The World Around Me

I view my diary as an archive of events taking place in my own little world, but occasionally I raise my head to look around at what’s going on in the world around me and I leave a note for the Kid In The Attic.

I envision the Kid In The Attic as a young person who will happen across my old diaries in a box in some dusty attic a hundred years from now. I want him to know how a Christian life was lived by one lone guy in the past; he will see good and bad in my life with little varnish. That way he’ll know what he may be getting into if he chooses to make his own commitment to Christ.

“The only thing that keeps an archivist going is the thought that what he’s doing today will be appreciated a hundred years from now when somebody who can really make a difference to society uses the materials”.

—Charles A. Goodrum
Director of Research
Library of Congress

So, Kid In The Attic, here’s a brief overview of the world around me at this moment:

World

This morning’s news tells of an 8.2 earthquake and tsunami that hit Samoa and Indonesia overnight leaving hundreds dead.

My diary archives for May 29, 2006, tells about how one of my Christian books was translated into the Indonesian language. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country on earth. I hope my tiny voice of witness comforts some of the people in that suffering nation.

The enemy in Afghanistan killed five Americans yesterday. That war goes on. The news hardly tells about any enemy killed by American troops.

In Great Britain, a couple inherited an old farm. Good news. Immediately the couple was presented with a bill for 230,000 £ for renovations to the parish church. It seems that back in the 1530s, when King Henry VIII granted the farm to the couple’s ancestors, the King made a law stipulating that whoever owned the Glebe Farm must pay for any upkeep to the local Parish church, St. John The Baptist, Ashton Cantlow, Warwickshire.

Shakespeare's parents were married in that church.

Here are photos of Glebe Farm and that ancient church from the Daily Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216730/Couple-forced-sell-farm-500-000-pay-repair-church-Shakespeares-parents-married.html:

The couple protested the bill for church repair to Parliament but the ancient law was upheld. Bad news. The couple must sell the farm to pay the church’s expenses.

I’m sure glad that here in this country we have separation of church and state. Of course, I also believe that churches and other religious organizations should not be exempt from property taxes. Churches ought to pay taxes like everyone else without exception. God is not broke, He can afford to render to Caesar.

The National Weather Services reports that no hurricanes are likely to form in the Atlantic in the next two days. No hurricane has threatened Florida this season—so far.

Archaeologist in Rome have uncovered the gears of a huge revolving dining room in the remains of Nero’s Palace, Domus Aurea, "The Golden House" on Palatine Hill. Apparently the room revolved giving diners a different, ever-changing view of the gardens. The gears were turned by water pressure. Long ago I wrote a piece, The Ugliest Picture In The World, which tells about an early antiChristian graffiti found in the Domus Aurea. It’s the earliest pictorial representation of Jesus Christ.

National

Politicians are doing political stuff.

Congress continues to bat the issue of healthcare around. I imagine that final bill will spell out that it includes coverage for every citizen except John Cowart.

The nation is gearing up for a massive Porky Flu inoculation (more about that locally).

The current economic crisis continues.

The recent floods are receding in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jacksonville

After months of bickering like kindergarteners, and threatening to beat us up and take our lunch money, yesterday the City Council finally passed a budget. Libraries will stay open. Garbage will be collected. An ambulance may come if you have a heart attack. Police will still patrol our streets. And city money will still subsidize gravy businesses like the Landing and that football team.

After year after year after year of delay, the new court house is being built. When Ginny and I drove by the site last night, we saw construction workers busy—earning overtime pay.

Because of Porky Flu, yesterday, five area Baptist hospitals limited visitation to only immediate family members who must wear masks. As of last week, there have been 91 H1N1 deaths in Florida, including eight in Jacksonville—so far.

Our Neighborhood

Our Neighborhood Watch meeting Monday night drew 22 people, our best attendance in ages. Police officers said JSO has only responded to ten calls here in the past month, which makes us one of the most crime-free areas in Jacksonville. Our Neighborhood Watch is working. Lisa, Carol and Warren put an enormous amount of work into making this meeting successful.

The home mortgage crisis hits our neighborhood hard. Carol reported that on our block of 57 houses, 14 now sit empty because of foreclosures.

Lisa is putting together a local newsletter to keep all posted. I encouraged people to sign up for the next Citizens Emergency Response Team classes.

Personal

Ginny and I continue to seek the Lord’s guidance about heater A/C repairs.

Yesterday, I proofed the first 40 pages of the book I’m writing about seeking and doing the will of God.

Ginny and I volunteered to help out with the massive, city-wide Porky Flu vaccination for every person in Jacksonville. We have to take an Incident Control class to orient us to serve. This is related to FEMA’s bioterrorism section.

Our youngest son, Donald, continues to teach theology to his cat. Yesterday, he uploaded another video for Morning Seminary at http://www.youtube.com/user/dzcowart .

Thinking of Donald, I contributed this to our Neighborhood Watch newsletter:

John’s Joke
Dinner At The White House

To foster goodwill, President Roosevelt invited some ordinary citizen to each state dinner at the White House.

When Joe received his invitation, he panicked. He’d never been to a state dinner before and did not know how to act. Had to rent a tuxedo.

His wife reassured him. “Just watch the President,” she said. “Do what he does. Use the same kind of fork he picks up. Use the same kind of glass he drinks from. If you do just what the President does, you’ll be fine”.

At the formal dinner Joe watched the President. He used the same kind of silverware, the same kind of crystal all through the meal.

When coffee was served, the President placed his right in the middle of the table in front of him. Joe placed his right in front of him.

The President removed his cup from his saucer and set the cup on the white tablecloth. Joe removed his cup from his saucer and placed it aside too.

The President picked up a silver creamer and poured milk into his saucer. Joe took a silver creamer and poured milk into his saucer.

Setting his saucer on the floor, President Roosevelt said, “Young man, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m giving some milk to my cat”.

Views Of Philology

My back aches when I sit too long at the computer.

After every hour or so I spend writing, I break to smoke a pipe and read for a bit in a different chair. Sometimes I just read murder mysteries, but to justify to my own mind that I’m really working, I often read books related to my profession as a writer.

Yes, reading enlightens the soul and refreshes the mind.

For instance, yesterday I finished copyright declarations for the 22 books I’m listing in the Google Books Partner Program, a tedious task. During my break I could have read a mystery, but virtuously I chose to read a book related to philology, the study of words.

Dr. Marina Orlova, arguably one of the world’s foremost philologists, holds two degrees related to linguistics and etymology. Her book, Hot For Words (N.Y. HarperCollins. ©2009. 183+ pages) examines word and phrase origins in the light of phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics.

Exciting reading.

After my break, I returned to formatting the 278 pages of the book I’m writing on finding and doing the will of God. My working title is If God Leads Me, Why Do I Run In Circles?

After a couple of hours, I took another break to read Dr. Orlova’s book. The subtitle of the book says it contains, “Answers to all your burning questions about words and their meanings”.

Words covered in the text include nicebecetur (a dainty, fashionable woman), mathmatics, and skinny-dipping.

As I prepared my own books for submission to the publisher, I had to reformat much of my text because over the years I’ve been working on this one, I used several different computer programs and needed to make them all conform to a consistent format.

Time for another break and back to my intense study of philology.

I learned that Dr. Orlova holds degrees in both Russian and English language instruction. Her website, is named the same as her book Hot For Words. Her site index lists words and phrases she covers in brief video presentations at http://www.hotforwords.com/words/ . The site draws over 170,000 subscribers.

I did not know that many people were interested in philology.

Dr. Orlova’s book is also lavishly illustrated.

Oh, did I mention that she teaches most of her lessons in philology while wearing bikini-like outfits?

But, of course, I only read her book for the articles.

Sea Of Tranquility

The best days of my life are the most difficult to write about.

Saturday Ginny and I took our coffee into the backyard, sat in lounge chairs and resumed the same running conversation we’ve been enjoying for the past 40 years. We chatted about yard work that needs doing, but we didn’t life a finger to do any of it.

We talked about lizards and birds and flowers and sex and news stories and friends and children and books. We anticipated our upcoming vacation and remembered ones from years past.

That’s it.

We spent the whole day sipping coffee and chatting about pleasant things.

Sunday our conversation turned to decision making in three areas: installing the new air conditioning system, life insurance, and our role in Porky flu inoculations.

All of this is so complicated, you can see why we seek the Lord’s guidance in such mundane decisions. Anything more high-tech than an on/off light switch loses me.

Decision making and seeking God’s will makes me long for the good old days of Urim and Thummin.

Having gone through the process of deciding about A/C companies, I find the idea of examining the entrails of a goat (or preferably a salesman) and reading the caul of the liver appealing.

It’s a shame we can’t do that anymore.

Druids had it easy.

I’m working on a book about finding and doing the will of God, So it may help me to explain the process Ginny and I are going through in the A/C matter:

The only Scripture that occurs to me remotely related to A/C home improvements is the one about the guy who started to build a tower but had to quit because he didn’t have the cash to finish the job and everybody mocked him.

Earlier this summer, Ginny sent our a blanket e-mail to everyone in her office asking about their experiences good or bad with A/C contractors. The replies warned us away from some companies and inclined us toward some others.

Having prayed for guidance beforehand, over the past week I’ve gathered information from five A/C companies. One company we eliminated out of hand because their estimator showed up at our house three hours after he said he’d be here; if that company proves so unreliable on first contact, we want nothing to do with them.

Another company offered a brand of machinery we’d never heard of, and another company appeared to be misrepresenting their services. We checked online with the Better Business Bureau, The sated Consumer Affairs Division, Complaints.Com, and Rip-Off Reports. All the companies we considered came through with clean bills of health. But we eliminated one because their pricing seemed hazy.

We finally chose one company that felt right even though they cost more than the others. Now, with a $4,000 variance between high and low bids of the different companies, we are looking about how to finance and we prayed as we discussed options in that area. One option we briefly considered is a home equity loan…

No, we do not want to gamble on any chance of losing our home.

That decision was confirmed when on Sunday afternoon, our little sea of tranquility rippled.

I had not checked my e-mail for several days and when I did I found a note from my two older sons who live up in Maryland. The bank foreclosed on their home, a home where they have lived for over 45 years. The guys lost their home and have had to move to an apartment.

That news makes me heartsick.

I knew they had refinanced a while back and had had a bout with unemployment for a while, but I thought they found new jobs and were doing fine.

I’m so sorry for them.

Funny, one of the things Ginny and I discussed Saturday was whether or not God, who is complete in Himself, ever got frustrated. She cited the time when Jesus wept over Jerusalem. “I would have gathered you like chicks under my wings. But you would not”. And I cited the case of the Rich Young Ruler; when he walked away, Jesus gazed after him sorrowing.

Incredible, that puny human beings can frustrate Almighty God!

Yet, somehow, I think He will manage.

Our choice of weekend movies to edify our souls were Frankenstein’s Daughter, Batchelor Pad, and a DVD disc of The Sopranos.

Two Fine Young Men

In two hours Friday night our son Donald fixed some computer challenges I’ve struggled with for two weeks.

What a blessing!

He added a new feature to the sidebar of my blog—a Bluefish Books search box right under my Bluefish logo. Now readers can search my books for any subject I’ve ever written about and be taken directly to one of my books that addresses that topic….Er, at least that’s the way it will work once all 22 books have been processed by the Google Books Partner Program (only nine books have been processed so far, but they are working on the others).

I’m tickled.

Donald told us that he updates his early morning video Morning Seminary talks each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It was so funny to see one of his cats climb on him while he talked about dispensationalist ideas in today’s clip.

The church he and Helen attends has a building fund in progress. But recently the congregation became aware of a woman living in a dilapidated trailer. They decided that getting this person decent housing was more important and withdrew money from their building fund to buy her a decent newer mobile home.

I’m impressed.

Another thing impressed me as Donald took Ginny and me to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Ginny often tells me about office problems when she gets home from work. But, over supper, she unloaded her heart to Donald. I think they forgot I was even at the table. I think Donald has a pastor’s heart and his mother was responding to that at a deeper level than she could respond to me.

That really makes me happy.

The other young man I encountered Friday was Reggie, the air conditioning man, who came out to give us an estimate on replacing our 19-year-old system. He is the fifth repairman to give me an estimate on the work.

He explained technical things to me that the others glazed over. It seems that one reason so many companies offer low prices and specials this month is that next year government regulations will phase out the use of freeon coolants because of ozone layer damage and replace that gas with another substance. Therefore some companies are pushing the old-style systems to clear their stock before the new regulations appear.

I’ve picked up hints of this from the other estimators which made me suspect something but I was not sure why they kept encouraging me to look at the 13 seer machines when the tax credit only covers 15 seer and above.

But, aside from air conditioner stuff, Reggie and I talked about local history, gardening, and God. I dug up some bromeliads, firecracker aloe, and pineapple lilies for him to take home to his wife. And we talked a bit about prayer and price.

Reggie’s company charges more than any of the others I’ve talked with.

That may prohibit us from buying from them.

Ginny and I have gathered all the information we can. We’ve prayed about our decision—and even about whether or not we need to make a decision. We are evaluating the various offers and looking at our finances to determine what, if anything we can reasonably afford within our perimeters, budget and plans for Ginny’s retirement.

Price is a big factor for us.

I told Reggie about how driving to a restaurant one evening we stopped at a light and read the bumper sticker of the car ahead:

If You Die Tonight, Will You Be In Heaven—Or In Hell?

I asked Ginny, “If we die tonight will we be in Heaven or in Hell”?

She said, “John, if we die tonight, we’ll still be in debt”.

Three Things:

First off, in case you missed the link to my son’s Theology In His Sleep videos on YouTube, the site address is at http://www.youtube.com/user/dzcowart . I get a real kick out of it.

I’m proud of him.

Second, I wasted four hours Thursday.

In the morning I received two e-mails, both long and strongly worded, attacking me and something I wrote recently.

That both hurt and raised my hackles.

Immediately I jumped in and wrote a reply defending myself and what I’d written.

I took a firm stand and declared, “What I have written, I have written”.

Didn’t somebody in the Bible say that?

Like him, I did not want to back down.

My defense appeared powerful and witty in my own eyes. I worked writing this thing for hours, then I sat down to smoke a pipe and gloat over my clever response before I posted it online.

As I puffed my pipe, a phrase of Scripture popped into my mind—“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth”.

Yes, when accused, the Lord Jesus offered no defense.

St. Peter even said, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree”.

These thoughts brought me up short.

Why was I so riled and so quick to jump to defend and justify myself?

Don’t I have a Defender who’s a little better at the job than I am?

So what if someone thinks ill of me? So long as I’m accepted in the Beloved, what does it matter what anyone else thinks of me?

I’m very glad I did not post that witty stuff I wrote. I would have regretted it. Now, all I have to regret is the time I spent writing a reply, a reply which said, in all Christian charity, “Tough Tit”.

Thus, my lesson for today was not how to defend myself, but why not to.

Third thing—Now for the fun stuff!—Gold! Lots of Gold!

That photo shows only a small sample of a gold treasure from Anglo-Saxon days uncovered in Staffordshire recently.

Using his metal detector in a field near his home, Mr. Terry Herbert, discovered over 1,345 gold items dating back more than 1,300 years.

His find is told about in two articles with photographs in yesterday’s London Daily News at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215723/Staffordshire-hoard-Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-Britains-biggest-haul-Anglo-Saxon-gold.html

This is the largest hoard of gold items ever discovered in Great Britain. Experts have not placed a cash value on all of it yet, they say it could take years to evaluate the collection, but it’s worth millions.

The Mail says, “Many of the items in the hoard are warfare paraphernalia inlaid with precious stones, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates”

Sixth Century artisans inscribed a Latin Bible verse on this gold fixture from a sword scabbard; it says, “Rise up, O Lord, and may Thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate Thee be driven from Thy Face”.

To me, an amazing thing about this find is how the golden artifacts lie buried so close to the surface:

Wow! Think of it! An incredible treasure just below the surface. When you hear your metal detector beep an alert, all you have to do is scratch the surface, and there you see the most valuable thing you’ve ever found in your life!

Jesus said, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field”.

Humm… Of course Jesus said that before metal detectors were invented.

But, still I wonder…

In ancient times someone folded up this jeweled gold cross—perhaps because they did not like what it stands for, or perhaps to make it small enough to fit into a leather bag.

The Mail says, “The hoard is currently being held in secure storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery but a selection of items are to be displayed at the museum from tomorrow until October 13”.

I used to have a cheap metal detector, one step removed from a toy. It beeped whenever it passed over anything metal. I took it out in my yard… Beep. Beep. Beep. I found a coin from Bahrain! How did a coin from that far country end up buried in the sand of my back yard, I’ll never know.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I found my yard is full of roofing nails from old construction, bottle caps, tab tops, stuff like that just under the surface. I was disappointed so often, I began to ignore the beeps.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Do I believe that alert? Is that a real treasure or just the metal spring from a lost clothes pin? Or is this beep just a false reading?

The only way to find out is to scratch the surface.

The kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure buried in a field…

Every once in a while the Holy Spirit says Beep, Beep, Beep to the human heart. We hear His alert and we decide whether or not to believe His call or to disregard it. We chose whether or not to investigate what’s just beneath the surface.

Again and again and again, He says, “Beep. Beep. Beep”.

“What do you mean sell all that I have!”

That’s crazy.

What’s God trying to pull here?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What A Day!

NEWS FLASH…. There’s late-breaking hot news about our youngest son, Donald, at the bottom of this posting.

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Up at 4 a.m. Wednesday to post yesterday’s diary entry and write a couple of e-mails to my e-friends in Russia. I feel guilty that my letters were harsh. I’ve thought for days and days about how to respond. But gentle does not seem to have helped their situation. I would not have butted in at all but they approached me and I wanted to advise them as best I’m able.

Those e-mails started my day as a downer.

My friend Barbara White treated me to breakfast at Dave’s Diner. In talking with the waitress Barbara said that the medicine is working so well because of the prayers of God’s people. When her cancer was first diagnosed, her blood markers read over 3,000; with only one chemo treatment left to go, those markers are now under 200.

Thanks be to God.

Barbara, who is a tad over 80, said, “John, now that it looks as though I’m going to live a while longer, I need to decide what the Lord wants me to do with the rest of my life”.

No one is too young or too old to think about God’s will.

We talked about her writing other books (her four Along The Way books are at www.bluefishbooks.info ). Or continuing her painting. Or leading retreats and giving lectures

We even talked about her going to Africa to help a missionary couple she has long supported. –why not? Corry Ten Boom was about Barbara’s age when she started out.

We went back to my house and sat in the back garden talking.

We concluded that when you do not know the will of God, you should do the closest thing to it that you do know.

When you do not know the will of God, sometimes it is the will of God that you not know.

When I asked about the seeming absence of God in tough times and the silence of God when we feel we need to hear Him most, Barbara reminded me of how things are in a class room:

The teacher instructs before an exam, and may critique the material afterwards…

But the teacher never talks during the test.

As Barbara left my house, a neighbor walked over to tell me about a police raid in our block last night with six patrol cars and a helicopter overhead—Ever alert as a member of our Neighborhood Watch, I had not noticed a thing. Missed the excitement altogether.

Another neighbor joined us to tell us about Bubba—God bless him. He had an attack last night and stopped breathing for about 20 minutes. He’s on life support and his many children are gathering to decide whether or not to turn off the machines.

Damn!

I hate that.

The old reprobate was my friend.

Remember the time Bubba and Dolly and I conquered technology with that cell phone? I still laugh about that.

Ours is a strange friendship. I’m a writer and my world revolves around books and reading and writing; Bubba can neither read nor write. But for some strange reason we hit it off and he stops by to talk fairly often. I find it difficult to carry on a conversation with a person who does not read, so I mostly listen and prompt him with questions. We both enjoy our talks.

In the year 2006, I wrote about Bubba and Dolly, his wife, in my February 7^th post (200 Minutes), and about Dolly’s death in my June 27^th posting (A Pain In The Neck and Listen To Your Heart) in my blog archives.

As my neighbors left, an air conditioning man came in to give me an estimate. He chatted happily about heat panels, kilowatts and spines—things every real man ought to know.

I’m an A/C expert too.

I can tell hot from cold.

And I know part of the thingy is inside the wall, and part of it is outside in the yard.

Sometimes an 18-inch grater snake coils up underneath the part outside—Ha! I’ll bet the A/C expert didn’t know that. But, if we go with his company, he may find out.

By the time the A/C man left, I knew I was not going to get any work done on the book manuscript today. Tried to read a library book but it just did not click. Did a few household chores. Ended up with a small odd block of time, so I killed it browsing porno sites for a while.

Ginny arrived home bearing a request that she and I (as a duty for our being on a Civilian Emergency Response Team) help out in a massive Swine Flu program to vaccinate every person in the Jacksonville metropolitan area—population one million plus.

Having seen the 1918 Spanish Lady graves in Evergreen Cemetery and having written about the 1888 Yellow Jack epidemic, I feel this vaccination project may be an important investment of our energies. Not sure about that, I’ll ask the Lord.

I cringe around groups of people. Just freeze up and shrink.

I think I’d be really good with crowd control—“Alright, you sickies, line up. Anybody steps out of line, I’ll cough on ‘em!”

Loving Christian service is my forte.

Ginny has this huge, enormous, big, massive, thick report she’s preparing for auditors at her office. I advised her to submit it “As Is” with a yellow post-it note on the front cover saying, “I coughed on this report”.

That way the auditors will rubber stamp the report without opening it so she does not have to worry about checking page after page after page of numbers.

Seriously, yesterday a friend who works in a major area hospital told me that she has three Swine Flu—shouldn’t we call this thing Porky?—cases in her intensive care unit. All three are in bad shape and she expects one to die today.

The State of Florida maintains a Weekly Swine Flu Surveillance Report at http://www.doh.state.fl.us/Disease_ctrl/epi/swineflu/Reports/reports.htm#map1; there were seven flu deaths in Jacksonville during August, and 22 down in Dade County.

This is just getting started.

Ginny and I are not sure how we can help in the Porky vaccination program, or if we’re so feeble that we’d just be in the way. God knows.

After dinner, we drove to the grocery story.

I felt so peopled out that I sought solitude in a little park area with benches near the front door, while Ginny shopped. I felt I needed to be alone and quiet for a time to smoke a pipe and recharge my batteries.

Along came nine church people—with cupcakes.

They settled in.

A young man, Lenny, sat on my bench and explained they were on a prayer walk through the neighborhood. He enthusiastically told me about their new congregation, which only formed recently. He graciously invited me to attend their services and worship with them. And he asked me questions about my own background and beliefs. And he listened courteously as I floundered around trying to justify myself.

Their church is called the Riverstone Community Church and they meet in the Five-Points Theatre at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Their website is at http://riverstonecommunitychurch.org/index.html .

I joined them in open air prayer until Ginny, having finished shopping, rescued me.

I know nothing at all about their church services…

But their cupcakes were sure good.

Got home. Unloaded groceries. Began working. Phone rang—Donald will not be able to come over tomorrow to help me through that Google Books Partners Program; he promises to come Friday. I’m stymied without his help.

However….

NEWS FLASH: This Just In…

My Son, The TV Preacher…

Donald just told me that he’s launched a new video website called Morning Seminary.

When I hung up the phone, I watched it.

It’s a hoot!

First thing when he gets up, he staggers out and talks about the Lord before he’s even had morning coffee…Er, Donald, that is. The Lord has already had His. So, half-asleep, my son explains points of theology that he’s been thinking about.

This is great.

My books partnership on Google can wait. Who reads that stuff anyhow?; Donald’s doing something much more important.

Please go over to Donald’s You-Tube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/dzcowart and leave him a wake-up call comment.

Anyhow, Good night from Donald’s dad.

Two more A/C guys are scheduled to come here to my house tomorrow…I’m worn out…Maybe one of them will see the snake.