On Remembering

“Hey, Kid! Got a minute?”

I sat up in bed. The bedroom was dark. I had no idea what time it was. I tried to light up the face of my watch but it didn’t glow.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. We got all the time in the world. Know who I Am?” came the Voice from the darkness once more. “Yes you do. That’s right…I am that I Am, The Alpha and the Omega, The Lord God Almighty… but you can call me Sarah, if you want. Actually I go by a lot of names.”

Suddenly I smelled the heavy scent of roses!

“What’s in a name, right? By any other name would I not smell as sweet?” came the Voice again with a chuckle.

She had my full attention now. Instead of fear, my head filled with questions, thousands of questions! But of course God knew every single one and She moved to quiet my mind and focus on the meeting at hand. I suddenly felt peaceful, like I was in the presence of a long lost friend. I felt warm and comfortable.

“So why do so many people get their shorts in a knot over what to call You?” I said at last. “People have fought wars over You. And just whose God are you, by the way? Are you the God of Moses, Mohammed or Christ?”

“Oh, come on, Stephen! You can do better than that,” said the Voice. “My children want to make everything so complicated. I give you all a few simple guidelines and you turn them into world religions! You guys just knock me over. If it weren’t for the killing and destruction you’ve all caused each other, it would be hilarious. I tell you to love one another and you go out and tear each other apart and then, get this…you do it in MY name. You guys are a hoot!”

Her words seemed so plain and simple. They cut right though me and yet I wanted to laugh. She had a way of getting right to the point.

“Well, Stephen, that’s why I thought we should talk. It needs to stop. YOU need to stop it. It is time that man grows up and moves on. I have a lot more things in store for all of you, great things, wonderful things… and it won’t happen until you all stop this madness and start to remember what you already know.” It is because you choose to forget…that the world is as it is.”

“Me? How am I supposed to stop all this insanity going on in the world? Are you crazy?” I said.

“Ah, but therein lies one of the problems, don’t you see? You see yourselves as separate, cut off from one another. It’s every man, woman and child for themselves, you think…and so it becomes. You have forgotten who you really are. Instead you have listened to that ego-driven voice that lies to you. It tells you that there is not enough. It tells you that you are better than, more important than, more sacred than… It tells you that you will die and you listen to it. Hey, I sent plenty of people to help jog your memory. You can’t blame Me.”

“Like Buddha and Jesus?” I said.

“Not just them. What about that homeless guy that asked you for a buck the other day, on your way to work? Oh yeah, and what about your fourth grade teacher, Miss O’Donnell? What a sweet lady! She taught you not only about world geography and drawing maps, but how to face death with dignity and compassion and how to live in the moment. I have sent and continue to send a lot of people your way to help you remember. You know I have. Not just people either. I sent you books and movies and poems, too. I was the wind in the trees as you walked the paths at Spring Valley. I was the beauty of the wildflowers and the call of the birds along the trail. I sent you cats like Babs, and Spike and Sylvie. I sent you a wife that would remind you about the gift of creativity and how precious it is. Remember?”

“So, are You saying that we are all just walking around with really bad memories, in a fog? If we were to wake up and start remembering things that we already know, deep down in our core being, that we could change the world, turn it around?” I said incredulously.

“That is exactly what I am saying. See, you’re getting the hang of it. What you THINK creates your reality,” said God’s voice in the darkness. “Work on it, okay baby? I’ll get back to you. And oh, by the way, I love you guys! You’re the greatest…you just forgot HOW great.”

Food for THOUGHT…

On Turning 58

(Photo: Me and my Great Grandpa Tipton)
I was born on November 17, 1951 in Kankakee, Illinois. To be considered an antique an object has to be over 50 years old, so I guess that makes me an antique. In 1951 the Korean War was coming to an uneasy truce. Princess Elizabeth was preparing to ascend to the British Throne. Her son, Prince Charles, was only three years old. Bread was selling for $ .20 a loaf and eggs were going for $ .59 a dozen. The Hydrogen bomb was being developed and tested. The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn and A Street Car Named Desire starring Marlin Brando and Vivien Leigh were popular movies that year. All About Eve won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Joe DiMaggio signed a $100,000 contract with the Yankees as they beat the New York Giants in the 6th game of the World Series. Truman was President of the United States and Winston Churchill was appointed Prime minister of England by King George VI.

In my fifty plus years on this planet, I have witnessed the rise of television, electric typewriters, transistor radios and the first man rocketed into outer space and land on the surface of the Moon. I have gone from crank telephones and party lines to cell phones and 4G iPhones that access the internet and take movies and pictures. I cannot believe I survived college with a typewriter and library books and hand written term papers. We could only use a slide rule on tests. The new Texas Instruments calculators were not allowed. Computers, the Internet, word processing programs and Photo Shop changed everything. The black and white film used in my old Kodak Brownie camera had to be hand wound onto a roll and turned into the local drug store to be developed into prints which sometimes took up to a week. Today, digital cameras take high resolution, color photos that can be down loaded on my home computer, tweaked with a photo program and e-mailed to friends and family in minutes.

I have been married three times. I have two amazing daughters, each now married and having their own children. Yes, I am a grandfather and I have a grandson on the way. My parents and grandparents are now dead and boy, do I feel old. My first job was working on my family’s chicken farm. My best paying job was as a Senior Buyer for Motorola, Inc. My most rewarding job is my current job working for the Education Department as a historical interpreter for the Alamo here in San Antonio, Texas.

My need to be creative led me to write several books of poetry. I performed my work at poetry readings in Chicago area coffeehouses during my time there. I joined a wonderful group of talented writers during those years and published a variety of magazine articles as a freelance writer. Upon my arrival in San Antonio, I was given the opportunity to write a book about the most famous historic shrine in Texas, The Alamo. It has been a best seller and is now heading into its second printing. My other creative urge has been to create art. I love to paint with oil and acrylic on canvas. It really helps to be married to one of San Antonio’s most talented fiber artists, Lisa Kerpoe. She has encouraged me to get my work out there and displayed in a gallery, most recently, the SAVA Gallery. Our life together down here has been a wonderful creative soup and I thank her very much.

My 58 years have been full of change. I have survived many ups and downs. I have lost people very dear to me, just as I have welcomed new members to my family who will carry on after I am no more. I have loved and been loved and truly blessed by this incredible journey called Life. I have known great joy, but I have been terribly disappointed by man’s inability to “see the forest for the trees.” My spiritual beliefs have taken me from an agnostic to a New Age view of things. I believe that we create our own reality and that we are all One with our Creator in an existence without end. Each of us, even to the lowest of us, is a valuable, precious piece of the whole of what Is. This is the Truth I have come to in my time on this earth. I am not perfect, but I am on a path of eternal growth and learning. The more I learn the more I realize how little I know.

Food for THOUGHT…

Bring Back Burning at the Stake!

In the Middle Ages, Church and State joined forces to stamp out heretics. Heretics were dangerous because they held different views and beliefs from the officially accepted teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Church hierarchy very quickly realized that dissenting views and beliefs could undermine the Church’s power and authority over not only their flock, but their hold over the secular leaders as well. The Nobility needed the Church’s blessing to validate their authority over their subjects. So the Church and State formed a symbiotic relationship to protect their status quo on wealth and power.

The Church had a problem when it came to heretics. Being followers of Christ’s teachings and good Christians, they could hunt down and prosecute those who held “dangerous beliefs,” but they could not execute the offenders without soiling their own pious hands. That’s where the State came in. Once the crime of Heretic was pronounced upon an unfortunate soul, the Nobility would step in as the “defender of the Faith” and carry out the dirty work of execution. The most common method of disposing of these troublesome believers was to burn them at the stake. Public burnings of heretics became a really good way to keep the “rank and file” in their place as unquestioning servants of the rich and powerful.

If someone was accused of being a heretic, but refused to confess his sin and repent so that he could then be turned over to the civil authorities and burned at the stake, then it was permissible for the good Christian inquisitors to use torture and other means to illicit a confession from the accused. This gave rise to that wonderfully dark period in Christendom known as the Spanish Inquisition. Officers of the Church were free to interrogate their accused prisoners to the point of death. They learned that pain and fear were amazing tools of the trade in their quest of a confession.

As time progressed, torture became less important to bring people to the stake. Being accused by a neighbor or authorities was often enough to seal their doom. Until the late 1700’s burning at the stake was used as capital punishment for other crimes such as treason and witchcraft. The Age of Enlightenment brought about an end to this form of punishment and replaced it with more “humane” executions like hanging, firing squads, electrocution and now…lethal injection. But, in my view, nothing could compare with the public spectacle of burning at the stake to keep those who see the world differently from contaminating the rest of us with their ideas and beliefs.

If we ever brought back burning at the stake, I could suggest a few “heretics,” if anyone is interested.

Food for THOUGHT…