“There is a City of Gold 
Far from the rat race that eats at your soul 
Far from the madness and the bars that hold 
There is a City of Gold 
 
There is a City of Light 
Raised up in the heavens and the streets are bright 
Glory to God—not by deeds or by might 
There is a City of Light 
 
There is a City of Love 
Surrounded by stars and the powers above 
Far from this world and the stuff dreams are made of 
There is a City of Love 
 
There is a City of Grace 
You drink holy water in sanctified space 
No one is afraid to show their face 
In the City of Grace 
 
There is a City of Peace 
Where all foul forms of destruction cease 
Where the mighty have fallen and there are no police 
There is a City of Peace 
 
There is a City of Hope 
Above the ravine on the green sunlit slope 
All I need is an axe and a rope 
To get to the City of Hope 
 
I’m heading for the City of Gold 
Before it’s too late, before it gets too cold 
Before I’m too tired, before I’m too old 
I’m heading for the City of Gold” 

• Bob Dylan – “City of Gold” (1980 – Special Rider Music) 

I’m past eighty years old now. My journey is almost complete. There are mornings when I sense that I can hear the conversations and the beautiful music drifting earthward from the Celestial City. That’s a far cry from a few years ago, when my view of that Celestial City seemed so distant.  

While I realize that I’m currently earthbound, I take great comfort in the fact that I’m closer to my real home and I rejoice in that. 

The world I inhabit now is full of false gods and false promises, greed, and corruption running rampant. It’s been that way here on earth since the beginning of time. History is full of examples – Egypt, Rome, Babylon. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.  

While we Americans try carve out an exception for ourselves as the “shining city on the hill”, we have strayed far from the original covenant many of our forefathers agreed to. Our streets are violent, with criminals often acting with impunity. Many of our politicians are openly corrupt.  

Sadly, the America we inhabit is far from being that “shining city on a hill.” I believe it’s more like the America Bob Dylan described in 1989: 

“We live in a political world 
Courage is a thing of the past 
Houses are haunted 
Children unwanted 
The next day could be your last” 

As I said a few sentences ago, this world has been subject to corruption for thousands of years. The Christian scholar, Augustine, lived during the times when the great Roman Empire was collapsing. He observed it and described what he was seeing in his masterwork “City of God” 

“The earthly [city] has made for herself, according to her heart’s desire, false gods out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices. The heavenly one, on the other hand, living like a wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to Him.” 

Thankfully, my sense of hope is higher now than it was a few years ago, when things were far less corrupt than they are now. Back then, my wife, Nancy, and I were also discussing our growing sense of alienation with “the things of this world.” The abiding life theme coming from those discussions was that our shared pilgrimages had a way to go. We saw the “celestial city” less dimly than we did a quarter of a century before, but we recognized that our vision was still dimmed by the temporal realities that so often dominated our lives. This begged the question for us. “How can we truly learn to be “in, but not of, the world?”  
 

As Christians, we have learned that a substantial part of our historical narrative is the shared story of aliens and strangers looking for a city they had neither built nor seen. As we now gaze back through time we see the panoply of fellow travelers who preceded us. There was Noah. There was Abraham, who left one of the most vibrant cultures in the early world to seek the city Nancy and I now see dimly in the distance. There was Moses, who traded the wealth of Egypt for a pilgrimage in the wilderness with God’s liberated slaves. As we hear the names called we see human weakness in all its glory. We see a prostitute, a coward in hiding, a self-absorbed strong man, and a repentant adulterer. We see the prophets who set trumpets to their mouths only to be stoned for the words of warning they proclaimed. 
 

These are the citizens of our homeland. 
 

Through all the tribulations in life these men and women saw life through a common prism – faith! They chose alienation from the familiar and safe for a promise they never saw fulfilled on the earthly side of their journeys. And it is that prism through which we too must see our lives and our times. 
 

As we proceed on our respective journeys, we see what they saw long ago. The road we must travel is difficult, littered with the age-old temptations to stay earth-bound and proceed no further than our culture will allow. Moses experienced it when Pharaoh responded to God’s demand for liberation with the telling words, “You can go, but don’t go too far.” So do we. 
 

One of the great lessons of history is that even the greatest of cultures are imbued with curses as well as blessings. Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome could boast of power, wealth, philosophy, art, law, and human progress. But theirs was also the story of barbarity, corruption, and unbridled evil. Empires rose, full of promise, only to descend into madness. Another would supplant it. In time the cycle would repeat itself. Our fathers in faith saw this and refused to give in to the temptation of becoming earth bound. They sought something better. 
 

Ah, but we’re Americans. We’re different. We’re the people of the “New Frontier” and the “City on the Hill.” We’re “the last best hope of earth.” 
 

This, I think, is the great American curse. It’s the temptation to which far too many Christians have fallen prey. We’ve all too often succumbed to the false notion that America is our final destination. Richard John Neuhaus recently wrote of this phenomenon and its accompanying tension and asked whether, for the Christian, America may be more Bablyon than it is the New Jerusalem we’ve falsely thought it was, or hoped it would be: 
 

“The title American Babylon will likely puzzle, and even offend, some readers. There is in America a strong current of Christian patriotism in which “God and country’ falls trippingly from the tongue. Indeed, God and country are sometimes conflated in a single allegiance that permits no tension, never mind conflict, between the two.” 
 

There’s a tension at play here. We live in one world. We seek, or should be seeking, another. In the third century Tertullian asked the question – “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” In our time should that question be – “What has American Babylon to do with the New Jerusalem we seek?” 
 

Is this all a matter of just splitting hairs? I think not. The tension is as real as my American citizenship and the sense of love, duty, and patriotism I feel for my country. I realize that I’ve been a partner to freedom, privilege, and wealth that few in history have had. I am an American. But, the sense of alienation I feel in my little corner of Babylon is also as real as the dynamics of the new city I seek. As I read the accounts of those who have preceded me in faith I also understand that my Babylon carries its curses as well. America is no different in that regard than any other empire in history. The children of Israel had their taskmasters. So do we! This new age is not immune. As C.S. Lewis once observed: 
 

“What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about ‘Man taking charge of his own destiny’. All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?” 
 

Can we escape the tension? I think not. About the best we can do is give moral voice to our concerns, live in peace with others as much as it is possible, realize that our narratives are linked historically to a different homeland and people, and to learn to sing the song of Zion in a foreign land. That seems like so little. Perhaps so. But if we give in to the temptation to make Babylon our permanent abode we fall prey to the false notion that we have the capacity to create heaven on earth. Once we give in to that delusion it may only be a matter of time before we stir the stagnant water, see ourselves mirrored there, and worship what we see. 

“To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. He perceives what exists round about him – simply things, and beings as things; and what happens round about him – simply events, and actions as events; things consisting of qualities, events of moments; things entered in the graph of place, events in that of time; things and events bounded by other things and events, measured by them, comparable with them: he perceives an ordered and detached world. It is to some extent a reliable world, having density and duration. Its organization can be surveyed and brought out again and again; gone over with closed eyes, and verified with open eyes.” 
 
– Martin Buber – from “I and Thou” 
 
My mother was cut from hardy stock. She was born in 1910, in a little Newfound fishing village called Mcivers, pictured above. She was the youngest of Fannie Rose Morgan and Reuben Park’s nine children. 
 
While I didn’t realize it at the time, what seemed to be a bad staffing assignment on the part of the U.S. Air Force in 1963 turned out to be on of the greatest blessings in my life. I’d been at Travis Air Force Base for about two years when the orders came. I was going to Ernest Harmon, which was located in Stephenville, Newfoundland. 
 
My first recollection of life at Harmon was that it was cold, damned cold. I’d arrived in early December and by that time the snow was already piled up higher than anything I’d ever seen. And, the wind was almost always blowing at thirty miles an hour, with snow squalls descending in the late afternoons, dropping three or four inches of snow. After that, the nights would clear, the winds continue, and the temperature drop to about ten below. 
 
My daily routine was about as predictable as the weather. There was work in a communications relay center, dressing to endure the walk from the barracks to work, chow, and about two or three hours a day in the airman’s club, drinking. Like most GI’s stationed there, the drink was the real center of my life. I rationalized it by calling it anti-freeze, claiming I needed it to survive the Newfoundland winter. 
 
I knew that my mother had been born in Newfoundland, but once stationed there I never gave much thought to contacting my mother’s family. There were two reasons I used to justify my thinking. First, it was just too cold to move far from Ernest Harmon. I assumed that my mother’s family would be hunkered down just like me. But, fundamentally, I was really afraid to meet them. I was afraid they might be like her. After my father died in 1948 she’d had a complete nervous breakdown and been hospitalized for a year or so. The “healing regimen” included all sorts of medications and went so far as to also include shock treatments. My brother has a picture of her taken not long after she got out of the hospital. She weighed about eighty pounds. Every time I look at that picture I have to stifle my emotions. Her face looked empty, as if almost all the life had been shocked and electrified out of her. There was a body there, to be sure, but the sullen, downcast look on her face has always spoken volumes to me. It’s as though the forty pounds missing from her were the soul. Her cheekbones, mirrored against the gaunt face, the sunken, hollow eyes, were the most prominent features. As I occasionally look at the picture I see the weight of the world collapsing down on her. With shoulders slumped, face weighed down, she has become to me the epitome of a tortured soul. 
 
It took me years to see my mother’s life in the proper light. Until that happened she remained a great embarrassment to me. Her neuroses, born of circumstances beyond her control, dominated her life from the time she left that hospital. The weight of those “quirks” often fell on me and I recoiled against them. As I think back on it now I believe it’s the reason I was the first in my family to go far from home. I’d decided at a young age that when the opportunity came I was going to escape the things that dominated her. I determined they were not going to dominate me. 
 
That brings me back to Newfoundland. I was content to stay around the people I felt most comfortable with. If I was going to be around neurotic people, I reasoned, I was going to share my time with people whose neuroses I shared. So, like my buddies, I clung to drink, fast women, and as much fancy clothing I could afford. 
 
It was, as I recall, about four months into my tour, in early March, 1964, when I got a letter from home, encouraging me to visit the Parks, my mother’s family. I ignored that letter, but a second letter came two weeks later with an even stronger encouragement. I decided to go ahead and make the pilgrimage, only to stop the barrage of letters. 
 
Mcivers is about twenty miles or so from Corner Brook, in Newfoundland’s Bay of Islands area. It’s rugged country, made for rugged men and women, the hardy stock my mother came from. 
 
The trip from Stephenville to Mcivers was uneventful. By this time I was getting used to the snow, wind, and cold, so much so that it seemed quite natural to me. A ride in a sixties version of a micro-bus going sixty five miles an hour on snow packed roads would bother me today. It didn’t back then. I just figured that if we went off the road we’d just wind up in a snow bank, crawl out of the vehicle and dig out, then go on our way. I believe the bus driver was thinking the same way. 
 
I arrived in Mcivers right around dusk. The first thing I noticed was that the wind was as prominent there in Mcivers as it was at Ernest Harmon. My African-American buddies back at the base used to listen to the wind howling and say that the “hawk was talking.” The bus stopped and I thanked the driver for the ride. “Hawk’s really talkin’ out there, ain’t he?” I said, as I got up from my seat. “What’s that, my son?” the driver asked. Realizing that there was a language barrier, I replied, “Nothing…Just GI talk, that’s all.” 
 
As I got off the bus I pulled the hood of the parka over my head to protect myself from the wind, looked up at the sky, which was beginning to reveal the stars that ruled the cold Newfoundland night. The bus pulled away and as it did the driver rolled his window down and barked out, “Sonny Jim, if was you I’d be gittin’ myself inside quick like. Otherwise you’s gonna’ freeze solid fore the mornin’ comes.” I waved, acknowledging his wise counsel, and headed off to the closest house I could find. 
 
The door opened even before I got to the threshold. There to greet me was a woman. She was fairly tall, with a strong appearance, a round pleasant face. Her voice spoke of an inner calm. As I moved forward to announce myself she said, “Lionel, my son, you’ve got some thin.” It took me a moment to realize that I’d been mistaken for someone else. Once I did I announced myself. “Ma’am, I’m not Lionel, I’m Susie Park’s son from America.” Her face lit up as soon as she heard my words. “Oh, God’s goodness, my son, I’m your aunt Mabel.” She motioned me forward and hugged me, pulling me past the threshold as she did. “Billy, Billy, come ‘ere,” she shouted. “Your sister Susie’s boy’s here from America.” My uncle came dashing from a back room as we were entering what appeared to be a dining room. There was a long table in the middle covered with an oil cloth, with neatly arranged chairs surrounding it. The room was warm and inviting. My uncle, who was a fairly short man (as I recall he appeared to be shorter than my aunt), with thinning hair, and a very pronounced smile, stood erect, beaming at the sight before him. “Well, Lord stone the crows.” He looked me over for a few moments, then, beaming again, went on. “Mabel, you’re right maid, he’s some thin. I think we need to get this boy some food, they don’t feed ‘em too well in America.” With that he motioned me to sit down. It wasn’t long till the table was filled with cookies, biscuits, bread, jams, and tea. We sat for hours and talked. To this day I remember the ambiance much more than the subjects covered. As the conversation went on the room seemed to warm with each word spoken. I received the hospitality and listened, realizing that my fears about the Parks, based on my history with my mother, were unfounded. These were good people, the salt of the earth. 
 
The conversation went on for some time and then there was a knock at the door. Mabel smiled at me as she got up to answer the door. “’Tis your uncle Philip. He’s over every evening about this time. Susie named you after him. I’m sure he’ll love these moments with ya’.” As the door opened I saw a short man. He was barrel-chested and appeared to be quite strong. From what my mother had told me I knew he’d been a lumberjack and could “cut more cord o’ wood than any man in the Bay of Islands.” I stood up and he gazed at me for a moment. Then he asked Mabel, “What’s this, then, Mabel, a stranger in our midst?” Mabel laughed. “’Tis no stranger, Philip, ‘tis your namesake from America. This is your sister Susie’s boy from America.” With that Philip rushed up to me and hugged me. He held me for quite some time, then let go. “It’s him for sure, is it, Mabel?” he asked, looking for reassurance. “He’s not a phantom, is he?” Billy and Mabel, in unison, reassured him. “Oh, no, my son, he’s Susie’s boy for sure.” “This is wonderful,” he beamed as he hugged me once more. As he did I could feel tears from his cheeks touching mine. This, for my uncle Philip, was a great day. He let go of me for a moment, holding me by my shoulders, looking me over. After that he did something that amazes me to this day. My uncle, seventy-seven years old, past his prime, picked me up and twirled me around seven or eight times. “It’s a glad day for Philip Park, it is,” He said as he did. When he was done he plunked me down like a small toy and we all sat down for more conversation and remembrance. 
 
For the next hour or so we all sat and talked. I noticed that Mabel, Philip, and Billy seemed far less concerned with the goings on in America, the progress of the world’s greatest nation than they were with Susie. Philip and Billy would occasionally reminisce across the table, giving me little glimpses into my mother’s real soul. Their remembrance filled the air. One would talk, the other would listen, nodding as he did. “How long’s it been since we seen her?” “Forty year I think.” “Been that long has it?” “Oh my, yes, it’s been that for sure.” “She was the flower of Mcivers, our Susie was.” “Oh my, yes, she was that and more.” This went on for some time and then it got more specific. Billy began, out loud, to remember a sad time. “Do you remember, Philip, the time when she was so young and she wanted to go to a dance? I think she was sixteen, maybe.” Philip nodded, acknowledging the memory. Billy continued – “Mum thought ‘twas alright but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. I remember Mum pleadin’ with him – “Oh Reuben, let her go, the boys will be sure she’s okay.” 
“I remember it,” Philip said. “Reuben Park was a hard man, a mean man and he wouldn’t let her go. Said she was too young.” 
Billy continued on. “I remember poor Susie pleadin’ with him and us takin’ up for her, but it was no good. We all just got beat for all our pleadin.” 
As I looked across the table I saw Philip wipe the tears from his eyes. “She cried by the fireplace all night long. No one could console her…..He was a hard man, was Reuben Park. He was mean to our little Susie” 
 
And so it went late into the night until fatigue set it. Mabel went to prepare a place for me to sleep, a feather bed with a huge down comforter. As she was doing that Billy left me with the night’s parting words. “Your mom’s a good woman, Philip. Our Susie’s was the flower of Mcivers. I think she was the best of us Parks.” 
 
We then all sat quietly for a few minutes, basking in the glow of the conversation and memories of the flower of Mcivers. It was time full of marvelous silence, with Billy and Philip remembering a sister they loved and treasured and me seeing my mother in a light I’d never seen before. I remember that silence to this day as not only being full, but also being filled with wonder. 
 
Mabel came from the bedroom she’d prepared for me and announced that it was fit for American habitation. This way, Philip,” she said, motioning me toward the room. “Bein’ a soldier you’re probably not used to much comfort, but we’ll make you comfortable here. We gotta’ do good by Susie’s boy.” I thanked her, said good night to Billy and Philip, and turned toward the bedroom. Mabel had one last word. “You’re uncle Fiander will be by in the morning for breakfast. He’s always by our place in time for breakfast along with the other Parks. You’ll bring a glad tear to his eye when he sees you, for sure.” With that, the door closed behind me. 
 
It took me a while to get to sleep that night. My mind and heart were filled with thoughts. The goodness of the Parks melted some of the hardness I’d developed over the years. I laid there, rearranging my thinking. There was so much more to Susie Park than the neuroses I’d seen for years. To those who were close to her and loved her she was the flower of Mcivers. As I drifted into slumber I wondered, “How did she get from here in Mcivers to where she is now?” “Who?” I asked, “robbed the flower of all of its beauty in the years it took her to get from here to there?” 

It was to take years to get the answers to those questions 

“In becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life…Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths of the Irish psyche and warming and transforming Irish imagination – making it more humane and more noble while keeping it Irish.” 

    – Thomas Cahill – “How the Irish Saved Civilization” 

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day, a day to celebrate all things Irish. Across America, people will be wearing lots of Kelly green, sporting badges with the words “Kiss me, I’m Irish inscribed on them, tipping a pint of Guinness (the Irish also call it a pint o’ the bitters), or viewing parades with their friends and neighbors.  

I’m Irish American myself, so I love the tradition. My father was the stereotypical Irish American. My mother, who was born in Newfoundland, met him when she came to Boston with her sisters in the 1930’s. She was smitten with his handsome face and curly hair not long after she met him. They got married and settled into life in America. He worked as a “chipper,” or the trade was more commonly known, ice man. He delivered blocks of ice to people’s homes every working day. It was backbreaking labor. My brother was born in 1938; my siter was born in 1940. I was born in 1942, about a year after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  

I have very few memories of him. I do remember running up to him occasionally when he came home from work. I’d jump up in his arms and he’d hug me. I remember the warmth of those hugs on my cheeks, along with the wetness on my arms and chest that came from the leather apron he wore. I have only one other memory of him.  It came a few days before he died in 1948 from Tuberculosis. My mother, brother, sister, and I were standing in a hospital lobby looking up at the glass enclosed isolation ward where was standing. I can still visualize him waving meekly at us as we stared longingly at him from below. Any memory I now have of him comes from sources that were closer to him than I was. 

I was born in 1942; the Pearl Harbor attack had taken place in December of 1941. For my father, the attack on Pearl Harbor brought out his patriotic instincts. He decided to join the Marine Corps and do his part as a loyal American. He took the physical and that’s when fate intervened. When the results came back the doctors notified him, “Mr. Dillon, you’ve got Tuberculosis.” He was despondent. He really wanted to join the Marine Corps. The doctors tried to reassure him. “It’s going to be a long war, Mister Dillon. Get treated and you’ll still have your chance to fight the Japanese.” He didn’t listen. He refused to get treated and sank into an alcohol fueled depression that eventually killed him.  

I’ve never understood why he took the course he did. About the only thing about what did that’s made sense to me was that it was a very Irish approach, full of self-pity. He was maudlin to his core.  

My mother was the brave one. She somehow fought her way through a nervous breakdown that included barbaric electroshock treatments to keep her family intact. It the kind of courage that one rarely finds in this world.  

In the years since, when I’ve tried to recapture my early moments with my father, my wife, Nancy, has always reminded me that I needed to firmly grasp that it was my mother who should be my role model. She was the one who had the courage to keep going when things seemed impossible. My father had the maudlin Irish instincts. My mother was the one who was imbued with Celtic tenacity.  

As I was growing up, I occasionally asked my mother about my Celtic roots. “How Irish am I?” She’d always respond, “You’re as Irish as Paddy’s pig.” I didn’t understand what the title meant. I just knew that I was “as Irish ad Paddy’s pig.” It wasn’t till years later that came to understand that it as the British who first coined the derisive term as a way of mocking the Irish as nothing more than crude, primitive, uneducated, dirty barbarians.  

Strangely, the taunting language and description of the Irish that the British first used as an epithet has become a term I now warmly embrace. I am “AS IRISH AS PADDY’S PIG!” 

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to visit Ireland several times. I’ve kissed the Blarney Stone. Nancy and I have had the pleasure of casually sipping tea at Bewley’s on Grafton Street. The tea was good, but what made the event so meaningful for us was the Irish approach to Bewley’s. Here in America, we sit at our table and other guests sit at theirs. It’s very private. Not so in Ireland. We sat down at a table and before we could get settled, we heard a man’s voice. “Do you mind if I sit with you, then?” We responded that we’d be delighted to have him join us. He then sat down with us and a brief conversation followed. He explained how things work in Ireland and then told us to keep our eyes on the lookout for the “do gooders” who are trying to ruin everything here in Ireland.”  

You may be asking what a “do gooder” is. It’s an Irish slang for a liberal or a Progresssive.There weren’t many of them in Ireland in those days, but I think that has changed a lot in the years since. I do know that quite a few of them came to America, became politicians, and they are doing their very best to ruin things here now. 

 We’ve done a Dublin pub crawl, visiting the haunts of famous Irish writers like William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce. We’ve had the pleasure of sitting in a pub close to the Cliffs of Moher, listening to a uniquely Irish group perform traditional Irish ballads. When I say uniquely Irish that’s exactly what I mean. The two person group consisted of a young woman who played the flute. The thing that made her uniquely Irish was the fact that she chain- smoked while she played. I can still see the smoke floating from the flute as she played. The guitarist was a one-legged man, whose skill with the guitar and his warm Irish tenor voice were incomparable. There was the third member of the ensemble, but he didn’t perform with a musical instrument. He was an elderly gentleman who sat on a stool next to the perfumers. He sat smiling, with his mouth closed, so I couldn’t tell for sure whether he had many teeth in his head. He just sat there, smiling, with his right hand extended in the direction of the audience.  That extended right hand was a signal to the bartender to put of pint of Guinness in it at the appropriate time(s). It took me a minute or two to figure out what his role was until it hit me. He was a “groupie,” an Irish version of the “groupies” who follow rock bands and singers from venue to venue here in America.  

It was a memorable evening, made even more memorable as Nancy and I made our way back to Maeve Fitzgerald’s Inn, accompanied in the moonlit night by a couple of cows enjoying a stroll with us.  

We’ve done an amazing tour of the library at Dublin’s Trinity College. It’s home to the famous Book of Kells, a beautifully crafted manuscript of the four gospels based on the Latin (Vulgate) of the Christian Bible. The original texts were composed sometime in the fourth century by Saint Jerome. That, along with the thousands of classical texts, were preserved by the Irish monks of Iona like Columba, Aidan, and Scabbyhead when the barbarians swept across much of Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries, about 200 years after Saint Jerome died.  

Their work was critical to the preservation of Christian civilization. Their contributions have been memorialized in contemporary literature. One of those works is Thomas Cahill’s “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” I read it a few years ago and recommend it highly. Also, for those who may be wondering how the Irish came to America I’d also like to recommend Edward Laxton’s “The Famine Ships” which chronicles the Irish pilgrimage from the great potato famine to the anti British uprisings of the early twentieth century. 

Nancy and I have seen just about anything a person would want to see in Ireland over the years.  

We once got to meet a wonderful group of young Irishmen in a pub who were celebrating a rare curling or rugby victory over the British. They fell in love with us, in part because we’re Americans and in part because they loved saying two words – Nancy and Kansas, which they pronounced “Nhhhancee” and “Khhhansas.” They would celebrate, then stop and say, “Boys, let’s go give Nhhhancee from Khhhansas a hug.” 

It was priceless. 

On another trip, we somehow managed to crash the boat we’d rented into an arched bridge. Thankfully, by that time I’d kissed the Blarney Stone, which made explaining the disaster to the owner quite pleasant. I called him and said, “well, then, you wouldn’t believe it. We’ve sheared off a wee bit of the cabin of your boat.” 

As the Irish almost always do, he took it all in stride. 

On another trip, we had the pleasure of meeting an older woman who had to be the sauciest waitress I’ve ever met. She was in her sixties, I think. She was about five feet tall. She weighed less than a hundred pounds, but, oh man, did she have a wicked left hook. I can still hear her fist against the mouth of an unruly patron she confronted on the other side of the establishment. I can still hear the thud of his body hitting the floor. When I asked her what had happened, she said nonchalantly, “I just popped ‘im one and that was that.” 

Tomorrow we’ll be celebrating Saint Patrick’s life and contributions to Western Civilization. He came to Ireland, not as a native Irishman, but as a slave. By the time he’d shed those chains, he was responsible for abolishing slavery and bringing Christianity to large swaths of Ireland. Folklore even maintains that he singlehandedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. If that’s true, I suspect that more than a few of them made their way to America with the “do gooders” of Dublin and became politicians. 

I’ve gone about as far as my Irish “gift of gab” can take me today. Tomorrow I’m going to enjoy celebrating the fact that I’m as “Irish as Paddy’s Pig.” I’ll be eating the traditional corned beef dinner, along with Irish soda bread, and possibly a pint of Guinness. My Saint Patrick’s wish for you is the same – good food, Irish soda bread, a pint of Guinness, and lots of happy conversations and enjoy one another’s company. 

“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 

“Who is this that obscures my plans 
    with words without knowledge? 
Brace yourself like a man; 
    I will question you, 
    and you shall answer me. 

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? 
    Tell me, if you understand. 
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! 
    Who stretched a measuring line across it? 
 On what were its footings set, 
    or who laid its cornerstone— 
while the morning stars sang together 
    and all the angels^[a] shouted for joy? 

 “Who shut up the sea behind doors 
    when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment 
    and wrapped it in thick darkness, 
 when I fixed limits for it 
    and set its doors and bars in place, 
 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; 
    here is where your proud waves halt’?” 

• Job 38:1-11 (New International Version) 

This morning, I feel the need to get in touch with my smallness. It’s an exercise I first became acquainted with when my wife, Nancy, and I moved from Memphis to Emporia, Kansas, which sits about 100 miles south of Kansas City.  

I knew very little about Emporia before the move. My wife, Nancy, and I were living in Memphis, working for FedEx.  

 
As we started out, I remembered how things were just before I retired. I’d made the trip south on the turnpike so many times it had become too common to me. If I had to put a number to it I’ll bet I missed the glory of the Flint Hills a hundred out of a hundred and one days back then. It had just become humdrum, a drudgery. 
 
Ah, but now I look forward to these little day trips. That was what it was like on the morning, June 2nd, 2005. 
 

This is the way I described the events of that morning back then: 

 
Coach and I took another trip to Wichita today. The part the Volvo dealer had ordered a week or so ago was in and so we headed out at about seven-thirty to get it attached to the rest of the car. 
 
As we started out, I remembered how things were just before I retired. I’d made the trip south on the turnpike so many times it had become too common to me. If I had to put a number to it, I’ll bet I missed the glory of the Flint Hills a hundred out of a hundred and one days back then. It had just become humdrum, a drudgery. Listening to sultry new-age voices on NPR like Lakshmi or Mandalit. 
 
Ah, but now I look forward to these little day trips. So it was on this morning, June 2nd, 2005. 
 
The hills are especially beautiful this year. The late rain and early spring rains, along with the burning, have produced the most incredible green that I’ve ever seen. It is a sight to behold! 
 
I think it was right about my favorite spot, mile marker 109, that Nancy mentioned something Curtis McCauley said the other night when he and his wife were over for some barbeque. Doctor Mac, as I know him, says he’s retired, but he does more work these days than most of the young bucks I met in the corporate world. One of the things he’s currently doing is providing transportation for young people who have somehow made it into the “system.” I think that most are products of broken homes. At any rate, Doc spends a good part of his time taking them to doctor’s appointments, counselors, or an absentee parent. Not too long ago he was taking a young boy from Emporia to some sort of appointment. Their course took them through the Flint Hills, and somewhere along the turnpike he asked the boy a question. “Did you know that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills?” The boy seemed a bit puzzled, so Doc continued with an explanation. “Some of them are black, and some of them are brown, but none of them are green.” The boy seemed even more puzzled with this. Curtis, who finds it almost impossible to avoid mischief, then decided to add more puzzlement yet. “Why do you think that God doesn’t make them green?” he asked. Now I wasn’t there, but I can almost see the gleam in Doc’s eyes as he parried with the lad. I think he might have been thinking “I’ve got this kid stumped.” But, after a minute or so of reflection the boy offered this wonderful piece of youthful wisdom. “If they were all green,” he replied. “God wouldn’t be able to see them from “up there.” 
 
I’d have to say that the boy won this little battle of wits, and I also think that Curtis was delighted to have been the boy’s foil. Curtis has one of those gruff exteriors, but inside is lurking a universe of kindness and love. I don’t think he does all this driving around for the money. I think he does it because he cares about these kids; I think he loves them and wants to give them a little bit of caring that they would otherwise never get. Absentee parents and the “system” just can’t do those things. 
 
The thought of this wonderful little exchange did something for me. As we passed south of that treasured marker on the turnpike, I felt the recapturing of the awe and the wonder I had felt before the trip had become drudgery. To that end, I’m going to re-post a bit of free verse I penned one morning as I stopped a bit south of mile marker 109. 
 
The things I felt then I felt this morning. I felt that wonderful sense of my own smallness. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being “known. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being loved.” 
 
It now follows. I hope you find it edifying. 
 
 
Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike 
By 
Phil Dillon 
© 2002 Phil Dillon 
 
It’s the cusp of dawn. I’m chasing Orion’s Belt and bull-haulers down the Kansas Turnpike. At mile marker 109, about a furlong or two south of the cattle pens, I stop. 
 
The occasional rush of southbound traffic breaks the dawn silence. Like a general poised in his appointed place, I review the early morning parade. Saints and scoundrels, gospel singers and politicians, truckers, ranchers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, all pass by. Problems and opportunities wind their way down the highway with them. 
 
I touch the highway sign. Mile marker 109. I feel the bits of rust creeping up on the metal. It’s man-made, temporal, placed on the edge of the eternal. It speaks. “This is where you are.” It speaks of commerce and progress passing by. It speaks of cattle and concept drawings on their journeys past a solitary milepost planted on the edge of eternity. 
 
I turn, take a step, and cast my gaze across the prairie. Like the storied astronaut of my youth, that one small step transports me from one world to another. Thoughts pass by. Some pass quietly, humming like the Toyotas and Fords on the highway. Others I hear in the distance. Their low, grinding hums become roars as they draw near, like the Peterbilts and Kenworths hauling their precious cargoes from Chicago to Dallas or the Twin Cities to San Antonio. 
 
While the darkness has not yet surrendered to the day, there are hints of color along the rim of the eastern sky. I sense that they carry the faint whisper of an announcement of the millennium to come. The ageless ritual proceeds, moment by moment. Light overcomes the darkness. The unbroken sky and the endless sea of grass now join together in a hymn of praise. The morning breeze caresses the tallgrass. The blades of grass, in turn, wave gently to and fro, worshippers caught up in the glory of this moment. 
 
Thoughts glide effortlessly through the air, then stop to gently kiss the earth. The earth gratefully receives the kiss from above and pleads, “Maranatha…..Maranatha.” 
 
A hawk circles above, wings outstretched, reaching for an unseen spire. As he circles, the dawn sun touches him, revealing his priestly robes and eyes of fire. 
 
I sense that I’ve entered a great cathedral. I’m overwhelmed by my own smallness. I fear. The hawk descends slowly, gracefully and speaks. “You are indeed small. But, fear not. You’re known…..You’re known. This is where you are. Mile marker 109. This is the place where the line between now and forever is drawn. Here you own nothing, but are given the grace to be a part of everything. The language of the world you left is ownership. The language here is stewardship. This is the place where moth and rust do not corrupt.” 
 
His appointed ministry complete, he now lays hold of the morning currents and moves effortlessly off to the east. 
 
I feel the warmth of a tear as it drifts slowly down my cheek. My epiphany’s complete. I turn back and take another small step, returning to the world I left moments before. I take my place in line with my fellow travelers, the builders and dreamers, the movers and shakers, the commerce and the concepts. Our daily procession has taken us past this place…..mile marker 109.

“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 

“Who is this that obscures my plans 
    with words without knowledge? 
Brace yourself like a man; 
    I will question you, 
    and you shall answer me. 

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? 
    Tell me, if you understand. 
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! 
    Who stretched a measuring line across it? 
 On what were its footings set, 
    or who laid its cornerstone— 
while the morning stars sang together 
    and all the angels^[a] shouted for joy? 

 “Who shut up the sea behind doors 
    when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment 
    and wrapped it in thick darkness, 
 when I fixed limits for it 
    and set its doors and bars in place, 
 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; 
    here is where your proud waves halt’?” 

• Job 38:1-11 (New International Version) 

This morning, I feel the need to get in touch with my smallness. It’s an exercise I first became acquainted with when my wife, Nancy, and I moved from Memphis to Emporia, Kansas, which sits about 100 miles south of Kansas City.  

I knew very little about Emporia before the move. My wife, Nancy, and I were living in Memphis, working for FedEx.  

 
As we started out, I remembered how things were just before I retired. I’d made the trip south on the turnpike so many times it had become too common to me. If I had to put a number to it I’ll bet I missed the glory of the Flint Hills a hundred out of a hundred and one days back then. It had just become humdrum, a drudgery. 
 
Ah, but now I look forward to these little day trips. That was what it was like on the morning, June 2nd, 2005. 

This is the way I described the events of that morning back then:  
Coach and I took another trip to Wichita today. The part the Volvo dealer had ordered a week or so ago was in and so we headed out at about seven-thirty to get it attached to the rest of the car. 
 
As we started out, I remembered how things were just before I retired. I’d made the trip south on the turnpike so many times it had become too common to me. If I had to put a number to it, I’ll bet I missed the glory of the Flint Hills a hundred out of a hundred and one days back then. It had just become humdrum, a drudgery. Listening to sultry new-age voices on NPR like Lakshmi or Mandalit. 
 
Ah, but now I look forward to these little day trips. So it was on this morning, June 2nd, 2005. 
 
The hills are especially beautiful this year. The late rain and early spring rains, along with the burning, have produced the most incredible green that I’ve ever seen. It is a sight to behold! 
 
I think it was right about my favorite spot, mile marker 109, that Nancy mentioned something Curtis McCauley said the other night when he and his wife were over for some barbeque. Doctor Mac, as I know him, says he’s retired, but he does more work these days than most of the young bucks I met in the corporate world. One of the things he’s currently doing is providing transportation for young people who have somehow made it into the “system.” I think that most are products of broken homes. At any rate, Doc spends a good part of his time taking them to doctor’s appointments, counselors, or an absentee parent. Not too long ago he was taking a young boy from Emporia to some sort of appointment. Their course took them through the Flint Hills, and somewhere along the turnpike he asked the boy a question. “Did you know that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills?” The boy seemed a bit puzzled, so Doc continued with an explanation. “Some of them are black, and some of them are brown, but none of them are green.” The boy seemed even more puzzled with this. Curtis, who finds it almost impossible to avoid mischief, then decided to add more puzzlement yet. “Why do you think that God doesn’t make them green?” he asked. Now I wasn’t there, but I can almost see the gleam in Doc’s eyes as he parried with the lad. I think he might have been thinking “I’ve got this kid stumped.” But, after a minute or so of reflection the boy offered this wonderful piece of youthful wisdom. “If they were all green,” he replied. “God wouldn’t be able to see them from “up there.” 
 
I’d have to say that the boy won this little battle of wits, and I also think that Curtis was delighted to have been the boy’s foil. Curtis has one of those gruff exteriors, but inside is lurking a universe of kindness and love. I don’t think he does all this driving around for the money. I think he does it because he cares about these kids; I think he loves them and wants to give them a little bit of caring that they would otherwise never get. Absentee parents and the “system” just can’t do those things. 
 
The thought of this wonderful little exchange did something for me. As we passed south of that treasured marker on the turnpike, I felt the recapturing of the awe and the wonder I had felt before the trip had become drudgery. To that end, I’m going to re-post a bit of free verse I penned one morning as I stopped a bit south of mile marker 109. 
 
The things I felt then I felt this morning. I felt that wonderful sense of my own smallness. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being “known. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being loved.” 
 
It now follows. I hope you find it edifying. 
 
 
Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike 
By 
Phil Dillon 
© 2002 Phil Dillon 
 
It’s the cusp of dawn. I’m chasing Orion’s Belt and bull-haulers down the Kansas Turnpike. At mile marker 109, about a furlong or two south of the cattle pens, I stop. 
 
The occasional rush of southbound traffic breaks the dawn silence. Like a general poised in his appointed place, I review the early morning parade. Saints and scoundrels, gospel singers and politicians, truckers, ranchers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, all pass by. Problems and opportunities wind their way down the highway with them. 
 
I touch the highway sign. Mile marker 109. I feel the bits of rust creeping up on the metal. It’s man-made, temporal, placed on the edge of the eternal. It speaks. “This is where you are.” It speaks of commerce and progress passing by. It speaks of cattle and concept drawings on their journeys past a solitary milepost planted on the edge of eternity.

I feel like I’m all wrapped up in a warm blanket of nostalgia today, dreaming of the time when Ike was the president and I was the stickball champion of Chatham Street. Strangely, the nostalgia is being triggered by my inability to come to grips with the madness that has swept over America in the twenty-first century 

I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the post-war era. The Axis forces had been defeated after four grueling years of war. American soldiers, sailors, and Marines were coming back home. They were ready to put their guns away and rebuild their lives. That deep desire was reflected in films like the classic western “Shane.” It/s story of a gunfighter named Shane. Like the Americans who served in World War II, he is ready to settle down and put his gun away. The film begins with Shane coming upon a Wyoming homesteader named Joe Starrett, his wife Marian, and their young son Joey It doesn’t take long for Shane to find the life of the homesteaders attractive. The Starretts offer Shane a job on their homestead and the story proceeds from there. This essay begins with brief YouTube video of that encounter.  

Shane is a truly classic film. It’s been dubbed a “Cold War parable” by many film critics. Over the years, when my wife and I have hosted international students, Shane has been required viewing. Before we start watching, I try my best to explain that if they want to understand how American men from my generation thought, they need to watch Shane’s story unfold. It’s pitch perfect. 

Around the same time Shane playing in America’s theatres, another conflict arose. The Free World’s leaders called it a “police action,” somehow believing that sidestepping the use of the word “war” to describe the conflict would be acceptable to America. They were wrong. In 1952, General Dwight Eisenhower, the man who had been the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces that had defeated the Nazis in Europe, ran for the Presidency of the United States, promising to get us out of the so called “police action.” About a month before the election, he spoke in Detroit and said, “A soldier all my life, I have enlisted in the greatest cause of my life, the cause of peace. I do not believe it is a presumption to call the effort of all who have enlisted with me a crusade.” 

Eisenhower won the election handily, proof that America was ready for change. Once he took the oath of office, he was true to his promise.  He was inaugurated on January 20^th, 1953. Six months later, on July 27^th, the Korean Armistice was signed, ending the conflict. 

Eisenhower served as President for eight peaceful, prosperous years. An interstate highway system was built. NASA was established. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed. 

On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower made a brief televised farewell to the American people. While it was brief, it has become known as a very powerful, prophetic warning about what he termed “the military-industrial complex.”  

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. 

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” 

Eisenhower’s televised farewell speech was a harbinger of things to come. The 1960 Presidential campaign featured a televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The post-debate analysis held that Kennedy had won. The reason for that consensus was television. Most of those who had listened to the debate on the radio believed that Nixon had won. Those watching the debate on television believed that Kennedy had won.  

What would account for the disparity? Those who listened on the radio could not see either candidate. Those who watched on television not only heard the candidates but also saw them as they debated. It’s been said that appearances can be deceiving. Based on the Kennedy-Nixon debate, it may also be said that appearances can be enlightening. During the debate, Kennedy seemed calm and composed. He was handsome and his Irish charm shined through the cameras into the homes of Americans who would be deciding who to vote for. Nixon, on the other hand seemed nervous, almost out of place. As the debate went on beads of perspiration began to trickle down his forehead. It was far from an ideal look.  

The persuasive power of television also came to America when television networks hired news anchors based on their ability, calm manner, and, most importantly, their perceived trustworthiness. In those days, Americans saw the news presented by men like Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Howard K Smith, Walter Cronkite, or John Cameron Swayze. When they spoke, America watched, listened, and trusted what they were seeing and hearing.  

That was over a half a century ago. The story today is far different. Our mass media is overloaded with on-air personalities whose pretty faces mask the agendas they are pushing. The public no longer trusts them. Since the days of Huntley and Brinkley we’ve had to invent new terms for what we’re viewing, terms like fake news, disinformation, etc. It’s so bad that it has become close parroting the language or George Orwell’s “1984.” It makes me wonder if it won’t be long till we see media personalities with names like Winston Smith and “Newspeak” cleverly crafted prevent those watching from being able to think at all.  

I could go into more detail, but I don’t feel I need to. We all know what’s going on. You know it. I know it.  

There’s a part of me that longs for the bygone days, the days when trust was the coin of the realm. We need more “muckrakers” like Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell to root out corruption. We need more journalists like Gareth Jones who refuse to be puppets of politicians and their agendas. We need to stop rushing headlong into disaster. We need to go Back! 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 

exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Our Founding Fathers embedded freedom of the press as a foundational American right. The language of the First Amendment could not be clearer. The only thing I would have considered adding if I had been a party to drafting the Bill of Rights would be to add a few words to enshrine the principle that the free press would also need to be a responsible press. 

Freedom of the press in America actually pre-dated our Constitution. In 1733, a German printer and journalist named John Peter Zenger began printing a periodical called The New York Weekly Journal. Some of his work was critical of the colonial governor, a man named William Crosby. Crosby, apparently offended by Zenger’s words, had him arrested. When a grand jury refused to indict him, New York;s attorney general had him charged with libel. When all was said and done, Zenger was found not guilty of libel. 

That verdict has shaped our national understanding of how a free press can operate in a free society. A free press has a great deal of latitude, with limitations.  A free press can provoke and criticize, but it cannot use its considerable freedom and power to engage in libel or deceit The long and short of it is this – criticism is one thing; libel is stepping out of bounds, both legally and morally.

This philosophy worked quite well for many years, but there came a time when a journalistic bent for something different came on the scene. This approach was dubbed “yellow journalism.”  In the 1880’s, Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, used his influence to fight against political corruption in New York City. His approach was unique, using banner headlines, sensationalized stories, and other techniques to inform the public about the skulduggery and political patronage that was taking place down at Tammany Hall. 

Pulitzer’s approach was quite effective. The sensational reporting produced increases in circulation and profits. William Randolph Hearst, heir to the Hearst fortune, moved to New York, purchased a failing newspaper and set himself up as a direct competitor to Pulitzer. The rivalry produced some stunning results. Circulations skyrocketed. Hearst became a champion of the working class, using his publication to advocate for better working conditions for his working class subscribers. 

As Hearst’s influence grew, he expanded his horizons. In the 1890’s, the United States was engaged in a geopolitical tug of war with Spain in Cuba. As the give and take got increasingly hostile, Hearst sent one of his reporters to Cuba to report on what was going on. The reporter went and cabled back to Hearst that there was no war. Hearst was said to have responded, “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.” Then, in 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing a large number of American sailors. Was the cause of the explosion accidental or had the Spanish been the dastardly culprits? It was at this point that yellow journalism took over. In the end, Hearst got the war he’d told his reporter he’d “furnish.”

The next phase of journalistic development came with a group of journalists who became known as the “muckrakers.” Writers like Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and Upton Sinclair used their considerable skills to advocate for reform and change. They attacked corporations like Standard Oil and wrote at length about the awful working conditions America’s low wage laborers had to endure in factories in the Midwest or the deplorable working conditions in Chicago’s meat packing plants, as Sinclair Lewis did when his book “The Jungle” was published in 1906.

The muckrakers were very effective, so much so that in time a breed of journalists burst upon the scene. These days, we call them “investigative journalists.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint where this form of journalism was born, I believe it came upon the scene in the early 1930’s. The Soviet communists, who would in the 1940’s become our allies in the struggle against Nazism, took over a large swath of Eastern Europe. While Stalin and his henchmen were proclaiming that they were creating an earthly utopia, the free world was suffering through what we now know as the “Great Depression.” 

The obvious question arose. How could this be? Newspapers around the world sent journalists to Russia to see if this loudly proclaimed miracle was actually happening. One of the most prominent American journalists of the time, Walter Duranty, went to Moscow and began filing glowing reports back to the United States. Were Duranty’s reports true and, if they were, did that mean that Karl Marx was right when he said, “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

Very few questioned Duranty’s reports. After all, he was a highly respected journalist who wrote for the New York Times, America’s gold standard of journalism. But, a young Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones wanted to see the reported “miracle” for himself. So, he went to Moscow. He was introduced to Duranty, who took the Welshman “under his wing.” It didn’t take long for Jones to see what was actually going on.  Duranty was investigating nothing. In truth, he wasn’t doing much other than posting stories that Stalin’s henchmen were providing for him. 

It was at this point that Jones decided he needed to see what was actually going on. He somehow snuck away from Duranty and the Soviet officials and made his way to Ukraine, the Soviet breadbasket and home to multitudes of peasant farmers called “kulaks.” What he saw was as infuriating as it was tragic. Ukranians were starving by the millions in what is now known as the “Holodomor.” Stalin and the Soviet apparatus were systematically starving the Kulaks and selling the wheat they grew on world markets. The proceeds from these sales were then used to fund Stalin’s projects like the Moscow subway system and a group of enormous skyscrapers called “the “Seven Sisters.”

Jones managed to leave Russia and was determined to tell the world the whole story. Very few “reputable” newspapers would even give him the time of day.  He was able to get William Randolph Hearst the reports he had filed, but it was to no avail. The “smart” people in America, given a choice between a highly respected journalist like Duranty, who wrote for the Grey Lady, and a Welsh upstart being supported by a “yellow journalist” like Hearst, chose Duranty.

The tragedy came full circle when Jones was murdered a few years after truthfully reporting on an act of genocide committed by one of the most evil men who has ever walked the face of the earth. 

 And Walter Duranty. Did he ever express remorse for the evil he was complicit in? No! In fact, he actually won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for his work in Russia.  Neither the Pulitzer Prize committee nor the New York Times have agreed to rescind the award. It still stands as a testament to the true nature of the members of the Pulitzer committee, the New York Times, and Walter Duranty. It makes my blood boil.

As I look at the Fourth Estate today I see the same levels of corruption that infected the thinking of Walter Duranty. You see it. I see it. We all see it! And, I believe the only thing that will turn things around for the craft we so zealously protect with our Constitution will be journalists who have the courage to expose the corruption. The prophet Elijah, challenged  the corrupt practices of the powerful in his day (I Kings 18). He was given the mantle “troubler of Israel” for his effort. We need more journalists today who are willing to take on Elijah’s mantle in our day. And, when they do speak out we need to listen to them and support them.

There will be a follow up essay that focuses on the current scene in the world of mass media, journalism, and their respective relationships with the our government. It should be published sometime early next week.

As for the rest of this day, I’m going to get together with my Christian brothers and sisters at Kings Family Church in Kansas City.  As we all do, I need day of worship, fellowship, and reflection before a new week in this mad, mad world dawns.

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart.”

Charlotte Bronte – “Jane Eyre”

Things in America are changing at what appears to be light speed.  This is especially true in our political arena. Power has shifted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Donald Trump, the man who, not too long ago, seemed to be on the verge of “making license plates and busting rock” is now the President of the United States. 

How could it have happened? Donald Trump, a man who has been hounded and vilified by his political enemies, mocked as a crude, power mad fraud, or a know-nothing carnival barker, has defied what political handicappers have told us about his popularity. 

 I’ve given it all some thought and I think it comes down to one very remarkable word – metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis is defined as “A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.”

The definition fits on three levels. Doanld Trump has changed. Politicians, especially Democratic Party politicians have changed. And, the people of the United States have changed. 

I’ll start with Donald Trump. Over the years he’s been portrayed as a thin skinned braggart. I think there’s a grain of truth in that description, but what those who label him that way fail or refuse to see is that there just may be a reasonable explanation for that behavior. When young Donald was in college his father, Fred Trump, took him to the dedication of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in f964. Before they went. Trump’s father told young Donald 

 to make careful note of what was going to happen at the ceremony. Then, as the ceremony proceeded, politicians, as they so often do, took credit for the dedication and hard work Othmar Amman, the Swiss engineer who had designed and overseen the construction of this technological marvel, had actually done. As the minutes passed by the politicians ignored Amman and kept patting themselves on the back. On the way home Trump’s father told young Donald, “Did you see what they did to that man?” He followed that up by instructing young Donald to “Never let anyone ever treat you with that kind of contempt!”

Donald Trump took his father’s advice to heart. Over the years since he has become a world famous entrepreneur with a notoriously short fuse. He’s become wealthy beyond imagination while, at the same time, developing a reputation as a buffoon who will fight at the drop of a hat, an insult, or a slight.

It really was, and is, a strange combination of personality traits and a willingness to respond forcefully to the insults and slights.

Yet, somehow, in spite of all his deficiencies, Donald Trump is  the President of the United States. And, he’s vowing to once more “Make America great again.” Will he succeed? I don’t know, but I am seeing something in Donald Trump this time around that I haven’t seen before. During the campaign, Trump miraculously escaped an assassin’s attempt to end both his life and his campaign for the Presidency. There’s been a remarkable metamorphosis in Donald Trump. He has become, much to the chagrin of his political enemies,  a “man of the people.”

Now, it’s not that there haven’t been shades of this Donald Trump on display over the years. My wife and I lived in New Jersey back in the nineties and got to see the reports of him cavorting around the Garden State. For those willing to see it, he much preferred rubbing elbows with construction workers, bellhops, and other “ham and eggers”than fraternizing with the high and mighty. If one cares to see this , he or she could watch media reports and video feeds these days and see Trump interacting with average Americans – policemen, laborers, soldiers, sailors, etc. He enjoys being around them and they, in urn, enjoy being around him.

I believe it’s a recipe for success. 

Will Donald Trump succeed? Only time will tell, but I do know this. He’s going to try like hell to do the things he’s promised the American people.

On the other side of the ledger we have the Democratic Party, the Party that used to be known as the “People’s Party.” As almost everyone in America can see, that Party is now dead. Their contempt for the people of this country is palpable. It’s so dead, in fact, that even our pliable news media can see it. What follows to demonstrate this truth is an extended quote from Peggy Noonan’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal: 

“We are in “Death Wish II.”

In this space we believe two strong and healthy parties vying for popular support is good for the country, and we offer advice for the Democrats.

I will start with something they won’t believe. In politics, there is bringing the love and bringing the hate. When the 13-year-old boy who had brain cancer and has always wanted to be a cop is appointed as an honorary Secret Service agent, laminated ID and all, and the child, surprised by the gesture, hugs the normally taciturn head of the Secret Service, the only thing to do, because you are human, is cheer that child. And when the president honors a young man whose late father, a veteran and policeman, had inspired his wish to serve, and dreams of attending West Point, and the president says that he has some sway in the admissions office and young man you are going to West Point—I not only got choked up when it happened I’m choked up as I write. The boy with cancer high-fives the young man, and the only response to such sweetness is tears in your eyes.

That moment is “the love.” It was showing love for regular Americans. To cheer them is to cheer us. It shows admiration for and affiliation with normal people who try, get through, endure and hold on to good hopes.

The Democrats brought the hate. They sat stone-faced, joyless and loveless. They don’t show love for Americans anymore. They look down on them, feel distance from them, instruct them, remind them to feel bad that they’re surrounded by injustice because, well, they’re unjust.

Mr. Trump says: No, man, I love you.

Which is better? Which is kinder, more generous? Which inspires? Which wins?”

I’ve seen this sordid business play out in our political arena and as we’ve watched journalists and Progressive influence peddlers parrot the same tired spiels. They reflect nothing but contempt for the American people. Just this morning for example, I watched a report on a recent encounter the Boston police had with a knife wielding lunatic who was attempting to murder people in a fast food restaurant. The only way they could stop him was to shoot him. The lunatic died. In a news conference that followed, the mayor of Boston and a couple of police higher-ups expressed their sympathies for the family of the dead lunatic who was in the process of trying to kill a couple of innocent Bostonians in a fast food restaurant. 

It’s evident. This is not the kind of metamorphosis America needs from its leaders  right now.

Thankfully, there is another segment of our population that is experiencing profound change right now. It’s the people themselves. It’s America’s mothers and fathers. It’s a cadre of cops on the beat, bricklayers, auto workers, cab drivers, mechanics, waitresses, waitresses, and veterans, and millions of other American citizens. They’ve just taken part in a ballot box revolution that has resulted in a call for change – change for the b

etter. They’re tired of the stale bread that our leaders have been throwing at them for far too long.

Those of us who want change know that the road ahead won’t  be easy. We’re not helpless pollyannas. We are ready to embrace the changes we believe will benefit all of us.

“He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.”

Isaiah 2:4 (New International Version

Up until this past Sunday it appeared there was hope for a diplomatic settledment to the bloody war in Ukraine. Those hopes were exinguished when Ulranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the urging of what I’d best describe as a shadow government of leaning Democratic legislators and a few charter members of Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s diplomatic team, demanded more in the way of security guarantees (NATO membership) than Donald Trump was willing to give. As of this morning Zelenskyy may be reconsidering and Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, is trying to salvage  the diplomatic deal Zelensky had originally agreeed to sign.

Where do we go from here. It’s anyone’s guess.

I live in a Kansas City neighborhood called Pendleton Heights and from what I’m reading on our local social media, my neighbors, for the most part, are siding with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and are decidedly against any approach Donald Trump and his team might undertake to stop the bloody conflict. “Stand with Ukraine” seems to be the current battle cry. The blue and yellow Ukranian flags are a very prominent feature on our neighborhood Facebook page. 

I don’t know for sure what means, but it sounds too much like, “let the fighting continue until every last drop of Ukraninan blood has been shed. 

Now, I don’t want to get crossways with my neighbors, but I find myself thinking  differently about the conflict. I want the bleeding and suffereing and dying to stop!

I grew up as a child of what has become known as America’s “greatest generation.” Our mothers and fathers fought their way through the Great Depression and followed that economic conflict by engaging in a world war. Young Americans fought a two front war while their parents took jobs in defense plants producing the weaponry essential to defeating two totalitarian regimes. I had an uncle, for example, who was wounded at Anzio and my wife’s mother worked in a defense plant wiring radios for B-25 bombers here in Kansas City. She approached her work diligently and  often talked about how she would also pray for the young men who would be flying those bombers. 

That world war was, as author Studs Terkel once put it, the “Good War.”

That war ended nearly a hundred years ago and, as I see it, there really hasn’t been what could trul be considered a “Good War” since.

I was too young to serve in the Korean conflict, which wasn’t even considered a war. The United Nations talking heads called it a “police action.” Thousands of young Americans and other Allied troops died before an armistice was decleared in 1953. Thousands died and our leaders called it a “police action.” That’s what I’d call the height of arrogance.

My turn to serve came in 1961 when I joined the Air Force. By 1962 I’d completed basic training was serving on temporary duty in Washington D.C. The assignment was pretty quiet until October, when Russia started instaling nuclear missiles in Cuba, little more than a stone’s throw from the United States. Clearly, President John Kennedy had to respond, and he did. He told Russia’s leaders that we were going to set up a naval blockade of Cuba and that any atack on the United States launched from Cuba would be a considered an attack by the Soviet Union, requiring a full retaliatory attack, including nuclear weaons. We were on the brink of World War III. All American military units were placed on Defcon Status II, which was only one small step from all out war that would almost mean the use of nuclear weapons. For two very tense weeks we watched and waited as Soviet ships carrying even more missiles steamed toward Cuba. We really didn’t know from day to day whether or not the world was going to be cast into a lake of nuclear fire. Thankfully, the Soviets blinked. Their ships turned around and the missies were taken out of Cuba.  Nuclear war was averted.The crisis ended and we could all breathe again.

My next call of duty came in 1965 when  I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I’d seen a photograph of a Montagnard tribesmen while at work one night and I asked my duty sergeant about the photo. Ge explained that the man was an indigenous tribesman from the Central Hightlands of Vietenam, I mentioned in passing that “I’d like to meet one of those guys.” “It’s easy,” he said. “Just go the orderly room and volunteer.”

He was right. In about two weeks I found myself  peering out the window of the Continental Airlines 707 as we made our approach into Tan Son Nhut Airport in the early spring of 1965. To this day I can still occasionally hear the gentle strains of Billie Holiday drifting through the cabin’s PA system — “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces …”

When I arrived in country, there were about 15,000 American GIs serving as advisors to the South Vietnamese. By the time my tour was up, there were over 200,000 of us and we were in a full-blown war. At our high-water mark in ‘68 or ‘69, we numbered over half a million.

I was far more fortunate than most of my fellow GIs. My duties as a cryptographic specialist kept me, for the most part, out of harm’s way. There were the occasional mortar and rocket attacks which came when some dumb American politician blustered that we had secured everything at Tan Son Nhut. You could count on incoming mail, courtesy of “Charlie,” as soon as the boast hit the airwaves. Whenever it happened we’d try to send word up the chain of command to tell the politicians to shut up about security at Tan Son Nhut. “Tell them they need to pay more attention to graft and kickbacks, the types of things they’re really good at.”

The human memory can retain powerful sights and sounds. I can still feel Vietnam’s oppressive humidity and smell the stench of death that hovered over my body like grave clothes. Once in a while I can hear Charley Bock, our squadron court jester, plunking away on an old beat up guitar and howling, ‘The money makers are makin’ more money all the time,” while the rest of us hooted and applauded in response. “Give ‘em hell, Charlie…give ‘em hell, buddy!”

And so it went. During the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon pledged “we shall have an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.” When he signed the Paris Peace Accord on January 23, 1973, he declared that America had won “peace with honor.”

As I watched the reports of North Vietnamese tanks advancing south toward Saigon, with the remnants of South Vietnam’s rag-tag army fleeing ahead of them, my heart sank. I kept shaking my head in disbelief. “How could this be?” “How could it all come to this?” “How could this be considered peace with honor?”

Within days, North Vietnamese tanks were rumbling through Saigon’s wide boulevards. South Vietnamese loyalists were desperately climbing the U.S. embassy walls, hoping to escape the Communist onslaught. Then, on April 30, 1975, the last helicopter and the last Americans left Vietnam. The war was over.

One night, years after the fall of Saigon, I penned a crude sonnet to commemorate the pain of loss so many of us who served in Vietnam felt. The last three lines, a few lines past the turn, went like this:

“Oh Saigon, bitter Saigon, please restore my youth unseen

For I’ve cast my life as pearls before the swine

Whose the dying then, oh Saigon, yours oar mine?”

There are 58,286 names inscribed on a black granite wall in Washington, D.C. I’ve occasionally wondered how they would have felt about “peace with honor,” had they lived to see North Vietnamese tanks rumbling through the streets of Saigon.

I still feel a sense of betrayal about Vietnam. I’ve tried to temper those feelings, but subsequent events on on the geopolitical scene have made things even more painful. Think of the folly of Iraq, Afghanistan, Benghazi, and now, Eastern Europe. Back in the nineties Nancy and I were vacationing in Vienna. The trip coincided with the conflict in the Balkans. In the evening, as we were leaving to go to dinner, the desk clerk asked us if we were Americans, We said we were and he told us to be very careful. “There are anti American demonstrations going on. Please be careful.”We thanked him and as we made our way out he also said, “You Americans need to come over here and fix this mess.” I got more than a bit offended and asked, “Why is it that our children have to come over here and fix things in your back yard? Is there something wrong with your children that presents them from defending their homeland? “Why are we the ones who have to make all the sacrifices?”

But, the time has come for the madness to end.  America has done far more than its fair share in the defense of freedom. We’ve done far more than  our fair share to liberate Europe and Asia from totalitarian tyranny. We’ve spent billions of dollars putting the broken pieces of civilization back together. 

It’s time for America to put America first!

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

I Coronthians 15:58 (King James Version)

I’m in the throes of a bout of writer’s block. Like anyone who enjoys the craft, I’m in a bit of a dry spell. It will pass. One of the tools I’m employing to move the process along is something I wrote last fall, a reminder of what it takes to keep the fires of inspiration burning.

That post, originally titled – “Inspiration – Lessons Learned on the Rubber Chicken Circuit” – now follows. Perhaps it will also help some fellow writer going through his or her creative valley:

“Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best.”

– Henry Van Dyke

We’ve been back from Glorietta close to a week now. The afterglow of the creative fires we shared there travelled home with us. While the coals are no longer white hot, the embers still remain.

Over the past few days the question of how to keep those fires burning has crossed my mind. How does one stay inspired?

There are times I’m able to sit for hours, with words flowing like the milk and honey of the Promised Land. I can sense heaven above my head opened wide, revealing rooms filled with words, there for the taking. I find nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, gerunds, clever catch phrases, sonnets, sermons, stump speeches, treatises on the nature and shape of illusion, grocery lists, or letters to the editor. Most often, though, I sit like Jeremiah, agonizing in the darkness of a well. I look up, casting prayers heavenward, only to have them ricochet back down to the subterranean depths. Each time this happens I try again, often with the same result. The heavens seem to be like brass, a dome above me preventing me from laying hold to the treasures I so desire. There are times in this painful process I wonder why I even try. “It’s too hard, too frustrating, there are too few immediate rewards,” I often murmur.

Years ago I went on a revival tour of the Ozarks, tugging on the coattails of a revival preacher who considered what he was doing as much a job as it was a calling. As we wound our way south from Kansas City he talked proudly about it. “This is my job, Phil,” he said over and over, as if there was a message I needed to hear in all the repetition. “This is my job, Phil.” “This is my job. ”His name was Earl Roundtree. He was a true revivlist, cut from the same cloth as great revivalists like Jonathan Edwards, G.C. Bevington, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Kathryn Kuhlman,  and Billy Graham

Once we got to our first stop the day to day logistics of making things happen seemed to drown out the four words I’d heard over and over as wed come down the highway. We were on the rubber chicken circuit and now we were going to get down to business. There would be no more talk of this being nothing more than a job. We were called men, on a mission for God, and early indications said as much. We sat, eating fried chicken, corn on the cob, country gravy, a few “praise the Lords” and “amen brothers,” the stuff that makes the rubber chicken circuit what it is. It was, as I saw it, the essence of being called.

Breakfast the next morning re-confirmed the message. The early morning was jump-started with eggs, biscuits, sausage, white gravy, and a few leftover “praise the Lords” and “amen brothers” from the night before. At about quarter to eight, Earl, the revivalist, told me it was time for us to go over to the church. “It’s time to go to work, Phil,” he said. I secretly wanted to protest. “The meeting doesn’t even start till seven tonight. Why are we going this early? I mean, there’s a lot of rubber chickening left in me.” But I went along with Earl, thinking and hoping that we’d be back sitting around the table “amening” within an hour or so.

We got to the church at about eight. As soon as we entered, Earl told me to start praying at one end of the sanctuary and he’d start praying at the other. A confused look came over my face. It must have been very transparent. “Pray for revival here.” “Pray for the fire to come down.” “Read your Bible.” “Listen for what the Almighty has to say.” Earl’s instructions came, in rat-a-tat-tat fashion, much like his words repeated over and over again on the highway the night before. “This is my job, Phil.” “This is my job.”

And so we prayed, read, and listened. At about noon Earl decided that his belly was hungry. At one we returned from lunch and went right back to work. The hamburger and fries seemed to energize Earl. “Oh, Lord,” he prayed over and over again as he walked up and down the aisles of the sanctuary. “I can’t make any of this happen. I need you to bring down your fire. Bring revival tonight, Lord. Touch hearts. Touch souls. Touch spirits.”

While my manner wasn’t as animated as Earl’s, I also prayed, quietly, much in keeping with my Episcopal roots.

At five-thirty we left the sanctuary. I thought we were going back over to the preacher’s house for more chicken, but Earl had decided to have dinner out at a small cafeteria he’d seen on our way to the church. “How come we’re not going back over to the preacher’s place? I asked as we pulled into the parking lot. Earl smiled. “Don’t wanna’ get caught up in table talk right now,” he said. “I’ve got a job to do and I need to focus on that.” We sat, silently eating for about twenty minutes. My curiosity made those minutes seem like hours. I couldn’t stand it. I had to ask. “Earl, is it like this every time you go somewhere to preach a revival?” “Like what?” he asked in return.

“You know. Eight hours in the sanctuary praying and listening. That sort of thing.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s my job, Phil.”

“What about your calling?”

“What about it?”

“I guess it’s the connotation of a job that’s bothering me.”

“Why?”

“A calling seems a lot higher to me than a job, that’s all.”

“Really.” Earl paused, then leaned over the table and looked directly at me. “Would you have anything to do with a doctor who only worked an hour or so a day and didn’t practice his craft? Would you trust a surgeon who did nothing but sit around with friends all day to cut you wide open? “

He’d made his point. The only correct answer to both questions was “No!”

“Besides,” he went on. “I’m working out my calling, Phil. You see, I’m called to work. To me, that means that there’s more to what I do than sitting around eatin’ chicken and swillin’ down iced tea.”

Earl’s words sunk in. “It’s your job,” I said knowingly.

What does all of this have to do with writing, and craft? I think there are a lot of times I stumble over the same things I did in the Ozarks so long ago. I can’t treat what I’m doing now like the rubber chicken circuit. Writing must be as much my job as it is my calling. I’ve heard it said that inspiration is at least two thirds perspiration. I need to remember that at those times when the heavens seem like brass, when the words won’t come or the prayers for inspiration seem to just keep ricocheting back at me. It’s at those times that I need to remind myself that inspiration isn’t magic, that more often than not, inspiration is two-thirds perspiration!