That’s what my 89-year-old mother told me on a Sunday afternoon phone call. I had asked her to recall a time in 1959 that she had never mentioned.
Much of the past had been lost to mom because of time and her meds. And when her husband of 67 years and my father passed away a few years before, memories began to be wiped away with tears and “Why did he leave me behind?”
***
Some memories lie under coats of paint. So, when I recently came across old photographs and saw original hardwood flooring, I began scraping to expose more of it during that Sunday afternoon call.
Some memories have been laid bare; the paint worn away with retraced steps.
When you are six-years old you take account of things like busy streets, alleys, empty lots, school buildings with playgrounds, creaky back porches, neighborhood kids, cereal, cartoons and the predatory smell of cigarettes. You know, kiddom.
In 1959 our small family – dad, mom, me and my younger brother – lived in a three flat on Franklin Boulevard in Chicago. Our two-bedroom apartment was the one above the garden apartment. An open grey back porch with creaky boards and stairs connected each flat to the small back yard. Whenever I ran out the back door a voice from somewhere would yell “Don’t run down the stairs!”
Nikki, a single woman, lived downstairs. From time to time, Nikki babysat us two boys while my parents went out. I can’t recall who lived upstairs. Maybe it was the voice.
The Wood Back Porch – Photo: trippchicago/Flickr
Our three flat was the second one in from a busy street corner. On the other side, two empty lots. The street in front was lined with trees. Behind us, an alley.
The empty lots were a dirt playground where neighborhood kids gathered. There, we played tag, cowboys and Indians, and baseball among the rocks, sticks, and clumps of overgrown grass. Those empty lots were grounds for all kinds of childhood amusements.
A tire-tracked path ran through the middle of the two lots. Sometimes a van drove onto it, parked, opened up its side and gave us tracts and Bible stories with puppets. Sometimes an ice cream truck drove on to it and handed out multicolored popsicles from its open side. And sometimes a shoe repair van came with repaired shoes and to claim shoes in need of repair.
I played with my younger brother at least one time.
The two of us decided to play catch, not on the empty lot, but on that small stretch of grassy space between our building and the corner building. There was a chain link fence separating the yards. What could go wrong?
Well, young arms don’t throw straight. I stood between the buildings and my brother, who had to chase my last throw, threw from the backyard. Crash! The baseball went through the neighbor’s bathroom window of his garden apartment. An angry face appeared within the jagged edges. “Can’t you boys find somewhere else to play!”
Dad was none too pleased. He apologized to the neighbor and paid for the repair. We were sent back to the turf of the empty lots with a whiffle ball and bat. Our nickel allowances were put on hold. The moment they returned, I made sure to hold on to it. I put the nickel in my mouth.
When you jump on the bed with a nickel in your mouth one tends to forget the nickel in all the wild up and down. The nickel went into my throat and I went into the living room going “ga gaaa ga gaaa ga gaaa! My father picked me up by the ankles and shook me until the nickel popped out. He later gave a piggy bank to hold my loot.
Jumping on the bed before being put to bed was a way to release all the pent-up energy in a glass of Ovaltine. It’s also the way for your head to encounter a radiator. My parents rushed me, in my cowboy pajamas, to the hospital. I received ten stiches in the back of my skull. That impact and three later concussions may account for a whole of things popping out of my noggin. But the blows didn’t knock 1959 from my memory.
***
Across the alley from our three flat and the empty lots stood a four-story brick apartment building with the same grey connected porches. Clothes drying on clotheslines, dogs barking, kids running up and down stairs, people yelling, radios blasting, furniture moving up or down, and aromas of all kinds of food– the Chicago back porch, meant as a second fire escape, was where melting pot life vented.
We knew it was supper time when a short plump woman wearing an apron came out onto the wooden porch of her second-floor apartment, leaned over the railing and bellowed in a thick Italian accent “Carmennnnn Carmennn”. When her son, a baby-faced replica of his mother, toddled home we knew it was time to go in.
Of course, our group of neighborhood friends teased Carmen and each other mercilessly. It was a way of having fun at each other’s expense. We operated at the limits of friendship. If we went too far, we backed off and included the teased in whatever fun we devised to make it all better. Sometimes a ball went through a window and we needed to apologize and repair it.
A black and white class photo, found in a box of keepsakes, confirms that I attended “Ryerson Elementary First Grade Class”. In the photo I’m seated in the second row with classmates. I am grinning with a gap-toothed smile and freckled face. With a colorized version of the photo, you’d swear it was Alfred E. Neuman sitting there. I have red hair.
I recall school being a few blocks from home.
Memory has me sitting at my desk in my first-grade class. A tall figure approaches me. He leans over and says “Danny, you brother has left school. He’s walking home. Go after him.” I put on my coat and go after him.
The next thing I see in my head: I am walking my brother across a busy street corner. Cars are stopped at the light. I bring him home. End of reel.
My mother had never mentioned that time once over a lifetime. And that is why when I recalled it, I asked her about it that Sunday. Maybe for her it was just another thing, like a spill, and it was wiped away and forgotten. Life and neighborhoods were different then too, less charged.
Certain memories have charges, though. Besides being my brother’s keeper, I was the subject of humiliation.
Memory has it that I am standing in line in the school hallway with my first-grade classmates. We were waiting to go out on the stage, one at a time, and say our piece to a room full of parents. I don’t recall the what the presentation was for.
One of the room parents was going down the line putting lipstick on the kids. She grabbed and held my chin and began to apply red stuff to my lips. When she finished, I immediately used the back of my hand to rub off it off. A big red smear went across the right side of my face. The parent went “Ohhhhgggugg! Danny! You can’t go on!” That was fine for me.
I don’t know where the red lipstick ended up. Maybe on the sleeve of my white shirt. And I don’t know where my mom was in all this. She’s not in the memory. Was she in the audience waiting for me to come out? Did she see the red smear on my face and sleeve? The memory ends after the smear.
I think it was Kierkegaard who said Why bother remembering a past that cannot be made into a present? Maybe that’s why my mother said the past leaves you behind.
Ezekiel Evans looked out the front room window. A snow-buried Camry sat dormant under the streetlight. “Still there” Ezekiel said to the glass reflection of Tonya decorating the Christmas tree. He stood there another minute to reassure himself and then returned to his chair. “You never know what will happen next around this doggone place. The city’s gone to hell.”
“Don’t worry, Ez,” Tonya teased, “Chicago has an intersectional mayor. All you have to do is believe in her just like weez all spose to pretend to believe in Santa Claus.”
“I’ll believe in Santa Claus before I believe in her!” Ezekiel replied.
When they moved to the Chicago area several years before, Ezekiel and Tonya overlooked a lot of things. Coming from a Georgia farm, they saw the cosmopolitan city as an upgrade. It was a place to live independently and experience new things. They moved to the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s south side.
The five-bedroom brick bungalow on Wentworth Avenue was big enough for their growing family. It was something they could afford. What they couldn’t afford was a carjacking and what some hoodlums were doing in the neighborhood – robberies, burglaries, thefts, assaults, shootings and sex trafficking.
“We’ve got to get that garage door fixed so we can park the car inside. Then you can have some peace of mind Ez,” Tonya offered.
“Yeah, but my peace of mind needs to cover a lot of ground. The kids need food and clothes and shoes, doctor visits, and . . . a decent place to live.”
When they bought the place, it needed a lot of work. Ezekiel spent what extra money they had to fix the place. But the more things in the neighborhood became unsettling the more unsettled he became. His uncle’s Georgia farm, where he lived after his father died suddenly, was a touchstone that kept coming back to mind.
Uncle Abrams raised grass-fed and pasture-raised beef, lamb, goat, and pork. During his time with his uncle, Ezekiel learned animal husbandry and the ways of the Lord. His uncle was a godly man. But a time came when Ezekiel felt he had to find his own way and be his own man. He saw the farm as restraint holding him back.
After his marriage to Tonya, he headed north to the south side of Chicago. There he opened a butcher shop that sold meats from a local packer and from his uncle’s farm. The enterprise was fairly successful, but also a struggle. Maintaining a decent price for the quality being offered hindered sales. His cousin John drove the Georgia meat up to Chicago once a week. John had to be paid.
And there were substantial losses at one point. Around Christmas last winter the store was broken into. The meats on display were taken. A police report was filed but no suspects arrested. Insurance covered the loss and then raised rates six months later. Ezekiel didn’t like putting window grating on his store windows – the cost and the eyesore -but he did what he had to do to maintain business.
Andre was asleep in his crib. Alana was carried to bed by her father. After a retelling of the Christmas story – the one about shepherds and the stable and of Joseph and Mary and the baby – four-year old Alana asked, “Did baby Jesus cry like baby Andre?”
“The story doesn’t say, Alana,” her father replied. “Babies don’t have words yet to say what they want like you and me. Baby Andre fusses and cries when he is hungry and uncomfortable.”
Alana thought for a moment. “I think baby Jesus cried. But then his mama fed him like mama feeds baby Andre.”
“I think you are right.” Dad gave Alana a kiss on the head and tucked the covers around her.
“I’ll leave the hall light on for you. Mom and I will be right here in the next room.”
Ezekiel and Tonya sat in their kitchen listening to the radio. A local station played Christmas carols. Ezekiel looked through the bills and Tonya her grocery list.
“Do you think your uncle will send us another roast for Christmas?” Tonya asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know Tonya.” Ezekiel replied
“Ask him. He’s a good man, a man of faith.” Tonya pushed.
“Yeah, he is a good man. I’m not so sure I’m a good man for taking off and leaving the way I did.”
“I thought you two had worked that out.”
“I worked out that I wanted to go my own way. And when I told my uncle he offered me my choice of acreage on the farm . . . “to build your own future” he said. Uncle Abrams had no problem offering me the better pastures. I guess he figured that God would keep blessing him. He often talked about following God’s leading. I’ve been thinking ‘bout that for a while now.”
“I’m sure he’d like to hear from you other than about another order,” Tonya urged. “Call him tomorrow.”
Ezekiel got up from his chair and headed to the front room window to check on the car. He looked out and saw the car. And some trouble heading his way.
There was a sudden frantic pounding on the front door. “What the . . .!”
Looking out onto the lighted porch he saw two terrified young men. When they saw Ezekiel, they screamed louder. Ezekiel opened the door.
“Help us mister! They’re coming!”
“Who is coming?” Ezekiel shouted through the storm door.
“Those men!” One of the boys pointed. “Let us in mister please!”
Ezekiel hesitated, not sure if it was a ruse. Then he saw four men running down the sidewalk towards the house. Something didn’t seem right. The boys were only wearing sweatshirts, sweat pants and dirty socks.
“Come in. Let me find out what this is all about.” Ezekiel opened the storm door and the two teenagers bounded in behind Ezekiel. Tonya grabbed some blankets from the hallway closet and handed them to the boys.
“What’s this all about?” Ezekiel looked at the boys and then at the approaching men.
The shorter boy started, speaking as fast as he could. “Those men took us off the street. They said they had plans for us.” He stopped to catch his breath. “We escaped the van when it got stuck in the snow . . . we saw you looking through the window . . .”
“What plans?”
The taller boy spoke. “Something about service jobs for me and him,” he pointed to the other boy chattering his teeth, “we’ve been friends for a while . . . we want nothing to do with them.”
“Where do you live?”
“Mister, we have no home. The street’s our home. These guys came up to us and said we could be warm and have food if we came with them. We thought it would be OK. One of them looked like he was a priest.”
“Go on,” Ezekiel pressed. But now the men were on the front porch. One of them was rattling the storm door by its handle.
“Where are those boys? Bring them out to us so that we can talk to them.”
Ezekiel opened the storm door and the men backed up. He came out and folded his arms. “I’ll do their talking. What do you want with them?”
A large bald man stood in front. Behind and to the left of him stood a squirrelly-looking man with a pockmarked face. He kept looking around. Next to him, on the other side of the bald man, stood a thin goateed man making a solemn look The other man who was out of view down on the sidewalk. The bald man spoke.
“Mister we just want to talk to them. We saw them on the street they looked like they needed shelter and food. We don’t know why they ran . . . these two young boys need our help. We do this all the time – help homeless kids”
“I see. You need their help in a service industry?”
“We wanted to give them jobs . . . you know, . . . helping . . . serving people.”
“I see. Well, these boys want no part of it.”
“Listen mister . . . “, the bald man growled and grabbed Ezekiel by his shirt to pull him away from the door.
At that moment Ezekiel thought he made out the face of his lawyer friend. “Ken . . . Ken! . . . is that you?”
The man on the sidewalk turned and walked away.
The large bald man began to pull harder on Ezekiel. “Listen mister . . . it’s none of your affair.” The two other men tried to open the storm door behind Ezekiel.
The two boys saw this and pulled Ezekiel inside. Ezekiel locked the door. Through the glass he shouted “My wife has called the neighbors. You better not come back here lookin’ for what ain’t yours!”
The men turned and saw porch lights turning on. Neighbors came out to see what was happening.
“Get back in your van and get the hell outta here! NOW!” Ezekiel eyes blazed.
The four men took off down the sidewalk, hiding their faces in their collars as they ran.
Ezekiel watched the van drive off. He stood there for a long time to reassure himself that it was gone.
Tonya had the boys settled at the kitchen table. While talking with the neighbors on the phone Tonya made hot cocoa and oatmeal for the boys. They still shook from the cold under the blankets and their eyes remained wide open.
One of the boys asked “You didn’t call the police?” Tonya stopped what she was doing and replied.
“Even if those four predators were caught and arrested, they would be released without bail. That’s how things go around here. Criminals run free and good people are supposed to put up with it.”
Ezekiel walked into the kitchen for a moment and then turned and walked down the hallway. He returned ten minutes later.
“I’ve made up some bedding for you two in the back room. You don’t go anywhere tonight.”
The boys looked at each other. “Thank you, . . . mister?”
“Ezekiel, and this is my wife, Tonya. In the morning you’ll meet our two little ones.”
****
Baby Andre made the first sound in the morning. His cries woke Tonya. She got him up and nursed him. A while later Alana came into the kitchen rubbing her eyes.
“Alana, we have two guests in our house. They slept overnight in the back room.”
“Who are they mama?”
“Two young men who needed some food and a place to sleep.”
“Were they crying?”
“No Alana. We knew what they needed. I’ll make you oatmeal.”
Ezekiel walked in the front door. He’d been out clearing off the car. Tonya handed him a cup of coffee.
Ezekiel spoke in hushed tones. “Those two . . .,” he nodded to the back room, “let them sleep in. I’ll bring home some extra ground beef for dinner. Find out their names”
That evening Ezekiel, Tonya, Alana, baby Andre, Booker and Darius sat around the table eating a casserole and potato salad. After a blessing they talked about the day. Alana, who couldn’t hold back, started.
She told her father about building a snowman with the two boys. Tonya had given the boys some of Ez’s old coats and gloves and shoes and socks to wear. The boys each said that they had never built a snowman. And though still somewhat pensive about everything, they began to open up.
Each boy talked about living in the projects and taking care of their mother. They talked about people coming around. They talked about their mothers becoming drug addicts. They talked about their baby sisters being taken away. And of not knowing who their father was. And then Booker and Darius stopped talking. Alana began asking questions. Tonya assured Alana that she would tell her what she needed to know later.
Baby Andre’s day, per Tonya, consisted of wide-eyed wonder and giggling when the boys played peek-a-boo with her. The boys helped keep baby Andre occupied while she did what she had to do.
Tonya’s unreported day consisted of changing diapers, laundry, fixing lunch, and neighbor phone calls. After last night, neighbors wanted to know if the Evans family was OK. One neighbor brought over a meal to find out. “This cornbread chicken bake comes from the James family next door,” was Tonya’s update.
After the meal Ezekiel read Psalm 34. Then he repeated these words:
This poor soul cried and was heard by the Lord and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.
The next morning, Christmas morning, it wasn’t the aroma of a grits and sausage casserole warming in the oven that brought the boys to the kitchen. They had something they wanted to get out. They walked back and forth nervously. Ezekiel had them sit down at the table across from him and Tonya.
With a terrified look Darius blurted out “We had a dream, mister Ezekiel, ma’am.”
“We both did,” Booker interjected.
Darius continued. “We both saw very bad things heading this way. We both heard “Leave this place!”
“What do you think it means Ez?” Tonya asked.
Ezekiel began rubbing his forehead. “It means . . . it means . . . it means we better leave.”
“What?! But my brother and his family live here . . . we can’t just pick up and leave!”
“We will warn them to leave.” Ezekiel came back.
“Ha, good luck with that!” Tonya snapped. She got up and put her hands on her hips.
“Ezekiel, a dream? We’re gonna pick up and leave based on a dream?! What about the store?”
“Tonya, if that isn’t a warning, Ezekiel replied, “nothing is. And look what happened to these boys. That was no dream.”
What’s that you say? You’ve just arrived from Cyprus and you are new to the area? And, you’ve heard some incredible things? You want me to tell you all that’s happened? Come in for some water and …some bread.
Where should I begin, stranger? There is so much that has happened the last three days – the last three years, in fact! And long before now! Since you are a visitor from Cyprus, I will start with some necessary background so you will understand why my husband and I are so giddy.
My husband Cleopas and I – I am Mary – settled many years ago in this fertile valley below Jerusalem This area is known as Emmaus. We call this place Motza. Our village is about 30 stadia from our beloved Jerusalem.
As you have seen, it is a well-watered area with rich soil and an abundance of willow trees. During the Feast of Tabernacles celebration many come to our valley and gather willow branches. They take the willow branches and stand them up on the sides of the altar with their tops bowed over the altar.
Our valley has many springs watering it. Our people come down to one of Motza’s springs to get water for baking their matzo for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
I’m sure you noticed the Roman Centurions stationed here. My husband says it is a strategic position for them as they can protect the ascent to Jerusalem on the road leading from Jaffa. And, it is strategic in the ways I know of. Cleopas has overheard some of them saying that they would like to retire here because of the many springs and because north of our village the valley widens offering them plenty of room for settlement and for growing food.
My husband and I are simple farmers. But life for us and our people has not been so simple. Many of us have long desired to be freed from the rule of those who do not worship the One true God. When the Babylonians overtook Jerusalem and carried our people away into exile it was the Isaiah the prophet who spoke for us …
O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us
but we acknowledge your name alone.
Now, we are back in our land and still the pagans lord over us. So, we wondered: Would our God act again to bring us out of this exile as he took us out of Egypt? And, when will God resurrect Israel and restore her as a nation? When will the messiah, the Anointed One and Son of the Most High from the line of David, restore the house of David? When, when, when …when would God redeem his people and set up his everlasting kingdom on earth?
On many Sabbaths, as we gather in the synagogue, words from the Torah are read. And then the words of the prophets – the haftarah. We all felt the hopelessness and despair in the words of the prophet Ezekiel: “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Our leader would then pray these words:
Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
Yes, there were times of renewing hope and rejoicing. This past fall my husband and I and pilgrims from Cyrpus and from faraway lands went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the tabernacle. We carried with us willow branches and olive branches to build to sukkah – our temporary booths. When we all gathered together, we shouted praises to God, sang the songs of Aliyah and waved our fragrant lulavs – our willow branches and palm fronds – before the Lord in a spirit of thankfulness.
After the feast, we walked home with the pilgrims on the Emmaus road, the same road that brought you here. Our hearts were burning with expectation as to what God would do. There was much animated discussion about the events of those seven days. And, it all centered on Jesus. You must know about him, don’t you? How can anyone not know?
That day as we walked along we talked about his feeding the five thousand by the shore of Galilee. We talked about our seeing him healing the blind and the lame. And, Lazarus had been raised from the dead! We marveled that demons were being cast out and at Jesus’ authority over them. And, his words! No one ever spoke like he did about the Moses and the prophets. We discussed how our religious authorities despised him and wanted to do away with him. This made us all fearful, as it would negatively affect our synagogues. Yet, they each said that many were believing in him as the one who was to come.
But Miriam told the group that that even his brothers did not believe in him. She learned this from a young doctor named Luke, whom she met at the feast. He told her that Jesus’ brothers wanted Jesus to show himself publicly so that he could become well-known. “Show yourself to the world!” they said to him. They wanted to put Jesus in a situation which would make him prove he is the Messiah. But Jesus told them “My time is not yet. The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I am giving evidence against it, showing that its works are evil”. He told them to go up to the feast. Miriam said that Jesus went up later in secret and now we know why. There was a considerable dispute in the crowds. Some said “He’s a good man and others “He’s deceiving the people!” There were those who hated him and wanted to do away with him.
Ruth told us about the twelve-year old Jesus. His family had gone up to Jerusalem for Passover. When they left to return to Galilee with a caravan of friends, they had traveled a day’s journey before realizing that Jesus wasn’t with the group. He had vanished! So, they went back up to Jerusalem and searched for him for three days. They couldn’t find him anywhere. When they finally did put their eyes on him, he was sitting with the teachers of the law. He was listening to them and asking questions. Those listening to him were amazed at his answers to their questions. But, Mary was neither amazed or happy. She scolded him for disappearing. “Child”, she said to him, “why have done this to your father and me? We have been frantically searching for you”. Jesus told his mother, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I would have to be getting involved with my father’s work?” They didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Wasn’t his father a carpenter?
Oy, there is so much to tell. I will focus on the last few days and on what happened to Cleopas and me this afternoon. What happened the last few days in Jerusalem we learned from the Jesus’ disciples as Cleopas and I were in Jerusalem for Passover. I can tell you that it was a time of weeping and anguish.
As you may have heard, on the night of Passover Jesus was captured by the authorities – ours and Roman. Though he had done nothing wrong he was sentenced to death on a Roman cross. Our authorities pushed for this, shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea and then released by Pilate to the angry crowd. Jesus was crucified like a common criminal. When we learned of this our hearts were broken, our hopes were dashed. “What good is a dead messiah we asked each other? We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” God be praised! There is more to tell you!
We were in Jerusalem this morning. We heard many, many accounts and rumors of visions and of Jesus’ tomb being empty. The disciples were at a loss as what to make of it all. Peter had gone off to see for himself and confirmed that the tomb was indeed empty. But he was as perplexed as the rest of us. We waited for while longer to see what might come of it all and then we decided to head home. Now, this is the part I’ve been waiting to tell you… I can barely …
Cleopas and I headed home to our village. Along the way we discussed all that had happened that morning. We argued, too, about what it meant. As we walked a stranger approached us and began walking with us. He was not at all familiar to us but he must have overheard us. He started the conversation:
Rowan LeCompte and Irene Matz LeCompte, “Third Station of the Resurrection: The Walk to Emmaus” (detail), 1970. Mosaic, Resurrection Chapel, National Cathedral, Washington, DC. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.
“You’re obviously having a very important discussion on your walk. What’s it all about?”
We stopped walking and turned to him. He must have seen that we were both downcast. Cleopas answered the stranger. “You must be the only person around Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s been going on there the last few days.”
“What things?” he asked.
“To do with Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet. He acted with power and he spoke with power, before God and all the people. Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel!
And now, what with all this, it’s the third day since it happened. But some women from our group have astonished us. They went to his tomb very early this morning, and didn’t find his body. They came back saying they’d seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of the folk with us went off to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”
“You are so senseless! So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!”
At this point, we were quite perplexed. Who is this stranger and why is taking this so personally? We were both taken aback by the zeal and authority with which the stranger spoke. We searched his face for answers to what we didn’t recognize in all of the Sabbath words. He began walking and we followed.
We listened to the stranger explain Moses and the prophets and all of Scripture in terms of the One who was to come and ransom Israel and bring her and the whole world out of exile. He told us …
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
As he spoke, it was like we were no longer walking down the Emmaus Road. We were on top of a mountain. Our eyes were opened to a vista that went far beyond anything we had known. Everything we had been taught, everything we had heard and seen, began to take on new meaning. He went on to talk about a kingdom on earth and about new creation. His words astonished and exhilarated us. Wonder and joy flooded our hearts.
We reached the intersection to our village. We turned down our road. The stranger kept walking down the Emmaus road. We called after him urging him to stay with us. He kept walking. Cleopas finally ran up to him and pleaded with him to stay with us. “Sir”, he said, “the day is almost over. Stay with us.” The stranger agreed to come with us.
We invited him in and gave him a bowl of water and a towel to wash his hands and feet. We gave him water to drink. We sat down to a small meal. The stranger took the bread up into his hands and prayed, giving thanks for the meal. He then broke the bread and gave it to us. It was then …it was then …it was then that we were shocked beyond belief! Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other with wide open eyes. Cleopas and I saw that the stranger was Jesus, the resurrected Jesus! And, as soon as we saw him, he vanished from our sight! Poof!
We were speechless. The Anointed One and Son of the Most High was walking with us and talking with us and sitting down to eat with us! Everything we hoped for had come true in our sight, as Anna the prophetess foretold and Simeon prophesied! … Our eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people!
Now, our new friend, Cleopas and I have to return to Jerusalem to tell our brothers and sisters all that has happened this afternoon. We must break bread with them. Come with us and you will see him, too!
As we walked the 30 stadia back up to Jerusalem, Cleopas and I kept pinching each other. We walked and danced and walked and ran and clapped. We kept saying “Do you remember how our hearts were burning inside us, as he talked to us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?” Cleopas, in his booming voice and with a smile on his face, kept repeating “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave” and the words our Sabbath leader prayed:
Why are you cast down, O my soul
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him.
We both shouted “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
The Cypriot, not sure what to make of all this, watched us from a distance. There was an amused and perplexed look on his face.
Adapted from the Gospel according to Luke (2:41-50)
A dust collecting barge circling the globe is not the most exciting life. And, when I say “circling the globe”, I don’t mean chugging down Amsterdam canals one week and slogging down Bangkok Klongs the next. I mean orbiting the globe.
Dealing with circumplanetary dust – comet dust, asteroidal dust, interstellar dust, floating paint chips, and the like–is my business. I’m the street sweeper of cosmic dust. I leave the large objects, the meteoroids and minimoons, for others.
At last count there are about 35,000 pieces of debris and over 12,000 satellites in orbit around the earth. And, despite requirements for satellite deorbit and disposal, the junk continues to escalate.
And, when I say “my business” I mean my punishment. I was exiled by a group I call MASK – Massive Administrative State KGB. MASK is a conglomeration of bureaucrats under principalities and powers.
MASK insurrectionists took over on November 3rd, 2020. That was the day democracy was denied There were no lawful elections held after that day. The Committee for Democracy Security comprised of big tech, big pharma, and White House personnel made sure of that.
In the year following the November 3rd insurrection, MASK instituted the Four Vexations Campaign. The four vexations -the unvaxxed, climate change deniers, Christians, and cosmic dust – are said by MASK to severely threaten public health
I was exiled into space because I vexed MASK all four ways. I was never willing to be vaxxed, so I became an outcast. I refused to pay the fine for not owning an EV, so I became a climate change criminal. I inaugurated the worldwide Christ the King Day, so I was charged with sedition, and by default, I am cosmic dust.
Delores, my wife, turned me in to MASK agents at Krocer’s. I just happened to sneak into the store without a mask. I was in aisle five looking for taco sauce. As I surmised later, masked Delores was in the produce department flirting with the masked produce guy Joey.
Joey touted the latest store promotion to Delores: “Turn in the unvaxxed and receive a month’s food ration from Krocer’s and five credit score points”.
So, Delores received a month’s food ration at MASK-approved Krocer’s after serving me up. How would you like to learn that after forty years of marriage you are worth thirty days of food? Our marriage was banished to the dust bin of history.
Now, when I say “my wife turned me in” I mean she was not alone. When I refused vaccinations, a criminal risk assessment algorithm used my social credit score to determine the likelihood that I would be a repeat unvaxxer. On International COVID Justice Day I was pronounced “Guilty of Non-compliance with Rules 7 & 8 of the COVID Justice Code”. I was sentenced to orbit the earth until I vaxx or die.
*****
“Collection One to Base Two. Collection One to Base Two. I’m ready to dump this load.”
“Copy Collection One. Atmos7 will approach at 1300 hours SCET.”
“Copy Digitilissimo.”
The Base Two commander doesn’t like it when I call her Digitilissimo. She has made herself known to me in no uncertain terms: “I am a Latina. I am a woman of color, I am a mom, I am a cisgender millennial who’s been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder,” . . . “I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise.”
This woman is not qualified to run anything but she checks the boxes for her MASK bosses. That explains her “generalized anxiety disorder”.
Why the nickname Digitilissimo? The woman is no longer human. She has vaccine-delivered nano circuitry up the wazoo. I have her IP address.
*****
My dust barge Collection One is fitted with a huge microbe tank. There is a large intake/dump valve at one end. Inside the tank – genetically-edited dust eating microbes. When they eat their fill of cosmic dust particles, they poop out pellets. The pellets are then extruded into bars and then loaded onto disposal ships like Atmos 7.
Disposal ships take the cosmic debris a half a parsec or so away from our solar system. Then they shoot the load off toward the black hole Pōwehi, where it will be added into a swirl of dust, stars, gas, and visible light that circles the edge of the hole before being sucked inside.
For my grandkids who may someday hear this recording, the name Pōwehi or “embellished dark source of unending creation” came from an ancient Hawai’ian chant called Kumulipo or source of darkness. The chant describes the creation of the universe. Pōwehi is roughly 54 million light-years away from my dust trawler
Grandkids. How many now?
I hear nothing from anyone. I didn’t take Alphonse with me into space. Bringing a parrot into space would, of course, be a first. Imagine the mess! Sadly, MASK agents reprogrammed my parrot during my solitary confinement at Base Ten. Alphonse now repeats “Wear a mask” and “Get the jab”. There is another parrot on board.
The ship’s intercom repeats over and over again “Your individual choice affects everyone. Give up your individual rights and freedom for the greater good! Conform!”
The loop is part of the reprogramming technique used by the party. What party, you ask? The CCP – Committee for Conformity of Practice. The endless droning narrative is meant to “instill” into the subconscious a desire for behavioral change – submission to the CCP. So, I put on my unplugged headphones to block the blather. Another technique is isolation.
Beaglegeuse, my dog and right hand, I had to leave behind. MASK is now training him to sniff out the unvaccinated. I also had to resign my position in the Society for Acronym Suppression and Extinction. That’s S -A -S -E for the acronym dependent.
*****
Spending a year in microgravity, circling the Earth constantly at nearly 8km/s, really does change a person, not that I needed changing.
I am now over 6 feet tall. I am 3% taller than my earth height because my spinal disks are no longer compressed by gravity. My heart rate has increased to maintain blood pressure compensating for the 20% decrease in the volume of blood in my body. And, because I no longer need to fight gravity my muscles atrophy and osteoporosis will also occur.
Since I’m moving faster than my twin on earth, I will be younger than Emmett if I ever return to earth. That’s according to special relativity. According to MASK special relativity, Emmett may be in orbit trawling for dust soon. Last I heard, he was detained by MASK agents in a 7/Eleven. He was buying a roll of Lifesavers without wearing a mask.
There are things unchangeable about me. But now, in whirling exile, the unchangeable me is reached only by recall: I am rain in the forest – effervescent, beading, dripping onto the trail. I am wind that shakes the leaves into shivers. I am bursting cracking thunder. I am torrent, rippling, babbling, tranquil water. I am field of sunbathing sunflowers. I am blade of grass. I am dust and I am resistance in mega-ohms.
No, I am not a tree-hugging soy boy softie. If I was, I wouldn’t be floating in a hunk of metal sweeping up the long-decayed cometary trails and the remains of digital communication satellite collisions.
I don’t miss the digital world one bit. I hate logging in. I hate usernames, passwords, two-pass authentications. I hate network errors. I hate needing security software, firewalls, and VPNS. I hate the whole 64-bit process. I prefer paper and conversations and meeting actual people.
I hate streaming media. I hate the utter annoyance of commercials and clichés. I do miss Mystery Science Theater, however. I asked MASK for a regular MST broadcast but MASK took it personally and said “NO!”.
Anyway, I hate viewing life through a screen – authentication error! I hate digital images. I hate the pretense of significance the frame provides. And, why give your life to streaming bits and bytes? Why not climb K2 or hike the Appalachian Trail?
With the rise of mass media including the “internet of things”, madness has accelerated and deepened. Why the hell speed up and support the ultra-wide band of mass formation psychosis with 5GUW? In orbit, during the analog of my days devoid of digital diversion, I am able to think outside the data-streaming box. I can pray without unceasing noise.
In case you are wondering, I keep busy. Orbit is orbit, so, I don’t have to bother much with dials and buttons except to keep track of the barge’s dust level gauge. Day to day, beside getting taller and Gumby-like, I’m working on a transactional reality self-help book: I’m OK, You’re CONTROLLING.
The book focuses on the State-as-parent-citizen-as-child relationship. That unnatural bond is enforced by the MASK overloads in their pursuit for COVID justice. I provide insight as to how to throw off that unhealthy and even deadly co-dependency. Briefly, one creates a sphere of truth in a parallel society apart from the State.
The State, as my own account relates, is controlling and manipulative. Mother State, with its media teat, suckles citizens into dependence. Mother State’s milk supports perpetual adolescence, hence the Neverland of citizens that refuse to grow up.
The emotional abuse produced by the “Glorious Motherland”-State has several characteristics, as detailed in my book:
Big Motherdoesn’t respect your boundaries.
Big Mother competes for your attention via State media.
Agents of Big Mother have an ON/OFF empathy switch that is used for their own ends – ON to cajole into submission, OFF to ignore your concerns; they appear caring in public and in private, cruel and unfeeling. Theirs is the Ministry of A PAT ON THE HEAD AND A KICK IN THE PANTS.
Agents of Big Mother want you to think you are crazy for not listening to them. To show that they ‘care’ they use shaming tactics such as enforcing mask mandates to get citizens to listen. Big Mother declares itself the Adult with “the science”. Citizens are posited as crude and ignorant test subjects.
Agents of Big Mother present themselves as victims, manipulating any situation to garner sympathy and support. Mother State uses existential threats to consolidate power.
Agents of Big Mother avoid personal accountability and use other people for their own ends.
A play – Death of a Dustman – is my next project. The play, soon to be autobiographical, ends with the last days of a dustman to provide comic relief for his family. The main character is a dust barge pilot who dies on board and then is eaten up by dust-eating microbes and then excreted out into space. The dustman’s remains reanimate on Jupiter’s moon Ganymeade and become an endoparasitoid lifeform that consumes mandators. The life form returns to earth to feed. The sulphury smell of the mandators makes them easy prey.
I’ll have Dale Arden – that’s my nickname for Betty – sneak these manuscripts and this recording back to earth. I’ll hook up with the ISS and Dale in a couple of months when my barge is restocked. Dale is not one of those Clay people that melt or blend into the background. She doesn’t wear the veneer of intersectionality. Dale is an adventurous, independent and beautiful woman. When I think of Dale, I hear Astor Piazzolla’s tango music. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that!
I have noted in my log book that every once in a while, out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark image flash by. The image is not in or outside the barge. It is somewhere to my right. I know that seeing this isn’t due to my time in space. I’ve seen the same fleeting dark images on earth. Dark forces are at work in the cosmos. Dark forces have joined forces with the self-proclaimed earth-gods. The Mother State feeds on Dark Power.
Earth-gods, you see, feed on the experience of power to charge the battery of their self-importance – their pride of life. Jesus was tempted to do the same. During forty days in the wilderness, Jesus, was offered a power ‘opportunity’ by the Satan. Jesus saw the psyop offer as an abuse of his power: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Now, how do you discern the humans from the earth-gods? Humans, with a notion of the transcendent, attach themselves to creative forces to multiply and flourish. Humans accept responsibility for their actions. Humans are capable of love which does not defame, entrap or hold hostage another.
The earth-gods, bound to their notion that man is just a clump of chemical-reaction-neuron-firing cells, attach themselves to power in order to replicate their deformed simulacrum of man in humans. The earth gods never accept responsibility. The earth gods instead blame others. The earth gods live in the moment, beyond judgement and shame. They choose power over love.
Because of the unchecked desire for unchecked power, the earth gods are wreaking havoc on earth. To wit: during 2022 a worldwide famine began which continues to kill millions. People can no longer find fresh drinking water because of the decay.
*****
I see that the dust level gauge is approaching overload. Looks like I have to wrap up this recording.
Remember grand-kiddos: the earth-gods are dust. They will experience the end of their power in a dust to dust and ashes to ashes recall.
The earth-gods resent the new creation. That is why I am in orbit and not on earth fighting the good fight. And that is why you must continue the Christ the King celebration. I want all Christians everywhere to take days off and celebrate Christ the King. I want there to be royal fanfares and parades, royal decrees, lavish feasts – food, wine, music, and dancing – with men and women in courtly costume, and fireworks.
When you dust a shelf, think of me. And when I say “think of me”, I mean . . .
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — “The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four co-morbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”
During his confirmation hearing, we didn’t understand that something had broken inside of Brett Kavanaugh. Unfortunately, many of us believed he was a sincere conservative. pic.twitter.com/BovNA4vEQh
The foul stench of burning lithium batteries – thermal runaway – mingled with the rancid smell of decaying protein – rotting victims of spike protein injections – fills the air. The reek, still in my nostrils from yesterday’s walk, lays on my tongue as a putrid tasting film. The heavy odor of gases formed by decomposing batteries and humans attaches to everything. Another rotten egg day. One didn’t have to be a prophet to see these days would come. Two plus two equal four and man versus God equals 2030.
My basement apartment, packed with a six-year supply of food and water, and several cases of Zero candy bars, is a bunker. The street level windows are barred and painted over. My door is reinforced with steel plates. The tiny apartment quarters are safe and suffocating. Going outside was not safe but a bit of relief.
I put on an N95 mask to go outside. You had to. One couldn’t be sure of what was floating in the air. Destruction followed destruction in the name of Progress. The old had to be torn down to allow the new to rise from the ashes. That’s what OneChannelTV preached and people believe its gospel. The air is filled with all kinds of crap.
While mankind pinches its nose and turns to the TV to give them their tomorrows, I take long walks along Jemison Lake. The breeze off the lake wafts free. The wind blows where it wants to. I feel and hear and see its effects. Walking along the lake, I am reminded once again that I am a human living among the technology possessed.
*****
Many humans gave up their feeling-seeing-hearing ghost to a 24/7 smartphone addiction. I saw it happen in 2020. People gave themselves over to a digital life and to a complete dependence on handheld machines. The Metaverse became their augmented reality encompassing relationships, work, shopping, and entertainment. They began to love their avatar as themselves.
In their quest for not-having-to-think autonomy, people became automatons. They learned from the XYZists that independent thought was dangerous. It was discouraged and censored as not being inclusive or as “racist” or not XYZ. Not thinking began to be believed as freedom from punishment-incurring ‘wrong’ thoughts. What you were to think came from a smartphone that you kept with you 24/7.
The XYZists were happy to give people their ‘freedom’ and to do the thinking for them. With the ruse of a public health crisis in 2020, they instituted a biotech process to reprogram the masses. They began with mandating DNA and RNA-modifying COVID vaccines. They had their reasons for doing so – population control and remaking people into their godless image.
The XYZists and their minions hate people. That is why they are never happy or satisfied with the human race. They must redo creation. They must rid the earth of the excess and neutralize what is left behind.
Since the XYZists hate everything that doesn’t reflect their own words and thoughts, challenging them meant you were a “Supremist”. Not responding to them in kind meant you were “racist”. The XYZists had their own published style guide to be used in their presence. If they considered you to be a “supremist” or a “racist” or a “bigot”” or a “XYZistaphobe” then you would receive “social justice”. Force, aka mandates, is used against those who resist the XYZist societal transformation and the New World they espouse.
So, they began to use vaccines to cull a significant portion of the population and to modify those who survived. They used biotechnology to produce people that they might abide. And that meant turning those humans into Uh-huhs. The non-thinkarians quickly submitted to authoritarian XYZists out of fear for their WIFI streaming lives. The XYZists tell people what to fear and what not to fear. They use rollover-and-play-nice psyops to get people to comply.
These days I can never be sure if I am talking to the actual person or to an app controlling their thoughts. So, I test them: I say “Jesus is Lord”. If they look at me blankly, I know they have given themselves over to an app.
*****
Ever since the latest burst of electromagnetic radiation – a sun burp or manmade the weekly public affairs program Mask the Nation wouldn’t say –it’s been Halloween. Mindless ghouls and zombies with vacant stares walk the streets. These had submitted to vaccines during the years of TransMandates.
The vaccine cocktails included modified RNA, Luciferase enzyme and graphene oxide nanoparticles -GONPs. Graphene is highly conductive and anxiolytic. So, the freakish and fuddled, who glow blue at night from the bioluminescent Luciferase, can’t find their way home and they don’t care. Their apps went haywire.
Following the vaccines, transcranial electromagnetic stimulation had been imposed on most of the world’s population. Brain chips were mandated by the Emergency Use Authority as a cure-all for mankind – as I said, the masses were viewed with fastidious disgust by XYZists. In the years following 2021, XYZists became members of the Central Life Oversight and Utilization Department or C.L.O.U.D.
TMS brain chips gave C.l.O.U.D. a read-write capability over neurons. The chips could probe and stimulate them. Democracy’s Last Hope Alliance, contracted by the EUA, monitors and modulates neuronal activity. Controlling the outcomes of the brain-chipped Appoids was the purview of DLHA and the EUA. After the EMP, they were working feverishly together to get their Appoids back inline again.
The G2G pass app implanted in Appoid brains told them where they could or could not go. Each Appoid was to check in with a smartphone photo during the day. But after EMPs things go bonkers sending the brain-chipped into spirals of confusion. The DLHA and the EUA rush to get new community organizing smartphones and new cats handed out.
The cats, you see, have been implanted with a camera, microphone and an app that reports back to DLHA the activities and conversations of the Appoids. But, the Catoids also go haywire after EMPs. The defective Catoids are scrapped and replaced by a DLHA C. A. T. unit – a Clean Account Transmission unit. I am not making this up.
*****
The World Truth Federation, C.L.O.U.D.’s central committee, keeps tabs on everyone except for us Blanks. Me and a few of my close friends claimed the “Blanks” label when COVID Compliance Officer Heinrich B. Smersch called the unvaccinated “blankety-blank fools” on Mask the Nation. “Blanks” you see, are off the radar.
“Blanks” blend in. We move through crowds of Appoids without being noticed. We hide in plain sight. We don’t call attention to ourselves. On my way to the lake and to Joes, I stumble around with a mask on and with my eyes glazed over. I wear dirty smelly clothes like the Appoids. And since there are C.L.O.U.D cameras and UniForce police everywhere I have to be careful. As a “Blank” I have never submitted to “the science”. I have to avoid getting close enough to a UniForce officer. He will scan me for Appoid status.
The ubiquitous presence of WTF surveillance is matched by the ubiquitous presence of souls that have converted to “the science”. Among these souls are the Appoid women of the Thought Temperance Union. They march down the street with signs that read “No Jab No Justice”. Their children, the ones who survived the vaccine’s miscarriage properties and survived abortions – their aborted fetal cells being used for vaccine testing and XYZist life-extension serums – panhandle for food money. And there is ever-present smell of death coming from “the science” converted.
*****
On my way home, I stop at Grocer Joes – a black market supplier. I trade Joe two of my Zero bars for another night of hot plate Spam. I use Joe’s Faraday-caged Crypto ATM for transaction privacy. The People’s IRS began monitoring all transactions in 2022.
I finish up and put my crypto wallet back into my military grade Faraday bag. I tip my hat to Joe and sign “later” and “one”. I head to over to Last Chance Pizza.
Melanie is waiting for me. We go into a back room. Melanie signs “tonight” and “One”. I sign “Yes” and 6 Mil”. We hug and I head home.
6 Mil is the guy who lives across the hall from me. I gave him the name because he has so many bionic parts that he reminded me of the Six Million Dollar man. His brain chip was fried by solar storms. He didn’t opt for a new chip so he was fired from the UniForce. 6 Mil lets me in the back door and I invite him in for Spam.
You’ll need some backstory at this point.
*****
Back in 2021, one would have thought that ministers and priests would have alerted their congregations to the evil that was being sown around them. But they kept giving their people the soy milk of the word.
Many of the faithful in 2021, who lived on a thin margin of faith, began to unload their faith. They didn’t have to imagine what would happen to them if they didn’t mask and vax up. So, they submitted to the authorities by calling it Biblical to do so. Their faith was easy pickings. The State swooped down and grabbed it up. These now attend Our Lady of Perpetual COVID.
There were those faithful who didn’t have much of a faith history to fall back on. They heard gospel things and spoke up, making all kinds of noise about the evil going on. But under public scrutiny they folded and bowed to the self-proclaimed gods of the State, rendering to them everything demanded of them.
There were those who fell in with Progressives. Their faith was quickly choked. For, Progressives have an overpowering bent toward social justice gospel.
Then there were the five. Those I am aware of “five”. We meet secretly, two or three at a time. How did I come across the others? More backstory is needed.
*****
Ever since I turned sixty-nine in 2021 there has been a voice inside me that tells me to not resist and to just retreat. “Just go along and finish your life. Do what they say. Sit on your patio, smell the cut grass, feel the sun, look back on what you’ve accomplished, feel safe, don’t stress, forget about conflict.” But another voice is telling me “I go where I will. I’ll show you what needs to be done.”
In 2021 I was stirred by the second voice. I began to memorize Scripture. After I memorized The Gospel According to Mark, I started to go out to street corners and recite it out loud. I had to recite and walk so that I was wasn’t considered to be loitering. I continue to do this today.
In the afternoons I go out, take off my mask and recite the Gospel of Mark out loud. There are many in the streets right now who have lost their app connections because of the EMP. Some have refused to be reconnected and are looking for a way out. So, I am able to connect with souls and not just app personifications.
What you may find interesting is that when I am reciting the gospel out loud, the UniForce doesn’t notice me. Angels come between me and them so that the good news gets out.
Then there were five. Over the course of the past year four have begun to follow Christ. They are Joe, Melanie, Violet and 6 Mil. I have discipled each of them. Tonight, we are coming together for 6 Mil’s baptism.
We hold baptisms at Jemison Lake after midnight. We put blue glow sticks under out shirts to throw off the Uniforce and the surveillance drones. We use sign language until we are sure we are alone.
Since 2020, electronic gizmos have been implanted into brains and bloodstreams. Nature and society have been repackaged into a simulated environment. Virtual reality replaces realism. Life has become a bizarro graphic novel . . . except for a few minutes by the lake.
*****
You ask about me? My current name is Lena. I was baptized in my eleventh year. I lost my job in my sixty-ninth year because of the vaccine mandate. Nine years later my body is fragile and my faith solid
I can’t bear to see the destruction all around me. I can’t bear hearing the anguished cries of the souls who gave their lives to “the science”. But I can’t ignore any of it either. These were once fully human, so they must long for healing. And, they must want justice for what’s been done to the human race.
2030 and the science has settled. Its putrid tasting film lays on my tongue. Humans have been sacrificed for “the science”. But MATTERS aren’t settled yet. Wait and see.
Episode_1299 You are in danger of becoming a debt slave Dr. Betsy McCaughey, Dr. James Poulos, Dr. Peter Navarro, Joe AllenEpisode_1336 Jam for Freedom tour discuss censorship with SG Cheah and talk with Dr. Wolf on her new platform with GETTR.
Ivermectin has been used in humans for 35 years and over 4 billion doses have been administered. Merck, the original patent holder, donated 3.7 billion doses to developing countries. In 2015 the two individuals who developed Ivermectin were awarded a Nobel Prize for medicine.
In his current state, it might take years for Vic to recover his right mind. He’s been flaying around and mumbling the whole time in the back seat of my car. His mind, no longer aware of surroundings, seemed to be in a state of virtual reality. And that is the reason for the all-night drive.
I was told to not bring a phone or any electronic device with me. I was given a hand-drawn map with sketched landmarks to direct me once I left Highway 16.
Down the backroads, I questioned what I saw. Those Aspens by a fence – is that what’s shown here? Was that the rock formation I was supposed to turn at? Where are the three lone towering Ponderosa Pines? Is that the field of wildflowers I drive alongside?
After two hours I found myself at a huge rock formation that jutted out northward per the “N” on my map. According to the sketch, an Indian would be there waiting for me. What happens now?
Out from behind a rock came the Indian. He came over to my car and looked inside. When he saw Vic, he shook his head. He looked at me, pointed to himself and said “Notah”. He asked me if I had any electronic devices. I assured him that I didn’t. He told me to follow his pickup truck.
After driving an hour or so, somewhere around Bighorn National Forest, we drove up to the off-the-grid Fire and Flame Human Refuge. Notah helped me walk Vic to the door of the lodge. A petite older woman came out and helped me walk Vic inside. I turned to thank Notah but he was gone.
Inside, there was pine wood everywhere. I felt I had returned to summer camp. A door swung open and the room filled with the aroma of baked corn bread . . . and chili?
With the woman’s help, I brought Vic into the Great Room. I settled him in an arm chair that faced outside. A field of wild flowers was in view. In the distance, fir tree-skirted mountains. Vic put out his hand and began twitching his thumb as if flicking a TV remote button.
There must have been twenty-five people in the Great Room. Catatonic people.
Sharon introduced herself. She was the one who had helped me with Vic. I learned that she managed the refuge. I asked about the people in the Great Room.
“Do you see that woman standing by the window?” Sharon pointed.
“Yes.”
“That is Marisa. She is not looking at the wilderness in front of her. She sees only her reflection in the glass. Up till now Marisa has spent most of her time taking selfies and posting them on social media.”
“What about that man who seems to be constantly scrolling with his finger?”
“Before Bill came here, he was constantly checking social media pages for updates. He developed the scrolling-finger habit as part of a social-validation feedback loop. Dopamine was released into his brain when someone liked or commented on something he posted. Right now, he’s in withdrawal from the social-validation feedback of dopamine.”
“What about that teenage girl over there? The one with the wide-eyed look?” I asked.
“Myra was brought here by her mother. She had isolated herself from her family. She spent hours of the day on social media. Myra has a fear of missing out. It is a common phenomenon for teens to want to be socially connected. Technology offers a non-stop social-validation feedback loop. A teenager, fearing the possibility of social alienation, goes online constantly for validation.
Myra developed a sleep disorder after staying up all night texting. Her school work suffered. She developed poor eating habits and gained weight. The negative effects of her social media interface made her depressed, angry and less social. Technology presents teenagers with a false sense of relational security while ignoring those in the same house.”
“Is that young boy here for the same reason?” I nodded my head in the boy’s direction.
“Yes, similar reasons. His father brought him here. John was online playing games for hours and hours. His father asked him to spend time with him outside – play catch, go fishing. But John refused. Like Myra’s social-validation obsession, when John didn’t play or interact with the games, he thought he was missing out. His father could see that John was missing out on life, so he brought him here.”
“What about that older couple sitting in the arm chairs?”
“They are Jim and Sally. Their close friends brought them here. They were very concerned for them. They told me that Jim and Sally would get up in the morning, turn on the TV and listen for the weather forecast. They would leave the TV on the rest of the day and sit and listen to the world’s take on things and the advertised solution: problem, problem, problem, cure; problem, problem, problem, cure; problem, cure; day and night.
By their friend’s account, Jim and Sally had become terrified, angry and even despairing by what they heard. Honestly, that’s what Noise does to people. C’mon. Let’s listen to them for a moment . . .”
“Jim, you are a racist.”
“We both are Sally. They said so.”
“They’re telling us that we could die from cancer or climate change or COVID or the guy in the White House if we don’t do something.”
“How about we just die, Sally, and be done with the whole business?”
“Now Jim. We should listen to them. They know better than us. They’ve told us so many times that we can’t trust our own thinking . . .”
“I am glad their friend brought them here,” Sharon said. “They needed relief from the Noise . . . At Fire and Flame, we don’t give people sedatives. We give them space to work out their salvation.”
Sharon then asked me why I brought Vic to Fire and Flame.
“Vic has been a friend of mine since high school. We hung around each other and kidded each other all the time. But then things changed when he got devices. He was no longer present with me or to anyone, really. It seemed to me and his other friends that Vic was using technology to avoid us. He talked incessantly about what this and that could do.
Vic’s other friends gave up on Vic. They had come to find out that Vic had spent large portions of his paycheck on new devices. He bragged about the new devices until one day he came to one of his friends and asked him for a loan. Vic wasn’t able to pay the mortgage. He had to borrow money. But that wasn’t the breaking point for Vic.
I heard from a friend that Vic wanted to join me at the Remnant camp to escape the COVIDians. Two people had come to his door and asked him for his Vax papers. Vic learned the reason they came to his door: they had been monitoring him through his devices. He didn’t have Vax papers because he refused to be vaccinated.
The two COVIDians declared Vic “unsafe’ and told him that he was banned from the Internet, email and online accounts. They took away his phone, laptop and internet connection. They wrote his name down on a ledger and said they would be back the next day.
I relayed back to Vic that he could come to the Remnant camp but he would have to go to Fire and Flame first.”
As I was talking to Sharon, Vic got out of his chair and began walking around the Great Room. He was again flaying his arms and mumbling to himself.
“When they first come here,” Sharon said, “they are agitated.” They haven’t been used to having their hands free. They are restless, hyperactive, and full of nervous energy. They cannot tolerate a sense of boredom and look for highly stimulating activity. They walk around and say and do things and are unaware of the effect they have on others. It will take time for Vic to become focused and to stay focused on reality.
“Fire and Flame . . .?”
“Fire and Flame is a portal to a world away from the constant pinging of digital devices. The Dark Forces of this world produce relentless Noise. It is meant to unsettle and distract you from The Message. Here, there is Signal not Noise.”
“Message? Signal?” I asked.
“You will find out tonight.” Sharon replied. “C’mon I’ve prepared a room for you. You can rest before dinner.”
****
A bell rang. We were summoned to dinner and I was again reminded of summer camp. I got up, splashed some water on my face, got dressed and headed down the hallway.
The dining room was another pine-paneled Great Room: floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides and a fireplace. Twenty-four pine-wood tables filled the room.
When everyone had gathered and were seated, Sharon asked “Evangelist Mark” to please ask the Lord’s blessing on the meal. Evangelist Mark stood up and prayed the blessing on the cornbread, chili, salad and the lemonade (what I used to call “bug juice” in my camp days). Odd how the past and present comingle and not just in my dreams.
I looked around the room. Six people sat at each table. And though so many filled the Great Room, there was little chatter. I saw many somber faces. Some stared off and ate, unaware that others were sitting across from them. Others fidgeted with their silverware and played with their food. A few were animated and tried talking to those around them but received no response.
Sharon sat down and gave a big sigh. She and her helpers had made sure everyone had food before sitting down. “How’s the food?”
“Delicious! The aromas had made me when I came in this morning,” I replied. “Is that Bach I hear in the background?
“Yes. Bach is the sound of redemption. It is particularly effective in helping to balance our brains between dissonance and consonance. The mind is then able to focus and attain deep concentration. This enables an inner quickening of the imagination, creativity, memory and intuition.”
Across the table from the two of us sat Joe. Sharon asked Joe to tell me why he had come to Fire and Flame.
“Well,” Joe began, “. . . a 5G network. I was told that it was the bee’s knees. They said it was designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. With it, I was to be almost omniscient – aware of everyone and everything through a mobile ecosystem.
But using it day after day I found myself thinking about the device and what it wanted me to be aware of and wanted me to do next. I had become connected to an impersonal object that was directing my life with its AI. I was fooling myself – actually, I was subverting myself – pretending to be aware and to be in control of my life.
“That’s what brought me here. The addiction to being omniscient and to controlling things was intense. I spent most of my time working the device. I was doing apps, pushing buttons – nonstop! I finally asked myself “Why does my heart tell me to think like this? Inside my head . . . it was like John Cage music playing over and over.
One day I heard of Fire and Flame from a neighbor who was fleeing the COVIDian and Woke persecutions. He said that he was going to the Remnant camp. One night I left everything behind when his car showed up. He drove me here.”
Joe ended his account with a smile.
“Jennifer,” Sharon leaned over. “This afternoon Vic broke into my office. He was looking for a device to get on the internet. I have none. Then he started breaking into cars and trucks looking for a way to connect and found nothing. Then he ran into the woods. Notah found him and brought him back.”
“Vic may try again tonight. If he does Notah will follow him. No one is a prisoner here. We understand it’s a major struggle to be free from Noise. Notah will ask if he wants to return. If not, he will take Vic to a bus stop many miles away from here.
“We are a refuge for humans. We can’t help trans-humans, if that is what Vic wants. They are wired for Noise. We are to live as humans, we are to love. Trans-humans cannot live, cannot love. They only obey digital prompts and inputs.”
****
At twilight, the group from dinner came down to the fire pit. We sat down on the semi-circle of logs around the bonfire. The sun had gone down behind the horizon of mountains and no longer gilded their peaks.
Above us, in the blue-to-black July sky, a conjunction of terrestrial objects – Venus, Mars and the moon. They were easily visible. Venus shone brighter and slightly below the red planet. The familiar moon was making its circuit below.
Across that cosmic vista came a silhouette of a black whirring object. And then another. Sharon leaned over and told me “They are the regime’s Charon drones. They are keeping an eye on us. The regime and the people of the Noise are terrified of the people of the Signal”.
At that moment, a young boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, got up and stood next to the fire. He began . . .
Psalm 1
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees . . .
The boy recited the Psalm from memory. He sat down and then an older woman – a grandmother? – got up. She began to recite Psalm 61 from memory . . .
Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy . . .
When she had finished, a teenage girl stood up and recited Psalm 104 from memory . . .
Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers . . .
When she had finished, she sat down. Each of them had recited their Psalm as a dramatic reading. The words came from their soul.
The drones, now four of them, blotted out starlight as they hovered and circled. I looked around. Was I the only one who noticed them?
Someone yelled “Evangelist Mark! Give us the Good News!” More joined the call.
A man, fiftyish, got up. He took off his glasses and handed them to Sharon. (I learned later that they were husband and wife.) He covered her with a blanket.
The night air had become chilly. More wood was thrown onto the bonfire. People huddled together under blankets. Faces became animated with the fluctuating glow of the roaring fire. All eyes were on Evangelist Mark.
This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son . . .
I recognized the words from the opening of The Gospel According to Mark.
“A shout goes up in the desert; make way for the Lord! Clear a straight path for him! . . .” . John the Baptizer appeared in the desert . . . “Someone a lot stronger than me is coming close behind” . . . This is how it happened . . .After John’s arrest, Jesus came in to Galilee, announcing God’s good news. “The time is fulfilled! God’s kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!” . . .When the sun went down and evening came, they brought to Jesus everyone who was ill, all who were demon possessed . . .
Jesus went back to Capernaum . . . a crowd gathered with the result that people couldn’t even get near the door as he was telling them the message . . . A party arrived: four people carrying a paralyzed man, bringing him to Jesus. They couldn’t get through to him because of the crowd, so they opened up the roof above where he was . . . they used ropes to let down the stretcher the paralyzed man was lying on. Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralyzed man, “Child, your sins are forgiven!” . . .
Evangelist Mark, from memory, continued his dramatic narration of the whole gospel to its conclusion . . .
When Jesus was raised, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first of all to Mary Magdalene . . . Later Jesus appeared to the eleven . . . he told them off for their unbelief and hardheartedness . . . “Go into all the world and announce the message to all creation” . . . When the Lord Jesus had spoken with them, he was taken up into heaven, and sat down at God’s right hand. They went out and announced the message everywhere. The Lord worked with them, validating their message by the signs that accompanied them.
For over an hour, the fireside group sat captivated by The Message. When Evangelist Mark sat down, someone in the group began singing. Then others joined:
If we die with him, we shall live with him;
If we endure patiently, we shall reign with him;
If we deny him, he will deny us:
If we are faithless, he remains faithful. For he cannot deny his own self.
While they sang, I looked for Vic. Then I saw him leaning against a tree, back from the group. Shadows came and went across him, as many began walking back to their rooms. Was that a sparkle of belief in his eyes? Was that the glistening of a tear?
Sharon and her husband Tom – “Evangelist Mark” – walked me back to the refuge rooms. I was tired. Tomorrow I would make the long drive back to the Remnant Camp and to people of the Signal there. Sharon told me that Notah would help me ditch the drones. He knew when they came and went. He could tell by their noise.
“Episode_1093 The people aren’t waiting politicians to save them anymore, and we discuss the effects of the vaccine.”“Episode_10979 Our military is being weakened and Christian churches are under attack in Canada”
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Who is Dr. Malone?
*****
Informed Dissent:
Camilla Canepa was operated on by Gianluigi Zona, director of the neurosurgical and neuro-traumatological clinic of the San Martino hospital: “I had never seen a brain that was affected by such an extensive and severe thrombosis.” . . .
The girl arrived in the emergency room in the Lavagna hospital on June 3, just a week after the AstraZeneca shot. She had complained of severe headaches.
Just yesterday I saw a van pull into our apartment building parking lot. The van was white with big block letters on the side: COMMUNITY CARE. And beneath, Wellness Starts and Ends with You! Above the van was a swarm of police helicopters.
Five figures got out of the van. They were covered head to toe in chemical hazard PPE. Each carried a canister with a hose and nozzle attached. I thought What the heck is this? Are these guys the new pest control? There must be some huge cockroaches! I watched as they entered my building.
Through my door’s peephole I could see them knocking on the door of my neighbor’s first-floor apartment. The door opened and a hand came out. A bony finger pointed at my door. What is going on?
Then I heard a knock. I opened slightly and said “Can I help you?” The hazmat suit answered, “I am Inspector Lazarus, head of COMMUNITY CARE. I want to talk to you.” Hazmat guy then stuck his cannister into the door opening.
“What do you want?” I asked trying to push the cannister out the door with my foot.
“Didn’t you see the notice posted in the lobby?”
“What notice?”
One of the hazmat suits ripped a yellow paper from the bulletin board and handed it to Inspector Lazarus.
“The rule is simple”, Lazarus read, “get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.” He handed me the paper. “You sir, are out of compliance according to your neighbor! Step aside!”
Hazmat pushed the door open and sprayed me with some acrid smelling mist. Four hazmat suits followed him in.
I yelled “Stop!” but the four hazmat suits began spraying down my apartment. One in my bedroom, one in my bathroom, one in my kitchen and one in my living room. I headed toward the bedroom.
“Back off!” Inspector Lazarus grabbed my arm. “Let them do their job!”
“The job of what, may I ask?”
“Community care and wellness,” Inspector Lazarus replied. “Our records show that you have not been vaccinated.”
“There’s no law that says I have to.”
“Ah, but there are regulations. Public health must be regulated. And what will your neighbors think if you do not obey the simple rule, Mr. Jones?”
“My neighbors can think what they like.”
“Ah, but that’s where you are wrong, Mr. Jones. Community wellness includes peace of mind.”
“Then tell them that I . . . Look! I’m healthy! . . . I just had my yearly physical. I’m in perfect health! My blood pressure is low, my cholesterol is low, my . . .my doctor will prescribe Ivermectin if I have symptoms.”
“Is your doctor a Wellness doctor, Mr. Jones?” Lazarus tightened his grip on my arm.
“A what?” “What is that horrible stuff they’re spraying?
“Mr. Jones, this is a public health matter. Not just any doctor . . . It’s what you don’t know that will hurt you, Mr. Jones! That’s why the National Public Health Recovery & Rebuild Administration was created and given plenary power of public health. You must choose a doctor on their list. It’s that simple.”
“What’s simple is that I have a doctor. I’ve known him for years.”
“If your doctor passes the NPHRRA certification program then he can put a Wellness sign on his door and web page. If not, you will have to choose from the list. Here’s doctor Smoltz. See him this afternoon. I made an appointment for you.” Inspector Lazarus held up his phone and showed me the screen.
Right then a hazmat suit walked up with my laptop, phone and my handguns. Through the window I saw my car being towed away.
“Hey, you have no right!”
No cause for alarm, Mr. Jones. We are taking precautions as part of the NPHRRA proactive initiatives. We remove anything that may cause future harm. We are to Build Back Better, as they say.””
“You have no right! I’ll take you to court!”
“What are you going to do, Mr. Jones? Go all Supreme Court on me? Listen! The courts are comprised of cooperating judges. They are accountable to NPHRRA and not to the law and certainly not to that thing called The Constitution. What does it say about public health science? Nothing!”
“Get the hell out of my apartment!”
“Calm down Mr. Jones. There’s no cause for alarm. You’ll get your things back when you comply with the simple rule. Oh, and we have detained your sister until you do.”
“What the hell?! You can’t do that!”
“Public health is a matter of national security, Mr. Jones. How can your neighbor Mrs. Niblock feel secure if you are not complying with a simple rule?”
“She can mind her own business to feel secure!”
Now, here’s what’s in store for you Mr. Jones. You are to be confined to your home until further notice. I will come back tomorrow. If you have not visited Dr. Smoltz and haven’t worn your mask you will be publicly censored by the community. Your name will appear in the press.”
“I don’t have a car now. How could I even get to this Dr. Smoltz?”
“Use this NPHRRA approved phone to call the NPHRRA approved Uber to get you to the appointment. Oh, and another thing. If you do not comply with the simple rule, your rent will increase and you will be forced to pay state and federal VAX taxes.”
“This is insane! This Is not fair!”
“Mr. Jones, please! The NPHRRA operates under the direction of the Center for Progress Control. NPHRRA’s mission is to enforce health equity —embed equity in practice, process, action, innovation, and organizational performance and outcomes; build alliances and share power via meaningful engagement; ensure equity in innovation for marginalized and minoritized people and communities; push upstream to address all determinants of health; and foster truth, reconciliation, racial healing, and transformation.
When you are vaccinated, Mr. Jones, you will be given a CPC ID card. The card will provide access to all benefits and functions approved by the NPHRRA. The card will remain valid as long as you follow CPC/NPHRRA guidelines. See. There is no cause for alarm. It’s that simple, Mr. Jones.”
With that, the hazmat suits left. I opened my windows. The sharp-tasting air made me sick. The whole business made me furious.
I had no way to contact anyone. When I finally decided to leave the apartment, I saw Mrs. Niblock wagging her finger at me through from her apartment window. I wanted to give her the finger but I thought better of myself. I walked over to my neighbor Jennifer and told her what had happened. We came up with a plan.
When COMMUNITY CARE came back the next day – hazmat suits and helicopters, I told Inspector Lazarus that I would see Dr. Smoltz that afternoon. I had made a new appointment. I told Lazarus that I was afraid the day before but now I was willing to comply with the simple rule. I even put a mask on to take out the garbage that morning so that Mrs. Niblock would see and report it to Lazarus.
Then, I pulled Lazarus aside and offered him $5000.00 dollars to have my sister released immediately. I showed him the money. He took it and called to have her released.
“Mr. Jones, I am happy to hear that you are willing to comply. As our motto states Wellness Starts and Ends with You! I didn’t want wellness to be the end of you.
Anyway, Mr. Jones, this isn’t about you or me. This is about salvation itself. Dr. Smoltz will report back to me. So, there should be no further cause for alarm.”
When the helicopters and the COMMUNITY CARE van left, that was the signal for Jennifer. She drove to a side street a block away from the apartment building. That morning she had packed up her things and put them in the car. I carried all the things I could and snuck out the patio door so as to be out of Mrs. Niblock’s sight. I placed my things in Jennifer’s car.
We left town that morning. On the way out we bought some burner phones. We drove by my sister’s house and gave one to her. We told her to leave town. Then we drove all day and night to a remote location. We joined the others, The Remnant, who had fled “community care”.
That location shall remain unnamed. Who knows who may be reading this?
It was recommended via email to Fauci that they limit lockdowns and isolations to only the 60+ crowd and other vulnerable populations to minimize disruption to society.
Netherlands 🇳🇱 Dutch Politician Thierry Baudet drops some massive Covid19 Truth bombs. This is what risking it all looks like, listen as he hammers home cold, hard undeniable facts. One of the best rants I've seen. Simply Epic. Long Live Freedom 👊 pic.twitter.com/wudess28L0
— ✖️RISE✖️ OR ✖️DIE✖️ (@altern8ending) June 5, 2021
The following took place during my thirteenth year . . .
A week before Christmas Day, a gaggle of us self-conscious teenagers loaded into three cars. We headed to Elgin State Hospital, formerly called the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane. Our church’s youth group leader had decided that, in the spirit of Christmas, his charges should bring hope and joy to the less fortunate.
Four of us sat bunched together in the back seat of one of the cars. We kidded each other about who was the crazier. We cackled and fidgeted and sniffed the mimeographed sheets of Christmas Carols and became giddier. None of us knew what to expect. “But for the grace of God” is all I heard the youth group leader say before I got in the car.
The high school senior driving our car asked us if we wanted to hear about “Elgin State.” We became quiet and ready to squeal like when the four of us sat at a campfire last summer. Jeff slowly spun out his words and waited for our reaction.
“They say the place is . . . haunted … horrific experiments had been performed there . . . spirits of the unclaimed dead walk the cemetery grounds and, . . . in the buildings, . . . the criminally insane live there.”
It didn’t take much. Jeff’s description of Elgin State and the winter wind that howled through Jeff’s rusted-out car gave us goose bumps. I wound and unwound the pretty purple printed sheets. Lise snapped her gum. Mary kicked the front seat and Joan kept biting her nails.
The three cars drove through the front entrance and down a long driveway towards the largest brick building I had ever seen. I suddenly felt out of place. I saw no signs of Christmas anywhere.
We parked along the front of the building. The youth group leader led our group of sixteen through the front door. He announced us at the front desk. Soon an older gentleman came down the stairs.
Dr. I-Forget-His-Name was bald and wore thick-rimmed glasses. In his white lab coat, he looked like the mad scientist I’d seen in a movie that I wasn’t supposed to watch but watched anyway at a friend’s house. Up close, I could see small blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. Whispering to Lise, I wondered if that is what happened when you work here. I tried not to stare when he escorted the group upstairs.
On the second floor he directed us to a double-door entrance. We walked through it. The room before us was bigger than any church sanctuary I had been in. There were large windows along the length of the room. They were foggy, providing a pale spectral light. None of the patients stood near them.
There were no curtains around the windows. There were no pictures on the walls, no paintings, and no Christmas tree or decorations. The furniture, wooden chairs and tables, was scattered around the room on the dull linoleum floor. The hall seemed soulless and indifferent toward the fifty gowned inmates within it.
The patient’s voices, moans, yelps, and shrieks sounded like they were coming out from a deep cave. Many sat staring off blankly. Some of them bobbed their head endlessly. Those who walked around seemed content to be walking in no specific direction. Our appearance at the double-door made no difference to them.
We gathered in two rows just inside the doorway and began signing Jingle Bells. Our voices reverberated and then seemed to go off somewhere. Our captive audience didn’t stir. We followed with Silent Night. There were a couple of moans of recognition. Then we sang The First Noël.
The First Noel the angels did say Was to certain poor shepherds In fields as they lay In fields where they Lay keeping their sheep On a cold winter’s…
Out from the hallway behind us came a naked man. He began shouting and writhing right in front of us. One of the girls shrieked. The patients whooped and hollered.
Two men with white coats tried to grab the man. But he squirmed and threw them off again and again. He jumped and shouted and flung his arms right in front of us. He wanted to be right in front of us.
More white coats came to help. They surrounded the man and subdued him. He was dragged from the room.
It took a few minutes for our youth group leader to get us back to singing. When we did, we kept looking behind us to see what was next. But nothing happened after that.
When we finished singing our host escorted us down stairs. At the door, he thanked us for coming. On the way home we had a lot to talk about. Jeff said nothing.
That night I told my parents about my experience at Elgin State. Father said he was reminded of the Gadarene demoniac. Mom said “That poor man.”
Two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, I was allowed to stay up late. I sat with my father as he watched the newsman recap what had happened in 1965. Something was said about demonstrations and Vietnam and The Great Society. But I sat there thinking about “that poor” wild “man” in Elgin State. He sure reacted to The First Noël.
Perhaps we have become characters in a David Lynch movie. Odd nightmarish dream sequences are occurring one after another. A surreal ethos is surfacing from the subconscious of the Blue Planet producers.
Dream-like logic, flickering lights, blurred lines, a maze of curtains, chthonic characters, dual personalities, personifications of pure evil, noxious nihilism . . . things are not just a little off in the production of Blue Planet.
Blue Planet production and itsDay 45 oftheBaghdad-style ‘Green Zone’ occupation perimeterset up in Washington DC. (Why is DC occupied by troops? Why is DC locked down? No one in the Biden Regime will say. Maybe the White House is afraid that its dementia patient will wander off.)
Within the Blue Planet production, reality is metamorphosed into a fantastical gender spectrum where curves are flattened but cases of gender identity grow . . .
“Don’t use phrases such as ‘boys and girls,’ ‘you guys,’ ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ and similarly gendered expressions to get kids’ attention.” The handout was part of an effort to educate teachers and administrators about transgender issues, educators told the Lincoln Journal Star. – Normalization, Indoctrination & Degenderization Are Sweeping The Nation | coreysdigs.com
Within the Blue Planet drama nothing makes sense: 2+ 2 does not equal 4, being required to show proofs is racist and no one is to be held accountable except for whites. (Apparently, for Blue Planet producers, individual bits 0 or 1 are racist and you don’t have to file anything with the SEC if you are a public company.)
“White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions,” a lesson from the group says. “Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.”
As in any psychological horror film noir,Blue Planet producers want you to experience fear, come back for more, and then move into an “acceptance phase” of their contrived reality:
These same Blue Planet producers do not want you to be afraid of the human avalanche occurring at our southern border nor of the cartels that profit tremendously from the smuggling of illegals . . .
And, carry Vax Passports and accept HR’s “Reasonable Management Instruction”
Blue Planet producers want to normalize blackouts for their dream sequences:
Texas is experiencing what California has – with California affecting the entire Western Interconnection due to its policies. Blackouts are a feature of the push to have more unreliable renewables on the grid. Must pay $$ for reliable backup w/ renewables 10/10
The Blue Planet production employs the motifs of purges and show trials, recurrent characters such as the stupor-addled Biden, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” Lavrentiy Beria, and the SJW Karens of the world. Of course, clapping is required at all times.
When you sleep, you don’t control your dreams. Enter the Blue Planet, producers of magic realism to control your dreams. But, what good is a Blue Planet dream production if you keep waking up and look around? The Blue Planet producers ban all daylight from their dream theaters by using a mind-altering “glitch” in their production algorithms . . .
Blue Planet producers want to control everything . . .
Episode 746 – Christianity- the Secular Left’s Next Real Target
Added 2-23-2021:
Democrats stole the election. Along with the main stream media they made this doofus the leader of the free world. What does that say about the thieves, the media, and the voter? What does that say about the social media techies of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et al. covering for this idiocy?
What do their actions mean for the direction of this country?
Blue Planet Producers (and the Lavender Mafia) have no problem abusing children (but never the planet or animals) for their production. Here’s a Blue Planet chthonic character advocating for just that . . .
The opening of the poem The Agony by George Herbert speaks of the modern way of knowing: the rational scientific mode (“philosophers” = natural philosophers). Herbert says there is so much more to take into account; there is so much more to knowing. He seeks to balance, heal and re-inform our ways of knowing. To radically transform our ways of knowing, Herbert invites us to turn to Christ at the intersection of sin and love – Christ’s Passion.
Closer to home, have you noticed that churches have ways of presenting sin and love? There are churches that speak about sin and damnation. They are ready to point out sin and make love conditional. And, there are churches that speak of unconditional love and inclusion while making sin conditional. Herbert reminds us that transcendent love can only be fully understood when we come to a knowledge of our sin and the meaning of cross.
The Agony
Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.
Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through ev’ry vein.
Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 
Shelf Life
January 16, 2022 Leave a comment
(Begin recording)
Ahem . . .
A dust collecting barge circling the globe is not the most exciting life. And, when I say “circling the globe”, I don’t mean chugging down Amsterdam canals one week and slogging down Bangkok Klongs the next. I mean orbiting the globe.
Dealing with circumplanetary dust – comet dust, asteroidal dust, interstellar dust, floating paint chips, and the like–is my business. I’m the street sweeper of cosmic dust. I leave the large objects, the meteoroids and minimoons, for others.
At last count there are about 35,000 pieces of debris and over 12,000 satellites in orbit around the earth. And, despite requirements for satellite deorbit and disposal, the junk continues to escalate.
And, when I say “my business” I mean my punishment. I was exiled by a group I call MASK – Massive Administrative State KGB. MASK is a conglomeration of bureaucrats under principalities and powers.
MASK insurrectionists took over on November 3rd, 2020. That was the day democracy was denied There were no lawful elections held after that day. The Committee for Democracy Security comprised of big tech, big pharma, and White House personnel made sure of that.
In the year following the November 3rd insurrection, MASK instituted the Four Vexations Campaign. The four vexations -the unvaxxed, climate change deniers, Christians, and cosmic dust – are said by MASK to severely threaten public health
I was exiled into space because I vexed MASK all four ways. I was never willing to be vaxxed, so I became an outcast. I refused to pay the fine for not owning an EV, so I became a climate change criminal. I inaugurated the worldwide Christ the King Day, so I was charged with sedition, and by default, I am cosmic dust.
Delores, my wife, turned me in to MASK agents at Krocer’s. I just happened to sneak into the store without a mask. I was in aisle five looking for taco sauce. As I surmised later, masked Delores was in the produce department flirting with the masked produce guy Joey.
Joey touted the latest store promotion to Delores: “Turn in the unvaxxed and receive a month’s food ration from Krocer’s and five credit score points”.
So, Delores received a month’s food ration at MASK-approved Krocer’s after serving me up. How would you like to learn that after forty years of marriage you are worth thirty days of food? Our marriage was banished to the dust bin of history.
Now, when I say “my wife turned me in” I mean she was not alone. When I refused vaccinations, a criminal risk assessment algorithm used my social credit score to determine the likelihood that I would be a repeat unvaxxer. On International COVID Justice Day I was pronounced “Guilty of Non-compliance with Rules 7 & 8 of the COVID Justice Code”. I was sentenced to orbit the earth until I vaxx or die.
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“Collection One to Base Two. Collection One to Base Two. I’m ready to dump this load.”
“Copy Collection One. Atmos7 will approach at 1300 hours SCET.”
“Copy Digitilissimo.”
The Base Two commander doesn’t like it when I call her Digitilissimo. She has made herself known to me in no uncertain terms: “I am a Latina. I am a woman of color, I am a mom, I am a cisgender millennial who’s been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder,” . . . “I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise.”
This woman is not qualified to run anything but she checks the boxes for her MASK bosses. That explains her “generalized anxiety disorder”.
Why the nickname Digitilissimo? The woman is no longer human. She has vaccine-delivered nano circuitry up the wazoo. I have her IP address.
*****
My dust barge Collection One is fitted with a huge microbe tank. There is a large intake/dump valve at one end. Inside the tank – genetically-edited dust eating microbes. When they eat their fill of cosmic dust particles, they poop out pellets. The pellets are then extruded into bars and then loaded onto disposal ships like Atmos 7.
Disposal ships take the cosmic debris a half a parsec or so away from our solar system. Then they shoot the load off toward the black hole Pōwehi, where it will be added into a swirl of dust, stars, gas, and visible light that circles the edge of the hole before being sucked inside.
For my grandkids who may someday hear this recording, the name Pōwehi or “embellished dark source of unending creation” came from an ancient Hawai’ian chant called Kumulipo or source of darkness. The chant describes the creation of the universe. Pōwehi is roughly 54 million light-years away from my dust trawler
Grandkids. How many now?
I hear nothing from anyone. I didn’t take Alphonse with me into space. Bringing a parrot into space would, of course, be a first. Imagine the mess! Sadly, MASK agents reprogrammed my parrot during my solitary confinement at Base Ten. Alphonse now repeats “Wear a mask” and “Get the jab”. There is another parrot on board.
The ship’s intercom repeats over and over again “Your individual choice affects everyone. Give up your individual rights and freedom for the greater good! Conform!”
The loop is part of the reprogramming technique used by the party. What party, you ask? The CCP – Committee for Conformity of Practice. The endless droning narrative is meant to “instill” into the subconscious a desire for behavioral change – submission to the CCP. So, I put on my unplugged headphones to block the blather. Another technique is isolation.
Beaglegeuse, my dog and right hand, I had to leave behind. MASK is now training him to sniff out the unvaccinated. I also had to resign my position in the Society for Acronym Suppression and Extinction. That’s S -A -S -E for the acronym dependent.
*****
Spending a year in microgravity, circling the Earth constantly at nearly 8km/s, really does change a person, not that I needed changing.
I am now over 6 feet tall. I am 3% taller than my earth height because my spinal disks are no longer compressed by gravity. My heart rate has increased to maintain blood pressure compensating for the 20% decrease in the volume of blood in my body. And, because I no longer need to fight gravity my muscles atrophy and osteoporosis will also occur.
Since I’m moving faster than my twin on earth, I will be younger than Emmett if I ever return to earth. That’s according to special relativity. According to MASK special relativity, Emmett may be in orbit trawling for dust soon. Last I heard, he was detained by MASK agents in a 7/Eleven. He was buying a roll of Lifesavers without wearing a mask.
There are things unchangeable about me. But now, in whirling exile, the unchangeable me is reached only by recall: I am rain in the forest – effervescent, beading, dripping onto the trail. I am wind that shakes the leaves into shivers. I am bursting cracking thunder. I am torrent, rippling, babbling, tranquil water. I am field of sunbathing sunflowers. I am blade of grass. I am dust and I am resistance in mega-ohms.
No, I am not a tree-hugging soy boy softie. If I was, I wouldn’t be floating in a hunk of metal sweeping up the long-decayed cometary trails and the remains of digital communication satellite collisions.
I don’t miss the digital world one bit. I hate logging in. I hate usernames, passwords, two-pass authentications. I hate network errors. I hate needing security software, firewalls, and VPNS. I hate the whole 64-bit process. I prefer paper and conversations and meeting actual people.
I hate streaming media. I hate the utter annoyance of commercials and clichés. I do miss Mystery Science Theater, however. I asked MASK for a regular MST broadcast but MASK took it personally and said “NO!”.
Anyway, I hate viewing life through a screen – authentication error! I hate digital images. I hate the pretense of significance the frame provides. And, why give your life to streaming bits and bytes? Why not climb K2 or hike the Appalachian Trail?
With the rise of mass media including the “internet of things”, madness has accelerated and deepened. Why the hell speed up and support the ultra-wide band of mass formation psychosis with 5GUW? In orbit, during the analog of my days devoid of digital diversion, I am able to think outside the data-streaming box. I can pray without unceasing noise.
In case you are wondering, I keep busy. Orbit is orbit, so, I don’t have to bother much with dials and buttons except to keep track of the barge’s dust level gauge. Day to day, beside getting taller and Gumby-like, I’m working on a transactional reality self-help book: I’m OK, You’re CONTROLLING.
The book focuses on the State-as-parent-citizen-as-child relationship. That unnatural bond is enforced by the MASK overloads in their pursuit for COVID justice. I provide insight as to how to throw off that unhealthy and even deadly co-dependency. Briefly, one creates a sphere of truth in a parallel society apart from the State.
The State, as my own account relates, is controlling and manipulative. Mother State, with its media teat, suckles citizens into dependence. Mother State’s milk supports perpetual adolescence, hence the Neverland of citizens that refuse to grow up.
The emotional abuse produced by the “Glorious Motherland”-State has several characteristics, as detailed in my book:
Big Mother doesn’t respect your boundaries.
Big Mother competes for your attention via State media.
Agents of Big Mother have an ON/OFF empathy switch that is used for their own ends – ON to cajole into submission, OFF to ignore your concerns; they appear caring in public and in private, cruel and unfeeling. Theirs is the Ministry of A PAT ON THE HEAD AND A KICK IN THE PANTS.
Agents of Big Mother want you to think you are crazy for not listening to them. To show that they ‘care’ they use shaming tactics such as enforcing mask mandates to get citizens to listen. Big Mother declares itself the Adult with “the science”. Citizens are posited as crude and ignorant test subjects.
Agents of Big Mother present themselves as victims, manipulating any situation to garner sympathy and support. Mother State uses existential threats to consolidate power.
Agents of Big Mother avoid personal accountability and use other people for their own ends.
A play – Death of a Dustman – is my next project. The play, soon to be autobiographical, ends with the last days of a dustman to provide comic relief for his family. The main character is a dust barge pilot who dies on board and then is eaten up by dust-eating microbes and then excreted out into space. The dustman’s remains reanimate on Jupiter’s moon Ganymeade and become an endoparasitoid lifeform that consumes mandators. The life form returns to earth to feed. The sulphury smell of the mandators makes them easy prey.
I’ll have Dale Arden – that’s my nickname for Betty – sneak these manuscripts and this recording back to earth. I’ll hook up with the ISS and Dale in a couple of months when my barge is restocked. Dale is not one of those Clay people that melt or blend into the background. She doesn’t wear the veneer of intersectionality. Dale is an adventurous, independent and beautiful woman. When I think of Dale, I hear Astor Piazzolla’s tango music. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that!
I have noted in my log book that every once in a while, out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark image flash by. The image is not in or outside the barge. It is somewhere to my right. I know that seeing this isn’t due to my time in space. I’ve seen the same fleeting dark images on earth. Dark forces are at work in the cosmos. Dark forces have joined forces with the self-proclaimed earth-gods. The Mother State feeds on Dark Power.
Earth-gods, you see, feed on the experience of power to charge the battery of their self-importance – their pride of life. Jesus was tempted to do the same. During forty days in the wilderness, Jesus, was offered a power ‘opportunity’ by the Satan. Jesus saw the psyop offer as an abuse of his power: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Now, how do you discern the humans from the earth-gods? Humans, with a notion of the transcendent, attach themselves to creative forces to multiply and flourish. Humans accept responsibility for their actions. Humans are capable of love which does not defame, entrap or hold hostage another.
The earth-gods, bound to their notion that man is just a clump of chemical-reaction-neuron-firing cells, attach themselves to power in order to replicate their deformed simulacrum of man in humans. The earth gods never accept responsibility. The earth gods instead blame others. The earth gods live in the moment, beyond judgement and shame. They choose power over love.
Because of the unchecked desire for unchecked power, the earth gods are wreaking havoc on earth. To wit: during 2022 a worldwide famine began which continues to kill millions. People can no longer find fresh drinking water because of the decay.
*****
I see that the dust level gauge is approaching overload. Looks like I have to wrap up this recording.
Remember grand-kiddos: the earth-gods are dust. They will experience the end of their power in a dust to dust and ashes to ashes recall.
The earth-gods resent the new creation. That is why I am in orbit and not on earth fighting the good fight. And that is why you must continue the Christ the King celebration. I want all Christians everywhere to take days off and celebrate Christ the King. I want there to be royal fanfares and parades, royal decrees, lavish feasts – food, wine, music, and dancing – with men and women in courtly costume, and fireworks.
When you dust a shelf, think of me. And when I say “think of me”, I mean . . .
Eeeeeeo Eeeeeeo Eeeeeeo Eeeeeeo
(End recording)
**
©Jennifer Ann Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2021, All Rights Reserved
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Episode 1560 – The Day the Bottom Fell Out of Biden’s Regime
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Informed Dissent:
Massive Study of 145 Countries Finds Huge Increase in Death Following Vaccinations – DailyVeracity
16,000 Physicians Agree – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)
We Are Watching The Mass Murder Of Millions Warns Dr. Malone In Exclusive Interview (freeworldnews.tv)
Jan. 04, 2022 – 14:04 – ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ host analyzes ‘completely irrational’ coronavirus policies.
Tucker: COVID lunacy will end in 2022 | Fox News Video
Denmark health chief says Omicron is about to END the pandemic — The Republic Brief
Unprecedented: Deaths in Indiana for ages 18-64 are up 40% (substack.com)
What if the largest experiment on human beings in history is a failure? (substack.com)
Death by Vaccine?
Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64 | Indiana | thecentersquare.com
‘Good News’: mRNA Scientist Says Omicron Looks Like Something Vaccinologist Would Design on Purpose (westernjournal.com)
“Huge Numbers” of Children Refusing to Wear Face Masks in School – Summit News
CDC Website Reveals Police Power Will be Used at Quarantine Stations for the “Benefit of Society” (thegatewaypundit.com)
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — “The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four co-morbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”
Rochelle Walensky admits the truth… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
You Know Global Elites Are Triggered When The Propaganda Institutions Collaborate To Refute “Mass Formation Psychosis” | ZeroHedge
Important Omicron/COVID Research (substack.com)
Federal Entity in DC Is Keeping a List of Individuals Who Refused Vaccine Based on Religious Grounds (thegatewaypundit.com)
Indiana bill would prohibit providers from discouraging use of ivermectin for COVID-19 (wlwt.com)
How to Win the War Against Tyranny- Interview with Pam Popper (bitchute.com)
Behind Gain of Function – Project Veritas:
If you die from the vaccine you won’t get COVID.
Autopsy — 93% of deaths caused by Vaccine… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Bhakdi Burkhardt autopsy results show shows 93% of deaths caused by Vaccine
https://www.brighteon.com/3b94ac61-8a45-4dd6-9890-23c6d878d433
Socrates, Thought Police, Ivermectin and Uttar Pradesh (substack.com)
Sci-fi types of medical implants will be here soon (greenwichtime.com)
COVID Passport Microchip Developer Says Chipping of Humans Happening “Whether We Like it or Not” – Summit News
Resiliency: Surviving in the age of censorship, propaganda and cancel culture (substack.com)
LA Times Columnist Says Mocking Anti-Vaxxers Deaths is “Necessary” – Summit News
The Lie that is Anthony Fauci:
James O’Keefe strikes again… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Welcome to Illinois:
Parents Horrified As School Hosts ‘SATAN Club’ For Children – Summit News
We are at stage six:
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Filed under 2021 current events, COVID-19, pandemic, Political Commentary, Politics, Short Story, short story, social commentary, social engineering, totalitarianism, Writing Tagged with COVID-19, DEI, Intersectionality, pandemic, poltics, short story, tyranny