Nazi Germany (and, come to find out, what the Turks did to Armenians and others inspired Hitler's own atrocities against the Jews too). I had never been particularly fond of the Turks anyway, but what I was starting to learn really caused me to have indignation against them - I had always seen them as somewhat barbaric, too Muslim, and even untrustworthy (before any butt-hurt "political correct" police nail me for that statement, let me also say that I know good Turks too who are decent human beings, and this in no way should be construed to be reflected upon them as a race, but rather condemns an official act of their empire against groups of people they hated). Then, as I continued reading, I came across some other references to these "Assyrians" of the Hakkari Mountains of Eastern Turkey who were also slaughtered by the thousands, and that really got my attention. This now leads to the next part of the story.
In reading both the Old Testament and my various history textbooks I had been assigned to read up to that point, I knew of the ancient Assyrian Empire of antiquity. This is the empire of a ruthlessly-efficient warrior people who at one time conquered most of the civilized Near East, led by great kings such as Shalmanezer, Ashurbanipal, Tiglath-Pileser III, and Sargon II. These were also the people noted for the famous "winged bull" statues like the one below:
I also knew the Assyrians were the people the Prophet Jonah preached to in their capital city of Nineveh, causing one of the greatest spiritual renewal movements of all time. But, outside of that, I knew little if anything. If you read most history books on the subject (even religious ones), the Assyrian Empire was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 612 BC, and for some reason most historians had the Assyrians as a people just sort of going "poof!" and disappearing off the face of the earth. For one thing, that makes no sense whatsoever, because no nation, even a conquered one, just simply vanishes - logic dictates that the Assyrians had to have survived and gone somewhere. As it turns out, they actually did - in subsequent centuries after the fall of the classical Assyrian Empire, the remnants of the Assyrians eventually formed several small kingdoms, of note being the Kingdom of Oeshroene, which was centered around the city of Edessa, and a little further east the Kingdom of Adiabene. These two little states would later become significant, as they would be the first people to accept the message of the Gospel en masse, and there is a whole legend even behind that - legend has it that one of their kings, Abgar Ukomo (meaning "the Black," possibly due to a skin discoloration from a debilitating disease), was said to have heard about Jesus from traveling merchants, and that Jesus was facing a lot of flak from the Jewish religious leaders. Somewhat touched by the story, Abgar offers to let Jesus come to his kingdom, as His message would be welcomed, and he sent a letter to Jesus communicating this information. Jesus was obviously touched by the gesture of this sincere king, but had to decline due to the nature of the Kerygma, but He supposedly sent to Abgar a cloth with the likeness of His face on it, and when Abgar received that cloth, it healed him. After that, the king and his whole nation accepted the Christian message, hence why Assyrians are predominantly Christian even to this day. Many people dismiss the Abgar story as semi-fiction or even all fiction, but there seems to be a Gospel passage that collaborates the story in John 12:20. The passage records that a certain number of "Greeks" (which may refer to any Gentile people and not merely ethnic Greeks) who came up for a Jewish religious festival in Jerusalem, and they approached St. Philip the Deacon and Apostle about it. When Jesus heard, His response was that His mission of salvation needed to be fulfilled, as He predicted His own death in the passage. This being the case, could those "Greeks" have been in reality Abgar's emissaries? That is definitely worth a theological discussion, and I mention it here because it could give some relevance to the Abgar narrative too. The Assyrians today point to that moment as being when they as a people became Christian, and it definitely may have some substance. Anyway, those were some things that convinced me that Assyrians still existed, and as the story progresses, I would get to know many of them in the coming years.
Two icons depicting King Abgar receiving the cloth Jesus sent him that would heal his ailment.
In addition to reading about these Assyrians in the literature I received from the Armenian Church, I also caught a passing reference to them in a Southern Baptist missions brochure about reaching out to Middle Eastern Americans, and in it there was a reference to Assyrians as a "non-Arabic people," which was actually very accurate. I desired at that point to learn more about these Assyrians, so I started digging. At that time, I had in my small library then a book compiled by Frank Mead entitled Handbook of Denominations in the US, and lo and behold, there was an entry in it for the Assyrian Church of the East! Now, this was the mid-1980's, and although Mead's book was a good reference, it was also grossly out of date. I discovered that when attempting to write to find out more about this Assyrian Church. Mead's book listed its headquarters as being on Remsin Street in San Francisco, and also that Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII was the Patriarch-Catholicos of the Church. In the early 1970's, at around the time Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq, the Assyrian Patriarch was Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, and he was exiled to the US, where the Assyrian Patriarch would reside for over 20 years. However, when I was receiving this information, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII was long dead, having actually been assassinated some years earlier. The actual Patriarch-Catholicos of the Church then was Mar Khananiah Dinkha IV, and although he was in the US then, he was actually in Chicago and not San Francisco. When the letter I sent was returned as undeliverable, I found that out by contacting the offices of the National Council of Churches in New York, and they gladly provided me with the correct information. Since I was supplied with a phone number, I decided to call in order to expedite things, and on the other end of the phone was a verbose but genial priest by the name of Fr. Charles Klutz (Fr. Klutz was the Bishop's secretary, and a non-Assyrian; like myself, his forebears were Sephardic Anusim Jews from Portugal). A couple of weeks after talking with Fr. Klutz, I received a package in the mail containing several issues of the Church magazine, Voice of the East, as well as a small informative booklet summarizing the history of the Assyrian Church. However, I would have much more to learn, and that I would once I got into college - I found out that there were also Assyrian political organizations, and in the fall of 1989 (my freshman year of college) I was able to contact a gentleman named Dr. Sargon Dadesho, and he happened to have two books which gave me a lot more information on the Assyrians - I was able to get those, as well as a number of copies of his Bet Nahrain magazine, and in the process I also made a dear friend. I would actually meet Dr. Dadesho in California six years later, and he was a nice gentleman to meet in person. Over the years I have also maintained a warm friendship with Fr. Klutz, who has long since retired and still lives in Chicago. Those contacts were my first with the Assyrian community, the first of many.
In the early 1990's I was very passionate about working with Assyrians, and for a long time I even thought I had a call to minister to their communities. I learned all I could about them, including their liturgies, their music, etc. However, sometime around the beginning of 1996, a series of events caused a lot of personal chaos in my life, and for many years my passion laid dormant in regard to the Assyrians and Armenians. Sure, I still believed in their national convictions, and I advocated for them where I could, but the earlier passion just was not there. However, thanks to many things in recent months, it has been rekindled, and now it has taken on a more personal dimension for me which is why I write this now.
I mentioned before about how I am a fan of Star Trek, and my favorite series of the whole franchise is without a doubt Deep Space Nine. DS9 centers its plot on the character of Captain Benjamin Sisko, who arrives at an old abandoned space station built by an oppressive race of people called Cardassians around a planet they occupied for many years called Bajor. The Bajorans are a recently-liberated but also emotionally-scarred people who now have to rediscover who they are after years of persecution and discrimination at the hands of their Cardassian conquerors, and coincidentally Sisko is also a bit scarred too - he had lost his wife sometime earlier in a battle with a nasty race of transhuman cyborgs called the Borg, and he was a broken man. Then, a "wormhole" opens near the station, and when he explores it, he enters a transdimensional realm of incorporal beings that the Bajorans call their "Prophets." The Bajoran religious texts foretell of an "Emissary" who would enter the "Celestial Temple" and communicate with their "Prophets," and when the Bajoran people hear what has happened, they proclaim Sisko as this "Emissary." It is a role he is reluctant to take on, but then something happens - he comes to forge a very close bond with Bajor and its people, and in due time he comes to discover that his own mother was sort of "possessed" by one of these "Prophets" and that he is indeed chosen by them to be their "Emissary." The whole series of DS9 is about the concept of destiny, a word I understand with a meaning I appreciate, but that I personally do not like to use. In the final season of the series, as the "Prophets" have more frequent communication with Sisko, one of the things they tell him is "You are of Bajor." As I watched that, something in the core of my being resonated with the message that fictional program was communicating, and all of a sudden I am finding myself thinking for the first time in years about Armenians and Assyrians! At around the time I was re-watching the whole DS9 series with Barbara, The Promise was opening in theatres. Events come together for a reason, and I was about to find out even more about that very soon.
One of the things I like to do is I work a lot on my own genealogy. I decided recently to take up doing a little of that again since I needed to divert myself from some stressful situations, and again, the timing could not have been more perfect. Back in 2004, when I did some very extensive work on my family tree, I found out that my paternal grandmother's family was descended from nobility - we have a lineage on that side of the tree that goes back well over one thousand years, and I am a blood descendant of not only Charlemagne, but also William the Conqueror, St. Vladimir, and even the notorious Eleanor of Aquitaine. Another section of that family tree I researched recently uncovered something of great personal significance to me, and it was just the thing I needed to rekindle my own passion of helping Armenians and Assyrians. A branch of the family tree entails the lineage of the de Percy family, the Counts of Leicester. As I began to research back into that branch of the tree, I discovered that they were descended first from the family of a Basque-Navarrese king named Alphonso VII of Leon (1105-1157). Alphonso VII was married to a Polish princess of the Piast Dynasty by the name of Richeza of Poland (1140-1185). Richeza's 4th great-grandmother was Matilda of Germany (d. 1045) who was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto (955-983) and his wife Theophano Skerina (956-991), who was the daughter of a Byzantine nobleman Konstantine Skleros (930-989). And, this is where it gets very interesting! Konstantine Skleros was a cousin of Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes (925-976), who was of Armenian heritage, as well as the grandson of Bardas Mamikonian, the scion of an Armenian noble family. Although I am still researching the details of all this, if it all can be confirmed, then I have Armenian blood in my veins, and what a blessing that is! The rest of this legacy is also fascinating as Theophano's mother was of another royal Byzantine family, the Phokas, but that is for another story. However, not only does that give me Armenian heritage, but it also connects me to my beloved Byzantium by blood!
Statue of the Empress Theophano.
This is where it ties into Sisko's story - as Sisko had a great heritage by blood tying him to the Bajoran "Prophets," thus making him truly "of Bajor," my connection to the Armenians is now a blood one as well, making me "of Armenia." It solidifies a long-standing connection I have had with both the Armenians and Assyrians for many years now, and it gives me a renewed sense of purpose knowing that I have a connection to these people in a more familial way. That resolve has awakened in me a renewed sense and appreciation of destiny (although I still dislike that word), and with that, a lot of answers have been provided for me as to what I now need to do and the direction I need to go. Now, it just entails waiting for more specific direction as to what move to take next, and that is totally up to God Himself, who orchestrated all this to come together in the first place.
There are probably some among you reading this today who may be wondering "do I have a special calling, a destiny?" Having faced that question myself, my only real advice to you is to do two things. First, look within yourself, as you may already have the answer in front of you or even within you. Secondly, I would encourage serious reflection on your part - it is important to know what makes you "tick," as certain passions for something beyond yourself may reveal a lot about what your vocation in life should be. This is where maybe knowing your roots, keeping journals, and other practices can be valuable assets. A destiny or a legacy (a rule of thumb to remember also - legacy is destiny in retrospect) is something that is probably the most valuable thing you have been given, so it is important to learn what it is and find out what is making it possible. Things about you - your likes, dislikes, passions, dreams, etc. - are not there by accident; God gave you those things for a reason. For years, they may drive you nuts, as you will feel the frustration of knowing you have to do something, but have no clue as to what or how to go about doing it. Prayer and seeking direction is obviously a good place to start, but there is more to it than that - know what really captures your interest, learn about it, and much may be revealed. I don't have all my answers yet either, and many of us may not until just before we draw our last breath in this life, but the goal is to learn more than what you knew before as your life progresses. Doing that, one day you will have one of those Aha moments where everything will clear and make sense. That is quite a feeling when that happens, and it may happen many times, but don't be dismissive of it. If this encourages you today, then perhaps telling you about my situation will help yours. I will see you again soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)