Sunrises are always magical here. I do not know why this is, only that it is so.
Sunrises in Old Home can occasionally be beautiful, but they are confounded by the surroundings: rows of house roofs and second stories, fence lines, the hum and racket of cars shuttling back and forth on city streets. Sunrise becomes lost in the background, just a part of the morning which is almost incidental to people's lives.
Here, sunrise is the main attraction. The world literally starts with the sunrise. There are no rows of reflecting rooftops or cutoffs of the sky by second stories, no cars rushing back and forth. There are only trees and brush and grass, waiting for the first light to stir themselves and wildlife into action.
Given the option of background versus magical, I will always take magical.
Friends,
As you read this missive, I am preparing for The 2022 Gone Hiking Big Adventure edition. This is what the training hikes of June, July, and August have been leading up to.
The Outdoorsman and I will be leaving today (we may be on the road already) driving to a location to meet up with our group, go to the trailhead for meeting and pack checks and preparation. Tomorrow, we will start on what should be a 7 day hike. If all goes well, we will roll back into civilization a week from tomorrow.
I am a bit apprehensive about the hike not so much from my ability or lack thereof - the training hikes have proven wonderful in that respect - as I am about what I do not know. In this particular case - much like the Grand Canyon - I have tried not to dwell too much on where we are going lest I think "I cannot do this".
As per usual, I have left a series of posts to go up in my absence and apologize in advance for my delay in responses. If all goes well, I anticipate re-posting start on Tuesday 23 August. And by all means, look to all of those good folks over to the right as well for fine and thought inducing posts.
Have a wonderful week. I anticipate having some great pictures to share.
We have become a society of reaction.
I am not sure where this change specifically occurred. I would like to say that the social media culture created it, except that I find it somewhat unbelievable that an entire societal shift happened in that short a period of time. It had to have been moving that way anyway, until the technology of social media made it possible to react in full force.
Once upon a time - and within my lifetime - this would have been called "flying off the handle". Now, it too often seems to pass for thoughtful response and action.
Every action now begets a reaction, almost without an afterthought. No matter what subject - anything from politics to food to simple tasks- we are deluged daily by not a series of thoughts or rational opinions, but reactions. And this is not limited to one "side" of the argument: both sides engage in such behavior. Often, the reactions almost outpace the actual developments themselves.
As you may have discerned, I am not a fan of the "reaction".
Partially it is due to the fact that I have often reacted instead of being thought and deliberate, and almost without exception it has never accomplished the things I intended to do. Partially it is due to the fact that reactions, being too often not clearly thought out and considered, essentially just gives ammunition to the other side; sometimes the reactions create more of an opening than the original action themselves. And partially, I suppose, simply because in reacting, we use words and thoughts and more often than not fail to advance those things we are reacting against.
The response to this is that just because there is a thoughtful and reasoned response, it is not necessarily better than a reaction. And I acknowledge that. People can be thoughtful and just as wrong as reacting (although to be fair, at least in the thoughtful response one can see the reasoning, even if one disagrees with it).
The question I have come to ask myself every time I feel myself reacting is "Will this accomplish what I actually intend it to?" Most of the time, the answer is simply "no". A reaction given in the heat of the moment is not nearly as effective to the long term plans or goals as is something that is carefully thought through.
Reacting also seems to "give away the store". Most reactions - most of my reactions anyway - will reveal far more about where I am personally and my opinions and thoughts and even goals than perhaps I intend to reveal.
When I considered the bulk of individuals who have accomplished what they intended - and that could be construed as "successful" even if not in the way the World would view it - they are not caught in the almost mindless frenzy of action/reaction. They simply continue on towards what their goal is, be it world peace or founding a religious order or the world athletic record or business success. The goal determines their actions (and reactions), not events.
The question, at least for me, always has to be "What am I actually trying to do?" and "Will reacting make that more or less likely?"
One thing I remember reading many years ago is that anything based on a lie will ultimately fail.
I do not remember specifically where I read this, but over the years I have found it to be somewhat (to my surprise) rather true. Things that are begun with lies may triumph for a time - and be awful and incredibly painful and destructive while they are in power - but eventually, they collapse.
A lie, in case one has not checked out the definition lately, is "to make an untrue statement with an intent to deceive; to create a false or misleading impression". Seems pretty clear, does it not? It has some specifics to it as well: an untrue statement with an intent to deceive, creating a false or misleading impression.
Now, we all at some time make an untrue statement. Sometimes it is simply due to a lack of knowledge about a subject or simply a misinterpretation of something due a misread or misheard statement. And sometimes we create a false or misleading impression accidentally, like we when we talk about something as if we know about it and someone else assumes we are experts (although we just happen to have read a magazine article once on the subject). But in both of these cases, intent is the key difference: we do not intend to deceive or create a false or misleading impression, it simply happens.
Far different, of course, from someone - a person, an organization - intending to deceive or intending to create false impressions.
And yet, this is where we find ourselves in the modern world.
It is a contrast, is it not? We live in a world where now, more than ever, "truth" is supposed to be the guiding principle - and at the same time, live in a world where in so many ways, "the ends justify the means".
In writing the above, I run the risk - as I always do - of pushing the discussion into areas that we simply do not cover here (and will, once again, not be covered here - so if the response is something along the lines of "and look at <fill in the blank> and what they are doing", save it - it will not be published). But I write it anyway because there is one thing that we can 100% control in this discussion: ourselves and how we deal with the truth.
We - I, anyway - have to start with an examination of my own handling of truth and lies.
Am I 100% committed to the truth? To be fair, no. I, probably just as often as anyone else, too often take refuge in a convenient lie (again, an untrue statement with the intent to deceive or creating a false impression) as anyone else. Too often in the past I have walked a fine line between what was truth and what would keep me out of trouble. Too often I have left things subtly undefined in order to create an impression that was different that what the actual facts might have really been.
In other words, I was in essence practicing the very things that I am decry. And to the point of my introduction, the things generally ended very badly indeed.
Because that is the underlying problem with founding things on lies. Not having truth undergirding them, at some point they collapse either because in order to sustain the lies, there need to be more lies, or simply the lies to comport with the real facts on the ground, which eventually catch up with situation.
It is easy to point to dictatorships that squashed any element of the truth except what the leadership wanted to hear, with horrific results: Mao's Great Leap Forward comes to mind as perhaps one of the worst, where lies about the incredible harvests (up to and including a paper-mache pig of enormous size) hid the facts as the existed. And more and more, it seems easy to point to "free" societies that suffer from the issues. But we often react poorly when we begin to ask how committed we are to the truth.
If we want to change anything - starting with ourselves of course, and extending outward as far as we would like to our families, our groups, our societies, our world - we have to start with ourselves and a dedication to not lying and by extension, a dedication to the truth. And by ourselves, I specifically mean not making false statements intending to deceive or creating false impressions. If the world is built on lies, let us not contribute to it.
(I am reminded via a quick search that I had reviewed Rod Dreher's Live Not By Lies last year. It seems apropos to post again based on today's subject).
I am following up on a question and suggestion posed by Glen on yesterday's post in the comments:
"What an odd post, TB. I have never read the 'Left Behind' books - would you recommend them to others?
Perhaps if you focused on your questions and exactly what is causing you to question your church and Christianity - you might find why you are drawn back to the books."
A) Left Behind
The Left Behind Series was series of 12 books published by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which spawned an entire eschatological industry. The original 12 books - published from 1995 to 2003 - started with the eponymous Left Behind, which posited a simple question: what would the world look like if The Rapture occurred and seven year period referred to as The Great Tribulation occurred? It follows a band of characters that are left behind during the seven year period as The Antichrist arises and the events of Revelation are played out.
The books make certain assumptions: A pre-tribulation pre-millennial Rapture (as opposed to a mid or post-tribulation Rapture) combined with a literal interpretation of Chapters 6-20 (the remaining chapters of Revelation, 20-22, are covered in the 2007 book Kingdom Come). This is one of several views of the Return of Christ, one that has occupied 2,000 years of arguments and disagreements and in that sense, is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Would I recommend the books? To be honest with you, it has been a great many years since I read the first one and as I recall, I do not remember it being particularly well written (my memory may be vague on this point). That said, the audio drama (you can find it on Youtube) is amazing and completely worth the listen.
The books made a splash at the time, perhaps connecting with the upcoming turn of the century but also connecting with confrontation in terms of what such an event would actually be like. It spurred a bit of a development like The Passion of the Christ, creating a sort of ripple effect in Christian circles. It was successful enough that it spawned additional books and series for events for and during the Left Behind timeline.
B) What are the questions that are drawing me to this audio drama and in a lesser sense these eschatological questions now?
I will start by saying that in my interest, I am not aware of becoming hyper-eschatological. Christ can indeed return tomorrow - or twenty years from now. He Himself said no-one shall know the day or the hour; who am I to outguess the Son of God? Yes, He said there would be signs, but He certainly did not seem to indicate that Christians were supposed to dwell on them or become consumed by them, a sort of people no better than the Romans of old looking for auguries in flocks of birds or sheep's livers.
And yet, I find myself drawn to them.
Perhaps part of the question or issue I am trying to resolve within myself is simply my own relationship with God. I listen to the services for our current church and feel...nothing. Others obviously feel the presence of God in that place; I do not.
Why? Part of it may be presentation, of course: we are in a fairly charismatic church and I was raised in a very traditional church setting. For various and sundry reasons, I prefer an order of service to a more free flowing service (not that there is inherently anything wrong with them, it is just my preference).
Another part - a personal part - is that I feel largely that the Church no longer calls people to what I understand is a key factor of the Christian life, holiness. “Be ye holy, for I (the Lord) am holy" said Peter, quoting Leviticus, yet it feels to me that outside of very traditional sects like Catholicism or Orthodox, holiness is just kind of a word we banter around. It is one among many things, not one of the primary things.
A third part is simply that I feel a little at a loss. For years I was much more deeply involved in serving in the Church than I am now. I am not sure what changed - and when looking at the opportunities that are available to me, they just seem to be other versions of volunteer work.
Lastly, I suppose, there is simply the sense that I feel less and less at home in the world that I live in right now. Often it almost feels like there are three lives going on: the life I live outwardly, the life I live through this blog, and the live I live inwardly (the latter two are far more congruent than any other combination). Living in different spheres long enough can make anyone feel attenuated and stretched thin, I suppose.
This is the first time I have tried to frame my discontent in these terms. I do not know that it makes it any clearer to me, but at least it starts to identify the key aspects of what seems to be troubling me.
For some reason I have re-stumbled on the dramatic audio series Left Behind.
You might recall the original series of books from 1995 to 2003. I never managed to finish the series but the publisher, Tyndale house, also made a dramatic audio series. Think of an old-time radio series. Just on the merits of the craft of theater of the mind, it is highly enjoyable.
Some of it strikes me as hilarious, of course. It is funny to hear references to video tapes and land lines and "small portable computers" that are the equivalent of our cell phones now, things of technology 20 plus years ago that have been wildly outpaced by actual events. Listening to it now is a great deal like watching a movie from the 1980's: recognized technologies, model of cars, and hairdos that identify a place and time.
But why, I wonder, do I find myself redrawn to this now?
It is not a secret that I have been struggling with my faith over the last year - not so much my belief in God as my relationship with church and really, my relationship with Christianity in the actual world. Given this, I am trying to find my way the best I can. I am trying to find it through more Bible reading, more prayer - and thinking about any other way I can to find a renewed sense of purpose with God.
I am not saying specifically that somehow a radio drama from 20 years ago is God specifically speaking to me, or even that I am supposed to pull things from it. But I do find it...funny...that something like this would come up precisely at this time.
I am writing this from The Ranch this week.
As you may recall, we had a rather quick turnaround as I was here just over a week ago as well. An odd set of circumstances created the situation: on one hand, my monthly visit in July; on the other, The Upcoming Hiking Trip in August and getting here meaningfully enough to be able to work, prepare, and do the tasks around The Ranch that need doing. After my departure late this month, I will not be back until the end of September.
This is a close to a "road trip life" as I have led in many years.
If I look at the last period of the month, it feels like a blur: within that period and the short upcoming one, we will have had a public holiday (Independence Day), been away on travels for 5 days, been in Old Home two full weeks, will have taken a 1.5 week back country trip. And, of course, the passing of TB The Elder.
I feel a bit disoriented about where I am and in what time zone I am currently living.
This all calms down at the end of the month, of course. I will be back to my once a month trips. No more hikes or vacations on the book at this point. Just plodding through life, awaiting patiently word from Japan whether or not we will be able to travel to train next year.
For someone that finds myself to be a homebody, this almost seems farcical to me. I have almost been away more than I have been at home.
Part of me is not done, of course. We will see how I feel after the end of the month, but I have enjoyed the training hikes The Outdoorsman and I have taken. This may be something that can be continued next year, or perhaps even this year (although Autumn and Winter will come quickly). At the same time, there are things that are not getting done, or really focused on, because of all the back and forth.
I wonder if my interpretation of "life" has changed over the last two years.
Prior to July 2020, life was pretty much New Home, with occasional visits to Old Home. Since then (and as I have written elsewhere), a quarter of the year I am in Old Home. Being a quarter of the year somewhere else changes how you interpret your life, in both places.
Would I change it? No. The travel was at the right time as it was needed; when my parents needed me, I was able to be here and continue to be here (let us be honest: the ability to continue to come see them and take care of The Ranch once a month is a strong motivator to not upset any career apple carts). But it definitely does impact how one views their life in both places, and what they are able to do in each place.
I would like to think that all of this is leading to some kind of dramatic denouement, something that will alter the course of my life. But perhaps I am wrong in thinking that: the denouement may have already happened and to see it, I need to look in the rearview mirror, not the windshield.
(Author's note: The following is a description of processing a steer. While not graphic or particular nausea intending, I do know there are readers that find this disturbing. I might recommend walking through the Longwood Gardens here and here.).
During my July visit to The Ranch and my regular touch base with The Cowboy and The Young Cowboy, they mentioned that a Tuesday morning was going to be loud, early. They were having a steer brought down and processed. There would be one loud noise of course, then some other ancillary noises.
Myself being the curious sort, of course I show up the next morning to watch.
Even though it is still Summer, the Ranch still cools off enough in the night and morning that one can almost feel coldish, at least in the morning. By the time I tromp down from the house to the barn and corral, everyone else was there: The Cowboy, The Young Cowboy, and the gentleman who would be working on the steer. The conversation was the sort that I suspect men having being having for time immemorial in various forms and fashions prior to the start of a task: the weather, the price of gas (or coal, or wood), others in the business; the chit chat of social niceties that make personal relationships in small societies work. After a few minutes of continued conversation, the work commences.
The Processor looked the part: a little over my height, he had not an ounce of fat on his body that I could see: all muscle and bone. He moved to get ready with an economy that betrayed a long understanding of the art of motion.
The shot almost surprises me. There was a "Cover your ears; it will be loud" from The Young Cowboy, followed by a single shot in the morning area. The steer drops.
As The Young Cowboy went to pull the loader into corral, I peek around the corner. The steer was on the ground, body twitching - especially the back legs. It seems like an eternity, but was maybe five minutes. It still looked a bit dangerous - per The Cowboy, it could be. Finally, when the legs had largely stopped moving, the back legs are chained and pulled out while the Processor went in and (judging from later) presumably cut open the throat. The loader drags the carcass out to of the corral to the Processor's truck, an almost one of a kind (to my experience) custom build with a winch, a small crane, and a meat locker unit on the back.
The Processor gets to work.
He and The Young Cowboy roll the steer onto its back, The Processor begins by cutting into each leg just above the hock; a quick crack at the end and the leg and hoof break off, to be put into a 55 gallon offal barrel. After removing them all, he pulled out a knife I had never seen before - a skinning knife, I suppose - and slices down the breast bone and slowly starts peeling away the skin from the body.
It is a marvel to behold: His technique is perfect as the hide literally peels away, revealing a pallid white body with hints of red underneath. After completing about a third, he places a bar into the haunches and the crane lifts the body up, letting fluids exist from the throat - not a torrent, just a flow.
When the hide is mostly pulled away, he moves to the upper body. He and The Young Cowboy discuss what else they want: out comes the tongue in a slab into a bag, to be followed by the sweetmeats. The body is raised and a deeper cut happens: out comes the heart and the liver, also to be bagged and placed into the ice chest.
Moving the offal barrel into the body, The Processor carefully slices all the way up, exposing the internal organs. One cut, and a stomach is emptied of its last meal onto the ground (more than I could have imagined was in there). Then, using the same technique he practiced on the hide, he slowly peels out the internal organs and guides them into the barrel. Nothing hits the ground. He continues to work the back of the hide as well until it, too, is completely removed.
Water is everywhere during this process. The carcass is sprayed, the tools are sprayed, hands are sprayed. Another round of spraying happens.
He moves to an industrial style electric saw, then starts cutting down the spine. The body slowly separates into two halves until only the head remains; which is cut off.
The Processor raises the crane to the level of the truck and using his knife, cuts the two halves into quarters. Punching holes in all, he slides the quarters into the cooler portion of the truck and shuts the door. Everything gets one more spray of water as The Young Cowboy brings the loader up to collect all of the pieces and parts for burial (apparently there is no longer a market for hides; it too is to be buried). The quarters themselves will be taken to a local meat locker to be hung and cut.
This whole process has taken under an hour.
At one point during the process, I ask The Processor how he started doing this and if he liked the job. He gives me a look, the look actual working people often give what seems like a frivolous question from a theoretician. Apparently I appear sincere enough: it was not a job he necessarily "liked", but it was a job - paid the bills (all cash) and allowed him to be independent.
The steer, I find out from The Cowboy, was one that had been born up at The Ranch and had lived its whole life here in the sun and rain and relative free range, pending only the last night of corralling. The end came in an instant, unlike the end that often comes to us.
This process was clean and efficient. There was not a lot of blood. There was no sense of this being a frivolous event: the meat will go to feed 2-3 families for the better part of a year. The provenance of the meat is known. Afterwards, everything was cleaned up - if one wanted to go so far, even the unused parts were "recycled" back into the earth.
It was a solemn experience, one a great many people no longer witness. Arguably, one cannot come closer to the overall food process than this: everything up to the point of slaughter happening in one place, and the food ultimately returned to the same general location. Is this not the true definition of a relatively closed loop.
During my last visit - finally, on Friday - I got out to see my mother.
It is always a matter of timing when I am there, mostly for the schedule where she is living. They prefer a visit after 11 AM to allow them to finish eating, but given the time of year - especially Summer and Winter - the temperature is a factor as well. Add to that 11 AM local time tends to fall around prime working time (and the fact that I was on a hike that weekend), and one tends to compress to Friday if nothing else.
My mother remains as she has always been: she is still able to get around (with someone there just in case), still happy to see us, still polite enough to pretend that she knows us. The conversation with her and my sister covered its usual set of topics: how the grandchildren are doing, the hike the Outdoorsman and I went on, the vacation we recently took, the weather.
There was a point in the conversation where my mother seemed very convinced that she remembered something about myself and my sister, something that had happened in the past. It was a little vague - well, it was a lot vague - but the face that she felt like she remembered who we were, no matter who she thought we were, was an unexpected joy. And a welcome one, given the state of where we are.
At no time during the conversation did my father come up.
This was not terribly surprising to me and I had prepared myself in the event that it happened, but for better or worse, it did not. His absence with us at the conversation was not noted or commented on. The fact that he had been "gone" for almost two weeks never entered the conversation.
In a way, of course, this is the best of all possible worlds: the other option, that my mother could not find my father and did not remember he was not longer there, would have been worse. At least this way, there is no sadness, no concern, just a sort of eternal sense of having always been here.
On the one hand, it does make the upcoming visits easier, as there will be no emotional baggage to have to pack and unpack every visit. On the other hand, it does leave a lingering note, at least for me, of sadness, the sadness of a tone slowly decaying away until it simply disappears.
Thanks for coming along with me (and The Ravishing Mrs. TB) on our vacation to Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. I hope you enjoyed it (virtually) as much as we did.
I have to confess that overall, my knowledge of the East Coast/New England is rather vague. As some may have divined from my writings over the years, I am not from that part of the country and thus it is many ways remains terra incognito to me - for example, the concept that one can drive through multiple states in a scant series of hours is a novelty I cannot get over. As such, this really represents the first time in my 50 + years that I have actually explored this region at all.
One thing that caught my attention was that this part of the country simply reeks of history. All kinds of history. In the course of five days we touched on colonial, Revolutionary, 1812, and the Civil War. in some cases, you cannot help but stumbling over it. I wonder if one understands what that means, except if one is from a region where that is not nearly as true.
History, for me at least, is always alive. To walk the Brandywine battlefield or to see the paintings last touched by Andrew Wyeth or the forts defended by US Soldiers or even the gardens built by industrialists that enabled beauty to survive where only industrialism or development otherwise would have - ghosts walk there, ghosts of those I can hear. History in these places - and by extension, the life that I now life - is real to me in a way that books can never make it, that movies with stars and special effects can never truly portray.
The ground Washington and Von Steuben walked, I walked, The scenery that Andrew Wyeth saw and painted, I saw. Where the founding liberties of this country were codified and executed and defended, I saw and in some ephemeral way, participated in. And where those liberties and rights were defended, I looked from their ramparts.
This, to me, is amazing. And leaves me with nothing but gratitude to all who undertook such things so that we, now, could enjoy what we enjoy in every sphere of life - be it political or civil liberties or arts or simply the ability to take it all in.
Fort McHenry is located at the mouth of Baltimore Harbor in Baltimore, MD. A pentagonal coastal defense fort, it is known for its defense of Baltimore on 13-14 September 1814 during the War of 1812, when the fortress sustained a 25 hour attack by a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Cochrane with rockets and mortars. The fleet was trying to get into Baltimore harbor, the only port in the then-US which had not (to date) been occupied or attacked by the British in the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.
Nemours, located in Wilmington, DE, was the estate of Alfred I. Du Pont (another of the Du Pont Family - reading up a bit on them, living proof that money creates as many problems in families as it solves). It is 400 acres and includes what are billed as the largest French Gardens in the United States. On the estate is also the 77 room mansion, furnished just as it was back in the day (some amazing pieces of artwork). Pictures without words here; again, another place we got to with not quite enough time to truly enjoy everything. Also highly recommended.
After our time in Philadelphia, we headed out the next day to Delaware, a state I had never been to (if you have never read up on it, it has a fascinating colonial era history: at one time there was Swedish settlement there that preceded the Dutch, and there was even a war about it). Our first stop was Fort Delaware.
Fort Delaware (accessed via ferry from Delaware City) is a fort built on Pea Patch Island in the middle of the Delaware River - that shore you see on the other side is New Jersey. It was built following the War of 1812 to provide a more outwardly defense to Philadelphia.
If one finds one's self in the area, highly recommended for an hour or three.
