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)
From the beginning, Peter had the determination of three boys his age. Out of earshot, some called him “stubborn” and “bull headed”. Others called him “a little terror”. And others, teachers mostly, said he needed medication just to be around. His parents, a minister and his wife, called their gift from God “Mr. Resolute”.
When little Peter decided something, he would plead endlessly with “Now!” He wouldn’t take “No” or “Not now” for an answer. The first of five children, Peter often wore his parents down with the strength of his will. And though Peter could badger them non-stop, Peter kept on himself even more to complete a task.
When focused on an activity – his parents came up with problem solving activities – Peter found it hard to give it up or move away until he accomplished the objective. His parents saw potential in Peter’s persistent ways – he could become a high achiever who followed his passions.
So, they chastened and channeled the stubborn streak. With sternness and loving care, Peter’s parents applied the proverb The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
They responded to Peter’s repeated demands with “I hear you. Can you come up with a solution?” When Peter became frustrated, they urged him on saying “You can do hard things” and “Sometimes we make mistakes, and that is how we learn.” When Peter worked through his frustration and completed a hard task, they recognized the effort with “How’d you do that?” and “You have what it takes. You have grit.”
The only time his parents saw five-year-old Peter temper his assertiveness was when folks from the church watched Peter on a date night. Peter played doctor with their daughter who was two years older than Peter. Her self-assuredness captured Peter’s attention. “This is what a doctor would do” she would tell Peter.
One Sunday, years later, Peter’s father preached a sermon titled Making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Peter decided to make a decision to follow Jesus that day. Almost immediately impure thoughts and desires became glaringly obvious at this new intersection. There were two directions he faced: towards Laurie, a high school junior, who had been flirting with him non-stop and who was “easy” according to his friends and toward Jesus who wasn’t defined as “easy”.
The summer before his freshmen year, the high school’s track coach saw the tall gaunt Peter running along a road. The coach pulled his car up, opened the window and talked with Peter as he ran. He said that Peter should give cross-country a try and then drove off.
Peter joined the team and began running 5K races. What Peter soon realized was that the long-distance running – the regular practices and the meets – were a means to direct the fire within him. His daily pattern of run-eat-school-run-eat-study- sleep kept him burning the fuel that would otherwise consume him. He told himself that the only lines he would cross were the starting line and the finish line of a race worthy to run.
During high school Peter mastered his school work and was selected to become a member of the National Honor Society. And during those four years he had several part-time jobs and summer jobs that kept him focused.
After high school graduation, Peter looked for ways to channel his stick-to-itiveness. His minister father suggested that his never-back-down attitude would serve him in the army. Peter could sign up and get up to full college tuition, as well as money for housing and books through the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
The minister knew that Peter’s resolve and wisdom would be tested in the army. Would he hold up, his mother feared. She prayed that Peter would return sound in mind and body. On his eighteenth birthday Peter entered the army. He went through rigorous training and learned to obey orders.
Then one day, three years later, the staff sergeant told his squad “Vaccine – get ‘er done!” Peter didn’t submit to the order. Though he was twenty-one and felt indestructible, his gut – or was it the Holy Spirit? – told him to stay away. The sacred space and spiritual fortitude which steeled him would not be gutted by an experimental vaccine.
His parents had raised him on reason and revelation. The mandated vaccine didn’t fall into either category. Wasn’t he training to go into battle to defend and secure freedom and democracy? “Uncle Jab wants you,” is the vacant stare that came down from the top.
Like many soldiers, Peter submitted a religious exemption. Aborted fetal cells, used in the production of the vaccine, precluded taking the vaccine. Others submitted medical exemptions. All of the vaccine detractors, talking amongst themselves, became aware of the mounting adverse effects and casualties caused by the vaccine.
But the military hierarchy ignored medical and religious exemptions. The military demanded unquestioning obedience to the COVID vaccine and to the new Critical race Theory and Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs. Those programs never included religious convictions, as Peter witnessed firsthand.
Some in his squad were saying “The army has become a clown show” and “The army cares more about superficiality than substance, culture than character”. The army discharged Peter and over 3000 other soldiers for not taking the unholy clot shot.
When he returned home, Peter’s father said “You were right to reject the military on those terms. You signed up to serve your country and see the world. Now go see the heartland on your own terms.”
*****
From the beginning, Lena had a knack for nurturing. She played veterinarian with her dog and neighborhood pets. She played house and doctor with the young boy living next door. During high school she helped care for her grandmother who suffered from dementia and spent a couple of hours each weekend at a hospital.
Her Swedish parents, both medical professionals, were hospitable people. They encouraged Lena to interact with their many guests – medical staff of Doctors Without Borders. Lena kept a diary of who she met and what was talked about. They each encouraged her to go into medicine. She made an entry after talking to one nurse:
You can’t buy time. Choose wisely.
After high school Lena set out on a course in nursing. When she stepped into those shoes, she took an oath to practice and uphold the standards of her profession faithfully. Nursing was a perfect match for Lena’s desire to provide care for others.
Six years into working as an ICU nurse, though, Lena left her job at a hospital in Indiana. She told her parents that “policies were being rolled out at the hospital that would ultimately initiate the segregation of its staff on who was vaccinated versus who was unvaccinated.
I was uncomfortable with that and unwilling to cooperate with that kind of treatment. I had seen this treatment play out on my patients as well where doctors and some nurses that I worked with were bullying and harassing my patients for making a medical decision on their own. They were treating people like dementia patients – like they were unable to think for themselves.
Hospitals began mandating vaccinations. I knew I wouldn’t take the COVID vaccine. I pushed back because hospitals have an absolute commitment to follow the data. Ignoring natural immunity in a vaccine discussion is just criminal.
Over a hundred of us resigned from the hospital due to the vaccine requirement. We can’t tell the patients what risks or adverse effects could occur with the vaccine. It’s criminal. This kind of health care is against everything I stand for. Dementia patients are running the public health programs.”
****
Peter turned on the radio.
All in for the Win, Illinois. Getting vaccinated protects you from catching or spreading COVID-19 — and it’s our best shot at beating this pandemic and getting back to living our full lives. And now, getting the vaccine gives you a shot at winning up to $1 million. As an Illinois resident, if you’ve been vaccinated or are about to get vaccinated, you’re automatically entered in for a chance at part of our $10 million vaccine sweepstakes. Let’s go all in for the win Illinois.
Peter turned the radio dial.
. . . I tried a laxative that is both fast and effective . . .
Peter turned the radio dial.
What’s Your Warrior? Travel, Career Opportunities, Education. . . find your inner warrior . . . Army . . .”
“Yeah, I found my inner warrior. I’ll travel and educate myself.” Peter turned the radio dial.
In 2019 Illinois Democrats elected a fat-cat governor to represent their lottery dreams and Chicago Democrats elected a Woke NFT – a bug-eyed gay black female to represent the law and order of intersectionality.
In 2020 and 2021, the obese governor locked down and masked any opposition to his mandates. State licensing was the gun to the head.
In 2022, “well-meaning” Democrat state representatives decided a medical apartheid in Illinois was necessary. So, they created a vaccine registry and a quarantine town. The southern Illinois quarantine town is called New COVID.
While unvaccinated illegal aliens cross the southern border by the thousands, Illinois citizens are being herded into New COVID because of their vax resistance and claim of natural immunity.
As mRNA COVID vaccines fenagle the operating system of Americans, so illegal immigrants fenagle America’s operating system. Both experiments disregard the integrity of the host’s system . . .
Peter turned off the radio. He had reached the US 65 Whitesville exit. He took the exit and after two right turns he reached the fulfillment center. From the cab he called the traffic manager’s office to let them know he had arrived. He was told to wait in line. Ten trucks were ahead of him.
With the rig idling, Peter walked over to the dock door and went in. The bathroom and the vending machines were to the right. Truckers were coming in and out. Peter headed into the vending machine room and dropped some coins for some black brew. He sat down and waited for his phone to ring.
Outside the vending room, forklifts zipped back and forth with pallets. The drivers were loading and unloading the trailers. Peter had seen this a thousand times before. What he hadn’t seen before was a blonde pony-tailed-hard-hat wearing woman with a yellow and blue plaid shirt zipping by on a forklift. When the yellow and blue plaid spun by again, Peter was able to catch a glimpse of the driver’s kind smiling eyes.
****
After leaving the ICU nursing position, Lena found work at a distribution center in Whitestown, Indiana. She had a student loan to repay. And though for the moment it didn’t look promising, Lena hoped that when the courts ended the COVID mandate madness, she would be back nursing again. She put her resume online. In the meantime, Lena earned eighteen bucks an hour over a 36-hour pay period. She loaded and unloaded semi-trailers.
It was during one shift that she caught a glimpse of a tall scrawny guy with steel-blue eyes. He was talking on the phone in the vending room. On her return trip past the vending room, he was gone.
A trailer backed into bay 7. Before reaching the bay’s bumpers, the driver jumped out of the cab and opened the trailer doors. The driver then backed the truck up to the bumpers up and set the brake. Lena pulled the loading dock release chain and the loading dock came up and unfolded. Then she put her weight on it to have it come down on the bed of the trailer. It came down with a loud “clunk”.
A trucker driver came through the dock door and was heading over to Bay 7. Lena, driving up in a forklift, noticed him walking and looking at his watch. She pulled the forklift up next to him and told him “I’ll get ‘er done!” Peter raised his eyes and said “Yes, ma’am. You will. I am five hours behind schedule.”
Peter handed her the shipment receipt. “I’m Bill . . . Bill Lading.”
Lena laughed. If you’re “Bill Lading, I’m Kari Awai. Go have some coffee and I’ll get this done fer you.”
Peter watched her unload the first pallet. She maneuvered the forklift in, picked the load, and then backed out across the diamond plate. Then she headed off to some aisle in the warehouse. The blonde ponytail, the sky-blue eyes, the pixie smile – What maneuvers do I have? Peter asked himself as he headed back to the vending room. “I’m not much to look at. I’m so skinny I don’t even have a shadow.”
In the vending room Peter called his next stop to tell them that he was behind schedule. There weren’t enough people to unload trucks, he told them. “I’ll be there sometime after eight-o’clock.”
Forty-five minuets later, Lena came into the vending room. She handed Peter the signed bill of lading and a tin foil-wrapped package.
“What’s this”, Peter asked.
“It’s your bill, Bill, and some banana bread I made last night.”
“Well, that just dills my pickle”
“You from the south?”
“No ma’am. I just end up talking to southerners at the truck stops.”
“I see. Should I go on pretending your name is Bill Lading? My name is Lena.”
“No ma’am. Name’s Peter. And thanks for the banana bread. I need something beside this varnish remover I’ve been drinking.” Peter pushed aside the paper cup of vending machine coffee.
“Are you back this way again?” Lena raised her eyebrows.
“Yes ma’am. I’ll be here next Tuesday. I drive a circuit: Whitestown to Edwardsville, Illinois to Nashville and then back here. How about you? You work on Tuesday’s?”
“I do. My circuit is this warehouse 36 hours a week.”
“Well ma’am. I hope our paths cross again. I look forward to that. I gotta get back on the road.” Peter tipped his hat. “Miss Lena, thanks for unloading and loading me up. You are the bee’s knees.”
“See you, Peter. Safe travels” Lena responded and then watched him walk out to his rig.
****
Week after week Peter and Lena crossed paths at the warehouse. Their conversations, though constrained by work, offered more and more insight into each other’s life. From the beginning there seemed to be a purpose for their relationship. Then, one Tuesday, Peter didn’t show up.
Then another week went by and then another. Six weeks passed and no Peter. Though nothing had been formalized between them, the loss of a friend had Lena beside herself.”
Week seven and Peter’s rig appeared in the driveway. Lena met him at the dock door.
“What happened to you?” Lena asked wide-eyed.
“I was put in COVID jail. I drove into Illinois a few weeks ago. The State police stopped me at a weigh station at Marshall. They said I wasn’t in the vaccine registry. So, they hauled me off to the quarantine townNew COVID. That’s where I have been this whole time. I had heard about New COVID on the radio but I thought that was all just talk – nothing like that could happen in the U.S. But I was wrong.”
“Jeepers. Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I had COVID a long while back. I have immunity. But that wasn’t good enough for those COVID crusaders. What is not OK is my route. I asked to change my route. I will not go back into Illinois. I will not download their COVID tracking app. I will not deliver to any Blue state. Enough is enough. I will only drive through free states. I dunno what will happen. I may not have a job soon.”
Listen, I came straight here from New COVID to see you. I have nothing to unload. When your shift is done, do you want have dinner in town? We can talk.”
“OK, Peter. Let’s have dinner and talk. I clock out at 4:30. Leave your rig in the back lot and I’ll drive us over to the café in town.”
“Sounds good, Lena. Right now, I’m gonna head over to Love’s Travel Stop across the way and see if I can find me a clean shirt.”
****
At the Most Café, Peter and Lena each ordered a bowl of soup and a half sandwich. Lena started the conversation by asking Peter what got him into trucking. Peter was ready to talk.
“After being discharged from the service for not getting vaxxed, I was depressed. I had enlisted ready to give my life for my country. After giving up almost two years of my life to the Army, the first skirmish I got into was over the experimental vaccine. I didn’t enlist to be experimented on.
“Lena, I gave almost two years of my life to the Army and you need at least two years of active duty to qualify for the education benefits. The whole situation made me angry and depressed.
“I came home, went into my bedroom, and shut the door. My father knocked on the door after I hadn’t come out for a while. I think I told you my dad’s a minster.”
Lena nodded. Peter asked the waitress for more water and then continued.
“My dad knew that I was miserable. He must have figured out that I was dealing with my depression and anger by looking at stuff online. My room was dark except for the computer screen. Anyway, he came in and told me that I had to get my act together. “You can handle the hard stuff”, he said. Then he told me that a friend was out front asking for me.
“That was Rick, a high school buddy of mine. He told me about trucking. He helped me get my CDL and I began long hauling. So, instead of seeing the world with the Army, I began seeing the countryside. My father gave me his blessing and a flip phone to use if I was in trouble. He told me “Best stay away from those porn shops along the highway exits. You weren’t compromised by the unholy vaccine. Don’t become compromised with pornography.”
“Lena, Wow! Just wow! I never said that to anyone before. I . . . wow! . . . I talk about this stuff because . . . well, you . . . you are not like anyone I know. I feel safe with you. “
Lena grabbed Peter’s hand. “I love it that you are being so open with me, Peter. Please go on.”
Peter took a bite of his sandwich and put it down.
“The commanding officers wanted us grunts to compromise our bodies with an experimental unholy vaccine. They wanted to compromise our reason by telling us that being white is being racist and the country we serve is racist.
“The base was made to watch a video portraying American history as racist since 1619. I am a de facto white supremacist per a Critical Race Theory video. It’s crazy! I was bunking with a black guy. I am best buddies with him and with Jose the Hispanic guy in the next bunk.
“You know, I enlisted voluntarily. I didn’t enlist to become a showcase for an unholy vaccine. I didn’t enlist to give up my mind and soul – my inner warriors. I volunteered my time in return for an education. I didn’t sign up to be converted from alpha male into a check-your-privilege-soyboy-beta-bot . . . there’s another word for that on the base.
“I enlisted into the army and not a culture club. With the Army’s diversity, equity, and inclusion program we’d end up equally dead — but safely ‘vaxxed’. No wonder recruitment and retention are down.
“So, here I am – driving a rig, making good money and saving to go to school. How about you, Lena?” Peter gulped down some water.
“Well, I’m driving a forklift,” Lena began, “because I left an ICU nursing position. I worked so hard last year. I mean, I was there through thick and thin when we had no help… it was horrible. The people that put forth the rules and kicked one-hundred and twenty of us to the curb, they weren’t there. They weren’t even in the building to be seen for months. They were staying at home while we were doing all the work.
“Before the mandates had been rolled out, the hospital wasn’t forcing us to take the vaccine or be fired, but they were rolling out policies that gave different treatment to vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people. I couldn’t believe it. I was there to treat patients, not just the chosen patients. When did healthcare become choosing winners and losers? The Nursing Code of Ethics that I’m supposed to adhere to includes a patient’s autonomy and right to self- determination.
“The hospital then rolled out a mandatory vaccination program with products marked for “emergency use”. We were told to treat the EUA product as fully authorized.
“I chose to forego the emergency use authorization vaccine because I possessed natural immunity after contracting the coronavirus. “I had COVID last summer, I don’t need that vaccine,” I told the hospital but natural immunity was not an option at all. I was escorted out the door by security.
“I’m driving a forklift because I have a school loan to repay. I won’t take that experimental vaccine, I won’t abide medical apartheid, and I won’t take government money to make the loan go away.
“So, here I am – driving a forklift, making OK money and sending my resume out.”
“Wow,” Peter wiped his mouth, “This world has gone mad. I’ve got friends in Illinois who have a gun to their head. Three of them had their business license taken away for violating Covid emergency public health mandates that seem to come out of someone’s ass – Oops, sorry for the language.”
“Peter, I work around truckers all day,” Lena replied.
“It’s getting late. I guess we better head out.” Peter paid the check and left a tip.
Lena drove Peter over to his rig, where he’d spend the night. Before getting out he asked Lena for her phone number. She gave it to him and a kiss on the cheek. Peter’s smile bunched his bushy mustache.
“You know, us truckers have to hurry up and wait. We have to get to our destination on time and then wait to be unloaded. When I saw you that first time on your forklift waiting became a lovely day. That day went down in my log book and tonight will too. I’ll be calling you Lena. Count on it.”
Peter got out and Lena drove home.
The next morning, Peter bought some jumpy juice at Love’s and headed to Tennessee. He was looking to buy a truck route that would keep him out of COVID jail and for a place to settle down.
****
Five months passed. The evening phone conversations between Lena and Peter turned toward the future. They talked of children and adopting. They talked logistics.
Peter told Lena that he’d gotten a route that kept him in Tennessee. “I’m living in a townhome not far from a hospital and the truck’s terminal,” her told her. He also mentioned that he was going to school on the weekend taking EMT classes. He invited Lena down to take a look.
Using a one-week vacation, Lena came down to Tennessee with her mother Alma. Lena wanted her parent’s blessing on marriage to Peter. Lena also wanted to get back to nursing.
Lena submitted her resume to a clinic outside Nashville. The clinic assisted women and couples facing unexpected pregnancies, offering them life- affirming, free, and confidential medical services including pregnancy testing and ultrasounds. The OB/GYN who ran the clinic hired Lena. She was told that she could start in six weeks to allow for the move to Tennessee. Lena broke the news to her mother and to Peter. That same day and with Alma’s blessing, Peter proposed to Lena. The trio went out to celebrate.
A month later Peter left Chattanooga, drove north to Nashville, and parked his rig. He then drove his car north to Carmel Indiana for the six-o’clock wedding rehearsal. Peter, his eyes burning from driving his rig from Chattanooga to Nashville and then up north through constant sleet in southern Indiana, closed his eyes for a moment.
Peter’s father received a call at seven-thirty. Peter hit an overpass and died on the scene.
(While a student at Moody Bible Institute, I had a close friend named Denny. Denny had a Culbertson Hall roommate named Steve. The three of us were in the concert band. During out-of-state concert tours we spent a lot of time together.
Steve was the nicest guy in the world. You could tell that he loved Jesus. He liked working with kids during his PCW assignments.
During a winter break Steve left Chicago and drove back to Kansas for his wedding.
We learned later that Steve, back in Kansas, drove to his wedding rehearsal in blinding snow. High winds whipped the snow across the open highway. The family said that after the long drive from Chicago, Steve may have closed his eyes for a second. He hit an overpass and died that night on a Kansas road.)
*****
“Episode_1611 We discuss the Olympics, Soros, the military, and take a deep dive with Dr. Robert Malone.”.
“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain.”
Democrats are Obsessed with power and control (as of 4-7-2022):
As of February 1st, only nine states, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington, require residents to wear masks indoors regardless of whether or not they’ve been vaccinated.
Some states are removing mask mandates. Illinois is removing masks but not from children. Gov. Pritzker wants to please the teacher’s union for their support in the upcoming election. It was never about science.
A direct attack on the First Amendment – You are a Domestic Terrorist if You Question the State:
If you have an opinion and/or fact that counters the government narrative about the election fraud and COVID-19 you are now considered a domestic terrorist. Who determines what is “unsubstantiated”, a “conspiracy theory” or a “misleading narrative”?
1) They contact city/county governments of potential store sites to make nearby localities compete with one another by offering Walmart free infrastructure (roads, sewage, drainage) and tax rebates (typical store gets $10M in tax rebates for their first few years)
2) They build a store using their national contractors, depriving most of the local tradesmen of any of the work to build the store
3) They offer wages above the prevailing market wage to lure employees away from other employers (don’t worry, these go back down later.)
4) They scout locally owned competitors for pricing, and undercut them
5) Let’s say that your town happened to have a Carhartt factory, Walmart Corporate starts demanding lower and lower wholesale prices. Because Walmart represents 50% of Carhartt’s sales, they can’t afford to say no. So they start making cheaper products. Then they start manufacturing overseas. Soon the plant closes. You’re still paying the same price for a Carhartt jacket, but now it’s poorly made, and your neighbor Jim, who worked at the plant, is out of a job.
6) Your local mom & pop retailer, having lost some of their employees and still having to pay normal Carhartt wholesale prices, can’t compete with Walmart. They go out of business. So now your neighbor Barbara is out of a job.
7) Your town is now devastated, with no manufacturing and no retail other than Walmart. As employees are treated poorly and quit, new employees, having nowhere else to turn, are forced to accept lower wages and part-time positions. They are forced to rely on welfare to feed their kids. Every year, everyone gets a little bit poorer as Walmart’s corporate profits & stock price go up, and the last bits of wealth are extracted from your town and sent to Chinese manufacturers and Wall Street Shareholders. Many people now leave your town to look for better opportunities, splitting up families. Young adults go off to the big city and lose touch with their roots. Others turn to drugs out of despair, fueling an overdose epidemic. All the while, they have no choice but to shop at Walmart, due to a lack of options or due to the financial blight that the Walmart itself has brought to them and their family.
Now repeat this story 3,000 times across the country. So no, I don’t care if people shoplift from Walmart. Walmart made the calculation that the cost of security plus the risk of a lawsuit wasn’t worth stopping shoplifters when they can just let them take whatever they want and charge you, the consumer, for it.
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
Halloween 2026. It is now the sixth year of the COVIDization of the earth. The “natural” approach for your body is considered foreign, extreme, and unacceptable. Injecting foreign substances into your body has become the prescribed and enforced way of life. Getting the jab is compulsory. The enforced mandate way of life has become the unnatural way of life for millions. And, the unnatural way of death.
Experimental COVID vaccines have exterminated millions. Survivors of vaccinations have become chronically ill. Those who received booster jabs were counseled to expect a different result. The jab, mandated “for you protection”, was the means for your submission.
The same intelligentsia who told us in 2020 that gender is just a social construct produced a science that is just a social construct. “The science” behind mask mandates soon had people turning their bodily autonomy over to vaccines. Vaccines had people turning over their bodily autonomy to the State.
A “flatten your tummy in four weeks” kind of sales pitch was initially used to convince people to buy into lockdowns. With the carrot of “Two weeks to flatten the curve”, authoritarians were able to put their foot in the door. As people subscribed to more and more to a medicalized society, authoritarians were handed the run of the place. The carrot was replaced with a stick.
People were mandated to take a vaccine they didn’t want or need, to download apps on their phone connected to government databases, to scan themselves into venues and events with QR codes to receive government permission to enter, and to obtain an obedience passport showing their vaccination subscription plan. And now, there are more “for your protection” ways to submit!
“More technology means more control of your world” was the advertisement in 2021. What wasn’t advertised was the fact that more technology facilitated more control of your world by others.
States have instituted digital driver’s licenses. The digital license shows your COVID-19 status, your health records, your financial records, your credit scores, your travel records, your spending, your voting record, your licenses and permits, and social credit scoring. All of this information and more is available to government employees!
Vaccines have been developed to tag and track people. The jabs download nanoscale biochips that send out a fluorescent signal – Luciferase – that can be read by an app on a smartphone. If your scan doesn’t yield a “smiley face”, you are out of society until you repent and yield. The vaccination transmission of the biochips is the reason the available protocols like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin were rejected by the government. The media passed out tracts: The State has a wonderful plan for your life.
We have been told that “for the sake of standardized immunization record keeping” quantum dot tattooing must be done. One has to accept discrete microneedle-delivered microparticle patterns that deliver near-infrared light-emitting microparticles to the skin. This, so you can prove vaccination via a smartphone app.
Children are having their vaccine records embedded beneath their skin. A dye that is invisible to the naked eye is injected into them at the time of re-vaccination. An app shines infrared light onto the skin and reads the child’s vaccine records.
Looking back at 2021, there were many who sought to secure their livelihood and to stave off death anxiety in the face of what they were told was a deadly pandemic. They began turning over the keys of their human agency to the terror management handlers of the State. Their capitulation came about as people doubled down on irrationality and self-deceit. For they believed and acted on everything that the State told them. The State told them to be afraid and they became afraid.
Overnight, people’s behavior changed. They began wearing protective gear, self-isolating, standing six feet apart and taking the experimental jab. All this and more were done to deal with the apprehension, worry, and fear related to death. All this and more continues to be done even though for most people the recovery rate from COVID and its variants continues to be over 99.5% and recovery provides a greater immunity than the vaccines.
In their attempt to protect their symbolic immortality, the mask wearing vaxxed staunchly defend “COVID is a death threat” and COVID vaccines are “safe and effective”. They shame-attack and distance themselves from the unvaxxed. This has always been encouraged by the State media. And so, a medical apartheid has been created and sustained, as planned by the State.
The generalized anxiety produced by wagering one’s existence on “the science” leading to self-deception continues to be exploited by the “Great Reset” psyops generated by the State media. As the death knell of “the threat of COVID variants” continues to ring out in the news and social media, otherwise normal levels of concern have shot up to a towering level of existential dread. And that level of terror is maintained with mandates.
The State reinforces ubiquitous visible death cues – face masks, anti-bacterial sprays and wipes, social distancing signs and public health campaigns. The fearful are reminded to remain fearful.
In exchange for not having to fear what they are told to fear, people have accepted the extortion of the State’s “For your protection” protection racket. They accept the loss of their freedom and their physical and mental health in exchange for State enforced “peace of mind”.
Some said “No” to the protection.
*****
I wanted to get away. Alone. No smartphone, no laptop, no high-speed internet downloading rapid fire ads and lies and clichés, no web tracking devices, no unholy ghosts of the machines.
Before driving up north, I disconnected the “24/7 safety connect” that came with my car. I called the phone company and ended the “free trial” phone number and WIFI that came with the car. I disconnected from everything that kept tabs on me and wanted my attention. I bought a burner phone to take with me in case of emergency and reminded myself that good things happen when I shut out the digital universe
Driving north on Interstate 39, I thought about my first car: a used blue ’64 Chevy Impala. I paid a friend $400 for it. The Impala had all I needed: lots of space, four roll-down windows for air conditioning and a push button AM/FM radio. With a car like that, I told myself, who needed to be surrounded by semiconductor bells and whistles? And, why the hell go to war to secure rare earth minerals for bells and whistles or for cell phones and laptops and EVs and for augmented and virtual reality . . . when life can be as simple as a ’64 Chevy?
The first time I visited Horicon Marsh my life had been skewing sideways. Seemingly out of the blue I had become teary-eyed, anxious, irritable, angry and depressed. I had a major depressive episode and that wasn’t like me. It seemed that I couldn’t log back in to who I was. My username and password weren’t being recognized. So, I went to the wildlife refuge to look for my backup files.
Yikes! I shut out the digital universe and here I am talking to you in digital terms! Bear with me while I switch back to analog!
While at Horicon Marsh, I came to realize that it was a concussion that had knocked me for a loop. Six months before a truck had rear-ended my car. The impact caused my head to bounce off the steering wheel. I was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with whiplash and a concussion. After that happened I became sensitive to just about everything. The concussion came with an overwhelming sense of mourning that I couldn’t wave off.
I’d a previous knock on the head during my high school years. I was knocked unconscious. When I finally opened my eyes there was a circle of concerned faces looking down at me. They helped me up and sat me down. I waved off calls for an ambulance or a doctor. But I couldn’t wave off the feeling that I had become a ghost walking beside myself. The ghost returned after the second concussion.
*****
There are a lot of things you think about when you travel 400 miles. For one, the undeniable understanding that the vortex of the present age wants to suck you in and spit you out as unnatural and unholy – as a Pagan-Progressive.
I think about Halloween. Many of the neighborhood houses look like shrines for the COVID death cult. Front yards display skulls, skeletons, tombstones, and witches. Inside, parents have so terrified their kids with thoughts of the COVID Boogie man that the kids can’t wait to get the jab to feel safe and normal again.
Homeowners this year, by order of the CDC, must pass out masks and punch cards for free ice cream with each booster shot they receive. But first the child has to show the homeowner their Vaxx Band – a color-coded wristband representing the latest booster shot. I heard that if a kid didn’t have the wristband, kids made fun of him by calling him a “Vaxx-Virgin”. That’s CDC black magic for you.
I think about worlds far away from the madness. GN-Z11, the recently discovered high-redshift galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major, is the farthest recognizable galaxy ever observed. If I wanted to drive to GN-Z11, at say 120 MPH, it would take me over 178 quadrillion years. That wouldn’t include stops for gas and using the restroom.
Light from GN-Z11 takes over 13 billion years to reach Earth. GN-z11’s levels of redshift shows that it existed 400 million years after the Big Bang. One report said that there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be any alien life there. Let’s hope they’re not collectivists.
Like I said, there are a lot of things you think about when you travel 400 miles in a car. One of those things is where to stop when nature calls. As a woman, indoor plumbing is always my first choice. But the restaurants, gas stations and interstate rest areas all require a mask and a vaxx card to use their restrooms.
I am bare-faced undocumented. So, I travel like an illegal alien. As I go along, I look for a thicket of trees and bushes that won’t require a mask and VaxxPass and also provides a view of my car. There are life forms that want my catalytic converter for its precious metals – platinum, palladium, and rhodium. As you know, in the present age stealing to survive is the victim’s pleading. If one is caught, the system will spit you back out – without bond.
I think about Horicon Marsh in southeast Wisconsin. The wildlife refuge is an undisturbed sanctuary for migratory birds, waterfowl, and migratory me. This is my second trip to the wetland.
Entrance
What I take in there doesn’t lie to me. The cattails and marsh grass don’t lie to me. The black-crowned night heron and the double-crested cormorant don’t lie to me. The turtles, frogs and otters don’t lie to me. The butterflies and gnats don’t lie to me. The weather doesn’t lie to me. There is no deceit and no agenda in this eco-sphere of truth.
I told myself that when I die, I want to die in nature by nature and not from some experimental jab produced by “follow the science” gravediggers. “Alas poor Gabby! I knew her, Horatio: a woman of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” -my mind wonders when I’m driving.
Ten years ago, September, Wisconsin kids were back in school. I had the marsh to myself. I brought a camera hoping to capture some of the truth in beauty I imagined would be found in that wetland. What I captured that visit was the seen and unseen – the union of heaven and earth. How else can one describe transcendent beauty?
I’m traveling to Horicon Marsh this time because evil is so oppressive these days. People have been subjected to the banality of evil – Dr. Fauci’s manipulative “noble lies” – and to the blatant evil of a Dr. Frankenstein experiment. Child sacrifice abortions are being promoted to produce vaccines that promise pandemic protection and immortality for the self-obsessed. The best laid plans of pillars of dust leave us with nothing but grief and pain. Pillar of dust schemes have earth, not heaven, written all over them
I’m traveling to Horicon Marsh to reconnect to the primal true, to home base. I need alone time with God. I am determined to commune with God. This time, instead of recording things with a camera, I am memorizing scripture.
*****
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
After driving all night, I arrive at the city of Horicon in the early afternoon. I drive north on Palmatory Street until I reach the Palmatory Street Overlook within Horicon Marsh. I get out of my car to survey the vista.
The 11,000 acres of the fresh water marsh opens up before me. The October air is cold, apple crisp and clear. Summer haze has given way to steam fog on the marsh. A saturated blue sky canopies the marsh. The complementary colors of fall’s red, orange and gold leaves make the blueness “pop”. The gilding of the wetland by the low, slanting light of the autumn sun reminds me that the light of day is not a social construct. Light existed long before man decided to walk in it or not.
The shower of photons emitted from the sun eight minutes ago make it possible for me to see the marsh. The photons were created tens of thousands of years ago by fusion reactions inside the Sun’s core. After spending countless time bouncing around in the sun’s radiative zone, they finally escape the Sun’s surface. Eight minutes later the photons hit my eyes and I wonder if I brought my sun glasses.
I drive around to the visitor’s center. I park right in front to ward off the catalytic converter diverters. The sign on the door says “You must renounce all sanity and subject yourself to something that knows nothing about you.” In other words,
BY ORDER OF THE CDC
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK AND
SHOW YOUR VAXX STATUS TO ENTER THIS FACILITY
Nature call Plan B is now in effect.
I walk around the visitor center and set off on a hiking trail. The teeming wildlife life that I saw ten years ago must have recoiled in this October’s chill. I see no one else on the marsh. Solitude sets in. And except for the occasional honking of the Canadian Geese and the crackle and snap of marsh grass under my feet, the marsh is quiet.
In this setting I begin to recite the Psalm I memorized over the summer:
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. . .
As I’m walking, I see a narrow strip of land on my left. It divides two small lakes. The circumference of each lake is outlined by cattails and tall reed grass. I leave the hiking trial and take that path.
Out in the open, the wind brushes past the grass, causing a shivering sound. On both sides of me come bahloops. Creatures I can’t see are jumping into the water as I pass by. A muskrat scurries across the path and then dives into the water. Then I see something I didn’t expect.
Who are these two men walking towards me? They’re dressed like hunters. Where did they come from? Were they sitting on the bank where I couldn’t see them before?
Here I am – a woman alone on the marsh with two tall men approaching. Yelling for help wouldn’t do any good. Should I run? I look behind me. When I turn back, I see two blazing white-gold figures standing in front of me. I knew I should have brought my sunglasses.
One of them looked like a Roman warrior. He had a breastplate and was holding a sword. The other looked like a scribe. He was wearing a white tunic and was holding a scroll.
I rubbed my eyes. It was a long drive up here and I didn’t get much sleep, so, maybe . . .
“Peace be with you,” the one with the sword said.
“Do I know you guys?” I stammered. “Are you from GN-Z11?”
“You know the One Who sent us,” said the one with the scroll looking at the scroll.
“You must be Fire,” I said to the one with sword. “And, you must be Flame,” I said to the other. Then I realized that I was saying silly things and was too stupefied to say anything coherent.
“Gabby, the Lord of the Spirits sent us,” they said to together.
I remained quiet.
“Do not be afraid Gabby. The Lord hears your prayers. He hears you reciting the Words of spirit and life. He knows your meditations and your concerns. He sent us to encourage you to walk and not grow faint. All that is written, and now written in your heart, will come to pass.
There are those who have heard the word as they stand by the sidelines, but immediately the Accuser comes and snatches away what they heard. Others have received the word with excitement. But they were short term enthusiasts; they had no root in themselves. When the word brought them trouble or hostilities, they quickly became disillusioned and disowned the word. Others heard the word and the worries of this present age, and the deceit of riches, and the desires for other kinds of things came in and choked the word. They produced no fruit.
Preserve and nourish the good word which has been sown in you. The mystery of the kingdom of God has been revealed to you. Abide in the love of the Lord.
Gabby, proud men have proclaimed that they will take men into the future, they will build their own future. Yet, it is not given to man to know his future except for what’s been revealed and uncovered in the Kingdom of God.
There will be no digital-based resurrection of man. The Singularity they are building will fall and crumble into the air. The builders will be scattered. The digital swarm will not overtake you. It will overtake them.”
I suddenly blurted out Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more -words from the end of the Psalm I had been reciting.
“All that is written, and now written in your heart, will come to pass. The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”
They turned and walked away as they had come – as two hunters. I was alone again on the marsh. The stillness seemed to be waiting for my response. It was a gaggle of geese that sounded off.
I spent three days at the marsh. Vee formations of Canadian geese and ducks swooped in to eat and rest before taking off south again. Stately spindly-legged cranes stood fishing in the water near the tall marsh grasses. The solitude of marsh life restored my soul.
I spent the nights at a local campground. I ate what I brought from home. Returning home, I again had a lot to think about . . .
*****
What happened on the marsh wasn’t virtual reality. And those two weren’t digital non-fungible tokens that popped out of the ether for my perusal. What happened was rock-solid reality and not fleeting bits and bytes. This digital age would have me view myself and the world through the eyes of software developers – their menus, their data streams.
I remembered what I felt for a time after my concussions: like I was a ghost walking beside myself. My mind seemed disconnected from my body. This digital age would have me live in that psychosis, in a mental state where the idealized virtual version of myself – the “augmented human” self – exists alongside my physical self.
Horicon Marsh
I wondered why so few had noticed in 2021 that the providential care offered by the gods of the digital age came in the form of slavery to devices and codes? Mankind has since become addicted to vaccinations of tech-steroids. Mankind has come to believe that it needs new ‘booster’ technology to survive.
And why have so few balked at the fact that augmented man is surveilled man? Once your tagged, your physical and virtual lives are tracked. Smart devices, sold as technology for you to control your world, are actually used by others to control your world.
It’s easy for me to see that augmented man is distracted man. Look at how people are driving! With the nearest device someone can lose themselves in a neurotransmitter stream of online entertainment. And it occurred to me that the Sowers of the digital seed want people distracted. They want people to look and look and never see and hear and hear and never understand the Kingdom of God. Otherwise, they would turn and repent.
It’s easy for me to see what happened to intelligent debate. The digitally distracted, with a fear of missing out, take in vast amounts of information they don’t know what to do with. A huge pile of information does not create deep thinkers. And that is why the technocracy is creating algos to do your thinking and voting for you.
After a few hours of driving, I get a little silly:
What did one photon say to the other photon? No matter how far I travel to show up, people still throw shade on me.
What did one dust particle say to the other dust particle? I meet you on ground level.
I had a lot of questions for Fire and Flame but I wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth. I wasn’t going to ask them for protection. I already had a sense that they were watching over me as I walked every morning.
About twenty miles from home I remembered the email my company sent out before I left town. The email was a company-wide invitation to sign up for a points reward program. You behave the way they want you to and they reward you with points toward a treat – some gift you pick off a list.
So now my company wants to treat me like a dog and just like the CCP treats its people. I won’t sign up for their social credit system. I didn’t sign up for the vaccine or testing or mask program. I don’t do de-humanizing things to myself.
In my driveway everything I thought about this trip hits home. I live alone and will likely die alone. I am told that I can live a connected life, a one-with-mankind Singularity kind of life. But what does it profit me if I gain the whole digital world and lose my soul?
Episode_1389 The trillion dollar infrastructure bills and >>>>Christine Anderson’s Freedom speech!Episode_1395 The rise of transhumanism and the want of omnipotence
“The COVID vaccines . . . the most dangerous vaccine ever created in history. It is 800X more dangerous than the smallpox vaccine with respect to death, and over 25X worse with respect to permanent disability . . .”
Dr. Harvey Risch: No. I put it the other way around. The unvaccinated should be afraid of the vaccinated. They’re just as infected. In fact, maybe more infected. If vaccinated, people are infected. So it is well known that it is the vaccinated people that generate the mutant strains and not the unvaccinated people. And that has led that corruption of the medical establishment saying that unvaccinated people are generating the mutants is an absolute falsehood. It is exactly the opposite. This has been known for 100 years that it’s vaccinated people who are more prone to generate mutant strains. (Emphasis mine)
Former CDC Director Robert Redfield said more than 40% of the people who died in Maryland over the last 6-8 weeks were jabbed pic.twitter.com/zkzRsUq9z9
Wearing a face mask is an essential ritual to make you an active participant in the big lie. You become a walking billboard that confirms a narrative of fear and false science to others. pic.twitter.com/51XuYQXArt
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.
It was 8 o’clock. Carl was late and not moving. Idling black buses with grating on the windows and large “In Science We Trust” logos on the sides backed up the streets of Whatchit. Carl hoped he wasn’t too late.
Carl finally saw the opening. He revved his bike, weaved between three buses and entered the alley behind Eatup. He parked the Ducati Multistrada behind the restaurant. He had to be careful. Facial recognition cameras were everywhere.
He got out a beard and glasses from the tank bag. Behind a dumpster, he took off his helmet and put on the beard with mustache. Earlier that morning he placed a piece of duct tape across the hairy opening.
Next, he put on dark sun glasses and a baseball cap. He adjusted his ‘mask’ in the bike’s rear-view mirror. Before he walked around to the front door, he put a clothespin across his nostrils. EatUp had a mask requirement sign on their door.
Carl would never wear a mask or take the jab. But that didn’t matter to Joe Collins, the owner of EatUp. Carl found that out and more from Stephanie.
~
EatUp was the gateway to a network of secret routes and safe houses – a passageway providing escape from the COVIDian masters. If you wanted to flee from the verbal whippings, the VaxVerify branding and being sent to slave quarters – the “Health” hotels and “Safe Space” internment camps – you found someone who knew Joe. Stephanie knew Joe.
Carl learned from Stephanie that Joe would provide IDs and safe passage to Jasper County in the western end of the state. There they would find The Community – a building-less church that met at different locations in remote areas. Evangelist Luke told Stephanie, “What’s the point of having a building were people sit in rows with masks on listening to Bible stories and sermons they’ve heard a thousand time before. We are a community of the alive, not of zombies.”
The people of The Community had set up a parallel society apart from the New World Social Order created by COVIDian overlords. The Community thrived with its own school, clinic, and a semi-barter economy. Teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, white hat hackers – a host of professionals who lost their employment when they said “no” to the jab – came to county and to The Community.
Those of The Community didn’t use email, texting or smartphones. They did not want to be monitored by the State and its contact tracing software. They threw away all electronic devices before they came into the group. Communication with the outside world was made possible with computers that white hat hackers set up to be untraceable. Otherwise, day to day, the people of The Community communicated solely one on one, mask-less, and with a handshake.
Jasper County declared itself a “Constitutional County” right after the insurrection on November 3rd 2020. When unconstitutional, tyrannical and immoral mandates started coming out of the Biden regime and the Blue State collaborators, The Community began.
Under the regime’s new dictator, COVID Swat teams were instituted. If there was no record of you being vaccinated, the CSTs would swoop in, grab you and send you to one of several “Safe Space” internment camps owned and operated by billionaires like Bill Gates. These same camps have laboratories where the organs and tissues of aborted humans are used to produce COVID vaccinations and genetic mutations. The people in these camps were the guinea pigs for lab tests.
The only direction that Joe gave Stephanie: go west out of town about 30 miles. You’ll see Hilts Farm Stand. Ask for Connie. She will ask for your password – “Brass Serpent”.
~
Carl jogged around to the main street. Heads turned. From the sidewalk he could see Stephanie sitting inside EatUp. She was looking at her watch. “Good, I’m not late!”
Carl went in and sat down at her table. A muffled “hello” came out from behind the getup.
“You’re quite a sight.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Carl’s right eyebrow arched above the rim of the sun glasses. “Imagination is the only mask I need.
“They keep looking inside.” Stephanie nodded to the gaggle of Emergency Use Authorized Deputies – OSHA’s COVID FIRST Officers – and bus drivers smoking cigarettes outside EatUp. “I’m afraid one of those EUADs will recognize me at any moment.”
“We need to move quickly.” Carl leaned over and picked up a bag. “I’ve brought a disguise for you, Ms. Stifleboner.”
“Stifleboner?! Is that the name you gave Joe? Couldn’t you pick a common name?”
“Here’s horn-rimmed glasses and a mole for your right cheek and a black wig. We’ll make a lovely couple.” Carl stood up and gave a wide sweep with his arms: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
“Sit down Shakespeare, you’re attracting too much attention. I’ll pay Joe, get our IDs and then go to the bathroom and put this stuff on. Then we better scat. There’s a swarm of COVIDians in this restaurant, too.” Stephanie left the table.
Outside, one of the EUADs saw Carl’s performance and his “MASK ON MASK OFF MASK ON” tee shirt. Officer Loucrats stomped out his smoke and went inside. There was a look of horror on the officer’s face as he walked up behind Carl. The back of Carl’s tee shirt read “I CAN’T BREATHE.”
Officer Loucrats came around the table and held up his phone to Carl’s face. “Take that clothespin off your nose.”
“If I do all the air will come out and I’ll fly around the room.
“I need to scan you for your COVID profile smart guy.”
“I’m not on Instagram, if you’re wondering. I have done Shakespeare in the park if you want an autograph.”
“What’s your name?” snarled Officer Loucrats.
“I’m Carl, Carl Libaum. Carl with a C L-i-p-b-a-u-m. Lipbuam”
“Hmmm. I’m not finding you in my system.”
“I was pooped out last week.”
“Listen wise guy, this COVID business is deadly serious.”
“I can tell by your grim reaper look and the face diaper.”
“We have places for people like you.”
“Yeah, I hear that your “Safe Space” internment gulag is a hoot. Satanic abortion and mask wearing rituals.”
“Are you vaccinated?” Officer Loucrats placed his hand on Carl’s shoulder.
“And here I thought you would be a “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” kind of guy. Are you a ‘my body my choice, diversity, equity and inclusion kind of guy?”
“This is not about freedom. It is about personal choice: follow the science or be sent to a place where the science keeps a close eye on you.”
“To thine own eyes be true. If I go to your summer camp would that hurt my credit rating and my company’s ESG score?”
Officer Loucrats’ scowled. He was looking daggers at Carl. But Carl continued.
“Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages, and in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief?”
“Good effing grief, man! Sit down shut up and tell me if you are vaccinated!”
“Sir, I am waiting for my civil rights attorney. Ah. Here she is.”
Stephanie returned to the table. “Carl, dear, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute!” COVID Officer Loucrats held out his hand like a stop sign when he saw The Great Escape movie poster tee shirt she was wearing.
“And you, what’s your name missy?
“I’m Stephanie . . . Stephanie Stifleboner.”
“Let’s see.” Officer Loucrats scanned her face with the phone. “Hmmmm. Stifleboner you said?” He began keying in the name and then stopped and looked up, brows furrowed.
“Some people have a hard time with that name.” Stephanie winked at Carl.
“How do you spell it?”
“Honey, show him your ID so we can get going.” Carl prompted Stephanie.
“Both of you, give me your covid passports,” Officer Loucrats snarled.
Carl handed Officer Loucrats a small booklet.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, that’s my daily devotional. I’m in good hands. I’m covered. You New World Order Guys should read it.”
“Do you have a vaccine passport or digital documentation of COVID certification? A QR code”?
“I have a patch.” Carl showed Officer Loucrats his nicotine patch.
“Do you have a vaccine passport?” Officer Loucrats demanded.
“Your commandant said that the science is changing. Does that mean that natural immunity is now “in” or is he pushing big pharma’s booster shot du jour?
“Again, do you have a vaccine passport or am I going to cart you and Ms. Stiflewhatever to one of our buses?
Carl took on a thoughtful pose. “Well Officer Loucrats, it appears that the very slight asymmetry of matter and antimatter that made it possible for us to have this lovely chat today is now in danger of dramatic reversal.”
“Do you . . .”
“Look at that!” Carl jumped up and pointed outside the window. “Climate change!”
“I see it too!” Joe walked up behind Officer Loucrats. He cajoled Officer Lucrats to go over and look out the window. As the two searched the skyline, Carl and Stephanie walked over to the kitchen, ducked behind the counter and below the order window and headed for the back door.
Officer Loucrats put his hands-on-the-hips, got up on his toes and then came down on his heels with a loud huff. “I don’t see no climate change.”
Joe pointed again, “You’re right. Climate change . . . see that cloud of smoke.”
“That’s smoke from their cigarettes, you buffoon. I know climate change when I see it. Hey where did those two go?”
“They left. Something about a wedding.” Joe walked back to the kitchen.
Outside, Carl gave Stephanie his helmet and got on the bike. He tossed the clothespin. Stephanie got on behind Carl and put her satchel of things between them. She held on to Carl.
Carl started the bike and revved the engine. He took off down alleyways and side streets until he came to Rte. 17, a route that would take him to the farm stand.
As he headed west, black buses were heading into Whatchit. As long as they were heading into town he wasn’t concerned. Thirty minutes later he pulled up to Hilts Farm Stand.
Three people stood behind the stand. Carl came up and spoke to the oldest. “Are you Connie?”
“Shhhh, not too loud. There are COVIDians everywhere. They’ll turn in you for a profit without giving you a thought. Yes, I’m Connie. Do you have something for me?”
“Ah . . .” Carl looked over at Stephanie.
“Brass Serpent,” Stephanie whispered.
“Good,” Connie replied. “I want you to bring your bike with me. We’re going up to the house. Shane and Esther, watch the stand for me. I’m taking these two to the house. You know what to do.” Connie turned to Carl and Stephanie. “These are my teenagers. The good Lord blessed me with those two.”
As they walked across the quarter acre of lawn leading to the house, Carl asked Connie “Is this your farm?
“Oh no,” Connie responded. This farm belongs to Billy and Betty. This is just a way station of sorts. You’ll stay with them until this evening. They’ll feed you. They have plenty of organic vegetables. And Betty’s apple pie is to die for. Then, we’ll drive to New Paradigm farm over in Jasper County. You better get some rest. Tonight, The Community is coming together for hoedown.”
While Shane and Esther were watching the stand, a black bus pulled up. The bus driver and officer Loucrats got out to smoke their cigarettes. After fifteen minutes, they came over to the farm stand and scanned the faces of Shane and Esther. Nothing came up on the COVID TracUDown system radar so they just looked at the tomatoes and corn and decided to buy a gross of each.
Officer Loucrats, still angry at his breakfast encounter with Carl, asked “Have you two seen a guy with a beard and a clothespin on his nose come through here going to a wedding?”
Shane took the grass he’d been chewing on out of his mouth. “No sir. We’d notice something like that and besides, there hain’t no weddings I know of. They’ve all been cancelled due to COVID mandates.”
Officer Loucrats went behind the stand and looked up at the farm house. “I think I’ll go have a look.”
“Help yourself,” Esther offered.
Shane asked “How many people ya got in that bus? Must be fifty. And why is the bus driver waving?”
Officer Loucrats turned around. The bus driver was yelling something and pointing at his watch. “Oh. That ole coot wants me to get a move on. I don’t move for nobody.”
He came back around to the front of the farm stand and paid for the corn and tomatoes. “If you see those two fugitives then you best call me right away.” Officer Loucrats gave Shane his card.
“Yes sir,” Shane responded. “I sure could use the reward money.”
“You and me both, kid.” With that, Officer Loucrats got on the bus and headed on his way.
~
The drive to New Paradigm Farm was uneventful and yet strange. Carl’s Ducati was loaded onto the back of Connie’s ’76 Chevy C65 truck. Carl and Stephine sat in front with Connie. There was nothing peculiar about that or about the pale light from the full moon which gave the journey a mysterious aura, as if you were in an old black and white movie. But here Carl was. He was sitting in a truck going down a country road and leaving behind a life he had invested in because now nothing is what it seems any longer. He felt grief at the loss, relief to be rid of it and hope at the chance to live in a community that wanted to live in truth.
Connie pulled up to her barn. Her husband came out of the barn, got up on the truck step and gave her a kiss through the truck window. Then he helped Carl unload the Ducati and put it in the barn. Connie showed Stephanie where she and Carl would sleep that night. She told both of them to be ready for the Hoedown at 8 o’clock.
After a short drive over to New Paradigm Farm, Connie, her husband Rick, Stephanie, and Carl entered the new barn. The people of The Community had erected the barn over the past two weeks. Tonight, they would celebrate with music and dance.
Connie introduced Carl and Stephanie to as many people as she could. Finally, she told Pastor Johnson to introduce them to the crowd of over two hundred gathered that night.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” Pastor Johnson thumped the microphone to make sure he was being heard. “Welcome to our barn raising hoedown on New Paradigm Farm. To preface this dedication, I want to say a few words to the newcomers.
“First of all, welcome to The Community! I ask that you do not see this community as a cloister or convent where one goes to become otherworldly. I ask that you plant both feet on the ground and help us to continue self-sustainability.
We – The Community – we see this enterprise as a down-to-earth place where one thrives and thinks independently without fear of reprisal. I ask that you see The Community as a habitation zone that is a world apart from the system of appearances and lies. I ask that you see this community as the means to nourish a continuity of political thought that founded this country.
The Community is not hiding from the world. Here we are in Jasper County, a “Constitutional County” that is making itself known as a county that respects the Constitution and the rights of citizens. No, we are not hiding from the world. But we will keep ourselves, like survivors of domestic abuse, from being exposed to those who have threatened, coerced, and beaten us daily.”
“Pastor,” Connie called out. “Don’t forget what I told you.”
“Oh? Oh yes.” Pastor Johnson cleared his throat. “Tonight, I want you to welcome the newcomers and make them feel at home. Connie asked that I give a special welcome to Carl and Stephanie. Welcome to The Community family Carl and Stephanie.
“Now,” Pastor Johnson waved his hands to quiet the group. “We dedicate this barn to the glory of God for use in his kingdom here on earth. Amen. Let the music begin.”
The fiddlers began their hash calls. Clapping followed and dancing. As the tempo increased the dancers began to move to one another without pauses. The improvised patter calls challenged the dancers surprising them with unexpected choreography.
After a jig and a waltz, Carl and Stephanie went outside to get some air.
“What do you think Carl?” Stephanie asked.
“You know. No one said a word about COVID the whole night. I can breathe. I can finally breathe . . . Imagine . . . we don’t have to imagine. There are people in the world who are constantly at odds with us and our freedom. They would have us serve their god COVID.”
The full moon, now behind a grove of trees, cast long shadows on the field before them.
“C’mere Steph. Why do I feel like singing Somewhere from West Side Story?”
Please act to retain all current religious, philosophical, and medical exemptions for vaccinations — especially for COVID-19 — in our state. And whenever possible, please add to or expand the exemptions for vaccinations.
Also, please ensure that nobody is coerced into taking the vaccine through social/economic ostracization. This includes “vaccine passports” that some states, the federal government, and other world governments are implementing.
There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.
“We will be looking at what contract tracing looks like in the New World Order.”
Is the Australian government trying to rile everyone up or do they just want everyone to know that they no longer care about keeping their ambitions secret?
Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao on Japanese TV saying he's used #ivermectin as early treatment for over 500 covid patients with practically 100% success rate. Asks for nationwide use.
Dr. Nagao is director of the Nagao Clinic and a university professor.
Nigeria has announced its citizens will no longer be able to visit Churches or Mosques and will not have access to banking services from the 2nd week in September without proof of vaccination.
“You down there again? Didn’t I tell you and your friends to go play baseball. A little dirt and sweat is good for you.”
“Aw, Mom, we’re just hanging out, we ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.”
“Maybe so, but I don’ like you hanging around those kinds of places.
“Zoltar said my financial outlook is excellent. What does outlook mean?”
“It means . . . it means what the future might look like.”
“That makes sense. Zoltar is a fortune teller. I guess he meant that my excellent outlook is an increase in my allowance. Right mom?”
“You wash the car and we’ll give you an extra dollar.”
“Great! Then I can get more outlooks from Zoltar.”
“You spend your allowance on Zoltar?
“It’s just a penny for him to tell me my outlook. He did tell me that I would be hungry in an hour and he was right.”
“Yeah, well I knew it too. Here’s your sandwich.”
“Mom, you remember the time when I surrendered?”
“What are you talking about, Jimmy?”
“You know . . . that Sunday night at church when they kept singing I Surrender All? After the tenth time I went up and surrendered. I figured they would keep singing until I did and I wanted to go home and see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.”
“I remember the night you walked down the aisle.”
“Yeah, well, the day before Zoltar told me “All you need is love”. I guess he knew that I wanted to see the Beatles.”
“No, dear. Finish your lunch” . . .
*****
Jim Jr. started his internship at COVID Products in 2020. He began as a salesman offering masks, cleansers, and social distance apps. After he met a sales goal of $200K in 2022, he was transferred to advertising. Six years later he became the science anchor of the 24/7 COVID Report. His mechanical engineering degree gave him the necessary credibility, he felt.
“Today’s COVID report is brought to you by Phantastic Pies. You have to eat them to believe them.”
Before his stint at 24/7 COVID, Jim Jr. worked at a local TV station. He came on with his COVID report after the weather and traffic reports.
“The Psi COVID variant this week has a chance of being 80% doubly dangerous. Look at this map of the Chicago area.
“The green dots are those who have had their fifth booster shot. The blue dots are those who have only had four booster shots. But this mass of large red dots is the unvaccinated. Let’s zoom in on one using Channel Eight’s Heart Beat Tracker. Live video is being provided by a next-door neighbor.
“Folks, that is Mary Lou Stebbins in Hinsdale, Ill. Mary Lou has yet to be vaccinated. So, avoid 217 Burton St. and all contact with Mary Lou.”
At noon, Jim turned over the 24/7 COVID Report to his young intern Stephanie Lour. He then went home to his wife Ann Marie.
Ann Marie greeted him at the door with a masked kiss, replicating the 24/7 COVID Report promo performance. Ann Marie, a devoted wife, always hoped for an unmitigated kiss in broad daylight. But Jim Jr. made sure that nobody ever saw them kissing without the proper PPE – even at their wedding. The unmitigated kiss – a peck on the cheek – would occur after Jim Jr. had ingested four properly prepared Martinis and was on his way up to bed at 7 pm.
In the afternoons, between the door kiss and the Martini kiss, Jim would grab his properly prepared Martinis and head to the basement – the COVID Command Center, as he called it. He had Ann Marie bring his meals there. “My work is too important to fiddle around with my time. Millions of lives are at stake!”
That state of affairs is what Ann Marie confided to her friend Julie at Zims’ Wine Bar. Ann Marie was fairly sure that her husband did not participate in pornography. But Jim never confessed his love for her. As far as life and love go, she told Julie, the newly restored Zoltar was Jim’s center of attention. She often watched him as he put coins in and Zoltar fed him fortune cards.
The fortune telling machine had been father-to-son handed down. Zoltar was Jim Jr.’s inheritance after his father passed. Senior made sure it stayed in the family. Zoltar had been placed on the auction block when the arcade closed down. Jim Senior was there to outbid the rest.
*****
Julie, seeing Ann Marie so miserable, counseled her friend to leave to Jim. “What man loves a machine more than his wife?” But Ann Marie balked at leaving Jim Jr. She decided that she would change her husband’s preoccupation. She had a plan.
Ann Marie began to dress as a gypsy fortune teller. She had Jim Jr. sit down and she pretended to tell him his fortune. But Jim Jr. wasn’t interested. “I am a man of science”, he told her.
*****
One afternoon Jim Jr. ran up the basement stairs yelling “I’ve got it!” Ann Marie ended her phone call to Julie and said “What?”
“I will produce a vaccine that not only protects from the common cold coronavirus but also makes the recipient a valued customer at major stores, major everything!”
“And how are you gonna do that?” Ann Marie asked.
“Simple,” Jim Jr. responded. “You see my report on TV. There are devices that detect a person’s unique heartbeat. I will vaccinate people with my proprietary nano-particle that pulses with a unique code. I’ll call it . . . I’ll call it BlingBeat.
Ann Marie offered a “gimme a break” smile
“Zoltar gave me the idea.” Jim handed Ann Marie a card: A fool and his money are soon parted.
“You see”, Jim continued his sales pitch, “Subscriptions to BlingBeat will be renewed with each booster shot. There is a new booster shot for each COVID variant. We’re only at the Psi variant. There will be endless variants because pharmaceutical companies want endless profits. I am . . . I mean, we are . . .hooking our wagon to that gravy train.
“There will be an initial outlay of money – I’ll get a business loan – but I see a revenue stream that doesn’t end!” Imagine! For the price of Starbucks coffee for a year people will have a subscription to a second heartbeat that gets them into stores, sports events, theaters, the works!”
Jim Jr. began to pace back and forth and then stopped abruptly with a laugh. “When the CDC runs out of Greek letters, I’m guessing they’ll have to use male and female names like the weather folks do for tropical storms . . . With my 24/7 COVID Report, BlingBeat will have name brand recognition. People trust a science anchor.
Jim ordered another martini from Ann Marie and went back down to his Command Center. He had some phone calls to make.
*****
Weeks later, Jim Jr. came home as usual and headed to the basement with his martini. He fed a coin into Zoltar and received the following card: If at first you don’t succeed, take another stab at it.
Jim Jr. always felt that Zoltar always had the best fortunes just for him. It was in the family, after all. And this card insured that. Zoltar told him to keep trying.
Jim had asked Ann Marie to be the beta site for his BlingBeat. But she refused. “Try it on your intern, not me!”
But Jim Jr. was resolute. Ann Marie had to be the beta site. She would never take him to court. “She worships me, doesn’t she?”
So that night, at 3 am, Jim Jr. wakes up at the usual time to get ready and head off to the TV station. Before he gets out of the bed, though, he reaches under the bed and pulls out a syringe and a vial. He drew the vial’s content into the syringe. With a quick swipe of an alcohol swab, Jim jabbed Ann Marie in the arm.
“Ouch! What the . . .?”
“What’s the matter honey? A bad dream?
“I just felt a sharp pain in my arm. Why do I smell alcohol?
“I spilled some martini last night.”
“That doesn’t smell like martini . . .can you get me a glass of water? My mouth is dry.”
“Yes. Don’t get up. Lay still. You must have been sleeping on your arm.”
*****
A few weeks later, Ann Marie went shopping for the week’s groceries at Bill’s Food Market. As she was walking in, the cart kid said “Hello Mrs. Jones.” That was the first odd thing she noticed. Why would that kid know my name?
She walked in and the store manger greeted her. “Good morning Mrs. Jones. Welcome to Bill’s Food Market.” That guy never said hello to me before.
She walked through the produce section and noticed blue lights beginning to blink on a small dispenser as she neared the bananas. A coupon popped out: Fifty cents off a pound Mrs. Jones.
She walked down another aisle. The same blinking blue lights greeted her as she approached other food items. As before, a coupon popped out of the dispenser with her name attached. It must be some new sales gimmick, she thought. But something strange was also happening.
As she walked down each aisle, folks would look at their smartphones. Then they would say “Good morning Mrs. Jones.” What the . . .?
What Ann Marie didn’t know was that Jim Jr. had acquired a business partner. Zack created the BuyinaryBeat heartbeat scanner. (Zack wasn’t crazy about BlingBeat. So, the name was changed.)
Bill’s Food Market was the beta site for the BuyinaryBeat scanner. Jim Jr. told Zack that Ann Marie shopped there every week. Both Jim Jr. and Zack were pleased with the beta test results. Now production could start.
*****
Months later, the BuyinaryBeat scanner had been installed in a variety of stores and venues including sports stadiums, hospitals and even churches. The BuyinaryBeat serum was being injected into arm after arm. The persons receiving the vaccine were told that they were not only protected from the latest COVID variant but that they would now receive exclusive consumer privilege. And, they would not show up on the 24/7 COVID Report map.
*****
Ann Marie liked the attention she was getting at the drug store, the dress shop, Zim’s Wine Bar, and elsewhere. But she couldn’t figure out what had changed. She knew she didn’t have some aura about her that brought out the attention of others. Something had changed . . .She rubbed her itching arm.
*****
Jim and Zack’s business Buyinary BuyWays took off. Jim Jr. continued the 24/7 COVID Report while the business was growing. At one point he left the TV station and incorporated his COVID report into a 24/7 infomercial. With former intern Stephanie, he was hawking the benefits of the BuyinaryBeat serum.
After five years, the partners decided to go public. The IPO made them millionaires. The night of the offering, the two of them celebrated until two in the morning. Jim Jr.’s head was spinning as he came through the door of his house. Ann Marie must be in bed.I’ll pour myself a martini and check in with Zoltar.
Jim Jr. half-hobbled down the basement stairs, spilling the martini. He took a penny out of his pants pocket and dropped it in the coin slot. Zoltar lit up and said, “Here you are, COVID Master.” A card popped out. Jim Jr. set the martini down and read it.
Your reality check is about to bounce.
“Huh? That’s not like you Zoltar.”
He put another penny in the coin slot. “Here you are, COVID Master.” Another card popped out.
You will soon have an out of money experience.
“C’mon Zoltar! Get with the program!” He put another penny in the coin slot. “Here you are, COVID Master.” But this time the machine did pop out a card.
“I’ll deal with you tomorrow.” With that he finished his martini and went up to bed.
Ann Marie was not in bed. Her clothes, her things, were gone.
*****
After the stock market closed the day of the IPO, Ann Marie, with Julie’s help, moved her things out of the house. She threw the PPE and their wedding picture into the trash. She went down to basement to gather up her laundry. As she walked by Zoltar, the machine pushed out a card: All’s well that ends well.
Ann Marie divorced Jim Jr. She received a substantial monetary settlement for her share of Buyinary BuyWays. Her attorney had told the judge that Ann Marie had been raped by the jab and that Jim had used her as a guinea pig. Jim Jr. was later brought up on charges of domestic abuse. “Other charges are pending”, said the DA.
Ann Marie went on to use the bulk of her divorce settlement money to produce an anti-BuyinaryBeat serum. Its effect was to null the nano-particle Jim Jr. had planted inside vaccines. She had been getting a lot of attention with the BuyinaryBeat vaccine her husband had pumped into her veins. But it wasn’t the attention she needed and wanted. Jim’s arcade life wasn’t for her.
“Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.”
Dr. Naomi Wolf: “There will be chaos in the United States”; “How can you have an edict based on no law?”; “There’s a massive corruption of civil society . . . “:
“The world is gradually waking up to your absurd, arbitrary and fallacious approach in presenting concocted facts as ‘scientific approach.’ While the WHO flaunts itself like a ‘know it all,’ it is akin to the vain Emperor in new clothes while the entire world has realized by now, the Emperor has no clothes at all.”
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”
*****
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.
“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
*****
“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
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
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
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“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
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
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.
*****
“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
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“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
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“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
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“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
**
“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
*****
“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
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
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
*****
“…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
*****
Cindy Wity 
Half Life
February 13, 2022 Leave a comment
From the beginning, Peter had the determination of three boys his age. Out of earshot, some called him “stubborn” and “bull headed”. Others called him “a little terror”. And others, teachers mostly, said he needed medication just to be around. His parents, a minister and his wife, called their gift from God “Mr. Resolute”.
When little Peter decided something, he would plead endlessly with “Now!” He wouldn’t take “No” or “Not now” for an answer. The first of five children, Peter often wore his parents down with the strength of his will. And though Peter could badger them non-stop, Peter kept on himself even more to complete a task.
When focused on an activity – his parents came up with problem solving activities – Peter found it hard to give it up or move away until he accomplished the objective. His parents saw potential in Peter’s persistent ways – he could become a high achiever who followed his passions.
So, they chastened and channeled the stubborn streak. With sternness and loving care, Peter’s parents applied the proverb The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
They responded to Peter’s repeated demands with “I hear you. Can you come up with a solution?” When Peter became frustrated, they urged him on saying “You can do hard things” and “Sometimes we make mistakes, and that is how we learn.” When Peter worked through his frustration and completed a hard task, they recognized the effort with “How’d you do that?” and “You have what it takes. You have grit.”
The only time his parents saw five-year-old Peter temper his assertiveness was when folks from the church watched Peter on a date night. Peter played doctor with their daughter who was two years older than Peter. Her self-assuredness captured Peter’s attention. “This is what a doctor would do” she would tell Peter.
One Sunday, years later, Peter’s father preached a sermon titled Making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Peter decided to make a decision to follow Jesus that day. Almost immediately impure thoughts and desires became glaringly obvious at this new intersection. There were two directions he faced: towards Laurie, a high school junior, who had been flirting with him non-stop and who was “easy” according to his friends and toward Jesus who wasn’t defined as “easy”.
The summer before his freshmen year, the high school’s track coach saw the tall gaunt Peter running along a road. The coach pulled his car up, opened the window and talked with Peter as he ran. He said that Peter should give cross-country a try and then drove off.
Peter joined the team and began running 5K races. What Peter soon realized was that the long-distance running – the regular practices and the meets – were a means to direct the fire within him. His daily pattern of run-eat-school-run-eat-study- sleep kept him burning the fuel that would otherwise consume him. He told himself that the only lines he would cross were the starting line and the finish line of a race worthy to run.
During high school Peter mastered his school work and was selected to become a member of the National Honor Society. And during those four years he had several part-time jobs and summer jobs that kept him focused.
After high school graduation, Peter looked for ways to channel his stick-to-itiveness. His minister father suggested that his never-back-down attitude would serve him in the army. Peter could sign up and get up to full college tuition, as well as money for housing and books through the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
The minister knew that Peter’s resolve and wisdom would be tested in the army. Would he hold up, his mother feared. She prayed that Peter would return sound in mind and body. On his eighteenth birthday Peter entered the army. He went through rigorous training and learned to obey orders.
Then one day, three years later, the staff sergeant told his squad “Vaccine – get ‘er done!” Peter didn’t submit to the order. Though he was twenty-one and felt indestructible, his gut – or was it the Holy Spirit? – told him to stay away. The sacred space and spiritual fortitude which steeled him would not be gutted by an experimental vaccine.
His parents had raised him on reason and revelation. The mandated vaccine didn’t fall into either category. Wasn’t he training to go into battle to defend and secure freedom and democracy? “Uncle Jab wants you,” is the vacant stare that came down from the top.
Like many soldiers, Peter submitted a religious exemption. Aborted fetal cells, used in the production of the vaccine, precluded taking the vaccine. Others submitted medical exemptions. All of the vaccine detractors, talking amongst themselves, became aware of the mounting adverse effects and casualties caused by the vaccine.
But the military hierarchy ignored medical and religious exemptions. The military demanded unquestioning obedience to the COVID vaccine and to the new Critical race Theory and Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs. Those programs never included religious convictions, as Peter witnessed firsthand.
Some in his squad were saying “The army has become a clown show” and “The army cares more about superficiality than substance, culture than character”. The army discharged Peter and over 3000 other soldiers for not taking the unholy clot shot.
When he returned home, Peter’s father said “You were right to reject the military on those terms. You signed up to serve your country and see the world. Now go see the heartland on your own terms.”
*****
From the beginning, Lena had a knack for nurturing. She played veterinarian with her dog and neighborhood pets. She played house and doctor with the young boy living next door. During high school she helped care for her grandmother who suffered from dementia and spent a couple of hours each weekend at a hospital.
Her Swedish parents, both medical professionals, were hospitable people. They encouraged Lena to interact with their many guests – medical staff of Doctors Without Borders. Lena kept a diary of who she met and what was talked about. They each encouraged her to go into medicine. She made an entry after talking to one nurse:
You can’t buy time. Choose wisely.
After high school Lena set out on a course in nursing. When she stepped into those shoes, she took an oath to practice and uphold the standards of her profession faithfully. Nursing was a perfect match for Lena’s desire to provide care for others.
Six years into working as an ICU nurse, though, Lena left her job at a hospital in Indiana. She told her parents that “policies were being rolled out at the hospital that would ultimately initiate the segregation of its staff on who was vaccinated versus who was unvaccinated.
I was uncomfortable with that and unwilling to cooperate with that kind of treatment. I had seen this treatment play out on my patients as well where doctors and some nurses that I worked with were bullying and harassing my patients for making a medical decision on their own. They were treating people like dementia patients – like they were unable to think for themselves.
Hospitals began mandating vaccinations. I knew I wouldn’t take the COVID vaccine. I pushed back because hospitals have an absolute commitment to follow the data. Ignoring natural immunity in a vaccine discussion is just criminal.
Over a hundred of us resigned from the hospital due to the vaccine requirement. We can’t tell the patients what risks or adverse effects could occur with the vaccine. It’s criminal. This kind of health care is against everything I stand for. Dementia patients are running the public health programs.”
****
Peter turned on the radio.
All in for the Win, Illinois. Getting vaccinated protects you from catching or spreading COVID-19 — and it’s our best shot at beating this pandemic and getting back to living our full lives. And now, getting the vaccine gives you a shot at winning up to $1 million. As an Illinois resident, if you’ve been vaccinated or are about to get vaccinated, you’re automatically entered in for a chance at part of our $10 million vaccine sweepstakes. Let’s go all in for the win Illinois.
Peter turned the radio dial.
. . . I tried a laxative that is both fast and effective . . .
Peter turned the radio dial.
What’s Your Warrior? Travel, Career Opportunities, Education. . . find your inner warrior . . . Army . . .”
“Yeah, I found my inner warrior. I’ll travel and educate myself.” Peter turned the radio dial.
In 2019 Illinois Democrats elected a fat-cat governor to represent their lottery dreams and Chicago Democrats elected a Woke NFT – a bug-eyed gay black female to represent the law and order of intersectionality.
In 2020 and 2021, the obese governor locked down and masked any opposition to his mandates. State licensing was the gun to the head.
In 2022, “well-meaning” Democrat state representatives decided a medical apartheid in Illinois was necessary. So, they created a vaccine registry and a quarantine town. The southern Illinois quarantine town is called New COVID.
While unvaccinated illegal aliens cross the southern border by the thousands, Illinois citizens are being herded into New COVID because of their vax resistance and claim of natural immunity.
As mRNA COVID vaccines fenagle the operating system of Americans, so illegal immigrants fenagle America’s operating system. Both experiments disregard the integrity of the host’s system . . .
Peter turned off the radio. He had reached the US 65 Whitesville exit. He took the exit and after two right turns he reached the fulfillment center. From the cab he called the traffic manager’s office to let them know he had arrived. He was told to wait in line. Ten trucks were ahead of him.
With the rig idling, Peter walked over to the dock door and went in. The bathroom and the vending machines were to the right. Truckers were coming in and out. Peter headed into the vending machine room and dropped some coins for some black brew. He sat down and waited for his phone to ring.
Outside the vending room, forklifts zipped back and forth with pallets. The drivers were loading and unloading the trailers. Peter had seen this a thousand times before. What he hadn’t seen before was a blonde pony-tailed-hard-hat wearing woman with a yellow and blue plaid shirt zipping by on a forklift. When the yellow and blue plaid spun by again, Peter was able to catch a glimpse of the driver’s kind smiling eyes.
****
After leaving the ICU nursing position, Lena found work at a distribution center in Whitestown, Indiana. She had a student loan to repay. And though for the moment it didn’t look promising, Lena hoped that when the courts ended the COVID mandate madness, she would be back nursing again. She put her resume online. In the meantime, Lena earned eighteen bucks an hour over a 36-hour pay period. She loaded and unloaded semi-trailers.
It was during one shift that she caught a glimpse of a tall scrawny guy with steel-blue eyes. He was talking on the phone in the vending room. On her return trip past the vending room, he was gone.
A trailer backed into bay 7. Before reaching the bay’s bumpers, the driver jumped out of the cab and opened the trailer doors. The driver then backed the truck up to the bumpers up and set the brake. Lena pulled the loading dock release chain and the loading dock came up and unfolded. Then she put her weight on it to have it come down on the bed of the trailer. It came down with a loud “clunk”.
A trucker driver came through the dock door and was heading over to Bay 7. Lena, driving up in a forklift, noticed him walking and looking at his watch. She pulled the forklift up next to him and told him “I’ll get ‘er done!” Peter raised his eyes and said “Yes, ma’am. You will. I am five hours behind schedule.”
Peter handed her the shipment receipt. “I’m Bill . . . Bill Lading.”
Lena laughed. If you’re “Bill Lading, I’m Kari Awai. Go have some coffee and I’ll get this done fer you.”
Peter watched her unload the first pallet. She maneuvered the forklift in, picked the load, and then backed out across the diamond plate. Then she headed off to some aisle in the warehouse. The blonde ponytail, the sky-blue eyes, the pixie smile – What maneuvers do I have? Peter asked himself as he headed back to the vending room. “I’m not much to look at. I’m so skinny I don’t even have a shadow.”
In the vending room Peter called his next stop to tell them that he was behind schedule. There weren’t enough people to unload trucks, he told them. “I’ll be there sometime after eight-o’clock.”
Forty-five minuets later, Lena came into the vending room. She handed Peter the signed bill of lading and a tin foil-wrapped package.
“What’s this”, Peter asked.
“It’s your bill, Bill, and some banana bread I made last night.”
“Well, that just dills my pickle”
“You from the south?”
“No ma’am. I just end up talking to southerners at the truck stops.”
“I see. Should I go on pretending your name is Bill Lading? My name is Lena.”
“No ma’am. Name’s Peter. And thanks for the banana bread. I need something beside this varnish remover I’ve been drinking.” Peter pushed aside the paper cup of vending machine coffee.
“Are you back this way again?” Lena raised her eyebrows.
“Yes ma’am. I’ll be here next Tuesday. I drive a circuit: Whitestown to Edwardsville, Illinois to Nashville and then back here. How about you? You work on Tuesday’s?”
“I do. My circuit is this warehouse 36 hours a week.”
“Well ma’am. I hope our paths cross again. I look forward to that. I gotta get back on the road.” Peter tipped his hat. “Miss Lena, thanks for unloading and loading me up. You are the bee’s knees.”
“See you, Peter. Safe travels” Lena responded and then watched him walk out to his rig.
****
Week after week Peter and Lena crossed paths at the warehouse. Their conversations, though constrained by work, offered more and more insight into each other’s life. From the beginning there seemed to be a purpose for their relationship. Then, one Tuesday, Peter didn’t show up.
Then another week went by and then another. Six weeks passed and no Peter. Though nothing had been formalized between them, the loss of a friend had Lena beside herself.”
Week seven and Peter’s rig appeared in the driveway. Lena met him at the dock door.
“What happened to you?” Lena asked wide-eyed.
“I was put in COVID jail. I drove into Illinois a few weeks ago. The State police stopped me at a weigh station at Marshall. They said I wasn’t in the vaccine registry. So, they hauled me off to the quarantine townNew COVID. That’s where I have been this whole time. I had heard about New COVID on the radio but I thought that was all just talk – nothing like that could happen in the U.S. But I was wrong.”
“Jeepers. Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I had COVID a long while back. I have immunity. But that wasn’t good enough for those COVID crusaders. What is not OK is my route. I asked to change my route. I will not go back into Illinois. I will not download their COVID tracking app. I will not deliver to any Blue state. Enough is enough. I will only drive through free states. I dunno what will happen. I may not have a job soon.”
Listen, I came straight here from New COVID to see you. I have nothing to unload. When your shift is done, do you want have dinner in town? We can talk.”
“OK, Peter. Let’s have dinner and talk. I clock out at 4:30. Leave your rig in the back lot and I’ll drive us over to the café in town.”
“Sounds good, Lena. Right now, I’m gonna head over to Love’s Travel Stop across the way and see if I can find me a clean shirt.”
****
At the Most Café, Peter and Lena each ordered a bowl of soup and a half sandwich. Lena started the conversation by asking Peter what got him into trucking. Peter was ready to talk.
“After being discharged from the service for not getting vaxxed, I was depressed. I had enlisted ready to give my life for my country. After giving up almost two years of my life to the Army, the first skirmish I got into was over the experimental vaccine. I didn’t enlist to be experimented on.
“Lena, I gave almost two years of my life to the Army and you need at least two years of active duty to qualify for the education benefits. The whole situation made me angry and depressed.
“I came home, went into my bedroom, and shut the door. My father knocked on the door after I hadn’t come out for a while. I think I told you my dad’s a minster.”
Lena nodded. Peter asked the waitress for more water and then continued.
“My dad knew that I was miserable. He must have figured out that I was dealing with my depression and anger by looking at stuff online. My room was dark except for the computer screen. Anyway, he came in and told me that I had to get my act together. “You can handle the hard stuff”, he said. Then he told me that a friend was out front asking for me.
“That was Rick, a high school buddy of mine. He told me about trucking. He helped me get my CDL and I began long hauling. So, instead of seeing the world with the Army, I began seeing the countryside. My father gave me his blessing and a flip phone to use if I was in trouble. He told me “Best stay away from those porn shops along the highway exits. You weren’t compromised by the unholy vaccine. Don’t become compromised with pornography.”
“Lena, Wow! Just wow! I never said that to anyone before. I . . . wow! . . . I talk about this stuff because . . . well, you . . . you are not like anyone I know. I feel safe with you. “
Lena grabbed Peter’s hand. “I love it that you are being so open with me, Peter. Please go on.”
Peter took a bite of his sandwich and put it down.
“The commanding officers wanted us grunts to compromise our bodies with an experimental unholy vaccine. They wanted to compromise our reason by telling us that being white is being racist and the country we serve is racist.
“The base was made to watch a video portraying American history as racist since 1619. I am a de facto white supremacist per a Critical Race Theory video. It’s crazy! I was bunking with a black guy. I am best buddies with him and with Jose the Hispanic guy in the next bunk.
“You know, I enlisted voluntarily. I didn’t enlist to become a showcase for an unholy vaccine. I didn’t enlist to give up my mind and soul – my inner warriors. I volunteered my time in return for an education. I didn’t sign up to be converted from alpha male into a check-your-privilege-soyboy-beta-bot . . . there’s another word for that on the base.
“I enlisted into the army and not a culture club. With the Army’s diversity, equity, and inclusion program we’d end up equally dead — but safely ‘vaxxed’. No wonder recruitment and retention are down.
“So, here I am – driving a rig, making good money and saving to go to school. How about you, Lena?” Peter gulped down some water.
“Well, I’m driving a forklift,” Lena began, “because I left an ICU nursing position. I worked so hard last year. I mean, I was there through thick and thin when we had no help… it was horrible. The people that put forth the rules and kicked one-hundred and twenty of us to the curb, they weren’t there. They weren’t even in the building to be seen for months. They were staying at home while we were doing all the work.
“Before the mandates had been rolled out, the hospital wasn’t forcing us to take the vaccine or be fired, but they were rolling out policies that gave different treatment to vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people. I couldn’t believe it. I was there to treat patients, not just the chosen patients. When did healthcare become choosing winners and losers? The Nursing Code of Ethics that I’m supposed to adhere to includes a patient’s autonomy and right to self- determination.
“The hospital then rolled out a mandatory vaccination program with products marked for “emergency use”. We were told to treat the EUA product as fully authorized.
“I chose to forego the emergency use authorization vaccine because I possessed natural immunity after contracting the coronavirus. “I had COVID last summer, I don’t need that vaccine,” I told the hospital but natural immunity was not an option at all. I was escorted out the door by security.
“I’m driving a forklift because I have a school loan to repay. I won’t take that experimental vaccine, I won’t abide medical apartheid, and I won’t take government money to make the loan go away.
“So, here I am – driving a forklift, making OK money and sending my resume out.”
“Wow,” Peter wiped his mouth, “This world has gone mad. I’ve got friends in Illinois who have a gun to their head. Three of them had their business license taken away for violating Covid emergency public health mandates that seem to come out of someone’s ass – Oops, sorry for the language.”
“Peter, I work around truckers all day,” Lena replied.
“It’s getting late. I guess we better head out.” Peter paid the check and left a tip.
Lena drove Peter over to his rig, where he’d spend the night. Before getting out he asked Lena for her phone number. She gave it to him and a kiss on the cheek. Peter’s smile bunched his bushy mustache.
“You know, us truckers have to hurry up and wait. We have to get to our destination on time and then wait to be unloaded. When I saw you that first time on your forklift waiting became a lovely day. That day went down in my log book and tonight will too. I’ll be calling you Lena. Count on it.”
Peter got out and Lena drove home.
The next morning, Peter bought some jumpy juice at Love’s and headed to Tennessee. He was looking to buy a truck route that would keep him out of COVID jail and for a place to settle down.
****
Five months passed. The evening phone conversations between Lena and Peter turned toward the future. They talked of children and adopting. They talked logistics.
Peter told Lena that he’d gotten a route that kept him in Tennessee. “I’m living in a townhome not far from a hospital and the truck’s terminal,” her told her. He also mentioned that he was going to school on the weekend taking EMT classes. He invited Lena down to take a look.
Using a one-week vacation, Lena came down to Tennessee with her mother Alma. Lena wanted her parent’s blessing on marriage to Peter. Lena also wanted to get back to nursing.
Lena submitted her resume to a clinic outside Nashville. The clinic assisted women and couples facing unexpected pregnancies, offering them life- affirming, free, and confidential medical services including pregnancy testing and ultrasounds. The OB/GYN who ran the clinic hired Lena. She was told that she could start in six weeks to allow for the move to Tennessee. Lena broke the news to her mother and to Peter. That same day and with Alma’s blessing, Peter proposed to Lena. The trio went out to celebrate.
A month later Peter left Chattanooga, drove north to Nashville, and parked his rig. He then drove his car north to Carmel Indiana for the six-o’clock wedding rehearsal. Peter, his eyes burning from driving his rig from Chattanooga to Nashville and then up north through constant sleet in southern Indiana, closed his eyes for a moment.
Peter’s father received a call at seven-thirty. Peter hit an overpass and died on the scene.
©Jennifer Ann Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2022, All Rights Reserved
****
(While a student at Moody Bible Institute, I had a close friend named Denny. Denny had a Culbertson Hall roommate named Steve. The three of us were in the concert band. During out-of-state concert tours we spent a lot of time together.
Steve was the nicest guy in the world. You could tell that he loved Jesus. He liked working with kids during his PCW assignments.
During a winter break Steve left Chicago and drove back to Kansas for his wedding.
We learned later that Steve, back in Kansas, drove to his wedding rehearsal in blinding snow. High winds whipped the snow across the open highway. The family said that after the long drive from Chicago, Steve may have closed his eyes for a second. He hit an overpass and died that night on a Kansas road.)
*****
*****
*****
Informed Dissent:
Dissident Covid Report #3: Why are Myocarditis Rates Surging in Europe? (substack.com)
The US Public Health Response has been a Colossal Failure (substack.com)
“Statutory rights have attempted to be bypassed through the issuance of Executive Orders and Emergency Rules … This type of evil is exactly what the law was intended to constrain.”
Judge blocks schools from enforcing Pritzker’s mask, vaccine mandates, refers to policies as ‘type of evil’ | Illinois | thecentersquare.com
Hospital Director in Israel Says 80% of Serious COVID-19 Cases Had Received at Least Three Shots of COVID Vaccines (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)
CDC Makes Major Admission About Rushed Vaccine Timeline and Heart Inflammation (townhall.com)
Tragic: 6-Year-Old Child Develops Myocarditis Two Days After Receiving COVID-19
Devastating Presentation “Exposing Military Corruption During COVID-19” Sent to Members of Congress (thegatewaypundit.com)
EU Investigates Reports of Menstrual Disorders Following Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 Vaccinations — As We First Reported Last Year (thegatewaypundit.com)
Steve Kirsch Blockbuster — Embalmer Richard Hirschman finds ‘novel, bizarre clotting’ in 65% of deaths… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
O Canada:
Must See Video: Justin Trudeau Gets Outed by His Own Brother Kyle as Pawn of New World Order Taking Orders from Bilderberg and the Council on Foreign Relations (thegatewaypundit.com)
Judge orders Ottawa police to return all fuel they seized from Truckers… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski Arrested Again at His Home by Armed Police on Alleged “Mischief” Offense (thegatewaypundit.com)
Mask Not What Your Country Can Do for You:
‘Free’ and contaminated: Look what happened to Biden’s taxpayer-funded N95 shipment (substack.com)
Democrats are Obsessed with power and control (as of 4-7-2022):
As of February 1st, only nine states, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington, require residents to wear masks indoors regardless of whether or not they’ve been vaccinated.
Some states are removing mask mandates. Illinois is removing masks but not from children. Gov. Pritzker wants to please the teacher’s union for their support in the upcoming election. It was never about science.
Illinois High School Students Told to Put on Masks or Leave — So They Walked Out (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)
Taking It to the Streets:
SCOTTSDALE SCHOOL BOARD | YOU’VE BEEN SERVED – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
How is this NOT Evil?
“This Is Us” Actress Milana Vayntrub Calls Killing Her Baby in an Abortion a “Beautiful” Experience – LifeNews.com
SUNY Professor advocates for sex between children and adults… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
School Tells Kids to Stop Sending Valentines Featuring White or ‘Gender Normative’ People. (thenationalpulse.com)
Book banning in Texas schools: Titles are pulled off library shelves in record numbers (msn.com)
Illinois HB4244 Mandatory Vaccine Registry is Now in Subcommittee – Lawmaker Proposes HB4640 to Quarantine Exposed to Infectious Disease (thegatewaypundit.com)
Disney teaches kids about Microaggression… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Exclusive: Dr. Li-Meng Yan Reveals CCP Plans to Spread Hemorrhagic Fever Bioweapon Via Olympics, and She Shares the Cure (substack.com)
A direct attack on the First Amendment – You are a Domestic Terrorist if You Question the State:
If you have an opinion and/or fact that counters the government narrative about the election fraud and COVID-19 you are now considered a domestic terrorist. Who determines what is “unsubstantiated”, a “conspiracy theory” or a “misleading narrative”?
DHS: Here is a list of top COVID misinformation spreaders you should investigate ASAP (substack.com)
Illinois Expressway shootings:
Illinois Reported Expressway Shootings (arcgis.com)
The Left – Democrats, Progressives and the like – destroy everything they touch. Soon, “the end of days”:
“Year Zero” – Thread by @pmarca on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
COVID Relief Spending Your hard-earned money:
Is This How Walmart Works?
1) They contact city/county governments of potential store sites to make nearby localities compete with one another by offering Walmart free infrastructure (roads, sewage, drainage) and tax rebates (typical store gets $10M in tax rebates for their first few years)
2) They build a store using their national contractors, depriving most of the local tradesmen of any of the work to build the store
3) They offer wages above the prevailing market wage to lure employees away from other employers (don’t worry, these go back down later.)
4) They scout locally owned competitors for pricing, and undercut them
5) Let’s say that your town happened to have a Carhartt factory, Walmart Corporate starts demanding lower and lower wholesale prices. Because Walmart represents 50% of Carhartt’s sales, they can’t afford to say no. So they start making cheaper products. Then they start manufacturing overseas. Soon the plant closes. You’re still paying the same price for a Carhartt jacket, but now it’s poorly made, and your neighbor Jim, who worked at the plant, is out of a job.
6) Your local mom & pop retailer, having lost some of their employees and still having to pay normal Carhartt wholesale prices, can’t compete with Walmart. They go out of business. So now your neighbor Barbara is out of a job.
7) Your town is now devastated, with no manufacturing and no retail other than Walmart. As employees are treated poorly and quit, new employees, having nowhere else to turn, are forced to accept lower wages and part-time positions. They are forced to rely on welfare to feed their kids. Every year, everyone gets a little bit poorer as Walmart’s corporate profits & stock price go up, and the last bits of wealth are extracted from your town and sent to Chinese manufacturers and Wall Street Shareholders. Many people now leave your town to look for better opportunities, splitting up families. Young adults go off to the big city and lose touch with their roots. Others turn to drugs out of despair, fueling an overdose epidemic. All the while, they have no choice but to shop at Walmart, due to a lack of options or due to the financial blight that the Walmart itself has brought to them and their family.
Now repeat this story 3,000 times across the country. So no, I don’t care if people shoplift from Walmart. Walmart made the calculation that the cost of security plus the risk of a lawsuit wasn’t worth stopping shoplifters when they can just let them take whatever they want and charge you, the consumer, for it.
Walmart sold out Americans for profit.
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Filed under 2022 current events, Christianity, Culture, pandemic, Short Story, social commentary, Valentines Day Tagged with Canada, Christianity, COVID-19, Illinois, military, nursing, short story, truck convoy, trucking, vaccines, Valentine’s Day