One "Son of Man"
So awe hoped the birthing
of G_d's presence, new cauled
in humble manger's smells,
The base and apex of
a starred cave's presents
of all future festivals
Yet abandoned, forsaken to
the crowned world's nails,
every human's cursedness;
Farthest reach of hope
this Apocalypso dancer
crosses our history,
Morning us night-less;
he compassions earth
ever peopling progress,
Emptying the pitiless bottom
zeroing Apollyon
into ever's now Present
Beloved human, Eashoa,
Jesus, child of the masses
point man for us all.
1st pub. in The The Greensilk Journal
In the LIGHT of the Good, the True, the Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
The Feeling of the Earth: speculative novel starts with Quaker Family on the Oregon Trail, 1842
The Feeling of the Earth
From 1842, when a Quaker family on the Oregon Trail...
till 2066 at MegaLA...includes accurate
American history but from a speculative
angle, where extraterrestrial anthropologists
have hyperdrived here to study this alien race—the human species
1 The 3rd Alien
2 Return of the Tactilization
3 Driven Out
4 Into the Maelstrom
5 Blue Bellies
6 Shut Down
7 The Bushwhackers
8 Orphaned
9 Communion
10 Death and Disunion
11 Down Texas-Messed Way
12 North to Alaska
13 Treasure and Loss
14 1st Flight
15 Boulder Dam High-Scalers
16 Counter Culture
17 Summer of Love in the Haight
18 3 Sons of Abraham, Palestine-Israel
19 Descending Among Us
20 Mars Hub
21 The Limitness of Humanness
22 FeelSire Corporation
23 Epilogue
Chapter One: The Third Alien
Nebraska Territory, 1842
New wheel ruts deeply marred the grassy area near the stream of Clear Creek. The native crouched down and examined long furrows dug deep into the wet ground. Alarmed, he turned to stone and scanned the landscape, holding his breath for a long time. But no human sound.
Only sparrows chittered in clumps of elms hanging over the thin water--rippling, wide and shallow. Pebbles shimmered on its sandy bottom. Eastward, the stream flowed, winding away amongst the grassy loafed hills. No unusual movement. Through tall elms, a flat stone ridge loomed, Table Rock. A squirrel scampered by.
The native bent low and shoved his hand down into one deep mud scar--half a foot deep! He seethed. Those accursed wagons of the pale aliens invading their land, following the wide, flat muddy Nebraskier River westward!
Last year, the invaders had gotten warriors of the Oto drunk on firewater! Stupid tribe, trading beaver pelt for poison drink. Thank you, Great Spirit that my people, the Chaticks-si-chaticks (Men of men), never betray others for drink. We’re not a twisting snake like the Oto.
Only 3 moons ago, lazy Oto thieves had slunk into his village of Weeping Water while he and other warriors were out hunting, the women and children working in their vegetable field. Had stolen his prize ceremonial shirt which his dear spouse had created from large deer hide, a big deer he had shot 3 years ago.
True, I did sell my last catch of beaver to that alien 4 years ago, an ugly2-faced English, but I only did so because we needed supplies, winter early that year. But I won’t sell to those vicious cowards—defilers—ever again!
I, Wore Wolf Teeth of the Chaticks-si-chaticks, swear to it.
He brushed one hand through the single ridge of stiffened hair that roostered up from his mostly shaven head. Then he stood up and swept his gaze over the terrain once more, peering at rock out-croppings, and up a few arroyos.
Peering toward the east, Wore Wolf Teeth wondered what other evils lay back there yet to come this way and curse their lives. Last summer, the hairy invaders had slaughtered over a thousand bison near the very wide, flat, muddy Nebraskier River. Crazy aliens, such evil waste! A day of madness.
Stark images filled Wore’s mind. When he and several other warriors had ridden onto that scene, rotting stink had assaulted them. Hundreds of reeking carcasses of bison lay abandoned on the plains--rich meat rotting and bloating, crowded with skin-islands of flies in the hot summer sun. All that meat would have fed his tribe and others for over a year!
But those aliens had only skinned the shaggy hides from fallen beasts, ignoring, abandoning such a wealth of meat; instead, they had piled hundreds of bison pelts high into their moving lodges and left. Only wheel scars and hundreds of carcasses remained for scavengers.
Greedy scum!
On that shameful day, the sun had blazed hot like now today; yes, the season of sweating. Alert again, he quickly scanned the area here. Nothing. But why had these wagons come southerly to Cleer Creek? Who knows what English are about?! Maybe they found the muddy Nebraskier too undrinkable?
Probably stopped here because of this abundant spring. If his tribe hadn’t settled at the falls westward, this brook might be good, But only if it never dried up. Wore walked over to Clear Creek and scooped up a cool drink with his right hand.
He would return to his village, speak in the counsel and, maybe, they would mount a war party to deal with these new wagon-aliens.
He wiped sweat from his brow, grime from his palm, streaking his forehead and brushed one hand through the single ridge of stiffened hair that roostered up from his mostly shaven head. Then, he knelt and scooped up a cool drink with one hand. Wore stood back up and swept his gaze over the terrain once more, peering at out cropping, the Table Rock, and up a few narrow arroyos. No humans.
Suddenly, a covey of quail swarled up from a thicket and winged over the muddy ruts. He dropped flat, then like a bull snake slithered into close brush, listening for the sound of hooves, or boot steps, or even muffled breathing. Nothing! Only the creek’s gurgle.
But then as he peered out through branches, the sky tore open--abruptly, distorting, and bubbling out, a darkness looking at first like a black globbed mass, like dark spittle on a French trapper's beard, but then widening, widening, widening...until Wore Wolf Teeth inched back with dread.
This deadly vision came from the spirits, not from any bodied foe. Yet the horrid sky omen boded nothing like his good quest dream he had received when becoming a brave a few seasons back on the southern plains.
The dark, translucent bubble continued enlarging until it loomed greater than a dozen lodges back at his village of the Weeping Water. What horrendous spirit up above expanding until it gaped far vaster than a huge thunderhead just before a storm?
Wolf Teeth lay still, at one with the many stones under him. Above, the distorted cavern swallowed the sky--endless, coal black, a dark horror, similar to the murky cave he had climbed down into when a scared small boy.
Out of the cavernous maw charged, stormed, a moving drab-gray monster. A monstrous evil spirit?!
Or is it a severe warning omen to him from the Great Spirit?
Wore didn't know, but for the 1st time in his 23 years, he shivered despite the heat. Even when he had counted coup against the Arapahoe, disdaining their warriors and had to pull out a thrown lance from his bleeding arm, while hanging to the stolen horse's mane, even then he had not been afraid.
No fear then, but so alive and glorious, so triumphant, he and his fellow warriors had galloped across the plains. But not now…now fear ate at his gut like a huge vulture. I’m being truly tested. He gripped his medicine bag hanging from his neck, crawled out of the brush, stood and yelled, "I am of the Chaticks-si-chaticks (Men of men)!
Above, the dark gray spirit hovered pulsating, and behind it the sky, endless tar, a smoked abyss.
######################################################
About 3 miles away, horses of an Oregon-bound wagon train skittered and bucked, one large roan knocking its rider to the ground. Men looked up in shock, bewildered by the sudden darkness. Even the chatter of many children ceased. In the 3rd Conestoga wagon, Neil O'Brian stared up into the blackness and held his breath.
One of the scouts shouted a warning, "Halt!"
But then, just as the sudden blackness had come, the abyss of color vanished and the blazing glare of the sun returned. Almost immediately hundreds of voices from wagons rushed to fill the still air. Neil turned to Naomi, his wife who had come up behind him from the back of their wagon, and said, "Strange. What an incongruity! Suddenly that vast thunderhead dominates the sky, confuses us, then vanishes."
"It might be a sign from the Light," she said as she leaned close to him where he sat, reins in hand.
Before Neil could answer, the wagons in front of them began moving again. He turned and flicked the reins. His wife backed into the shade of the covering and lifted up their 6-month old daughter Hannah, singing softly a Quaker melody.
Neil thought about the strange atmospheric phenomenon, remembering a few texts he had read at law school which had mentioned a similar strange sky a few years back. Sounded like superstition to him, but what could have caused such an atmospheric disturbance?
Then Neil returned to contemplating their future, about their chances in the Oregon Territory. He was glad they weren't staying here on endless, treeless plains-- Nebraska Territory. Not that it didn't have potential, but except near creeks, it was too dry. No wonder some commentators called this a vast desert.
What a contrast to last week when they had camped back near the Missouri River where the land stood thick with tall timber—heavily forested bluffs, luxurious.
His horses followed 3 Prairie Schooners in front of their wagon, and there were 13 behind, as they rolled alongside the wide river of the Platte (he knew the word meant 'flat' in French, coined by the early explorers). Also, more and more, the rolling hills of the eastern Nebraska territory now lowered, the land flattening, turning to prairie, seemingly endless plains.
Holding the reins with one hand, Neil took a swig of warm water from his canteen. He momentarily contemplated whether the French term was the best name for the wide river, or if they should have kept the Oto Indian word, Nebraskier, meaning "flat water."
He wiped sweat from his face with his forearm again. So blazing hot! Such a contrast to the downpour of five days ago that had created a muddy mess. This excruciating heat wasn't great either and the air seemed to exude moisture. His shirt clung to his chest and back, utterly drenched as if he had taken a dunk in the nearby river, though the water didn't look deep enough to get baptized in if he was a one of the Dunkers, not a Friend.
The horses plugged along the hoof-punched mud trail; he tied the reins to the post, yanked off his dripping shirt, wiped his face and arms, and wrapped it around his neck to ward off more sunburn there.
Below his left rib, he noticed the large scar from the battle in Tennessee against the Cherokee. It welted livid against his dark tan. Jagged memory--he again saw his partner holding a small bloody scalp, a child’s and whooping with delight, telling Neil how they'd get rid of all of the red vermin, cursed aliens.
Neil cussed! Banished that bloodied memory. He flicked the reins so the horses bounded ahead, pulling him closer to the forward wagon. He could hear the chatter of children inside, and thought of his own baby and Naomi behind him within their wagon. She had stopped singing. Had heard him curse.
Scanning out across the shallow water on his left, he tried to see the far side of the river. Then he turned back and looked to see what Naomi was doing. Their baby, Hannah, lay wrapped tightly in a thin sheet, asleep on a Quaker quilt covering their small mattress that rested on packing crates.
Naomi sat behind the infant, peeling potatoes, her blouse damp against her bosom and pleasingly open at the neck, her long mahogany hair a tumble of wrap on her head, a few wisps clinging to the sweat on her skin.
"Hey Love,” Neil said, “how about bringing me some tea?"
Naomi looked up at her man, and smiled. “Sure, Neil.” She reached down under the side of the mattress and pulled out a large stone jar. Then hefted it up, tipped, and poured out brown tea into a glass mason jar.
Naomi was proud of her man, though sometimes now, she wished she were still in Philadelphia and teaching at Penn Quaker School, not out here on this rough trek, not missing her deceased parents. And that he wouldn’t sometimes curse.
She edged forward holding onto the crates so as to not spill any liquid as their wagon rocked and jostled over uneven ground. One wheel slid into a deep rain-rut and the wagon lurched. But Naomi caught herself with a hand against one of the stays of the fabric cover.
Neil grabbed the reins calming the horses as they righted the wagon and plodded on again. He felt her hand on his bare shoulder, turned and looked down into her luminous eyes, great with kissed closeness. Wanted to swoop her up into his arms, but he only visually caressed her, with intensity into her irises, and took the tumbler from her calloused hands, and turned back to watch the horses.
She let her hand linger on his shoulder, then slid it down his side and mischievously pinched him. He sloshed his tea, some slurping over the rim and landing on his legs. He grabbed for her hand but she had retreated. He hollered back over his head, “Just you wait, you’ve got yours comin’ later you ornery sprite. Is that kind of tomfoolery proper for a school marm?”
Her gentle laughter came to him as she picked up their 6-month-old daughter, no doubt holding her close, probably giving her to breast. And he thanked the God above for his wife.
Then in a lawyer-like moment marveled that he still was using high-falutin’ literary terms such as ‘sprite’ and ‘tomfoolery’ out here in the wild west of Nebraska Territory where so many pioneers and trappers couldn’t even write basic prose, let alone reference allusions.
Should he have stayed in Rhode Island and finished his law courses? But then they wouldn’t have had many exciting times crossing to Missouri! Of course, then they wouldn’t have had to bury her folks and the 216 other dead he had interred in St. Louis, dead from the pox, while waiting for spring to head out west.
And that other death—back in Tennessee, his friend holding that dripping scalp of the little Cherokee savage he had scalped…No! Don’t think of that.
Think of his sweetheart behind him in the wagon. Image him with Naomi; she in her sedate Quaker dress, but all heat and passion hidden within. What a wedding night! He grinned. Created their little one.
Better not dwell on that. Maybe if they hadn’t decided to go west, they could have settled in Providence after their wedding and shown her his small village where he grew up? Gotten her a small frame house, and she could be tending their daughter and walking down to Penn's Dry Goods...
Instead, they had fought Indians in Tennessee--mainly Cherokee; afterward, many corpses of the savages, their lodges burning from their arson, and a child’s dripping scalp in his friend’s hand. Guilt drowned him. Stop it!
Neil looked ahead at the wagon in front of him and wondered how long before they reached low falls of Weeping Water where they would begin to look for a camp site. Hopefully, they wouldn’t encounter any Pawnee or Oto.
A horde of flies circled him and he batted at them. His horses were sweating profusely, too, and these endless flies seemed to have swarmed up from Egypt, compliments of Moses. Speaking of the Good Book, he now heard Naomi singing a scripture passage to their daughter. She was versing something about being kind to the aliens in your midst.
Yeah right! Neil grimaced. Sometimes Scripture was downright stupid! Savage aliens! That’s what these redskins were. They deserved no mercy!
Natives would attack and slaughter families in their farms, even way lay whole wagon trains without warning. Massacring women and children! But his friend’s bloody trophy seared his conscience. Get off my back, God; that only happened because they attacked first!
Furthermore, Indian women would mutilate the bodies worse than their warrior husbands! Neil glanced over toward clumps of box elders by the river; feeling conflicted between his lawyer self and his commitment to the Society of Friends with his wife, he frowned, spit, and tried to think of something else.
Again, Neil swung at the flies swarming around him and their horses. Hmm...well, he supposed if he were a savage, then white folks would seem like aliens, too. Then the small bloody trophy in his laughing buddy's hand, dripped into his conscience, a stark vivid script on the wall of his mind, but he cursed again and argued the guilt down. Why would God emphasize they had to care for alien natives?
He flicked the horses angrily to speed them up as he realized he had fallen back a few yards. What about the German immigrant in the Ohio valley who we had found with his entrails torn out of his body and then his very intestines wrapped all the way around an oak tree, tied there by his own guts left to bleed to death slowly. Savage torture! To hell with the dark aliens inhabiting open land. They deserved whatever they got and more
The wagon in front of him stopped again!
"What now?" Neil asked, wondered as he stood up and stared ahead. If the wagon train kept stopping, they wouldn't make it to Chimney Rock for days, and then they might get caught in early snow before they got to pass over the Rockies.
Neil waited--hopefully not hostile natives. Out here they were likely to attack. Taking off his brown hat, he wiped sweat and grime from his forehead. Then glanced up toward the glaring sun and ran fingers through his damp hair.
He turned back to the hooped opening behind him. Inside, below in muted light, on their mattress sitting on top of kegs and large trunks, Naomi nursed Hannah. Neil grinned wide remembering the rambunctious night only 15 months ago, right after they had seen the justice of the peace and had a small Quaker wedding where they exchanged commmitments. The Friends used no clergy for that.
But then he bit his lip as other images which crowded in--the shallow grave he had dug for her parents, their skin all pocked up, only 2 of hundreds of people who had frenzied to death in the epidemic that had descended on St. Louis for months.
So many thousands crowded together in that town, prepareing for their long journeys across the west on the Oregon and other trails. At least though neither he nor Naomi had gotten the Missouri plague.
Shouts interrupted his remembrances; coming at a gallop, a scout dashed up to the wagon in front, waving his beaver hat to emphasize his shouting.
Quicky, Neil looped the reins on a wagon stay, jumped to the ground, and rushed forward.
The trail guide trotted toward him shouting agin; the short French Canadian, with that trapper's hat. Pulling up, he said again, "We got problems; one of our scouts hasn’t returned. And there’s horse tracks up ahead; probably Pawnee. Some of 'em are passive these days, but they attacked a train a few weeks back. Get out yer rifle ‘n stay eagle-eyed." Before Neil could answer, the Frenchie giddied his horse and trotted on to the next wagon behind.
################################################################
After their tachyon ship flung out of hyperspace, bursting from the bubbled warp into this blue wonder of a world, Uzx mentally felted all this amazing surface water! His own world had none. And grassy undulating plains, bluffs, and real surface streams below. He felt deep inner desire to skxxx in meditation.
"Oh such tactile wealth!" his skin yelled in joyful anticipation. "What luxuriating wonder." He virtually caressed the strange plants growing up from the grassy terrain near flowing streams. "And so much water visible above ground--zzhg!" He smiled; he would tactile for many rotations in skxxx.
So what if this is a small planet rotating a minor yellow sun. True, data feeling into him from the ship emphasized there were also no great technocities here--no extensive statistics to be analyzed and statted; and the conscious inhabitants were only skinny primate, many illiterate, and missing tails! And of a limited intelligence at that.
But still, what a marvel; this world and its main intelligent species showed promise for anthropologizing. He grinned wide and shifted his feel on the instruments. Data came in on one of the primates below. The earth alien was spying up at the ship using only his visual percepters and the aural lobes in his head.
Probably not a threat--obviously incapable of distance-feeling, only has basic self-consciousness, pre-literate, dark-skinned, strong energy level and brave, but strangely overly filled with dread.
The native's four-legged mammal-rider shook itself and hoofed the ground. Not dangerous, but tactilely fascinating, especially the long main of hair on its neck. The horse stopped moving and lowered its head to a shallow stream where it had been drinking. It was restricted by a cord tied to one of a few tall many-limbed plants--ah yes, the term, trees. "Thanks for the identification, data director," Uzx felted to the ship’s computer center.
Uzx virtually skinned the horizon. A few points to the south over the terrain many other primates were vocalizing so loudly, he was surprised that the dark-skinned one couldn't hear them. These aliens seemed to have no inner means of communication. Rather embarrassing--yakking loudly like a bunch of pxzlzs! And they were moving in primitive conveyances.
Neither did these other human aliens have that stiff hair ridge on a shaved head or dark skin like the first earthling. Instead, they wore fiber coverings over their longish hair hair; and some of their male faces sprouted heavy bushed hair below their sense organs and intake orifices. So much bare skin would have been off-putting if he weren't a scientist. Uzx briefly reflected warmly on his many tail brother and sisters, thoroughly covered in luxuriant fur.
Back to work, Uzx quickly accessed 139 different mental states. Most were upset because one of their leaders had found tracks belonging to the lone native's mammal. Now the leader was riding his mammal back along the primitive conveyances shouting out warnings. So much loud clucking!
Rather oddly funny. Uzx's skin laughed. The leading primate hadn't even taken a moment to stick his multi-pronged appendages into feel the semicircular shapes of the tracks in the rich loam of the muddy soil that he was yelling about. What a waste of tactile!
Musing, he considered options; maybe he should quantum those primitive gunpowder tubes attached to their waists or held by some in their hands. Oh, he could do that later after his complete survey and all the data collection finished.
Shifting on his large feet, he adjusted the back support of his tail, still intrigued that the alien primates had no tail and such tiny feet!
Focused again back to the terrain where the first earth being still hid, but ignoring him, Uzx virtual felted many small finning creatures in the surface water of the shallow creek. What would they skin like when he actually touched those primitive life forms? What would his own planet of Orxx be like if it had surface water and such creatures, too?
Uzx touched the data flow and the weird slimy creatures flapped their fins in panic and zipped about in the stream. What a strange amazing world so diffferent from his own and from other planets he had studied. Oh thanks to the All-Ultimate that he had careered as an alienologist. Surely, no other sirehold compared.
Next, he scanned with his skin across the landscape to where thousands of large shaggy four-legged creatures congregated at a much larger body of surface water, a river. Uzx considered feltdentifying into one of the herd for his 1st skxx, but then remembered the bloated carcasses he had accessed from the hiding native's mind. He remembered his own great sire's wise quote: “Forefeeling leads to felthood."
So, cautioning himself--his felting into the large beasts might start a stampeded, Uzx widened the range of his felt-sensing for more input. Thankfully, the scanning ability of their research ship's data director was nearly endless.
Later he would focus on one of the alien families, probably the one of only 3 in the 3rd primitive wagon back in the line of human travelers. Why such a measly-sized family?
Only one infant! And not safe in a maternal’s pouch, because she was a primate, didn’t have one!
Yet her curly-bearded mate and she nursing a tiny infant within under that vegetative gray-white covering intrigued him. Her husband his mate showed more erudition than any of the others--some were illiterate like the native 3 miles away! Her male was conscientious and ardent, and spiritual, yet skeptical--fascinating. A worthy in depth study.
But the alien had a tragic grieving past. Uzx uploaded his brain memories for storage.
Too bad there were no earth marsupials nearby. Later later, he would flash-point down to that southern continent that seemed to have the most, but not one intelligent self-aware; see what genetic similarity they might have to his own species on Orxx, whether the All-Ultimate had created them with the same basic code on this far distant small planet.
Then he brought his star ship into a very low circling pattern, scanning through the possibilities for an enclone via the data director. Eliminating flyers (though very intriguing), and low-intelligent reptiles.
He needed a creature with fur, non-intrusive, maybe even a bit fun--Ah there, he felted a furry, smallish--actually tiny--mammal who tunneled and was mostly ignored except by the winged ones. It would be perfect for his 1st feeling of this planet, despite the creature's stupidity, or rather because that would make the inclone mind-meld less intrusive or difficult.
Below in their burrow, its inhabitants suddenly scurried about sensing an invasion of their sanctuary. A fairly large male collapsed in a tunnel near the surface mound in the tall prairie grass.
Then it awoke a genius.
################################################################
Wore Wolf Teeth lay still like rock even after that demon of dread had vanished from the dark sky above. Now only intensive blue remained and the hot blazing sun. Not a cloud in the sky.
He peered through various holes in the thick brush, and waited and waited, but the monstrous thing didn't return. Nowhere was the huge black tunnel or the dreadful spirit that had come lunging out of it. Slowly, Wore snaked backward ignoring abrasions and cuts on his stomach and legs from shards of rock and thorns.
But then he heard the distinctive noise of slow-moving hooves. He shut from his mind the strange spirit and focused on what he did know. A rider was coming this way, secretively. Not an native. Extricating himself from the heavy thicket, Wore ran silently through the elms to the flat stone ridge of the Table Rock...
To be continued
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
From 1842, when a Quaker family on the Oregon Trail...
till 2066 at MegaLA...includes accurate
American history but from a speculative
angle, where extraterrestrial anthropologists
have hyperdrived here to study this alien race—the human species
1 The 3rd Alien
2 Return of the Tactilization
3 Driven Out
4 Into the Maelstrom
5 Blue Bellies
6 Shut Down
7 The Bushwhackers
8 Orphaned
9 Communion
10 Death and Disunion
11 Down Texas-Messed Way
12 North to Alaska
13 Treasure and Loss
14 1st Flight
15 Boulder Dam High-Scalers
16 Counter Culture
17 Summer of Love in the Haight
18 3 Sons of Abraham, Palestine-Israel
19 Descending Among Us
20 Mars Hub
21 The Limitness of Humanness
22 FeelSire Corporation
23 Epilogue
Chapter One: The Third Alien
Nebraska Territory, 1842
New wheel ruts deeply marred the grassy area near the stream of Clear Creek. The native crouched down and examined long furrows dug deep into the wet ground. Alarmed, he turned to stone and scanned the landscape, holding his breath for a long time. But no human sound.
Only sparrows chittered in clumps of elms hanging over the thin water--rippling, wide and shallow. Pebbles shimmered on its sandy bottom. Eastward, the stream flowed, winding away amongst the grassy loafed hills. No unusual movement. Through tall elms, a flat stone ridge loomed, Table Rock. A squirrel scampered by.
The native bent low and shoved his hand down into one deep mud scar--half a foot deep! He seethed. Those accursed wagons of the pale aliens invading their land, following the wide, flat muddy Nebraskier River westward!
Last year, the invaders had gotten warriors of the Oto drunk on firewater! Stupid tribe, trading beaver pelt for poison drink. Thank you, Great Spirit that my people, the Chaticks-si-chaticks (Men of men), never betray others for drink. We’re not a twisting snake like the Oto.
Only 3 moons ago, lazy Oto thieves had slunk into his village of Weeping Water while he and other warriors were out hunting, the women and children working in their vegetable field. Had stolen his prize ceremonial shirt which his dear spouse had created from large deer hide, a big deer he had shot 3 years ago.
True, I did sell my last catch of beaver to that alien 4 years ago, an ugly2-faced English, but I only did so because we needed supplies, winter early that year. But I won’t sell to those vicious cowards—defilers—ever again!
I, Wore Wolf Teeth of the Chaticks-si-chaticks, swear to it.
He brushed one hand through the single ridge of stiffened hair that roostered up from his mostly shaven head. Then he stood up and swept his gaze over the terrain once more, peering at rock out-croppings, and up a few arroyos.
Peering toward the east, Wore Wolf Teeth wondered what other evils lay back there yet to come this way and curse their lives. Last summer, the hairy invaders had slaughtered over a thousand bison near the very wide, flat, muddy Nebraskier River. Crazy aliens, such evil waste! A day of madness.
Stark images filled Wore’s mind. When he and several other warriors had ridden onto that scene, rotting stink had assaulted them. Hundreds of reeking carcasses of bison lay abandoned on the plains--rich meat rotting and bloating, crowded with skin-islands of flies in the hot summer sun. All that meat would have fed his tribe and others for over a year!
But those aliens had only skinned the shaggy hides from fallen beasts, ignoring, abandoning such a wealth of meat; instead, they had piled hundreds of bison pelts high into their moving lodges and left. Only wheel scars and hundreds of carcasses remained for scavengers.
Greedy scum!
On that shameful day, the sun had blazed hot like now today; yes, the season of sweating. Alert again, he quickly scanned the area here. Nothing. But why had these wagons come southerly to Cleer Creek? Who knows what English are about?! Maybe they found the muddy Nebraskier too undrinkable?
Probably stopped here because of this abundant spring. If his tribe hadn’t settled at the falls westward, this brook might be good, But only if it never dried up. Wore walked over to Clear Creek and scooped up a cool drink with his right hand.
He would return to his village, speak in the counsel and, maybe, they would mount a war party to deal with these new wagon-aliens.
He wiped sweat from his brow, grime from his palm, streaking his forehead and brushed one hand through the single ridge of stiffened hair that roostered up from his mostly shaven head. Then, he knelt and scooped up a cool drink with one hand. Wore stood back up and swept his gaze over the terrain once more, peering at out cropping, the Table Rock, and up a few narrow arroyos. No humans.
Suddenly, a covey of quail swarled up from a thicket and winged over the muddy ruts. He dropped flat, then like a bull snake slithered into close brush, listening for the sound of hooves, or boot steps, or even muffled breathing. Nothing! Only the creek’s gurgle.
But then as he peered out through branches, the sky tore open--abruptly, distorting, and bubbling out, a darkness looking at first like a black globbed mass, like dark spittle on a French trapper's beard, but then widening, widening, widening...until Wore Wolf Teeth inched back with dread.
This deadly vision came from the spirits, not from any bodied foe. Yet the horrid sky omen boded nothing like his good quest dream he had received when becoming a brave a few seasons back on the southern plains.
The dark, translucent bubble continued enlarging until it loomed greater than a dozen lodges back at his village of the Weeping Water. What horrendous spirit up above expanding until it gaped far vaster than a huge thunderhead just before a storm?
Wolf Teeth lay still, at one with the many stones under him. Above, the distorted cavern swallowed the sky--endless, coal black, a dark horror, similar to the murky cave he had climbed down into when a scared small boy.
Out of the cavernous maw charged, stormed, a moving drab-gray monster. A monstrous evil spirit?!
Or is it a severe warning omen to him from the Great Spirit?
Wore didn't know, but for the 1st time in his 23 years, he shivered despite the heat. Even when he had counted coup against the Arapahoe, disdaining their warriors and had to pull out a thrown lance from his bleeding arm, while hanging to the stolen horse's mane, even then he had not been afraid.
No fear then, but so alive and glorious, so triumphant, he and his fellow warriors had galloped across the plains. But not now…now fear ate at his gut like a huge vulture. I’m being truly tested. He gripped his medicine bag hanging from his neck, crawled out of the brush, stood and yelled, "I am of the Chaticks-si-chaticks (Men of men)!
Above, the dark gray spirit hovered pulsating, and behind it the sky, endless tar, a smoked abyss.
######################################################
About 3 miles away, horses of an Oregon-bound wagon train skittered and bucked, one large roan knocking its rider to the ground. Men looked up in shock, bewildered by the sudden darkness. Even the chatter of many children ceased. In the 3rd Conestoga wagon, Neil O'Brian stared up into the blackness and held his breath.
One of the scouts shouted a warning, "Halt!"
But then, just as the sudden blackness had come, the abyss of color vanished and the blazing glare of the sun returned. Almost immediately hundreds of voices from wagons rushed to fill the still air. Neil turned to Naomi, his wife who had come up behind him from the back of their wagon, and said, "Strange. What an incongruity! Suddenly that vast thunderhead dominates the sky, confuses us, then vanishes."
"It might be a sign from the Light," she said as she leaned close to him where he sat, reins in hand.
Before Neil could answer, the wagons in front of them began moving again. He turned and flicked the reins. His wife backed into the shade of the covering and lifted up their 6-month old daughter Hannah, singing softly a Quaker melody.
Neil thought about the strange atmospheric phenomenon, remembering a few texts he had read at law school which had mentioned a similar strange sky a few years back. Sounded like superstition to him, but what could have caused such an atmospheric disturbance?
Then Neil returned to contemplating their future, about their chances in the Oregon Territory. He was glad they weren't staying here on endless, treeless plains-- Nebraska Territory. Not that it didn't have potential, but except near creeks, it was too dry. No wonder some commentators called this a vast desert.
What a contrast to last week when they had camped back near the Missouri River where the land stood thick with tall timber—heavily forested bluffs, luxurious.
His horses followed 3 Prairie Schooners in front of their wagon, and there were 13 behind, as they rolled alongside the wide river of the Platte (he knew the word meant 'flat' in French, coined by the early explorers). Also, more and more, the rolling hills of the eastern Nebraska territory now lowered, the land flattening, turning to prairie, seemingly endless plains.
Holding the reins with one hand, Neil took a swig of warm water from his canteen. He momentarily contemplated whether the French term was the best name for the wide river, or if they should have kept the Oto Indian word, Nebraskier, meaning "flat water."
He wiped sweat from his face with his forearm again. So blazing hot! Such a contrast to the downpour of five days ago that had created a muddy mess. This excruciating heat wasn't great either and the air seemed to exude moisture. His shirt clung to his chest and back, utterly drenched as if he had taken a dunk in the nearby river, though the water didn't look deep enough to get baptized in if he was a one of the Dunkers, not a Friend.
The horses plugged along the hoof-punched mud trail; he tied the reins to the post, yanked off his dripping shirt, wiped his face and arms, and wrapped it around his neck to ward off more sunburn there.
Below his left rib, he noticed the large scar from the battle in Tennessee against the Cherokee. It welted livid against his dark tan. Jagged memory--he again saw his partner holding a small bloody scalp, a child’s and whooping with delight, telling Neil how they'd get rid of all of the red vermin, cursed aliens.
Neil cussed! Banished that bloodied memory. He flicked the reins so the horses bounded ahead, pulling him closer to the forward wagon. He could hear the chatter of children inside, and thought of his own baby and Naomi behind him within their wagon. She had stopped singing. Had heard him curse.
Scanning out across the shallow water on his left, he tried to see the far side of the river. Then he turned back and looked to see what Naomi was doing. Their baby, Hannah, lay wrapped tightly in a thin sheet, asleep on a Quaker quilt covering their small mattress that rested on packing crates.
Naomi sat behind the infant, peeling potatoes, her blouse damp against her bosom and pleasingly open at the neck, her long mahogany hair a tumble of wrap on her head, a few wisps clinging to the sweat on her skin.
"Hey Love,” Neil said, “how about bringing me some tea?"
Naomi looked up at her man, and smiled. “Sure, Neil.” She reached down under the side of the mattress and pulled out a large stone jar. Then hefted it up, tipped, and poured out brown tea into a glass mason jar.
Naomi was proud of her man, though sometimes now, she wished she were still in Philadelphia and teaching at Penn Quaker School, not out here on this rough trek, not missing her deceased parents. And that he wouldn’t sometimes curse.
She edged forward holding onto the crates so as to not spill any liquid as their wagon rocked and jostled over uneven ground. One wheel slid into a deep rain-rut and the wagon lurched. But Naomi caught herself with a hand against one of the stays of the fabric cover.
Neil grabbed the reins calming the horses as they righted the wagon and plodded on again. He felt her hand on his bare shoulder, turned and looked down into her luminous eyes, great with kissed closeness. Wanted to swoop her up into his arms, but he only visually caressed her, with intensity into her irises, and took the tumbler from her calloused hands, and turned back to watch the horses.
She let her hand linger on his shoulder, then slid it down his side and mischievously pinched him. He sloshed his tea, some slurping over the rim and landing on his legs. He grabbed for her hand but she had retreated. He hollered back over his head, “Just you wait, you’ve got yours comin’ later you ornery sprite. Is that kind of tomfoolery proper for a school marm?”
Her gentle laughter came to him as she picked up their 6-month-old daughter, no doubt holding her close, probably giving her to breast. And he thanked the God above for his wife.
Then in a lawyer-like moment marveled that he still was using high-falutin’ literary terms such as ‘sprite’ and ‘tomfoolery’ out here in the wild west of Nebraska Territory where so many pioneers and trappers couldn’t even write basic prose, let alone reference allusions.
Should he have stayed in Rhode Island and finished his law courses? But then they wouldn’t have had many exciting times crossing to Missouri! Of course, then they wouldn’t have had to bury her folks and the 216 other dead he had interred in St. Louis, dead from the pox, while waiting for spring to head out west.
And that other death—back in Tennessee, his friend holding that dripping scalp of the little Cherokee savage he had scalped…No! Don’t think of that.
Think of his sweetheart behind him in the wagon. Image him with Naomi; she in her sedate Quaker dress, but all heat and passion hidden within. What a wedding night! He grinned. Created their little one.
Better not dwell on that. Maybe if they hadn’t decided to go west, they could have settled in Providence after their wedding and shown her his small village where he grew up? Gotten her a small frame house, and she could be tending their daughter and walking down to Penn's Dry Goods...
Instead, they had fought Indians in Tennessee--mainly Cherokee; afterward, many corpses of the savages, their lodges burning from their arson, and a child’s dripping scalp in his friend’s hand. Guilt drowned him. Stop it!
Neil looked ahead at the wagon in front of him and wondered how long before they reached low falls of Weeping Water where they would begin to look for a camp site. Hopefully, they wouldn’t encounter any Pawnee or Oto.
A horde of flies circled him and he batted at them. His horses were sweating profusely, too, and these endless flies seemed to have swarmed up from Egypt, compliments of Moses. Speaking of the Good Book, he now heard Naomi singing a scripture passage to their daughter. She was versing something about being kind to the aliens in your midst.
Yeah right! Neil grimaced. Sometimes Scripture was downright stupid! Savage aliens! That’s what these redskins were. They deserved no mercy!
Natives would attack and slaughter families in their farms, even way lay whole wagon trains without warning. Massacring women and children! But his friend’s bloody trophy seared his conscience. Get off my back, God; that only happened because they attacked first!
Furthermore, Indian women would mutilate the bodies worse than their warrior husbands! Neil glanced over toward clumps of box elders by the river; feeling conflicted between his lawyer self and his commitment to the Society of Friends with his wife, he frowned, spit, and tried to think of something else.
Again, Neil swung at the flies swarming around him and their horses. Hmm...well, he supposed if he were a savage, then white folks would seem like aliens, too. Then the small bloody trophy in his laughing buddy's hand, dripped into his conscience, a stark vivid script on the wall of his mind, but he cursed again and argued the guilt down. Why would God emphasize they had to care for alien natives?
He flicked the horses angrily to speed them up as he realized he had fallen back a few yards. What about the German immigrant in the Ohio valley who we had found with his entrails torn out of his body and then his very intestines wrapped all the way around an oak tree, tied there by his own guts left to bleed to death slowly. Savage torture! To hell with the dark aliens inhabiting open land. They deserved whatever they got and more
The wagon in front of him stopped again!
"What now?" Neil asked, wondered as he stood up and stared ahead. If the wagon train kept stopping, they wouldn't make it to Chimney Rock for days, and then they might get caught in early snow before they got to pass over the Rockies.
Neil waited--hopefully not hostile natives. Out here they were likely to attack. Taking off his brown hat, he wiped sweat and grime from his forehead. Then glanced up toward the glaring sun and ran fingers through his damp hair.
He turned back to the hooped opening behind him. Inside, below in muted light, on their mattress sitting on top of kegs and large trunks, Naomi nursed Hannah. Neil grinned wide remembering the rambunctious night only 15 months ago, right after they had seen the justice of the peace and had a small Quaker wedding where they exchanged commmitments. The Friends used no clergy for that.
But then he bit his lip as other images which crowded in--the shallow grave he had dug for her parents, their skin all pocked up, only 2 of hundreds of people who had frenzied to death in the epidemic that had descended on St. Louis for months.
So many thousands crowded together in that town, prepareing for their long journeys across the west on the Oregon and other trails. At least though neither he nor Naomi had gotten the Missouri plague.
Shouts interrupted his remembrances; coming at a gallop, a scout dashed up to the wagon in front, waving his beaver hat to emphasize his shouting.
Quicky, Neil looped the reins on a wagon stay, jumped to the ground, and rushed forward.
The trail guide trotted toward him shouting agin; the short French Canadian, with that trapper's hat. Pulling up, he said again, "We got problems; one of our scouts hasn’t returned. And there’s horse tracks up ahead; probably Pawnee. Some of 'em are passive these days, but they attacked a train a few weeks back. Get out yer rifle ‘n stay eagle-eyed." Before Neil could answer, the Frenchie giddied his horse and trotted on to the next wagon behind.
################################################################
After their tachyon ship flung out of hyperspace, bursting from the bubbled warp into this blue wonder of a world, Uzx mentally felted all this amazing surface water! His own world had none. And grassy undulating plains, bluffs, and real surface streams below. He felt deep inner desire to skxxx in meditation.
"Oh such tactile wealth!" his skin yelled in joyful anticipation. "What luxuriating wonder." He virtually caressed the strange plants growing up from the grassy terrain near flowing streams. "And so much water visible above ground--zzhg!" He smiled; he would tactile for many rotations in skxxx.
So what if this is a small planet rotating a minor yellow sun. True, data feeling into him from the ship emphasized there were also no great technocities here--no extensive statistics to be analyzed and statted; and the conscious inhabitants were only skinny primate, many illiterate, and missing tails! And of a limited intelligence at that.
But still, what a marvel; this world and its main intelligent species showed promise for anthropologizing. He grinned wide and shifted his feel on the instruments. Data came in on one of the primates below. The earth alien was spying up at the ship using only his visual percepters and the aural lobes in his head.
Probably not a threat--obviously incapable of distance-feeling, only has basic self-consciousness, pre-literate, dark-skinned, strong energy level and brave, but strangely overly filled with dread.
The native's four-legged mammal-rider shook itself and hoofed the ground. Not dangerous, but tactilely fascinating, especially the long main of hair on its neck. The horse stopped moving and lowered its head to a shallow stream where it had been drinking. It was restricted by a cord tied to one of a few tall many-limbed plants--ah yes, the term, trees. "Thanks for the identification, data director," Uzx felted to the ship’s computer center.
Uzx virtually skinned the horizon. A few points to the south over the terrain many other primates were vocalizing so loudly, he was surprised that the dark-skinned one couldn't hear them. These aliens seemed to have no inner means of communication. Rather embarrassing--yakking loudly like a bunch of pxzlzs! And they were moving in primitive conveyances.
Neither did these other human aliens have that stiff hair ridge on a shaved head or dark skin like the first earthling. Instead, they wore fiber coverings over their longish hair hair; and some of their male faces sprouted heavy bushed hair below their sense organs and intake orifices. So much bare skin would have been off-putting if he weren't a scientist. Uzx briefly reflected warmly on his many tail brother and sisters, thoroughly covered in luxuriant fur.
Back to work, Uzx quickly accessed 139 different mental states. Most were upset because one of their leaders had found tracks belonging to the lone native's mammal. Now the leader was riding his mammal back along the primitive conveyances shouting out warnings. So much loud clucking!
Rather oddly funny. Uzx's skin laughed. The leading primate hadn't even taken a moment to stick his multi-pronged appendages into feel the semicircular shapes of the tracks in the rich loam of the muddy soil that he was yelling about. What a waste of tactile!
Musing, he considered options; maybe he should quantum those primitive gunpowder tubes attached to their waists or held by some in their hands. Oh, he could do that later after his complete survey and all the data collection finished.
Shifting on his large feet, he adjusted the back support of his tail, still intrigued that the alien primates had no tail and such tiny feet!
Focused again back to the terrain where the first earth being still hid, but ignoring him, Uzx virtual felted many small finning creatures in the surface water of the shallow creek. What would they skin like when he actually touched those primitive life forms? What would his own planet of Orxx be like if it had surface water and such creatures, too?
Uzx touched the data flow and the weird slimy creatures flapped their fins in panic and zipped about in the stream. What a strange amazing world so diffferent from his own and from other planets he had studied. Oh thanks to the All-Ultimate that he had careered as an alienologist. Surely, no other sirehold compared.
Next, he scanned with his skin across the landscape to where thousands of large shaggy four-legged creatures congregated at a much larger body of surface water, a river. Uzx considered feltdentifying into one of the herd for his 1st skxx, but then remembered the bloated carcasses he had accessed from the hiding native's mind. He remembered his own great sire's wise quote: “Forefeeling leads to felthood."
So, cautioning himself--his felting into the large beasts might start a stampeded, Uzx widened the range of his felt-sensing for more input. Thankfully, the scanning ability of their research ship's data director was nearly endless.
Later he would focus on one of the alien families, probably the one of only 3 in the 3rd primitive wagon back in the line of human travelers. Why such a measly-sized family?
Only one infant! And not safe in a maternal’s pouch, because she was a primate, didn’t have one!
Yet her curly-bearded mate and she nursing a tiny infant within under that vegetative gray-white covering intrigued him. Her husband his mate showed more erudition than any of the others--some were illiterate like the native 3 miles away! Her male was conscientious and ardent, and spiritual, yet skeptical--fascinating. A worthy in depth study.
But the alien had a tragic grieving past. Uzx uploaded his brain memories for storage.
Too bad there were no earth marsupials nearby. Later later, he would flash-point down to that southern continent that seemed to have the most, but not one intelligent self-aware; see what genetic similarity they might have to his own species on Orxx, whether the All-Ultimate had created them with the same basic code on this far distant small planet.
Then he brought his star ship into a very low circling pattern, scanning through the possibilities for an enclone via the data director. Eliminating flyers (though very intriguing), and low-intelligent reptiles.
He needed a creature with fur, non-intrusive, maybe even a bit fun--Ah there, he felted a furry, smallish--actually tiny--mammal who tunneled and was mostly ignored except by the winged ones. It would be perfect for his 1st feeling of this planet, despite the creature's stupidity, or rather because that would make the inclone mind-meld less intrusive or difficult.
Below in their burrow, its inhabitants suddenly scurried about sensing an invasion of their sanctuary. A fairly large male collapsed in a tunnel near the surface mound in the tall prairie grass.
Then it awoke a genius.
################################################################
Wore Wolf Teeth lay still like rock even after that demon of dread had vanished from the dark sky above. Now only intensive blue remained and the hot blazing sun. Not a cloud in the sky.
He peered through various holes in the thick brush, and waited and waited, but the monstrous thing didn't return. Nowhere was the huge black tunnel or the dreadful spirit that had come lunging out of it. Slowly, Wore snaked backward ignoring abrasions and cuts on his stomach and legs from shards of rock and thorns.
But then he heard the distinctive noise of slow-moving hooves. He shut from his mind the strange spirit and focused on what he did know. A rider was coming this way, secretively. Not an native. Extricating himself from the heavy thicket, Wore ran silently through the elms to the flat stone ridge of the Table Rock...
To be continued
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Meditation on Shimmering Palms and Floaters
Meditation on Shimmering Palms
On more days and nights, an invalid,
In pain and loss, I often just want to go...
Unconscious;
But then, again, I stare out
To the wind and sun
From our upstairs
Window;
There towering above, 2 lone palms
In sight from my weak haven,
Swaying in that blue expanse
In a lively coastal wind,
Their mop-tops of slender fronds
Shimmering
Like flashing magnesium flares
From brilliant reflecting
Sunshine.
Those two undulating sentinels dance
over/above my fading consciousness,
Ailing awareness--
Two unconscious messengers,
While I lay here filled with sacred
Remembrance, mindful
Of my former festive living,
Becoming, and doing...
Yes, the wonder of being a human primate
Living!
but finite so brief,
This
Gift,
this Present
Shimmering--
Then we’re gone.
Only the Center, the Light
Everlasts.
-Dan Wilcox
--
FLOATERS--a poetic reflection on autumn, the season,
and late life
I, often spent to despair,
For lost hope yearning;
Tried for years to rescue others
Caught in those tangled news hours
Of hellish hate, intolerance, despair,
Wrong right-leftist spinners,
Those creedalists and secularists
Both deniers of the morally real--
Their abyss of modern sheol winter.
Stop!
Abandon this somber cellared lament,
this dirge,
Instead, listen to hope!
My sweetheart suggests,
Let’s visit
A coastal winery!
Say, I do,
We do.
Hobbling with walker out,
She drives along a winding river valley,
We arrive, expectant,
Hoping for zest;
Then, listening to soft music,
Sipping small glasses of moscato and merlot
Enjoying a glad refreshment day,
Mellow and casual,
Light of heart,
Carefree, contented
In California’s autumn’s wonder
Below tall sycamores and elms;
After Thanksgiving before winter;
We bask in 86-degree warmth,
When unexpectedly a slightly curled
Leaf floats down before
My eyes,
And lands gently on my lap,
A died wonder for us to behold;
Then another drifter
Lets go from a large limb above,
A deep rust-brown leaf spattered
With light tan highlights and vein-lines,
Descends in front of us,
Swaying back and forth,
Languid,
Lightly
Floating down
Inches away from us,
Landing nearby
On the lawn;
I lay with my head way back,
Gazing up to the sky's azure blue,
As other gifts let go every few moments
From high above,
Swinging wide and gentle,
Falling beauty in slow motion,
Floating, swaying;
I realize—here, now--
With this Present--
I could die free, released.
In the LIGHT,
-Dan Wilcox
On more days and nights, an invalid,
In pain and loss, I often just want to go...
Unconscious;
But then, again, I stare out
To the wind and sun
From our upstairs
Window;
There towering above, 2 lone palms
In sight from my weak haven,
Swaying in that blue expanse
In a lively coastal wind,
Their mop-tops of slender fronds
Shimmering
Like flashing magnesium flares
From brilliant reflecting
Sunshine.
Those two undulating sentinels dance
over/above my fading consciousness,
Ailing awareness--
Two unconscious messengers,
While I lay here filled with sacred
Remembrance, mindful
Of my former festive living,
Becoming, and doing...
Yes, the wonder of being a human primate
Living!
but finite so brief,
This
Gift,
this Present
Shimmering--
Then we’re gone.
Only the Center, the Light
Everlasts.
-Dan Wilcox
--
FLOATERS--a poetic reflection on autumn, the season,
and late life
I, often spent to despair,
For lost hope yearning;
Tried for years to rescue others
Caught in those tangled news hours
Of hellish hate, intolerance, despair,
Wrong right-leftist spinners,
Those creedalists and secularists
Both deniers of the morally real--
Their abyss of modern sheol winter.
Stop!
Abandon this somber cellared lament,
this dirge,
Instead, listen to hope!
My sweetheart suggests,
Let’s visit
A coastal winery!
Say, I do,
We do.
Hobbling with walker out,
She drives along a winding river valley,
We arrive, expectant,
Hoping for zest;
Then, listening to soft music,
Sipping small glasses of moscato and merlot
Enjoying a glad refreshment day,
Mellow and casual,
Light of heart,
Carefree, contented
In California’s autumn’s wonder
Below tall sycamores and elms;
After Thanksgiving before winter;
We bask in 86-degree warmth,
When unexpectedly a slightly curled
Leaf floats down before
My eyes,
And lands gently on my lap,
A died wonder for us to behold;
Lets go from a large limb above,
A deep rust-brown leaf spattered
With light tan highlights and vein-lines,
Descends in front of us,
Swaying back and forth,
Languid,
Lightly
Floating down
Inches away from us,
Landing nearby
On the lawn;
I lay with my head way back,
Gazing up to the sky's azure blue,
As other gifts let go every few moments
From high above,
Swinging wide and gentle,
Falling beauty in slow motion,
Floating, swaying;
I realize—here, now--
With this Present--
I could die free, released.
In the LIGHT,
-Dan Wilcox
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War by historian T.L. Underwood
Another fascinating study in early Quaker history, especially related to the Light and the peace-making actions of early Quakers.
"By examining the Quaker/Baptist relationship in particular, Underwood seeks to understand where and why Quaker views diverged from English Protestantism in general and, in the process, to clarify early Quaker beliefs."
from Amazon review
At the start and in the midst of the tragic English Civil War, the early Quaker movement arose.
This Oxford-history deals with those early Quakers and their conflicts with the Church of England, the Puritans, and other nonconformist movements, especially the early Baptists.
from Amazon:
"At first, the Quaker movement attracted some Baptist converts, but relations between the two groups soon grew hostile. Public disputes broke out and each group denounced the other in polemical tracts...
Underwood contends that Quakers and Baptists had much in common with each other, as well as with the broader Puritan and Nonconformist tradition.
--T.L. Underwood, professor of history, University of Minnesota
"By examining the Quaker/Baptist relationship in particular, Underwood seeks to understand where and why Quaker views diverged from English Protestantism in general and, in the process, to clarify early Quaker beliefs."
from Amazon review
At the start and in the midst of the tragic English Civil War, the early Quaker movement arose.
This Oxford-history deals with those early Quakers and their conflicts with the Church of England, the Puritans, and other nonconformist movements, especially the early Baptists.
from Amazon:
"At first, the Quaker movement attracted some Baptist converts, but relations between the two groups soon grew hostile. Public disputes broke out and each group denounced the other in polemical tracts...
Underwood contends that Quakers and Baptists had much in common with each other, as well as with the broader Puritan and Nonconformist tradition.
--T.L. Underwood, professor of history, University of Minnesota
Thursday, November 28, 2024
Peaceable Kingdom LOST: Paxton Boys and Destruction of Penn's Holy Experiment by Professor Kevin Kenny
from Amazon:
"William Penn established Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment" in which Europeans and Indians could live together in harmony. In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans."
"Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War."
"In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of "right of conquest," the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs."
"They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys."
"The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims."
"The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of "right of conquest."
"Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace."
PEACEABLE KINGDON: LOST By Kevin Kenny, Professor of History at Boston College
"Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War."
"In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of "right of conquest," the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs."
"They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys."
"The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims."
"The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of "right of conquest."
"Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace."
PEACEABLE KINGDON: LOST By Kevin Kenny, Professor of History at Boston College
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Blessing, Not Killing
Waiting by their front door,
For their romantic hug,
He's expectant,
Her eager lover,
Next to their 3-year-toddler;
Returning with groceries,
She enters front-packing Huggies
Above her plump-growing belly;
Blessed, expectant
3 years ago, 2 became one equals 3,
Ago
And now 4
'Amore'
What a wonder conceiving each new life, humans get to experience in marriage!
Such a powerful, blessed photo of an infant in the womb at about 16 weeks.
What a contrast to the U.S. modern delusion of "abortion rights."
HOW ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS?
Especially for the youngest, tiniest humans, the infants in the womb.
What also needs to be emphasized is that the mother is the individual to decide (NOT the GOVERNMENT) in tragic cases of her life being endangered, of biological errors such as her infant having severe physical deformity, and, of course, in worse cases involving rape and abuse.
In the LIGHT of PRO-LIFE,
Daniel Wilcox
For their romantic hug,
He's expectant,
Her eager lover,
Next to their 3-year-toddler;
Returning with groceries,
She enters front-packing Huggies
Above her plump-growing belly;
Blessed, expectant
3 years ago, 2 became one equals 3,
Ago
And now 4
'Amore'
What a wonder conceiving each new life, humans get to experience in marriage!
Such a powerful, blessed photo of an infant in the womb at about 16 weeks.
What a contrast to the U.S. modern delusion of "abortion rights."
HOW ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS?
Especially for the youngest, tiniest humans, the infants in the womb.
What also needs to be emphasized is that the mother is the individual to decide (NOT the GOVERNMENT) in tragic cases of her life being endangered, of biological errors such as her infant having severe physical deformity, and, of course, in worse cases involving rape and abuse.
In the LIGHT of PRO-LIFE,
Daniel Wilcox
Monday, November 11, 2024
Transcendence--Part 2
‘Liberal’ Christians admit Jesus and the NT authors were mistaken, but in so doing they are trying to pole vault up a steep incline while sliding down the slippery back slope of increasing doubt and skepticism. If the NT isn’t historically accurate about such a key doctrine as the return of Christ, many ask, how could one rely on Scripture's accounts of Jesus rising from the grave, ascending into heaven, etc.
How can the Christian religion be true and accurate about anything else?
After all, the bar of requirements for historical writing has been set very high in the modern age. All things, people think, need to be factually accurate, inerrant to be of real value. So religion, the spiritual, and the transcendent all need to be judged with the measuring tools of science.
A compass of accuracy needs to discern the geometric lines of theology and faith, to eliminate and banish any heresy that deviates from the factual.
What a very high raising of the TRUTH bar for us thinking humans to catapult over!
The nature of truth is a difficult subject bar none (to throw in a word play to lighten this heavy post;-)
The difficulty of hope versus illusion-delusion (false hope) and reason versus despair (false reason) is a very high bar indeed. Can any hope of the transcendent be found at all?
Millions of humans think not. So they quit 'pole-vaulting' and settle down on the ground of Materialism/Atheism/even Nihilism and Subjectivism/Relativism. Such thinkers include Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Coyne, Yuval Noah Harari, Sean Carroll, Brian Green, etc.).
In striking contrast, many other thinkers and scientists created the ENLIGHTENMENT/Deism/generic theism, etc. Their new outlook based in reason and the scientific method--Not revelation--managed to clear the bar of required evidence.
All of them strongly hold to modern evidence--evolutionary biological, geological, astronomical, rational--but don't think such evidence proves that Reality is meaningless, subjective, etc. Instead, they think that Reality is ultimately transcendent, moral realism is true, all humans have inherent worth, etc. They state they base their hope in reason and cosmic regularities, Life itself, etc.
In the LIGHT of the True, the Good, the Just, the TRANSCENDENT,
Daniel Wilcox
SIDE NOTE:
on more historic difficulties for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-- 'revealed religions' of doctrinal claims Another difficult raising of the bar of religious hope came 1,500 years after Jesus, in the time of Galileo and Copernicus.
The Creedal Church claimed supreme understanding and control in all matters. Yet a minority of scientists contradicted the teachings of the Church and, allegedly, the Bible. They claimed to have proved that the sun doesn’t round the earth each day; indeed, the earth is not the center, not the focal point of all creation as Genesis claims.
Soon science increased its evidential findings--our sun is actually only a very minor star, Not the Center of Reality.
Contrary to the Scriptures’ statement, “God made the stars also,” in actuality, those stars are cosmically vast than our puny solar system. We are on an edge of a galaxy, which is one of millions of other galaxies!
So much for the literal understanding of the Jewish Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, and common sense!
Scratch!
Of course, multi-millions choose to twist the plain text in the sacred scriptures. They argue Genesis describes the creation of the sun on the fourth day from the perspective of God’s Spirit at the level of the surface of the planet looking up!
So God looking up from planet earth's surface does make it seem like the sun comes after the earth rather than before. What has happened? A dense, heavy cloud of vapor had hidden the sun during the first 3 days. The sun finally appeared above the earth on the 4th day.
There is a very bad case of Not only 'scratching' but of cheating!
But the verse in Genesis doesn’t speak about the sun appearing from behind fog on the fourth day; on the contrary, it says: “And God said, 'Let there be light in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth.' And so it was. And God made the two great lights…” (Genesis 1:14-16)
Other religionist wrote of a dualistic existence, where science concerns itself with the observable and the factual but religion concerns itself with the spiritual and moral. Many theists of the present time manage to make this philosophical leap.
Then the discoveries by Darwin and many other scientists that life proceeds not by a sudden miraculous creation 6,000 years ago, but by a combination of cosmic luck and survival of the fittest over millions and millions of years.
Later in succeeding years, other scientists tabulated their technical findings and showed the earth came about 4 billion years ago, not 6, 000, and the universe has existed at least 16 billion years! This setting of the sacred bar careens outrageously high so that only the most blind, or most compartmentalized, or the most irrationally determined can leap the bottomless chasm up and over the cosmically high bar of hope.
Good grief, what convoluted hypocritical rhetoric!
Multi-millions of human beings have 'scratched'. Been Disqualified.
How can the Christian religion be true and accurate about anything else?
After all, the bar of requirements for historical writing has been set very high in the modern age. All things, people think, need to be factually accurate, inerrant to be of real value. So religion, the spiritual, and the transcendent all need to be judged with the measuring tools of science.
A compass of accuracy needs to discern the geometric lines of theology and faith, to eliminate and banish any heresy that deviates from the factual.
What a very high raising of the TRUTH bar for us thinking humans to catapult over!
The nature of truth is a difficult subject bar none (to throw in a word play to lighten this heavy post;-)
The difficulty of hope versus illusion-delusion (false hope) and reason versus despair (false reason) is a very high bar indeed. Can any hope of the transcendent be found at all?
Millions of humans think not. So they quit 'pole-vaulting' and settle down on the ground of Materialism/Atheism/even Nihilism and Subjectivism/Relativism. Such thinkers include Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Coyne, Yuval Noah Harari, Sean Carroll, Brian Green, etc.).
In striking contrast, many other thinkers and scientists created the ENLIGHTENMENT/Deism/generic theism, etc. Their new outlook based in reason and the scientific method--Not revelation--managed to clear the bar of required evidence.
All of them strongly hold to modern evidence--evolutionary biological, geological, astronomical, rational--but don't think such evidence proves that Reality is meaningless, subjective, etc. Instead, they think that Reality is ultimately transcendent, moral realism is true, all humans have inherent worth, etc. They state they base their hope in reason and cosmic regularities, Life itself, etc.
In the LIGHT of the True, the Good, the Just, the TRANSCENDENT,
Daniel Wilcox
SIDE NOTE:
on more historic difficulties for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-- 'revealed religions' of doctrinal claims Another difficult raising of the bar of religious hope came 1,500 years after Jesus, in the time of Galileo and Copernicus.
The Creedal Church claimed supreme understanding and control in all matters. Yet a minority of scientists contradicted the teachings of the Church and, allegedly, the Bible. They claimed to have proved that the sun doesn’t round the earth each day; indeed, the earth is not the center, not the focal point of all creation as Genesis claims.
Soon science increased its evidential findings--our sun is actually only a very minor star, Not the Center of Reality.
Contrary to the Scriptures’ statement, “God made the stars also,” in actuality, those stars are cosmically vast than our puny solar system. We are on an edge of a galaxy, which is one of millions of other galaxies!
So much for the literal understanding of the Jewish Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, and common sense!
Scratch!
Of course, multi-millions choose to twist the plain text in the sacred scriptures. They argue Genesis describes the creation of the sun on the fourth day from the perspective of God’s Spirit at the level of the surface of the planet looking up!
So God looking up from planet earth's surface does make it seem like the sun comes after the earth rather than before. What has happened? A dense, heavy cloud of vapor had hidden the sun during the first 3 days. The sun finally appeared above the earth on the 4th day.
There is a very bad case of Not only 'scratching' but of cheating!
But the verse in Genesis doesn’t speak about the sun appearing from behind fog on the fourth day; on the contrary, it says: “And God said, 'Let there be light in the vault of the heavens to light up the earth.' And so it was. And God made the two great lights…” (Genesis 1:14-16)
Other religionist wrote of a dualistic existence, where science concerns itself with the observable and the factual but religion concerns itself with the spiritual and moral. Many theists of the present time manage to make this philosophical leap.
Then the discoveries by Darwin and many other scientists that life proceeds not by a sudden miraculous creation 6,000 years ago, but by a combination of cosmic luck and survival of the fittest over millions and millions of years.
Later in succeeding years, other scientists tabulated their technical findings and showed the earth came about 4 billion years ago, not 6, 000, and the universe has existed at least 16 billion years! This setting of the sacred bar careens outrageously high so that only the most blind, or most compartmentalized, or the most irrationally determined can leap the bottomless chasm up and over the cosmically high bar of hope.
Good grief, what convoluted hypocritical rhetoric!
Multi-millions of human beings have 'scratched'. Been Disqualified.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Pole-Vaulting into Transcendence
When a young teen in P.E. one year, I ran and jumped the pole vault a few times. The anticipation for and mild fear of that run and leap, tensed us up. The vault didn’t rank with the sheer frighted fearfulness of the high dive in swimming, but it sure beat the boredom of doing pushups.
As difficult as it was to run and leap up balancing on the wobbly rise of the limber pole, in its back arch and then its swinging forward, up, and over the cross bar, I did manage to clear the bar at low levels.
The eventual goal was to set the cross bar higher and higher and yet still achieve the swinging leap up and over. But the higher the bar the more difficult the leap with the rise of the pole and the more dangerous the fall, even if one succeeded in clearing the bar.
Fortunately, pole vaulting lasted only a week for us P.E. students, was not required on a regular basis.
However, metaphorically I've been "pole vaulting" for at least 70 years (an unusual analogy similar to a poem by the metaphysical poet John Donne, the famous 17th century English writer).
Donne wrote very unusual analogies in his poems such as a romantic poem to his wife comparing his deep love for her to a geometric compass!.
In this case now, I'm comparing the all-pervasive meaning seeking action of humans of the last 200,000 years to the action of pole-vaulting--attempting to leap for hope in the mysterious cosmic reality.
Wikepedia photos
--
In the actual sport of pole-vaulting, if one doesn't scratch or cheat, the bar keeps being raised higher and higher--eventually incredibly high. Similarly, in humans seeking answers to the Mystery of Life, trillions of stars in the cosmos, and troubling confusions about what is true, what is morally good, what is fair and just--this spiritual seeking has been increasingly difficult.
For instance, one of the most difficult high raisings of the bar came for Christians when Jesus didn’t return in the ‘soon’ time of Paul and John (I Thessalonians and Revelation), but Christians attempted to adjust the bar down and up at the same time! Biblical theologians reinterpreted the word ‘soon’ to mean ‘rapidly’ rather than in the common sense definition of ‘in the near future.’
They said the return of Christ could happen thousands of years in the future, but when it did it come, it would be ‘rapid’. This seems a very dishonest scratching of language and history. It is more than an accidental rule violation, but a situation of dishonesty and delusion--straining the gnat and swallowing the camel.
To be continued in 2 days,
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
As difficult as it was to run and leap up balancing on the wobbly rise of the limber pole, in its back arch and then its swinging forward, up, and over the cross bar, I did manage to clear the bar at low levels.
Fortunately, pole vaulting lasted only a week for us P.E. students, was not required on a regular basis.
However, metaphorically I've been "pole vaulting" for at least 70 years (an unusual analogy similar to a poem by the metaphysical poet John Donne, the famous 17th century English writer).
Donne wrote very unusual analogies in his poems such as a romantic poem to his wife comparing his deep love for her to a geometric compass!.
In this case now, I'm comparing the all-pervasive meaning seeking action of humans of the last 200,000 years to the action of pole-vaulting--attempting to leap for hope in the mysterious cosmic reality.
Wikepedia photos
--
In the actual sport of pole-vaulting, if one doesn't scratch or cheat, the bar keeps being raised higher and higher--eventually incredibly high. Similarly, in humans seeking answers to the Mystery of Life, trillions of stars in the cosmos, and troubling confusions about what is true, what is morally good, what is fair and just--this spiritual seeking has been increasingly difficult.
For instance, one of the most difficult high raisings of the bar came for Christians when Jesus didn’t return in the ‘soon’ time of Paul and John (I Thessalonians and Revelation), but Christians attempted to adjust the bar down and up at the same time! Biblical theologians reinterpreted the word ‘soon’ to mean ‘rapidly’ rather than in the common sense definition of ‘in the near future.’
They said the return of Christ could happen thousands of years in the future, but when it did it come, it would be ‘rapid’. This seems a very dishonest scratching of language and history. It is more than an accidental rule violation, but a situation of dishonesty and delusion--straining the gnat and swallowing the camel.
To be continued in 2 days,
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
Monday, October 28, 2024
LIVING TRUE WAY---AUTHENTIC (honesty), AWAKE, AWARE, AWE, ALERT, ANALYTICAL, ALTRUISTIC, ARDENT...! NOT "BAD" WAY--Beguile, Boast, Brawn, Booty, Bully, ...
Because of the vagueness, contradictions of meaning, and excesssive use of too many words describing "spiritual,"
I decided to have a bit of fun seeing how many less used words/descriptions I could come up with beginning with "A",
(like in Arrow--straight and true).
Of course, I couldn't think of an A-word
that defines "meticulous honesty" so put
in a synonym for that.
And, then
reflected on all the BAD-- immoral, unjust, unfair, superficial, deluded, lying in the present day where multi-millions of us humans promote the ideological BROAD WAY,
B-worded actions that Jesus (and other moral realists)
warned against 2,000 plus years ago.
BROAD WAY
artist-unknown
LET US seekers care to share and reason in humility with the many lost individuals who have been deluded with all the ideological immoral claims being made now in religion, politics, sports, culture, etc.
Keep in mind the words of the bad propagandists of the early 20th century--Tell multi-millions of people Big Lies repeatedly and they will come to
believe them even though the claims are contrary to the science of biology, the wise words of moral reformers, and common sense.
to be continued...
I decided to have a bit of fun seeing how many less used words/descriptions I could come up with beginning with "A",
(like in Arrow--straight and true).
Of course, I couldn't think of an A-word
that defines "meticulous honesty" so put
in a synonym for that.
And, then
reflected on all the BAD-- immoral, unjust, unfair, superficial, deluded, lying in the present day where multi-millions of us humans promote the ideological BROAD WAY,
B-worded actions that Jesus (and other moral realists)
warned against 2,000 plus years ago.
BROAD WAY
artist-unknown
LET US seekers care to share and reason in humility with the many lost individuals who have been deluded with all the ideological immoral claims being made now in religion, politics, sports, culture, etc.
Keep in mind the words of the bad propagandists of the early 20th century--Tell multi-millions of people Big Lies repeatedly and they will come to
believe them even though the claims are contrary to the science of biology, the wise words of moral reformers, and common sense.
to be continued...
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Guest Post fr.YouTube: "I Think, therefore I'm Trans" speech by Alycia Woods
"The number of people identifying as transgender has risen sharply over the past several years, especially among young girls. This rise has caught the attention of journalists, scientists, and the medical community, many of whom have come to conclude that something is very wrong. Are gender and sex actually linked? What about those that “detransition?” And what about the fact that culture seems to be shifting its view of transgenderism? In this talk, we will look at some of the data that is coming out from various cultural sources as well challenge Christians to think about how we can be Christ to a hurting people."
by Alycia Woods
by Alycia Woods
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Sunday, August 25, 2024
when both U.S. Political Conventions promote immoral--unjust agendas, Remember at a similar chaotic time, Fox spoke forth the LIGHT
When at least 100,000 humans have been slaughtered in the last few years, both U.S. Parties' 2024 Conventions promote immoral--unjust agendas, claim that what is first is America--
Remember at a similar chaotic tragic time, George Fox experienced a transcendent encounter and spoke forth the LIGHT!
At that horrid time in human history, events were far worse than our tragic, horrid present. The 30 YEARS WAR, the English UnCIVIL WAR, etc.
YET at that time, HOPE despite the terror and oppresion, arose.
To be continued...
In the True, the Good, the Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Remember at a similar chaotic tragic time, George Fox experienced a transcendent encounter and spoke forth the LIGHT!
At that horrid time in human history, events were far worse than our tragic, horrid present. The 30 YEARS WAR, the English UnCIVIL WAR, etc.
YET at that time, HOPE despite the terror and oppresion, arose.
To be continued...
In the True, the Good, the Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Christian Arameans living near border with Lebanon, attempting to Survive HEZBOLLAH's constant barrage of missiles; past bad Israelis Gov.
Christians who still read in Aramaic the language Jesus spoke, who Survived the Israeli military destroying 2 of their villages in the past:-( (read about that in Elias Chacour's powerful memoir, Blood Brothers) and now the constant killing barrage of Muslim HEZBOLLAH (Party of Allah).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-jish-an-indigenous-christian-minority-defiantly-stays-in-hezbollahs-crosshairs/?fbclid=IwY2xjawEgqItleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHSyWCX5J9l9-tPB0d3GqEZW_NxbQPTphALHp6jmOtmhwec1_iXUAgjpy8w_aem_BewXWqawjIoNuvqQF89O4A
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
What is PRO-LIFE? Neither right nor left, but Moral Truths of the Center
Definitions of PRO-LIFE:
"The Friends Witness for a Pro-life Peace Testimony witnesses to the value in each human life, regardless of stage of life or life circumstances. As Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40). We deeply feel the call of the Spirit to move away from the violence of war, the death penalty, abortion, and euthanasia towards life-affirming approaches. We seek to educate Friends across the wide spectrum of the Religious Society around this concern, and to unite with others inside and outside of the Society of Friends who are responding to a similar call."
--https://prolifequakers.org/
Completely Pro-Life by Professor Ronald J. Sider
author of books--Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and
one against nuclear weapons, and 3 for nonviolence
“Whatever is opposed to life itself such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction – whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself...subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society . . .” --Vatican 11 Council in Gaudium et Spes
to be continued
"The Friends Witness for a Pro-life Peace Testimony witnesses to the value in each human life, regardless of stage of life or life circumstances. As Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40). We deeply feel the call of the Spirit to move away from the violence of war, the death penalty, abortion, and euthanasia towards life-affirming approaches. We seek to educate Friends across the wide spectrum of the Religious Society around this concern, and to unite with others inside and outside of the Society of Friends who are responding to a similar call."
--https://prolifequakers.org/
Completely Pro-Life by Professor Ronald J. Sider
author of books--Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and
one against nuclear weapons, and 3 for nonviolence
“Whatever is opposed to life itself such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction – whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself...subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society . . .” --Vatican 11 Council in Gaudium et Spes
to be continued
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Good Grounds Coffee Shop--how a few individuals are helping those caught in the sex-industry
Living the Jesus-inspired Way---caring, kindness, peace-making, hope...
Planting in Good Ground:
"The Seed – gainful employment can transform a survivor’s life
"Employment at Good Ground is more than just a paycheck. Survivors are enrolled in a holistic program including trauma therapy, life skills building, and robust support from volunteers and other survivors.
"Peace Promise started as a prayer gathering of moms at Mechanicsburg (Pa.) BIC who learned about the realities of sexual trafficking and exploitation in their region. The group grew and mobilized; the “church ladies” began reaching out directly to women in the sex industry, first at truck stops and then at strip clubs.
"Building relationships with survivors quickly revealed that many did not have the life skills needed to get and keep traditional employment. Susan Vigliano, co-founder of Peace Promise and associate pastor at Mechanicsburg BIC, discovered that simple things like budgeting, meal planning, and finding affordable transportation were insurmountable challenges. “They’re making decisions from a place of desperation and survival,” Susan says. Additionally, some had criminal records or substance addictions that disqualify them from many employment options.
"Seeing woman after woman struggle with many of the same issues, Peace Promise started to think: how could trauma-informed businesses with robust emotional, mental, and spiritual support offer an escape to women who may want a different life?
"The Soil – two college students [at the BIC university] with a dream and a building for sale."
"On a busy corner in Camp Hill, Pa., you’ll encounter a commanding house with white siding and a green roof. Peek through the windows and glimpse the beginnings of Good Ground Coffee Company, a coffee shop that has two clear missions: serve good coffee and empower survivors of the sex industry. Good Ground is an..."
To read the rest of this wonderful story go to:
https://bicus.org/2024/05/planting-in-good-ground/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR36mHr1ScfX2ttez98YwKvirDE0s3G1sCcIqWtMhwTT-B3XqTB2MxhrGtM_aem_AZbPP96BXmw3TD1aOYBc3nAg9kRBJhVZhPzZ2_k3wp4jhW1rrAUoTS5g3-6ulc7Xo70FT5o7yLaY1-B5Zs6fG_mS and
Escaping the Sex Industry: One Woman’s Journey through Peace Promise!
https://bicus.org/2021/03/escaping-the-sex-industry-one-womans-journey-to-liberation-in-christ/
https://peacepromise.org/about-us/
"Human trafficking is a 32 billion-dollar-a-year business with sex trafficking growing at the fastest pace. It is an industry that exploits the most vulnerable members of our community. Those who experience poverty, little or no protection from family or friends, believe they have low personal worth or value and have a history of childhood sexual abuse. Sex trafficking is happening right here in our own community – in truck stops, strip clubs, erotic massage parlors, in our streets, and through escort services and online prostitution.
"Since 1997, the accessibility and anonymity of Internet pornography use have significantly contributed to the abuse of trafficked men, women and children. In the United States, teenagers are targets and sought after by pimps and traffickers. Most teens are lured into the industry by a pimp posing as a boyfriend and remain there by brutal force, coercion, drug dependency, and a sense of belonging. Once trafficked, very few victims of prostitution and sex-trafficking are rescued. The average life span of a person being exploited in prostitution is seven years and the most common causes of death are drug overdose, suicide, and murder.
"...Peace Promise was an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that assists in recovering hope and strengthening the lives of those impacted by sexual exploitation in our community. In 2019 we hired our first full-time employee, an Executive Director, Patty Seaman.
"Peace Promise addresses the complexities of sex trafficking in the Harrisburg region by offering: outreach, intervention, and advocacy for those involved in commercial sexual exploitation; healing support and restorative care for sex trafficking survivors; and community education and awareness regarding the dehumanization and identifiers of sex trafficking, prostitution, and pornography."
"On a weekly basis, Peace Promise Outreach Volunteers visit adult entertainment venues forming friendships with the women who work there...The dancers affectionately refer to the outreach volunteers as "the church ladies” who bring homemade dinners and desserts to share during the visits. Outreach volunteers communicate a simple message:
“You are precious. You are valued. You are loved. We are here for you.”
"Once a survivor is safely transitioned out of the industry, Peace Promise offers an individually customized care plan based on that woman's specific needs and goals. The plan is intended to facilitate meaningful employment, healthy relationships and loving self-care."
"...sex trafficking...is huge. It is complex. And yet, it is very personal. It is ONE face.
"One woman. One name. One very specific set of circumstances that brought her to this place of exploitation. Despite the debilitating trauma, abuse, and addictions, there is hope."
"There is a community of women who will welcome her home and who long to see her restored and whole...the mission, vision, and motivation for the work of Peace Promise.
https://peacepromise.org/
Planting in Good Ground:
"The Seed – gainful employment can transform a survivor’s life
"Employment at Good Ground is more than just a paycheck. Survivors are enrolled in a holistic program including trauma therapy, life skills building, and robust support from volunteers and other survivors.
"Building relationships with survivors quickly revealed that many did not have the life skills needed to get and keep traditional employment. Susan Vigliano, co-founder of Peace Promise and associate pastor at Mechanicsburg BIC, discovered that simple things like budgeting, meal planning, and finding affordable transportation were insurmountable challenges. “They’re making decisions from a place of desperation and survival,” Susan says. Additionally, some had criminal records or substance addictions that disqualify them from many employment options.
"Seeing woman after woman struggle with many of the same issues, Peace Promise started to think: how could trauma-informed businesses with robust emotional, mental, and spiritual support offer an escape to women who may want a different life?
"The Soil – two college students [at the BIC university] with a dream and a building for sale."
"On a busy corner in Camp Hill, Pa., you’ll encounter a commanding house with white siding and a green roof. Peek through the windows and glimpse the beginnings of Good Ground Coffee Company, a coffee shop that has two clear missions: serve good coffee and empower survivors of the sex industry. Good Ground is an..."
To read the rest of this wonderful story go to:
https://bicus.org/2024/05/planting-in-good-ground/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR36mHr1ScfX2ttez98YwKvirDE0s3G1sCcIqWtMhwTT-B3XqTB2MxhrGtM_aem_AZbPP96BXmw3TD1aOYBc3nAg9kRBJhVZhPzZ2_k3wp4jhW1rrAUoTS5g3-6ulc7Xo70FT5o7yLaY1-B5Zs6fG_mS and
Escaping the Sex Industry: One Woman’s Journey through Peace Promise!
https://bicus.org/2021/03/escaping-the-sex-industry-one-womans-journey-to-liberation-in-christ/
https://peacepromise.org/about-us/
"Human trafficking is a 32 billion-dollar-a-year business with sex trafficking growing at the fastest pace. It is an industry that exploits the most vulnerable members of our community. Those who experience poverty, little or no protection from family or friends, believe they have low personal worth or value and have a history of childhood sexual abuse. Sex trafficking is happening right here in our own community – in truck stops, strip clubs, erotic massage parlors, in our streets, and through escort services and online prostitution.
"Since 1997, the accessibility and anonymity of Internet pornography use have significantly contributed to the abuse of trafficked men, women and children. In the United States, teenagers are targets and sought after by pimps and traffickers. Most teens are lured into the industry by a pimp posing as a boyfriend and remain there by brutal force, coercion, drug dependency, and a sense of belonging. Once trafficked, very few victims of prostitution and sex-trafficking are rescued. The average life span of a person being exploited in prostitution is seven years and the most common causes of death are drug overdose, suicide, and murder.
"...Peace Promise was an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that assists in recovering hope and strengthening the lives of those impacted by sexual exploitation in our community. In 2019 we hired our first full-time employee, an Executive Director, Patty Seaman.
"Peace Promise addresses the complexities of sex trafficking in the Harrisburg region by offering: outreach, intervention, and advocacy for those involved in commercial sexual exploitation; healing support and restorative care for sex trafficking survivors; and community education and awareness regarding the dehumanization and identifiers of sex trafficking, prostitution, and pornography."
"On a weekly basis, Peace Promise Outreach Volunteers visit adult entertainment venues forming friendships with the women who work there...The dancers affectionately refer to the outreach volunteers as "the church ladies” who bring homemade dinners and desserts to share during the visits. Outreach volunteers communicate a simple message:
“You are precious. You are valued. You are loved. We are here for you.”
"Once a survivor is safely transitioned out of the industry, Peace Promise offers an individually customized care plan based on that woman's specific needs and goals. The plan is intended to facilitate meaningful employment, healthy relationships and loving self-care."
"...sex trafficking...is huge. It is complex. And yet, it is very personal. It is ONE face.
"One woman. One name. One very specific set of circumstances that brought her to this place of exploitation. Despite the debilitating trauma, abuse, and addictions, there is hope."
"There is a community of women who will welcome her home and who long to see her restored and whole...the mission, vision, and motivation for the work of Peace Promise.
https://peacepromise.org/
Saturday, May 18, 2024
in present critical crises, LIVE in Deep SINGING of HOPE
In the past, at an extreme crisis in our family life, I came to Friends meeting on 1st day, hopeless, despairing. WITHOUT my ever sharing, in the midst of worship, one woman rose and began singing acapela a wondrous song of HOPE.
This was one of those incredible transcendent events in which I encountered the LIGHT.
I don't know if that particular song the other Friend sang was a spontaneous creation or a some classic spiritual song she knew.
Now, 15 years later, in my old age, I don't remember the lyrics, but still the wondrous, fervent singing of HOPE.
Here are a few songs of Hope and Transcendence for these present times of critical crises worldwide:
LEAN IN TOWARD THE LIGHT
By Carrie Newcomer
Winter is the oldest season
But quietly beneath the snow
Seeds are stretching out and reaching
Faithful as the morning glow
Carry nothing but what you must
Lean in toward the Light
Let it go, shake off the dust
Lean in toward the Light
Today is now, tomorrow beckons
Lean in toward the Light
Keep practicing resurrection
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
Waters wind and open wide
Lean in toward the Light
Don't just walk when you can fly
Lean in toward the Light
When justice seems in short supply
Lean in toward the Light
Let beauty be your truest guide
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
The prayer I pray at eventide
Lean in toward the Light
All left undone be put aside
Lean in toward the Light
When forgiveness is hard to find
Lean in toward the Light
Help me at least to be kind
Lean in toward the Light
--
George Fox - by Sidney Carter
1. There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man,
It's the light that was shining when the world began.
There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew
And a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.
CHORUS:
Old leather breeches, shaggy, shaggy locks...
You are pulling down the pillars the of the world, George Fox*
2. With a book and a steeple, a bell and a key
They would bind it forever but they can't (said he).
Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall
But the light will be shining at the end of it all.
CHORUS
3. "If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?"
"But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!"
"Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he,
"For the truth is more holy than the book to me."
CHORUS
4. There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
Till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
For the light is forever and the light it is free
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.
"...Friends were also called Quakers by people who did not like them because they sometimes "quaked" when
they were preaching.
George Fox "was trained to be a leather worker. Even though he gave up that job to be a preacher, he wore clothes that he made...Fox also did not spend a lot of money to get his hair cut and so he had shaggy, shaggy locks."
https://seagreensingers.com/music/georgefox.htm
-
Fear Is Not My Future
Song by Chandler Moore, Kirk Franklin, and Maverick City Music
Let Him turn it in your favor
Watch Him work it for your good
He's not done with what He's started
He's not done until it's good
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
If you're ready for a breakthrough, yeah
Just open up and just receive, yeah
'Cause what He's pouring out is nothing
You've ever seen
You've ever seen, yeah
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
It's a new day
Fear is not my future
You are (You are)
Sickness is not my story
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Death is not the end
You are, You are (oh)
Fear is not my future
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Sickness is not my story
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are), You are
(Death is not the end)
Death is not the end
Jesus, You are (You are), You are
So hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon (the sun is coming up)
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon (Fear is not my future)
Fear is not my future
You are (You are), You are
(Sickness is not your story)
Sickness is not my story
You are, You are
(Heartbreak is not your home)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are) You are
(Death is not the end)
Death is not the end
Jesus, You are
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brandon Lake / Hannah Shackelford / Jonathan Jay / Nicole Hannel
Fear Is Not My Future lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, Essential Music Publishing
-
Niyonu Spann singing "Live Up to the Light That Thou Hast" (Caroline Fox, 1841 - Music Composed by Susan Stark)
To be continued
In the LIGHT, Daniel Wilcox
This was one of those incredible transcendent events in which I encountered the LIGHT.
I don't know if that particular song the other Friend sang was a spontaneous creation or a some classic spiritual song she knew.
Now, 15 years later, in my old age, I don't remember the lyrics, but still the wondrous, fervent singing of HOPE.
Here are a few songs of Hope and Transcendence for these present times of critical crises worldwide:
LEAN IN TOWARD THE LIGHT
By Carrie Newcomer
Winter is the oldest season
But quietly beneath the snow
Seeds are stretching out and reaching
Faithful as the morning glow
Carry nothing but what you must
Lean in toward the Light
Let it go, shake off the dust
Lean in toward the Light
Today is now, tomorrow beckons
Lean in toward the Light
Keep practicing resurrection
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
Waters wind and open wide
Lean in toward the Light
Don't just walk when you can fly
Lean in toward the Light
When justice seems in short supply
Lean in toward the Light
Let beauty be your truest guide
The shadows of this world will say
There's no hope why try anyway?
But every kindness large or slight
Shifts the balance toward the light
The prayer I pray at eventide
Lean in toward the Light
All left undone be put aside
Lean in toward the Light
When forgiveness is hard to find
Lean in toward the Light
Help me at least to be kind
Lean in toward the Light
--
George Fox - by Sidney Carter
1. There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man,
It's the light that was shining when the world began.
There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew
And a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.
CHORUS:
Old leather breeches, shaggy, shaggy locks...
You are pulling down the pillars the of the world, George Fox*
2. With a book and a steeple, a bell and a key
They would bind it forever but they can't (said he).
Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall
But the light will be shining at the end of it all.
CHORUS
3. "If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?"
"But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!"
"Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he,
"For the truth is more holy than the book to me."
CHORUS
4. There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
Till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
For the light is forever and the light it is free
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.
"...Friends were also called Quakers by people who did not like them because they sometimes "quaked" when
they were preaching.
George Fox "was trained to be a leather worker. Even though he gave up that job to be a preacher, he wore clothes that he made...Fox also did not spend a lot of money to get his hair cut and so he had shaggy, shaggy locks."
https://seagreensingers.com/music/georgefox.htm
-
Fear Is Not My Future
Song by Chandler Moore, Kirk Franklin, and Maverick City Music
Let Him turn it in your favor
Watch Him work it for your good
He's not done with what He's started
He's not done until it's good
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
If you're ready for a breakthrough, yeah
Just open up and just receive, yeah
'Cause what He's pouring out is nothing
You've ever seen
You've ever seen, yeah
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon
It's a new day
Fear is not my future
You are (You are)
Sickness is not my story
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Death is not the end
You are, You are (oh)
Fear is not my future
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Sickness is not my story
You are (You are), You are (You are)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are), You are
(Death is not the end)
Death is not the end
Jesus, You are (You are), You are
So hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon (the sun is coming up)
Hello, peace
hello, joy
Hello, love
Hello, strength
hello, hope, It's a new horizon (Fear is not my future)
Fear is not my future
You are (You are), You are
(Sickness is not your story)
Sickness is not my story
You are, You are
(Heartbreak is not your home)
Heartbreak's not my home
You are (You are) You are
(Death is not the end)
Death is not the end
Jesus, You are
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brandon Lake / Hannah Shackelford / Jonathan Jay / Nicole Hannel
Fear Is Not My Future lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, Essential Music Publishing
-
Niyonu Spann singing "Live Up to the Light That Thou Hast" (Caroline Fox, 1841 - Music Composed by Susan Stark)
To be continued
In the LIGHT, Daniel Wilcox
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Excerpt of Interview with Palestinian leader Eli Chacour, follower of Jesus, author of Blood Brothers
From SOPHIA Vol.54 number 2, Spring 2024
“Unless We Share the Land Together,
We Are Doomed to Disappear Together.”
An interview with Archbishop Elias Chacour,
Author of Blood Brothers (his own family’s
tragic story of how his father and brother were
kidnapped by the Israeli Army, their church was
blown up, and they were banished from their
village, yet his father said they needed to love
their enemies—the Israelis as Jesus taught)
Elias Chacour is
Emeritus,
Melkite Catholic Archdiocese
of Akka, Haifa, Nazareth, and All Galilee
and Leader of Mar Elias Educational Institutions including a high school with 1200 students; 60% Muslim, 40% Christian, Druze... There are some Jewish teachers, but no longer any Jewish students.
Sophia: Westerners were quick to condemn Hamas’s
killing of Israeli civilians last
year, yet have been more
likely to excuse or ignore the
atrocities being committed
by the state of Israel against
Palestinians. Why do you
believe that is?
Elias Chacour: It is the traditional way in the Western world to
justify everything Israel does. Israel
is considered a divine entity. It can
do no wrong. That’s why there is so
little sympathy with the Palestinians.
We have to understand that the
violence did not happen out of the
blue. It’s like a circle in the chain.
Palestinians have been suffering for
75 years. They lost their homes. They
lost their independence. They were under siege in Gaza. All the people in
Gaza are Palestinians from Palestine, but they were reduced
to refugees in their own country and scattered around the
world. So, it’s understandable that, at some point,
they would revolt.
But it was too atrocious.
Of course, I condemn it. But
what has been done to the
Palestinians, both before the
Hamas attack and after it, as
retaliation, is also atrocious.
It is unbelievable and unacceptable. Israel is demolishing a whole section of Gaza
and reducing the people to refugees, without
any excuse. They want to destroy, and they want to demolish.
They want to finish with the existence of the Palestinians.
We are used to seeing the Western world being one-sided
and say that whatever Israel does is legitimate and good. Even
to massacre, kill, and destroy is good because they are the chosen people. My goodness, this isn’t God’s judgment!
The Palestinians lost everything. Their country, their independence,
and their dignity. Everything. They are a scattered people.
They have lost everything. What Israel has done in Gaza is an
atrocity. It is an act of revenge.
The Jews have a good memory. They remember the Holocaust, which is good. They don’t want to forget it, and they shouldn’t!
But they blame Palestinians. How can they blame us?
The Jews say they are here because this was their home 2,000
years ago. Fine. They were deported by the Romans, and we were
not.
We were here, too. We stayed here. We waited here. And
then we welcomed them when they came in. But we cannot accept what they are doing to us.
SOPHIA: There are many in the West who say that there’s no
such thing as Palestine and that Jordan might as
well be the Arab homeland. But you clearly have a
deep Palestinian identity.
Eli Chacour: Absolutely. Why do you think that Westerners have a hard time
understanding that all Arabs are not alike, and that Palestine is
a real place with a real people?
I think it is because the Zionist propaganda convinced the
Western world that they have to compensate for what was done
to the Jews during World War II—the Holocaust...
I remember my father told us, within a few days, we might
have Jewish soldiers come to our village. That was in 1948. He
said, these are the survivors of a certain satanic plan in Germany
aiming at destroying all the Jews... And
some would be coming to our village. We need to show them that
somewhere in this world, they are welcome. They are our blood
brothers. That’s why I wrote my book, Blood Brothers.
SOPHIA: That was a beautiful part of your autobiography.
Initially, your father wanted to welcome the Jews
because they had nowhere else to go.
Eli Chacour: I want to say something very dangerous. The land of Palestine does not belong to the Jews. Yet, it cannot belong to the Palestinians either.
The land is God’s and both have to share the land!
That’s why I wrote my second book, We Belong to the Land. The Jews can say that. The Palestinians have the right to say that also. Unless we share the land together, we are doomed to disappear together.
SOPHIA: The State of Israel has sometimes claimed that they
are trying to protect Palestinian Christians from
Islamist terrorists and radicals. Have you found
this to be the case?
Eli Chacor: No, no, no, no.... The Christian Palestinian villages
that were destroyed by the creation of the State of Israel are
many—about twenty villages...the Jews who
came, and they were welcomed by us, and then as a response
to our welcome, they destroyed our villages...
Eli Chacour:
... two Christian women were going to a church in Gaza, and the
Israeli snipers shot them...
To read the whole interview go to:
The Journal of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy, page 15-17
https://melkite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sophia-v54-02-2024-Spring.pdf
Those wishing to support Archbishop Elias’s educational apostolate can
donate to the Pilgrims of Ibillin (pilgrimsofibillin.org/donate-now/)
In the LIGHT of Justice, Sharing, Kindness, Peace-creating,
Daniel Wilcox
“Unless We Share the Land Together,
We Are Doomed to Disappear Together.”
An interview with Archbishop Elias Chacour,
Author of Blood Brothers (his own family’s
tragic story of how his father and brother were
kidnapped by the Israeli Army, their church was
blown up, and they were banished from their
village, yet his father said they needed to love
their enemies—the Israelis as Jesus taught)
Emeritus,
Melkite Catholic Archdiocese
of Akka, Haifa, Nazareth, and All Galilee
and Leader of Mar Elias Educational Institutions including a high school with 1200 students; 60% Muslim, 40% Christian, Druze... There are some Jewish teachers, but no longer any Jewish students.
Sophia: Westerners were quick to condemn Hamas’s
killing of Israeli civilians last
year, yet have been more
likely to excuse or ignore the
atrocities being committed
by the state of Israel against
Palestinians. Why do you
believe that is?
Elias Chacour: It is the traditional way in the Western world to
justify everything Israel does. Israel
is considered a divine entity. It can
do no wrong. That’s why there is so
little sympathy with the Palestinians.
We have to understand that the
violence did not happen out of the
blue. It’s like a circle in the chain.
Palestinians have been suffering for
75 years. They lost their homes. They
lost their independence. They were under siege in Gaza. All the people in
Gaza are Palestinians from Palestine, but they were reduced
to refugees in their own country and scattered around the
world. So, it’s understandable that, at some point,
they would revolt.
But it was too atrocious.
Of course, I condemn it. But
what has been done to the
Palestinians, both before the
Hamas attack and after it, as
retaliation, is also atrocious.
It is unbelievable and unacceptable. Israel is demolishing a whole section of Gaza
and reducing the people to refugees, without
any excuse. They want to destroy, and they want to demolish.
They want to finish with the existence of the Palestinians.
We are used to seeing the Western world being one-sided
and say that whatever Israel does is legitimate and good. Even
to massacre, kill, and destroy is good because they are the chosen people. My goodness, this isn’t God’s judgment!
The Palestinians lost everything. Their country, their independence,
and their dignity. Everything. They are a scattered people.
They have lost everything. What Israel has done in Gaza is an
atrocity. It is an act of revenge.
The Jews have a good memory. They remember the Holocaust, which is good. They don’t want to forget it, and they shouldn’t!
But they blame Palestinians. How can they blame us?
The Jews say they are here because this was their home 2,000
years ago. Fine. They were deported by the Romans, and we were
not.
We were here, too. We stayed here. We waited here. And
then we welcomed them when they came in. But we cannot accept what they are doing to us.
SOPHIA: There are many in the West who say that there’s no
such thing as Palestine and that Jordan might as
well be the Arab homeland. But you clearly have a
deep Palestinian identity.
Eli Chacour: Absolutely. Why do you think that Westerners have a hard time
understanding that all Arabs are not alike, and that Palestine is
a real place with a real people?
I think it is because the Zionist propaganda convinced the
Western world that they have to compensate for what was done
to the Jews during World War II—the Holocaust...
I remember my father told us, within a few days, we might
have Jewish soldiers come to our village. That was in 1948. He
said, these are the survivors of a certain satanic plan in Germany
aiming at destroying all the Jews... And
some would be coming to our village. We need to show them that
somewhere in this world, they are welcome. They are our blood
brothers. That’s why I wrote my book, Blood Brothers.
SOPHIA: That was a beautiful part of your autobiography.
Initially, your father wanted to welcome the Jews
because they had nowhere else to go.
Eli Chacour: I want to say something very dangerous. The land of Palestine does not belong to the Jews. Yet, it cannot belong to the Palestinians either.
The land is God’s and both have to share the land!
That’s why I wrote my second book, We Belong to the Land. The Jews can say that. The Palestinians have the right to say that also. Unless we share the land together, we are doomed to disappear together.
SOPHIA: The State of Israel has sometimes claimed that they
are trying to protect Palestinian Christians from
Islamist terrorists and radicals. Have you found
this to be the case?
Eli Chacor: No, no, no, no.... The Christian Palestinian villages
that were destroyed by the creation of the State of Israel are
many—about twenty villages...the Jews who
came, and they were welcomed by us, and then as a response
to our welcome, they destroyed our villages...
Eli Chacour:
... two Christian women were going to a church in Gaza, and the
Israeli snipers shot them...
To read the whole interview go to:
The Journal of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy, page 15-17
https://melkite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sophia-v54-02-2024-Spring.pdf
Those wishing to support Archbishop Elias’s educational apostolate can
donate to the Pilgrims of Ibillin (pilgrimsofibillin.org/donate-now/)
In the LIGHT of Justice, Sharing, Kindness, Peace-creating,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Excerpt from AN EYE for the BEHEADING novel on Palestine-Israel crisis
An Eye for the Beheading
Copyright 2024
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1495380341
ISBN-10: 1495380343
Dedication:
To the People of Palestine and Israel--
that they may share in peace
Historical Prologue:
Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. The Hebrew Bible describes David cutting off the head of Goliath and carrying it to Saul. It also mentions that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul.
1 Samuel 17:51, 1 Samuel 31:9-10
“And pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.” Judges 7:25
“When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.”
Holy Quran, Sura 47
“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”
Quran 8:12
An eye for an eye: “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him.” Leviticus 24:19-21
unknown artist
--
Chapter 1: Sea Dog
Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja Mexico, June, 2026
Smoking debris filled the horizon; nature’s smudged sun set on another aeronautical disaster.
But pawing through swirling water and small waves, a Labrador retriever didn't know anything of plane dynamics or Islamic
terrorism, or why it was swimming in strange waves, only that it was very thirsty and hungry. And Two-Leg who regularly fed and patted it was missing.
Momentarily, the dog raised its head and barked roughly, but got salty water in its jowls—oily off-taste. Barked again. Gagged. Then paddled on. No sounds except painful thunder; intense acrid smells.
The yellow retriever swam around a large cabin section, passed more burning objects, on past broken flight chairs, discolored suitcases, and charred bodies, but didn't find his owner.
He paddled and paddled in amongst hundreds of yards of abandoned things. Finally, tiring, the dog spotted a large chunk of meshed baggage that floated in the distance, swaying back and forth, up and down on rolling heaving waves.
Swimming to that bunched island, the lab then pawed at the webbing, and on his 3rd try, succeeded in climbing out of the oily water up on to it.
His large dog nose sensed possible eatables and, hurriedly, he chewed through black webbing and a synthetic cover, until he got a plastic packet in his teeth, bit through that, not eatable. Tried another, found and ate tuna, scarfing up delicious morsels.
Then the sopping retriever lay down by empty packets, put his jowls onto his fore-paws and slept, despite intense rain and the rocking and swaying of the webbed baggage. In the black night, it rained and rained.
Later Lab woke in in the heavy rain and lapped shallow water which had accumulated in dips in the baggage.
Suddenly, he spotted movement over to the right on a large odd-shaped orange float. Earlier no scent had come to him of anything living, but now a wet-man smell filled his nostrils, a little like his owner’s when they played in the surf at home in Maryland. But this wasn't his owner’s smell.
Getting up, the retriever growled and then barked loudly. Repeatedly. And paced back and forth, with defensive hostility, yet interested to meet this other life.
He hesitated whether to swim over to this 2-legs on the orange object as it floated closer on low waves, indistinct in now in the constant rain. Or stay at this safe place where plenty of food in packets lay beneath his paws.
His keen ears picked up sounds from the man’s mouth.
“Here boy, come over here and help me.”
The human sounded friendly. But there was something wrong. This two-leg’s right leg looked twisted, and discolored. It smelt of blood. So, the dog still hesitated.
Then suddenly a rogue wave shoved through acres of debris, and the storm exploded; lightening spiked down, and then thunderclaps ached in the retriever’s ears. He howled and howled. Then drenching, torrential rain lashed down.
Wreckage on the high sea lurched back and forth, various objects jostling and smashing into each other, and the man’s orange float rolled closer toward the dog’s baggage-island.
The lone survivor tied his open Swiss-army can-opener to a long length of thin rope, and then anxiously swung it through the blinding downpour, and pulled back trying to catch the hook on any ridge or strap of baggage. But it slipped across the webbing of many bunched boxes and whipped down into heaving waves.
Trying over 31 times, but failing, failing…Exhausted and weak from blood loss, the man wrapped rope around his torso, tying himself to his large orange float, then lay down and slept through incessant lashing rain.
Across churning waves, the hunched wet dog on its island, hungry again, pawed deeper into its life raft, chewed into deep into boxes until it found a sack of strange tasting meat and wolfed it down, filling the emptiness within.
Then the dog bit and pawed further until he could squirm into the cavity, escaping the chill wind gusts and incessant torrent.
Later when the yellow retriever woke from a short nap, he saw the human, again; it was up and swinging its long rope again. Past images of play came to the Lab; he barked excitedly, dove into shoving waves and caught the rope as it rolled back away. Maybe this man, like his owner, wanted to play keep away.
Swimming back to its island, the Lab scrambled up on to baggage, turned toward the slumped man’s float, and gritting its teeth pulled back on the taut rope, and backed up across a flat area behind it, uttering a friendly growl.
Just after another thunderclap, the animal heard the man yelling, “Yes! Good dog!” whatever that meant, not what his owner always said, but the voice sounded positive; and seemed excited, maybe did like to play. So, the retriever continued pulling backwards, while the man pulled back.
Gradually, the two floating islands moved closer, though at times the rope almost ripped from the dog’s mouth, as counter waves crashed them away from each other. The man also had his end knotted around his waist.
When the rope slackened due to downward swoops of waves, the dog chewed on the rope’s wet cording; not like a rawhide bone, but enjoyable.
Soon the storm sea grew even more violent, rising waves becoming 7 footers, then 11, rocking and rolling the two life rafts. The rope got yanked back and forth, and the dog pulled back, and the man held on till his hands bled.
Despite wind and wave, the two life-rafts finally came within about 3 feet of each other on a down-swing of a huge wave. Ignoring stabs from his broken leg, the survivor shouted to himself, “Now or never!”
Desperately, he did a one-legged jump toward the dog’s island. Short! Not enough.
Throwing out his arms, he clawed at the dog’s baggage clump, despite raging waves. Gagged on salt water. Sunk. Coming back up, gagging, he caught one hand on loose mesh hanging in the sea, puked, got his breath back.
He hung on, and then finally managed to pull himself up, and squirmed onto the top, just as another huge wave swept over them. He rolled dangerously close to being heaved over the far side of baggage island, but managed to hold on. And the large yellow Lab pulled back again.
Then their rope fell slack as the baggage-clump slumped down into a dark canyon of water. And the man lay, almost unconscious from pain, too groggy to do anything. Blood seeped from his compound fracture. And he didn’t care.
The retriever backed up and growled. This wasn’t his owner. Lying down, he chewed on the rope end, jawing at the knife’s plastic sides.
Suddenly, a 15-footer crashed, almost washed both man and dog overboard. The cascade of water gouged through the human’s mental fog, and he opened his eye and pulled on the rope, “Let go, boy. I’ve gotta secure us.”
At first the dog wouldn’t but then lost interest in their contest and sat on its haunches watching this stranger.
The human took the loose rope end and began threading it through binding cords of some boxes. The dog watched, but growled whenever the man pushed the rope his way.
“There, there, boy, no offense. Just securing us.” But then a sharp pain ripped up from his broken leg and he moaned again. “Now then, what if I attach this end to that leather collar around your neck?”
Tensing, the retriever growled and prepared to attack if this man tried to grab him.
“Okay, I get it. You’ll share your land, but we’re not friends. Got it.”
While the ocean surface rose to 18-foot rollers, and their island hell-bucked and plummeted, the man fell
unconscious.Cascades of rain lashed down endlessly.
The Lab retreated into his dug-cave and slept.
But then later as the storm lessened, he belly-crawled over to this crumpled sleeper, sniffed, and finally lay down next to this two-legs like the dog always did every night with his owner.
Morning came bright and cool, shining its brilliant sunlight down on the floating graveyard and its two castaways.
--
Chapter 2: Sniper Attack
“And he [Khalid] ordered his [Malik’s] head and he combined it with two stones and cooked a pot over them. And Khalid ate from it that night to terrify the apostate Arab tribes and others. And it was said that Malik’s hair created such a blaze that the meat was so thoroughly cooked.” 633 AD
The Beginning and the End (al-bidaya we al-nihaya), an Islamic history by Ibn Kathir
“Crusaders…laying siege, first, to the Asia Minor city of Nicaea, where they used catapults to hurl the severed heads of Muslim defenders over fortified walls.”
Historian James Carroll
“The Muslim leader Saladin ordered each cleric in his army personally to behead at least one Christian knight. Saladin singled out for special treatment the approximate 230 Knights Templar and Hospitallers who had surrendered.
Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin, Reserve Attaché, U.S. Embassy Israel
News Alert Exclusive! KNXTV LOS ANGELES:
“There’s been a shooting in Orange County. Our reporter Shelia Cameron was on location doing interviews near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa when shots rang out. One Muslim young woman has been wounded. No assailant has yet been apprehended.”
“The shooting took place during a noisy demonstration by over 103 Muslim students from the University of California Irvine and Orange Coast College. They are protesting Israel’s renewed bombings 3 days ago after a an Islamic attack in the West Bank.”
“That seriously injured woman in Orange County hasn’t been identified, but she was flown by Medevac helicopter to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Her condition is unknown at this time. Police are investigating the attack.”
“Here’s the disturbing video from earlier:”
>>“Free Palestine! From the River to the Sea! Allah Akhbar! God is great!”
Chanting rows of Muslim protestors walk up and down in front of South Coast Plaza near the 405 Freeway; carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags; some of them yelling to passing motorists.
Suddenly, there’s the unmistakable retort of several gunshots and one young woman lets go of her protest sign, spasms, and crumples to the concrete. Swathed from head to foot in Islamic clothes, she lays silent, red blooding her robe in the stomach area.
Chaos erupts. Screams and shouts in Arabic and Urdu—a few in English: “Oh Allah! Help her! Where's the shooter? Protect the others!”
Camera footage jitters as the KNXTV news crew tries to get past male protesters. Angry men shove their hands up in front of the lens and shout in Arabic.
Protesters run out onto Bristol Avenue; cars shriek to grinding stops. Harsh crunch of metal—two vehicles collide, then a BMW smashes into the back of a Lexus.
More deafening shouts, a cacophony of horns blare; screams in Arabic, Urdu, and English; demonstrators running back and forth;
Reporter Sheila Cameron talks loudly into her microphone over the yelling, and repeats what has happened, is happening.
The newsreel cameraperson videos the chaotic scene; angry male students shoulder-around a line of head-covered women, and hold their hands out like shields; they scan the area--from Plaza buildings near Bloomingdales, and southward toward the 405 Freeway overpass to honking vehicles crowded on Bristol Avenue.
Fearful; expecting more gunshots. Except for repeated shouting and blaring of car horns, and heavy traffic noise on the freeway overpass, a dangerous silence engulfs.
Then finally everyone pulls out cellphones, punching numbers while Cameron pushes closer, continues to summarize the attack. Suddenly she and her cameraman are shoved, the camera view swings up and back capturing clouds and a sunny sky and sideways to heavy traffic and swirling around, tops-turvy.
To be continued
In the Light of Peaceseeking, Equality, Justice, Sharing,
Daniel Wilcox
Copyright 2024
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1495380341
ISBN-10: 1495380343
Dedication:
To the People of Palestine and Israel--
that they may share in peace
Historical Prologue:
Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. The Hebrew Bible describes David cutting off the head of Goliath and carrying it to Saul. It also mentions that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul.
1 Samuel 17:51, 1 Samuel 31:9-10
“And pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.” Judges 7:25
“When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.”
Holy Quran, Sura 47
“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”
Quran 8:12
An eye for an eye: “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him.” Leviticus 24:19-21
unknown artist
--
Chapter 1: Sea Dog
Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja Mexico, June, 2026
Smoking debris filled the horizon; nature’s smudged sun set on another aeronautical disaster.
But pawing through swirling water and small waves, a Labrador retriever didn't know anything of plane dynamics or Islamic
terrorism, or why it was swimming in strange waves, only that it was very thirsty and hungry. And Two-Leg who regularly fed and patted it was missing.
Momentarily, the dog raised its head and barked roughly, but got salty water in its jowls—oily off-taste. Barked again. Gagged. Then paddled on. No sounds except painful thunder; intense acrid smells.
The yellow retriever swam around a large cabin section, passed more burning objects, on past broken flight chairs, discolored suitcases, and charred bodies, but didn't find his owner.
He paddled and paddled in amongst hundreds of yards of abandoned things. Finally, tiring, the dog spotted a large chunk of meshed baggage that floated in the distance, swaying back and forth, up and down on rolling heaving waves.
Swimming to that bunched island, the lab then pawed at the webbing, and on his 3rd try, succeeded in climbing out of the oily water up on to it.
His large dog nose sensed possible eatables and, hurriedly, he chewed through black webbing and a synthetic cover, until he got a plastic packet in his teeth, bit through that, not eatable. Tried another, found and ate tuna, scarfing up delicious morsels.
Then the sopping retriever lay down by empty packets, put his jowls onto his fore-paws and slept, despite intense rain and the rocking and swaying of the webbed baggage. In the black night, it rained and rained.
Later Lab woke in in the heavy rain and lapped shallow water which had accumulated in dips in the baggage.
Suddenly, he spotted movement over to the right on a large odd-shaped orange float. Earlier no scent had come to him of anything living, but now a wet-man smell filled his nostrils, a little like his owner’s when they played in the surf at home in Maryland. But this wasn't his owner’s smell.
Getting up, the retriever growled and then barked loudly. Repeatedly. And paced back and forth, with defensive hostility, yet interested to meet this other life.
He hesitated whether to swim over to this 2-legs on the orange object as it floated closer on low waves, indistinct in now in the constant rain. Or stay at this safe place where plenty of food in packets lay beneath his paws.
His keen ears picked up sounds from the man’s mouth.
“Here boy, come over here and help me.”
The human sounded friendly. But there was something wrong. This two-leg’s right leg looked twisted, and discolored. It smelt of blood. So, the dog still hesitated.
Then suddenly a rogue wave shoved through acres of debris, and the storm exploded; lightening spiked down, and then thunderclaps ached in the retriever’s ears. He howled and howled. Then drenching, torrential rain lashed down.
Wreckage on the high sea lurched back and forth, various objects jostling and smashing into each other, and the man’s orange float rolled closer toward the dog’s baggage-island.
The lone survivor tied his open Swiss-army can-opener to a long length of thin rope, and then anxiously swung it through the blinding downpour, and pulled back trying to catch the hook on any ridge or strap of baggage. But it slipped across the webbing of many bunched boxes and whipped down into heaving waves.
Trying over 31 times, but failing, failing…Exhausted and weak from blood loss, the man wrapped rope around his torso, tying himself to his large orange float, then lay down and slept through incessant lashing rain.
Across churning waves, the hunched wet dog on its island, hungry again, pawed deeper into its life raft, chewed into deep into boxes until it found a sack of strange tasting meat and wolfed it down, filling the emptiness within.
Then the dog bit and pawed further until he could squirm into the cavity, escaping the chill wind gusts and incessant torrent.
Later when the yellow retriever woke from a short nap, he saw the human, again; it was up and swinging its long rope again. Past images of play came to the Lab; he barked excitedly, dove into shoving waves and caught the rope as it rolled back away. Maybe this man, like his owner, wanted to play keep away.
Swimming back to its island, the Lab scrambled up on to baggage, turned toward the slumped man’s float, and gritting its teeth pulled back on the taut rope, and backed up across a flat area behind it, uttering a friendly growl.
Just after another thunderclap, the animal heard the man yelling, “Yes! Good dog!” whatever that meant, not what his owner always said, but the voice sounded positive; and seemed excited, maybe did like to play. So, the retriever continued pulling backwards, while the man pulled back.
Gradually, the two floating islands moved closer, though at times the rope almost ripped from the dog’s mouth, as counter waves crashed them away from each other. The man also had his end knotted around his waist.
When the rope slackened due to downward swoops of waves, the dog chewed on the rope’s wet cording; not like a rawhide bone, but enjoyable.
Soon the storm sea grew even more violent, rising waves becoming 7 footers, then 11, rocking and rolling the two life rafts. The rope got yanked back and forth, and the dog pulled back, and the man held on till his hands bled.
Despite wind and wave, the two life-rafts finally came within about 3 feet of each other on a down-swing of a huge wave. Ignoring stabs from his broken leg, the survivor shouted to himself, “Now or never!”
Desperately, he did a one-legged jump toward the dog’s island. Short! Not enough.
Throwing out his arms, he clawed at the dog’s baggage clump, despite raging waves. Gagged on salt water. Sunk. Coming back up, gagging, he caught one hand on loose mesh hanging in the sea, puked, got his breath back.
He hung on, and then finally managed to pull himself up, and squirmed onto the top, just as another huge wave swept over them. He rolled dangerously close to being heaved over the far side of baggage island, but managed to hold on. And the large yellow Lab pulled back again.
Then their rope fell slack as the baggage-clump slumped down into a dark canyon of water. And the man lay, almost unconscious from pain, too groggy to do anything. Blood seeped from his compound fracture. And he didn’t care.
The retriever backed up and growled. This wasn’t his owner. Lying down, he chewed on the rope end, jawing at the knife’s plastic sides.
Suddenly, a 15-footer crashed, almost washed both man and dog overboard. The cascade of water gouged through the human’s mental fog, and he opened his eye and pulled on the rope, “Let go, boy. I’ve gotta secure us.”
At first the dog wouldn’t but then lost interest in their contest and sat on its haunches watching this stranger.
The human took the loose rope end and began threading it through binding cords of some boxes. The dog watched, but growled whenever the man pushed the rope his way.
“There, there, boy, no offense. Just securing us.” But then a sharp pain ripped up from his broken leg and he moaned again. “Now then, what if I attach this end to that leather collar around your neck?”
Tensing, the retriever growled and prepared to attack if this man tried to grab him.
“Okay, I get it. You’ll share your land, but we’re not friends. Got it.”
While the ocean surface rose to 18-foot rollers, and their island hell-bucked and plummeted, the man fell
unconscious.Cascades of rain lashed down endlessly.
The Lab retreated into his dug-cave and slept.
But then later as the storm lessened, he belly-crawled over to this crumpled sleeper, sniffed, and finally lay down next to this two-legs like the dog always did every night with his owner.
Morning came bright and cool, shining its brilliant sunlight down on the floating graveyard and its two castaways.
--
Chapter 2: Sniper Attack
“And he [Khalid] ordered his [Malik’s] head and he combined it with two stones and cooked a pot over them. And Khalid ate from it that night to terrify the apostate Arab tribes and others. And it was said that Malik’s hair created such a blaze that the meat was so thoroughly cooked.” 633 AD
The Beginning and the End (al-bidaya we al-nihaya), an Islamic history by Ibn Kathir
“Crusaders…laying siege, first, to the Asia Minor city of Nicaea, where they used catapults to hurl the severed heads of Muslim defenders over fortified walls.”
Historian James Carroll
“The Muslim leader Saladin ordered each cleric in his army personally to behead at least one Christian knight. Saladin singled out for special treatment the approximate 230 Knights Templar and Hospitallers who had surrendered.
Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin, Reserve Attaché, U.S. Embassy Israel
News Alert Exclusive! KNXTV LOS ANGELES:
“There’s been a shooting in Orange County. Our reporter Shelia Cameron was on location doing interviews near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa when shots rang out. One Muslim young woman has been wounded. No assailant has yet been apprehended.”
“The shooting took place during a noisy demonstration by over 103 Muslim students from the University of California Irvine and Orange Coast College. They are protesting Israel’s renewed bombings 3 days ago after a an Islamic attack in the West Bank.”
“That seriously injured woman in Orange County hasn’t been identified, but she was flown by Medevac helicopter to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Her condition is unknown at this time. Police are investigating the attack.”
“Here’s the disturbing video from earlier:”
>>“Free Palestine! From the River to the Sea! Allah Akhbar! God is great!”
Chanting rows of Muslim protestors walk up and down in front of South Coast Plaza near the 405 Freeway; carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags; some of them yelling to passing motorists.
Suddenly, there’s the unmistakable retort of several gunshots and one young woman lets go of her protest sign, spasms, and crumples to the concrete. Swathed from head to foot in Islamic clothes, she lays silent, red blooding her robe in the stomach area.
Chaos erupts. Screams and shouts in Arabic and Urdu—a few in English: “Oh Allah! Help her! Where's the shooter? Protect the others!”
Camera footage jitters as the KNXTV news crew tries to get past male protesters. Angry men shove their hands up in front of the lens and shout in Arabic.
Protesters run out onto Bristol Avenue; cars shriek to grinding stops. Harsh crunch of metal—two vehicles collide, then a BMW smashes into the back of a Lexus.
More deafening shouts, a cacophony of horns blare; screams in Arabic, Urdu, and English; demonstrators running back and forth;
Reporter Sheila Cameron talks loudly into her microphone over the yelling, and repeats what has happened, is happening.
The newsreel cameraperson videos the chaotic scene; angry male students shoulder-around a line of head-covered women, and hold their hands out like shields; they scan the area--from Plaza buildings near Bloomingdales, and southward toward the 405 Freeway overpass to honking vehicles crowded on Bristol Avenue.
Fearful; expecting more gunshots. Except for repeated shouting and blaring of car horns, and heavy traffic noise on the freeway overpass, a dangerous silence engulfs.
Then finally everyone pulls out cellphones, punching numbers while Cameron pushes closer, continues to summarize the attack. Suddenly she and her cameraman are shoved, the camera view swings up and back capturing clouds and a sunny sky and sideways to heavy traffic and swirling around, tops-turvy.
To be continued
In the Light of Peaceseeking, Equality, Justice, Sharing,
Daniel Wilcox
Saturday, May 4, 2024
Review of a controversial Melville biography alleging a married woman was the cause of Melville's writing Moby Dick
MELVILLE in LOVE by Michael Shelton
Shelton in the past was nominated for a Pulitzer for one of his previous biographies. So I thought this was going to be a powerful biography.
But in this recently released biography, Shelton alleges, despite very little factual evidence, that Melville had a many-year'd fervent adulterous relationship with Sarah Morewood. The latter was a flirtatious, lively secular married woman living in the Berkshires where Melville had moved with his wife of 3 years and their 1st child.
Though Melville in Love is listed as biography not fiction, Shelton speculatively guesses as to what exactly Melville and other characters are thinking and intending. Such guesses would seem to make this fiction, not factual biography.
Then Shelton glorifies Melville's alleged affair, as if such an immoral and unjust action were one of the great romantic loves of history and literature.
And Shelton does this, too, by mischaracterizing Melville’s faithful, conscientious wife Lizzie, accusing her of being priggish, shallow, puritanical, etc.
But Melville had only married 3 years to Lizzie before his alleged affair began. Some literary commentators wonder why Melville married such a nonliterary, conservative wife and guess it must have been for her money because her dad was a well-known judge with lots of money, which he showered on his daughter and son-in-law for years. The father often helped Melville get out of debt when his books, beginning with Moby Dick, failed to sell.
However, Melville's, alleged, odd choice, not that different from other famous writers who lived off of their wife’s money so they could write full-time and who picked wives who were conservative, non-literary, etc. Just to start the list--especially true of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Bob Dylan, etc.
The old cliché, of opposites attract does seem to be true of Melville (and some other famous writers), though it is tragic, that after the wedding, Opposites often do ATTACK.” :-(
Allegedly, the only possible time that Melville and could have slept together in the small village without townspeople and family knowing was on a small gathering of young adults who hiked up Mt. Greylock one day and stayed there all night. It’s Shelton’s contention that somehow they managed to slip away in a couple of hours midnight hours, while others slept, to “sleep.”
Shelton fails to acknowledge that while it is true Sarah was very flirtatious in her letters to Melville and with him in person (until she died at the early age of 40!), she often was that way to other married men, too, including Oliver Windel Holmes, etc.
During a few of her young adult years, Sarah was living alone in the Berkshires, while her absent distant, business-focused husband lived and worked in New York City. Their relationship seems odd, though he did care for her in his own way, even had a piano shipped out to her at their estate in Pittsfield, etc.
I thought maybe I was being too critical of Shelton’s very doubtful biographical claim, but then I read a few literary reviews on Melville in Love. They were even harsher than my conclusions—skewering the biography and its thesis as almost ridiculous.
Especially, Shelton’s claim that Moby Dick was written because of Sarah’s ‘freeing’ intimate influence so contrary to the alleged very puritanical, restrictive views of Lizzie.
Besides, Moby Dick is extremely male-centered narrative, with hardly any women even mentioned! Some critics have even labeled it homoerotic, for such parts of the story as Ismael and Queequeg’s relationship, including hugging in bed. The long very odd novel shows no trace of any illicit romantic love affair.
From Wikipedia:
“Lizzie described their marriage as "very unexpected, and scarcely thought of until about two months before it actually took place".[83] She wanted to be married in church, but they had a private wedding ceremony at home to avoid possible crowds hoping to see the celebrity.[84] The couple honeymooned in the then-British Province of Canada, and traveled to Montreal. They settled in a house on Fourth Avenue in New York City (now called Park Avenue).
“According to scholars Joyce Deveau Kennedy and Frederick James Kennedy, Lizzie brought to their marriage a sense of religious obligation, an intent to make a home with Melville regardless of place, a willingness to please her husband by performing such "tasks of drudgery" as mending stockings, an ability to hide her agitation, and a desire "to shield Melville from unpleasantness".[85] The Kennedys conclude their assessment with:
“If the ensuing years did bring regrets to Melville's life, it is impossible to believe he would have regretted marrying Elizabeth. In fact, he must have realized that he could not have borne the weight of those years unaided—that without her loyalty, intelligence, and affection, his own wild imagination would have had no "port or haven".
“Biographer Robertson-Lorant cites "Lizzie's adventurous spirit and abundant energy," and she suggests that "her pluck and good humor might have been what attracted Melville to her, and vice versa".
“An example of such good humor appears in a letter about her not yet used to being married: "It seems sometimes exactly as if I were here for a visit. The illusion is quite dispelled however when Herman stalks into my room without even the ceremony of knocking, bringing me perhaps a button to sew on, or some equally romantic occupation".[87] On February 16, 1849, the Melvilles' first child, Malcolm, was born.”
--
Despite my negative review of this shallow Procrustean effort and Shelton claiming that Moby Dick is the result of his affair with Sarah, I did find it worth reading because of a few intriguing facts about Melville, and I was opened to the possibilities of speculative ideas that no other biographer has ever raised!
But Herman Melville lived such a tragic-misguided life; even worse, he treated his wife horribly often drunk in his 50's. Then his life winded down to a tragic end. Also, one wonders why his 3 main books are so very pessimistic, almost nihilistic in tone and detail with their main characters ending tragically.
Lastly, like often in American literature, AUGUSTINIAN-CALVINISM RAISES ITS SATANIC HEAD. It turns out that the central horror of Melville’s family background was the fatalism of Augustinian-Calvinism that he sought to escape from:_("
Notice Ishmael's statement in the 1st couple of pages: "Call me, Ishmael. Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though I cannot tell why this was exactly;
yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."
A biography one can learn from, but not really a winner.
In the LIGHT of the GOOD, the TRUE, the JUST, the CARING...
Daniel Wilcox
Shelton in the past was nominated for a Pulitzer for one of his previous biographies. So I thought this was going to be a powerful biography.
But in this recently released biography, Shelton alleges, despite very little factual evidence, that Melville had a many-year'd fervent adulterous relationship with Sarah Morewood. The latter was a flirtatious, lively secular married woman living in the Berkshires where Melville had moved with his wife of 3 years and their 1st child.
Though Melville in Love is listed as biography not fiction, Shelton speculatively guesses as to what exactly Melville and other characters are thinking and intending. Such guesses would seem to make this fiction, not factual biography.
Then Shelton glorifies Melville's alleged affair, as if such an immoral and unjust action were one of the great romantic loves of history and literature.
And Shelton does this, too, by mischaracterizing Melville’s faithful, conscientious wife Lizzie, accusing her of being priggish, shallow, puritanical, etc.
But Melville had only married 3 years to Lizzie before his alleged affair began. Some literary commentators wonder why Melville married such a nonliterary, conservative wife and guess it must have been for her money because her dad was a well-known judge with lots of money, which he showered on his daughter and son-in-law for years. The father often helped Melville get out of debt when his books, beginning with Moby Dick, failed to sell.
However, Melville's, alleged, odd choice, not that different from other famous writers who lived off of their wife’s money so they could write full-time and who picked wives who were conservative, non-literary, etc. Just to start the list--especially true of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Bob Dylan, etc.
The old cliché, of opposites attract does seem to be true of Melville (and some other famous writers), though it is tragic, that after the wedding, Opposites often do ATTACK.” :-(
Allegedly, the only possible time that Melville and could have slept together in the small village without townspeople and family knowing was on a small gathering of young adults who hiked up Mt. Greylock one day and stayed there all night. It’s Shelton’s contention that somehow they managed to slip away in a couple of hours midnight hours, while others slept, to “sleep.”
Shelton fails to acknowledge that while it is true Sarah was very flirtatious in her letters to Melville and with him in person (until she died at the early age of 40!), she often was that way to other married men, too, including Oliver Windel Holmes, etc.
During a few of her young adult years, Sarah was living alone in the Berkshires, while her absent distant, business-focused husband lived and worked in New York City. Their relationship seems odd, though he did care for her in his own way, even had a piano shipped out to her at their estate in Pittsfield, etc.
I thought maybe I was being too critical of Shelton’s very doubtful biographical claim, but then I read a few literary reviews on Melville in Love. They were even harsher than my conclusions—skewering the biography and its thesis as almost ridiculous.
Especially, Shelton’s claim that Moby Dick was written because of Sarah’s ‘freeing’ intimate influence so contrary to the alleged very puritanical, restrictive views of Lizzie.
Besides, Moby Dick is extremely male-centered narrative, with hardly any women even mentioned! Some critics have even labeled it homoerotic, for such parts of the story as Ismael and Queequeg’s relationship, including hugging in bed. The long very odd novel shows no trace of any illicit romantic love affair.
From Wikipedia:
“Lizzie described their marriage as "very unexpected, and scarcely thought of until about two months before it actually took place".[83] She wanted to be married in church, but they had a private wedding ceremony at home to avoid possible crowds hoping to see the celebrity.[84] The couple honeymooned in the then-British Province of Canada, and traveled to Montreal. They settled in a house on Fourth Avenue in New York City (now called Park Avenue).
“According to scholars Joyce Deveau Kennedy and Frederick James Kennedy, Lizzie brought to their marriage a sense of religious obligation, an intent to make a home with Melville regardless of place, a willingness to please her husband by performing such "tasks of drudgery" as mending stockings, an ability to hide her agitation, and a desire "to shield Melville from unpleasantness".[85] The Kennedys conclude their assessment with:
“If the ensuing years did bring regrets to Melville's life, it is impossible to believe he would have regretted marrying Elizabeth. In fact, he must have realized that he could not have borne the weight of those years unaided—that without her loyalty, intelligence, and affection, his own wild imagination would have had no "port or haven".
“Biographer Robertson-Lorant cites "Lizzie's adventurous spirit and abundant energy," and she suggests that "her pluck and good humor might have been what attracted Melville to her, and vice versa".
“An example of such good humor appears in a letter about her not yet used to being married: "It seems sometimes exactly as if I were here for a visit. The illusion is quite dispelled however when Herman stalks into my room without even the ceremony of knocking, bringing me perhaps a button to sew on, or some equally romantic occupation".[87] On February 16, 1849, the Melvilles' first child, Malcolm, was born.”
--
Despite my negative review of this shallow Procrustean effort and Shelton claiming that Moby Dick is the result of his affair with Sarah, I did find it worth reading because of a few intriguing facts about Melville, and I was opened to the possibilities of speculative ideas that no other biographer has ever raised!
But Herman Melville lived such a tragic-misguided life; even worse, he treated his wife horribly often drunk in his 50's. Then his life winded down to a tragic end. Also, one wonders why his 3 main books are so very pessimistic, almost nihilistic in tone and detail with their main characters ending tragically.
Lastly, like often in American literature, AUGUSTINIAN-CALVINISM RAISES ITS SATANIC HEAD. It turns out that the central horror of Melville’s family background was the fatalism of Augustinian-Calvinism that he sought to escape from:_("
Notice Ishmael's statement in the 1st couple of pages: "Call me, Ishmael. Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though I cannot tell why this was exactly;
yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment."
A biography one can learn from, but not really a winner.
In the LIGHT of the GOOD, the TRUE, the JUST, the CARING...
Daniel Wilcox
Thursday, April 18, 2024
The Question of Non-Theism
In some of his many books, John Shelby Spong, the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey for 21 years, succinctly and lucidly describes key concepts of the New Testament and Christianity and explains keen insights.
A creative theologian at times, he has made startling statements including that “God is not a noun” but “a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be”!
(Probably, in that phrase, he is alluding to Process Theology which speculates that God is process, not substance). According to Process thinkers, God is very real, but God isn't a substance like most Creedal theologians believe.
However in the latter part of his leadership, Spong started denying many of the key doctrines of orthodox Christianity.
And most shocking--indeed, incomprehensible and incongruous--Spong promulgated in a few of his later books that there is No God! That Nontheism is the Truth!
Non-theism didn’t start with him, but is central to one branch of modern liberal religion, including one branch of Quakers in Britain and America. This is very strange since the Society of Friends is centered on God, has been for 380 years!
From Wikipedia:
“Non-theism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association), and when Henry Cadbury professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students.
The term "non-theistic" first appeared in a Quaker publication in 1952...In 1976, a Friends General Conference Gathering hosted a Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers).”
And in 2024 at Haverford College, June 30 through July 6, 2024, FGC is hosting an atheist leader, Tom Kunesh.
"His website on ‘atheisms‘ has an interesting typology of atheism (and agnosticism) and is well worth exploring..."
"Of particular interest is the page on ‘religious atheisms‘ which includes a short, very recently updated, biography of tom..." "Tom writes:
"What is a god? A god is an idealized human being, human characteristic or human creation to which is attributed with super-human powers of giving meaning to human existence. Examples of gods are Jesus...but no atheist, shaman or otherwise, knows a real god.
Knowing all the gods, the atheist must take care not to fall into the worship of any god."
"The following link takes you to a book by Kunesh, available there as an easy to navigate html file: http://atheisms.info/shaman/
How can this religious atheism be central for spiritual seekers? Especially for Quakers since their central focus is on gathering for “Worship” every 7th day?
One well-known Quaker in the U.S. stated that he doesn’t worship at Worship but, instead, pays close attention to the moment. Another, claimed that he agrees with the hard materialism of famous new atheists.
Of course, there has been a major fracturing of Quakerism in the 20th century, into many different, even contrary meetings, manily as a counter moivement against the quietist, often stringent, Quakerism of the 19th century where Quakers were removed from Yearly Meetings for many reasons including marrying a non-Quaker, being an abolitionist and part of the “Underground Railroad,” for deviation from required clothing styles, etc.
However, it is one thing to strongly oppose rigid, narrow, demanding Quakerism (even early Quakers often disagreed about major points), but it's entirely different to centrally identify with Non-Theism, to deny that the Light is real.
Such modern non-theist Friends appear to strongly agree with Spong’s Non-theism, not only that many of the doctrines of Christianity aren’t true, but that there is no God. They appear to be promoting religious atheism.
How can Spong or Henry Cadbury, an agnostic, be so knowledgeable and inspirational, yet think the Light doesn’t exist, that no transcendent Creator is real?
Such claiming is contrary to the inspirational witness of George Fox, Margaret Fell, other early Friends, and many visionaries all the way back to Jesus?
It is possible that some Quaker Non-theists aren’t denying the True God, but only denying the concept of God in Creedal Christianity. A number of them had very severe experiences in creedal denominations, and so want nothing to do with the Creeds and other doctrines.
If that is so, then they aren’t really Non-theists but deniers of the creedal God.
If that is the case, then such a Friend is completely in line with George Fox who found no succor or belief in the religious denominations of Christianity in Britain.
And I agree with such unbelievers. As a devout theist of a Friendly sort, I’ve never believed in the Creeds of orthodox Christianity and Evangelical Christianity.
As I reflect about this odd, tragic development in modern, fragmented, Quakerism, and think about my previous article on the tendency of modern Friends to lean to rightwing or leftwing ideologies, I admit I feel discouraged. But then I remember, the present isn't that different from how Britain was in the 1640's--rife with all sorts of contrary movements, beliefs, etc.
More later
In the LIGHT of the Good, the True, the Just, the Caring,
Daniel Wilcox
A creative theologian at times, he has made startling statements including that “God is not a noun” but “a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be”!
(Probably, in that phrase, he is alluding to Process Theology which speculates that God is process, not substance). According to Process thinkers, God is very real, but God isn't a substance like most Creedal theologians believe.
However in the latter part of his leadership, Spong started denying many of the key doctrines of orthodox Christianity.
And most shocking--indeed, incomprehensible and incongruous--Spong promulgated in a few of his later books that there is No God! That Nontheism is the Truth!
Non-theism didn’t start with him, but is central to one branch of modern liberal religion, including one branch of Quakers in Britain and America. This is very strange since the Society of Friends is centered on God, has been for 380 years!
From Wikipedia:
“Non-theism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association), and when Henry Cadbury professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students.
The term "non-theistic" first appeared in a Quaker publication in 1952...In 1976, a Friends General Conference Gathering hosted a Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers).”
And in 2024 at Haverford College, June 30 through July 6, 2024, FGC is hosting an atheist leader, Tom Kunesh.
"His website on ‘atheisms‘ has an interesting typology of atheism (and agnosticism) and is well worth exploring..."
"Of particular interest is the page on ‘religious atheisms‘ which includes a short, very recently updated, biography of tom..." "Tom writes:
"What is a god? A god is an idealized human being, human characteristic or human creation to which is attributed with super-human powers of giving meaning to human existence. Examples of gods are Jesus...but no atheist, shaman or otherwise, knows a real god.
Knowing all the gods, the atheist must take care not to fall into the worship of any god."
"The following link takes you to a book by Kunesh, available there as an easy to navigate html file: http://atheisms.info/shaman/
How can this religious atheism be central for spiritual seekers? Especially for Quakers since their central focus is on gathering for “Worship” every 7th day?
One well-known Quaker in the U.S. stated that he doesn’t worship at Worship but, instead, pays close attention to the moment. Another, claimed that he agrees with the hard materialism of famous new atheists.
Of course, there has been a major fracturing of Quakerism in the 20th century, into many different, even contrary meetings, manily as a counter moivement against the quietist, often stringent, Quakerism of the 19th century where Quakers were removed from Yearly Meetings for many reasons including marrying a non-Quaker, being an abolitionist and part of the “Underground Railroad,” for deviation from required clothing styles, etc.
However, it is one thing to strongly oppose rigid, narrow, demanding Quakerism (even early Quakers often disagreed about major points), but it's entirely different to centrally identify with Non-Theism, to deny that the Light is real.
Such modern non-theist Friends appear to strongly agree with Spong’s Non-theism, not only that many of the doctrines of Christianity aren’t true, but that there is no God. They appear to be promoting religious atheism.
How can Spong or Henry Cadbury, an agnostic, be so knowledgeable and inspirational, yet think the Light doesn’t exist, that no transcendent Creator is real?
Such claiming is contrary to the inspirational witness of George Fox, Margaret Fell, other early Friends, and many visionaries all the way back to Jesus?
It is possible that some Quaker Non-theists aren’t denying the True God, but only denying the concept of God in Creedal Christianity. A number of them had very severe experiences in creedal denominations, and so want nothing to do with the Creeds and other doctrines.
If that is so, then they aren’t really Non-theists but deniers of the creedal God.
If that is the case, then such a Friend is completely in line with George Fox who found no succor or belief in the religious denominations of Christianity in Britain.
And I agree with such unbelievers. As a devout theist of a Friendly sort, I’ve never believed in the Creeds of orthodox Christianity and Evangelical Christianity.
As I reflect about this odd, tragic development in modern, fragmented, Quakerism, and think about my previous article on the tendency of modern Friends to lean to rightwing or leftwing ideologies, I admit I feel discouraged. But then I remember, the present isn't that different from how Britain was in the 1640's--rife with all sorts of contrary movements, beliefs, etc.
More later
In the LIGHT of the Good, the True, the Just, the Caring,
Daniel Wilcox
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