THE PROBLEM WITH PROGRESS

At the outset of the Industrial Revolution, American author/lecturer Samuel Clemens (aka, Mark Twain) often expressed his misgivings about the onrushing pace of "Progress," and the unforeseen dangers that might emerge from the country's rapid, unchecked gallop into the 20th century. Clemens had no remedies for problems that had yet to rear their heads on the coming horizon. But his inner sense prompted him to be an outspoken critic of changing the status quo too quickly just for the sake of newness.

Now that it’s well into the 21st century, society again finds itself facing new innovations and inventions that are unique to this age, even more so than the many changes that emerged during the Industrial Revolution. A case in point: The current plight of the “Baby Boomer Generation” (my generation), specifically from the 1960s to now. Many adherents of the counterculture revolution (Boomers all) probably recall all the admonitions against experimenting with mind-altering drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline…ad infinitum. Chief among the “just-say-no” sloganism (thank you, Nancy Reagan) was the premise that marijuana was a “gateway drug” that would lead one to experiment with other, more powerful and dangerous drugs such as heroin and morphine, resulting in overdoses and addiction. Of course the so-called Psychedelic Crusaders marched onward just the same, rendering a deaf ear to all of the warnings condemning the evils of drugs. But in retrospect, the question arises: Were such warnings unwarranted and without merit, even though no one really had a crystal-ball “read” on how the counterculture’s experiments would impact society down the road?

There were tragedies to be sure: Users overdosing, some sharing needles and passing on the HIV virus that led to a new disease no one could have foreseen coming on the near horizon, namely AIDS. Still, the Boomers/Experimenters soldiered on in their quest, which was probably more of an expression of Youth seeking its own freedoms than bounding hurry-scurry into any perceived new frontier. And for the most part the Boomers eventually came of age, cut their hair, and went to work for IBM and Corporati Americana. (Predictably, “crashing” on other people’s crash-pad floors had to run its course eventually for a generation of mostly middle-class kids raised with full bellies, the polio vaccine, and more freedoms than the world had ever known before.)

But it seems that the rebellious spirit of that generation has re-surfaced in this century as those same people find themselves entering their sixties and older now. And their predisposition for fast-forwarding into (and eventually embracing) anything new and even roguish is still alive and thriving among these folks. Examples abide. When the Internet first came along in the 1990s (earlier if you count “Apple”), those same Boomers (and other “new gens” to be sure) were quick to hop on the digital freight train. The 56K modem interconnected people, painfully slow, but in a way that hadn’t been experienced since Bell made his first telephone call. All at once people could send rudimentary IMs and emails to each other around the world, or join in multi-user chatrooms, safely and anonymously from their homes. The ‘Net was a hit and grew faster and more sophisticated as newer, faster computers made it possible to turn out upgrades on an accelerated development curve. Users were firmly onboard for the ride to end the millennium, as if swinging wildly from a fast-moving trolley while holding on to a mere handrail.

But now society has reached the second decade of the new century and has had a chance to observe firsthand what time and the digital deluge have produced. The first, most popular social website was “Myspace,” now lost to the Digital Museum in the Technosphere as a quaint relic from a bygone era. Today, foreign governments are being accused of covertly dabbling in cyberspace to influence and undermine the outcome of American political campaigns. The Arab Spring revolution in the Mideast was driven in no small part by social media. The Internet has also become a rich hunting ground for predators and thieves alike. Global operators use the Dark Web, not only to hijack personal assets and identities, but to traffic in all manner of contraband, not the least of which human beings. Cryptocurrency is being used to monetize the Internet with virtual money of questionable source and value. Add to all of this the mass shootings and terror attacks perpetrated by people radicalized by ideological websites and postings by such hate groups as ISIS and white supremacists. In fewer than 20 years, all of this crept in right under society’s nose before it knew what hit it.

On balance, the Internet and Information Technology in general, have been a boon for society, propelling it into the future like a fast arrow from an archer’s bow. It is an innovation that is here to stay and won’t be going away any time soon. Indeed, today’s culture would be lost without it. But like so many things throughout history (as philosopher George Santayana said about “remembering the past”) that start out with the best of intentions but end up going terribly awry, I.T. has presented us with a daunting quandary that is pervading 21st-century culture and global thinking; a quandary of which the core question is this: IF we come upon a cool, inviting swimming hole as we hike a path through the fast-growing forest of emerging technologies, which beckons us to “jump in, the water’s fine,” then should we (a.) take a step back and consider first what may lie before us before we leap, or (b.) take a plunge instead, casting caution to the wind, and chance coming out on the other side of some unimagined hell?

 

Just Pop a Pill

 

Other real-life examples of such things as the wildfire explosion of digital technology abound in this new, unchartered century that seemed to be upon society before society was ready for it, but that it is now galloping to catch up with. As the aging generation of those same Boomers/Experimenters begins to feel the very real growing pains of arthritis, cancer, stroke, heart attack, and so on, the fields of Medicine and Pharmacology have come front and center to claim their rightful place in the new 21st-Century Marketplace of the Needy. The current crisis with opioid addiction that is claiming some 33,000 American lives each year not only bespeaks the metrics of the aged among our present population, but also demonstrates the willingness of those one-time experimenters of mind-altering substances to toss caution to the wind and just “pop a pill” at the first sign of a sore knee or a stiff back.

Big Pharma has been ready and willing to spew out its products as quickly as aging consumers can swallow them, often before the USFDA can conduct sufficient human trials on new medications. The profit-driven pressure brought to bear on the American government by industry lobbyists to rubber-stamp its approval on new medications prematurely led to recalls of Vioxx (osteoarthritis drug Rofecoxib, Merck & Co.), and Yasmin or “Yaz” (birth-control drug Drospirenone, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Co.), two drugs that did so much harm to consumers before their recall by the FDA that their makers are still in litigation today. Still, could it not also be argued that the counterculture mindset of those one-time experimenters (harkening back to the 1960s), and their unbridled predisposition to delve into altered states of consciousness, have perhaps set the stage for them to jump into yet another cool, inviting swimming hole in search of pain relief, regardless of whatever hell lay waiting at the bottom?

 

The 'A Team'

The acronyms for the many technical advancements, both those now in use as well as ones still under development, are so long-winded and verbose that an ever-growing list of abbreviations has resulted in a new lexicon of "alphabet soup." "Autonomous Vehicles" (AV) or smart cars can park themselves and even protect us from collisions using radar eyes that interface directly with the vehicle's braking system. Artificial Intelligence (AI), or "Augmented Intelligence" -- the latter term put forth by marketers to balm consumers' fears of robot devices taking over the world -- is now being used to characterize new cell-phone features and other devices. Beckoning on the horizon now is “Assistive Technology” or AT. AT holds great promise for those with physical disabilities such as vision impairment, voice and language disorders, communication skills, and impaired mobility. (See “The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation” website for more information on the latter.) The list is quickly growing. It’s easy to say, “So what’s wrong with this?” Currently, the jury is still out on AT as the technology is still in its infancy, but problems are already bubbling to the surface of this new, cool swimming hole. For the majority of people with disabilities, the AT they need to support their independence and productivity are not available. Factors contributing to this reality include lack of personal finances, complexity of third-party payment sources, rigid state and federal regulations, and a lack of healthcare coverage. Hence we are only just now seeing the surface of what AT is apt to reveal once it becomes integrated into society.

I could go on and on with countless examples of ill-considered innovations, such as the quickly assimilated and widespread overuse of the synthetic material "plastic" that emerged in the 1950s. Today plastic has created so much non-biodegradable pollution that the garbage from soda straws, TV sets, furniture, cups, product packaging...and on and on...is poisoning the planet, even washing up in Antarctica. Or there was the advent of the wonder drug "penicillin" that emerged during the World War II era, with which a whole generation was reared in good health thanks to the plethora of antibiotic medications derived from it. However, today's penicillin-based drugs are beginning to lose their efficacy due to pernicious disease mutations that are becoming resistant to the one-time super drug. But I think that by now you get my point!

Time for a Reset?

One of my favorite writers is the late Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame. Crichton’s book launched a series of cinema sequels and even made terms like “Velociraptor” commonplace in the English language. But behind all of the growling & gore of the action/thriller film was a very serious, cautionary tale that I think was missed by most moviegoers, even though it was a hallmark of Crichton’s writing style. The story’s theme of delving too quickly into Genetic Engineering – another inviting swimming hole – for the sake of fast fame and fortune, before considering the downside of such an enterprise, resulted in utter disaster as everyone familiar with the story knows. This was Michael Crichton’s writing gift that harkened all the way back to The Andromeda Strain and other works crafted by the self-appointed town crier that was Michael Crichton. The main thread that runs through much of Crichton’s work is simply to “look before we leap.” Crichton’s work is generally considered science-fiction, but in reality his fiction always touched upon relevant, currently developing technologies that were being fostered upon society before their impact upon society could be fully evaluated and understood. One of my favorite scenes in Jurassic Park was when Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by actor Jeff Goldblum) tells entrepreneur John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could [replicate dinosaurs from DNA samplings] that they didn't stop to think if they should.”

So then, what’s to be done at this point in the Human-Techno Sojourn into the new, unfolding century to ensure that the now-emerging technologies and innovations of today do not come back to wreak havoc upon mankind 20 years down the road, once they have taken root in societal soil? Even Samuel Clemens could offer no answers in his day but only proclaim a warning about what he sensed was coming down the pike. (Who could have known back then that Henry Ford's assembly line would fast-track production for many legacy industries, but at the same time would also obsolete hands-on human craftsmanship? Carpenters became knob turners in factories, seamstresses became mere button sewers. As one observer then wrote, "It was the beginning and the end of Imagination, all at the same time.")

As for me, I can only echo Michael Crichton’s simple warning: “Look before we leap...look before we leap.” But I would contribute one additional observation: That so long as greed and the pursuit of the almighty dollar take precedence over caution, common sense, and a regard for humanity's well-being, the cycle of society diving into the same old traps that George Santayana warned us about will continue to dog our days like that all-inviting swimming hole that so often reveals itself to be a hell hole in the end; a place wrought with pitfalls aplenty...all in waiting.

A FEW OF MY FAVE QUOTES

"If birds sing after a storm, why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?" -- Rose Kennedy

 "Do not go gently into that good night...but rage, rage against the dying of the Light." -- Dylan Thomas

 "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
                              -- "Hamlet," Act 1, Scene 5

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." -- Robert Frost

"Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." -- John Dunne

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." -- President John F. Kennedy (inaugural address)

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." -- St. Thomas Aquinas

"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them." -- Oscar Wilde

WE WERE ONCE HERE?

The above photo is a fine example of the Art Deco style that defined the Jazz Age or the "Gatsby Era" of the last century. This is my favorite architectural style. I took the photo with my old flip cellular phone, but I think it came out well enough.

This dry cleaners (which I expect wasn't always what this building was used for) is on Florida State Hwy. 41 as it runs through coastal Venice on Florida's west coast. Hwy. 41 is also known as the old "Tamiami Trail" that, before the Interstate system came along, was the only way to drive down the peninsula to Miami. (A lot of big-time mobsters, such as Al "Scarface" Capone, came this way on their way to Miami.)

The building looks entirely out of place and is by no means contextual with its surroundings. There is nothing like it anywhere else in Venice. (Other nearby structures include supermarkets, Walmart, some fast-food stops, and a car dealership.) I especially like the curved-glass treatment on the elevation or front of the building, and the playful use of color.

A Statement on Our Times

It's a statement on our times that buildings are no longer constructed like this. Art and craftsmanship have given way to high-rise monoliths of glass and steel; cheap, pre-fabricated commercial structures; and wood-frame houses slathered with stucco. In our age we will never build a Great Pyramid of Giza or a Taj Mahal, even as technically advanced as we believe we are. There will be few, if any, structures of lasting value to proclaim to future historians that "we came this way once...we built this monument to us to show we were once here...that we existed." Such structures have no place in a society where conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence (to quote Arthur C. Clarke) are the driving forces behind everything produced for the masses.

Building such soulless constructs makes a larger statement about our age and the human condition. One must ask the questions: "When did we lose our moral compass? Where have our core values gone?" Consider the great gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe: Generational structures of hand-chiseled detail that took hundreds of years to construct, without any modern mechanization; monuments whose construction was passed down from father-mason to son-apprentice; structures that were lovingly hewn into being just to proclaim the glory of God.



The Austrian National Library

Where did such devotion and dedication go? At what point in the forward march of history did humanity lose its faith and begin shortchanging God with shoddy, lesser workmanship? The answers exceed the scope of this short essay. But it speaks ill of our times that so many things that were once held dear and sacred are steadily dwindling away, and nothing is built to last. So what will our distant descendants know of us? What banal legacy will we hand down to them? Our future society will most likely be a functional-only one, driven by the need to accommodate an already-overpopulated planet, and restricted by monetary concerns. Our best efforts today will pale by comparison to the high standards set by our ancestors so long ago.

The greatest monuments to mark this age will most likely be our massive sports arenas, our domed stadiums, much like the great Coliseum in Rome is the architectural centerpiece of the Romanesque period, when men slaughtered other men for sport. And just as the Romans' preoccupation with bloodshed for entertainment became part of their written history, their bloody legacy, so too will we leave behind us a footprint that will fall far short of any real, hallowed glory.

TRAIN AT DAWN

I awoke this morning to the sound of a train whistle far off in the distance.

Seems you always hear them early in the morning or very late at night.

The sound slices through the still morning air like a spotlight cutting through fog -- clear, undeniable.

It makes me think of far-away places, exotic lands. It beckons me to follow.

The clickety-clack of steel wheels rolling across rails has a frequency to it, governed by some unseen engineer's hand firmly upon the throttle.

Trains must always run on time, always.

The pitch of the sounds soon recedes as the train races onward to its appointed destination.

At a nearby seaport, a ship and crew standby, waiting.

In some distant part of the world, they wait, too.

They all wait.

SONNET ON DETERMINISM

(Pictured at right, poet Robert Frost , 1874-1963)

When I was in my mid-twenties I received my very first creative-writing "byline" for a poem I'd written, which was published in an anthology of other verses. (Yes, in those early years as a writer I actually wrote verse.) The theme was a good one, I thought, despite the fact that the poem's rather rudimentary A-B rhyming scheme was not exactly the stuff of a Frost or a W.B. Yeats. But I had wanted to write a "sonnet": 14 lines of verse, as inspired by the sonnets of William Shakespeare, whose own sonnets are of course timeless.

Anyway, the following is my Sonnet on Determinism:

In what manner of clay art thou so encased?
Of what form could this mold have been otherwise cast?
And is not the flower that blooms in the Spring,
At the mercy of warmth that the early sun brings?
And if the sun to the flower gives not its full light,
How well can it thrive from the lack of its might?
And a man is eclipsed by the shadow of his youth,
That chooses the course of his fair life's book.
And had not the cradle been robbed from the first,
There might be a chance to quench thy own thirst.
But for better or worse, blessing or curse,
A man never writes his very first verse.
But leaves it to others to point out the way,
And hopes they resemble, the gods that they play.

(copyright Michael Hobren, August 1976)

The poem's theme is about parenting, and the role that parents play in how their children turn out in Life. A more recent work, my book The Gauntlet  (click on the title for shameless commercial "plug"), hits upon the same basic theme, only from an entirely different and convoluted angle which my publisher has categorized as a Suspense/Thriller, totalling some 97,000 words rather than a mere 14 lines.

The 'New' Determinism: The Endpoint

Since the late '90s, when the Clinton Administration first announced breakthroughs in the mapping of the Human Genome, large-scale "genotyping" research has been in motion. Genotyping is the techniques used to identify the genetic markers that make up a person. These markers can indicate if the individual has a predisposition toward certain diseases or even behaviors.

There is also what's been termed the Phenotype and the Endpoint. Many scientists have argued that human behavior is not caused by genetics alone, but is the sum of the genotype combined with the environment a person grows up in, and the manner in which someone is reared. Such things as whether a person was nurtured or abused as a child, the kind of neighborhood they grew up in, their relationship with their siblings are all factors in determining how a person turns out in life.

These determinants comprise what is called the Phenotype. The Phenotype is the interface, if you will, between an individual's genotype and their environment. The end result of these combined influences – that determine human behavior, even character traits – is what's known as the Endpoint.

Parenting, for Better or Worse

So where am I going with all of this? Obviously, this brief essay only raises a lot of questions: Does good or bad parenting alone (as per my sonnet) determine one's life course? What role does our genetic profile play in the total mix? How much of who and what we are is due to environmental factors versus genetic predisposition? And to take a side-step into the metaphysical, what roles do personal faith and even divine intervention play in this "Gumbo of Self" that we call US?

"They mess you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, and add some extra, just for you." -- Philip Larkin

I don't know if there is any single, conclusive answer to what determines who and what we are. Surely there are a lot of people in universities and think tanks all over the world pondering these questions right now. The modern-day resurgence of Humanism in our culture would suggest that people are preoccupied with themselves and personal gratification. But certainly there are other factors that play a role in our being something more than a collective group of evolved apes, things that even Charlie Darwin couldn't have foreseen in his day.

I suppose some day soon, someone will write THE seminal work on the human genome and the Endpoint, attempting to do for genetics what Stephen Hawking tried to do with his books on the cosmos and time itself. Then, maybe a hundred years from now, other scientists will look back at all of the human-centric works of today, and with a disbelieving nod, wonder how anyone could ever have cast humanity in such a ridiculous and unfounded light.

UNDER THE MILKY WAY TONIGHT

(Picture courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope)

When I was in my early twenties, my New Orleans yahoo friends and I had a favorite past time. When we weren't traipsing around the French Quarter, we'd often take a friend's old VW hippie van out to a quarry near the Pearl River, which skirts the border between Louisiana and Mississippi. There, far from the city lights, we could see stars by the millions, and we'd lie on our backs all night long just talking and watching the cosmic light show that seemed as close to us as our hands in front of our faces.

Lately my mind has drifted back to those magical times, and I find myself wondering when the last time was that I raised my eyes toward the night sky. The trials and travails of daily life here on Terra Firma keep me so earthbound, I'm reminded of a line from the movie Men in Black: "The stars...they really are beautiful you know. We never just look at them any more."

I recall how we could make out entire constellations so easily, without hardly trying, as if God had painted them up there just for our entertainment. Scorpio with its looping stinger tail, and the Libra scales -- they were all there for the viewing, all changing from season to season. These days the demands of work, family, and other responsibilities keep my eyes and attention focused on Earthly things, having taken the place of the magic in the night sky that had once fixated me so. Seldom now do I take the time to look up at the night sky -- but they are still beautiful.

As a boy I had two reflector-type telescopes mounted on tripods, and I remember the utter fascination I had viewing the surface of the moon at night, searching for the "Sea of Tranquility" where Neal and Buzz would one day walk. Both of my telescopes had special view-finder fittings that allowed me to attach a camera to the lens and take snaps of whatever images came into the scopes' tubes. (I remember aiming one of the scopes at the Sun one bright day, without any thought of using neutral-density filtration, and how smoke suddenly began to rise from the device. Okay...so it wasn't a genius move!)

These days my mind is focused on work, family, and an unending parade of responsibilities. Perhaps the worst part of growing older is having to leave the fanciful dalliances of one's youth behind. I work at a computer screen now, staring into a black monitor and racking my brain to resolve meaningless issues that present themselves to me as blips of light on a black surface: A far cry from that wondrous star stuff sprinkled across the velvety night sky at the quarry.

Those nights on the Pearl River, lying on our backs with weird music wafting from hidden speakers inside the VW van, and shooting stars streaking by overhead, were the things of my youth that I just don't get to do any more. The world's weight has dragged me down like the gravity of Jupiter itself, and has forced me to keep my nose to the grindstone and my eyes averted away from the stars that had once dazzled me so. It was a different time, life was newer then, and nearly "weightless" by comparison to the load that I carry today.

As Sia Furler sings on her rendition of Under the Milky Way, the bedazzling magic and mystery of the cosmos are the stuff of dreams and daydreams. It's too bad that life eventually comes along and gets in the way. Long after I am gone, those same stars will still be shining on brightly overhead, light years away from this world. Thus I've vowed to myself to pause every now and then and turn my eyes upwards. It's a direct thread back to my former me -- to my younger self -- that somehow got obscured by Life, but that still resides in my heart to this day.

THE WINDS OF GRACE

It is only three days until my wife's cancer surgery, and I sat on the back porch this morning just watching two butterflies in our backyard garden. They flitted and floated in seemingly aimless directions, paused for a moment to sample the nectar of a flower, and then quickly moved on. How free they looked, I thought. They appeared to be content just to live for the moment, I fancied, floating on the breeze, never minding where it carried them or where they'd end up. Why are we not more like them?

When its time has come the butterfly falls to the Earth and returns to His kingdom. Yes, I believe that God knows even the smallest of Earth's creatures. It never considers why it lives or when or how its days will end. Why is it we humans -- the crowns of His creation -- fret as we do about everything? Why do we complicate our lives, and in so doing, miss out on so much of the sacred gift of life that we've been given? Why can we not live free and unencumbered as the butterflies?

When our time comes, we exhaust all of our resources to gain just a few more months, weeks, days -- whatever it takes -- to hold on to life; hold on to a life that we may not really be living anyway. Why can we not accept that, we too, will one day fall to the ground or simply go to sleep, and awaken in His care, safe in His kingdom?

Perhaps Humanity's greatest curse, as well as a blessing, is that it's endowed with a profound intellect that is driven to ponder things too deeply for its own good. We busy ourselves with all manner of things that, in the end, will amount to little of any consequence once we're gone. We spend precious little time considering the simple things that life offers us for free: The blush of a rose, the sea breeze upon our faces, the sound of a newborn's first cry. It is the devil's own handiwork indeed when Man burdens himself considering his place in the world, his very purpose for being in it, making his days more stressful and complicated than they need to be, and worst of all, blinding his eyes to his Maker's grandest creations.

Being close to mortality these past few days has given me a new outlook. There is so much that I do that will not follow me beyond the final stroke of the clock. Children are suppose to be our immortality, and yet even they are not spared from the ravages of Time. I want to make my life count for something, as we all do, but mainly I want to live life -- take in as much of it as I can -- while there is still time. I've realized that time is not a friend to man but a mortal enemy. It is, by every measure, a merciless enemy to us all, and when it runs out there is no compromising, no bargaining for more of it.

I do not want to fret another minute about things that are beyond my control, things that just don't matter. I have wasted far too much time already playing that game. Time is God's gift to us, not to squander on aimless pursuits, but to savor in the brief span that He has given us. Life is like a breeze of wind that carries the butterfly aloft, but then, with its abating, drops it to the ground with little fanfare. May we all ride the Winds of Grace He has gifted us with while there is still time.

WE CAN BE HEROES

Since today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I thought it would be fitting to write about something I've been pondering for a while: Heroes, and who my own heroes are and why.

Recently, I heard some people asked who their heroes were and they all seemed to have ready responses. I was disturbed that I could not think of a single person who, in my estimation, measured up to what I would consider a deep-blue, front-page hero type. Accordingly, I began to give the question some serious thought as to who my heroes were and why they were personally heroic to me.

It would be easy to come up with obvious names: Neil Armstrong, JFK, Bono, Jonas Salk...Betsy Ross, Diana Ross, Ross Perot -- the hit parade of history's most prominent people is virtually endless. But I felt that my heroes had to be my own personal heroes, and not those proclaimed as such by history, whose great deeds were chronicled by someone else, or who the media had catapulted to fame.

I determined that my heroes had to meet any of three criteria: (1.) They had to be people who were exceptional for who they were or what they did, or (2.) They had to have performed some great task at least once in their life, or (3.) They had faced some great personal challenge in their own lives and had heroically overcame it, they had stared the demon down.

So far I have identified two people who I consider to be MY personal heroes. (I'm still pondering others as I write.) The first is Dr. Gene B., a brilliant neurosurgeon. I call him Gene. I should say Dr. B. or even Dr. Gene, but it's hard to be that detached about someone who saved your life. In the winter of 2005, I suffered a displaced or herniated disc in my cervical spine that was dangerously impinging on my spinal cord, causing me considerable radiating pain and restricting my range of motion. The herniation was so huge, and in such a precarious position, that I was in danger of becoming a full quadraplegic. With the assistance of his associate, Gene and his skilled surgical team worked on me for five hours.

During this time, my dear wife, who was desperate for news of my condition and becoming increasingly more worried as the hours ticked by like days, went into total tirade mode and was verbally accosting the recovery-room staff for information to the extent that they actually threatened to eject her from the hospital if she didn't cease and desist.

Finally Gene appeared in the recovery room, just after they had wheeled me down from the O.R. (I have only vague memories of this, having been under deep anesthesia for so long.) My wife later told me that Gene (a man in his late fifties, early sixties maybe) had the gleeful, bright-eyed look of a school boy who had just kicked a winning field goal. He told my wife that the hernia was the largest one he and his associate had ever seen in all their combined years of neurosurgical practice. Further, he told her that the herniation had so compromised my spinal cord that at first he and his associate did not think they would be able to save me from ending up like the late actor Christopher Reeve: Imprisoned in a wheelchair and slurping my meals through straws for the rest of my life.

Gene and his associate had successfully removed the herniated disc without compromising my spinal cord, inserted a bone graft into my spine (along with some Titanium steel hardware), and within a year the graft fused nicely into place. Today I have full range of motion and I am pain-free. During the first of several follow-up visits to Gene's office, I thanked him for what he had done for me. Gene just replied, "We didn't do it," plainly implying that there was another Hand in the O.R. that day, guiding their hands and protecting me throughout the long procedure.

So Gene B., M.D., is one of my personal heroes, along with the Lord God who I know was in the O.R. that day. Together, these skilled men, guided by a merciful God, gave me the gift of a full life, one with full mobility...and promise. I do not question why such a thing had to happen to me. But I often wonder why I was worthy to have received such a gift, and what I should be doing now to "pay forward" the debt that I owe. I'm still working on that one.

And Then There Was Katrina

My other hero also labors in the medical field. It was later the same year (2005), early on the morning of August 29, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall, and my friend Dorothy F., a registered nurse, was on-shift at a New Orleans-area hospital. As most people know, Katrina was not just a hit-and-run, tornado-style storm, but one whose full impact and devastation gradually unfolded over the ensuing days. As aging levees on both sides of the city gave way to the storm's surge and the streets began to flood, the city fell into chaos and anarchy. Thousands of residents had already fled the city, but many had remained behind, to their peril. To worsen matters, electric power was lost to the city's massive pumping system, which was not in service to move water up and out of the city (which is some nine feet below sea level in some areas) and clear the streets of the quickly rising floodwaters.

Area hospitals became easy targets for drug addicts jonesing for a fix, who raided pharmacies for whatever drugs they could get their hands on. Said one observer: The scene was like Baghdad with the city in complete darkness, fires burning, and the silent nights that followed the hurricane's passing were punctuated by gunfire and the occasional Blackhawk helicopter streaking by overhead.

Many doctors and nurses had fled Dorothy's hospital to get out of harm's way and to join their families, leaving the hospital critically under-staffed and patients unattended. But not Dorothy: She stayed at her post throughout the duration of the siege. She had left briefly to evacuate her aging mother and cat from her apartment, but brought them back to the hospital and resumed her nursing duties. She, and a few other professionals who had also remained on-duty, marshaled their combined wit and skill to hold things together.

Dorothy could hear the break-ins coming from the hospital pharmacy. They had used all of the alcohol on her unit to give patients sponge baths, leaving none for themselves. Later, Dorothy and others acquired some alcohol from the abandoned operating rooms so they could cleanse themselves a bit. Patients in the hospital's psychiatric unit, who were stressed to the near-breaking point, were soothed and comforted by Dorothy and the remaining staff as much as was possible under the circumstances. With electric power outages city-wide, the units were only dimly lighted by emergency generators that would go out once their fuel was spent.

Throughout the ordeal, Dorothy's mother and cat sat quietly in a corner, waiting, as Dorothy did what she could with what resources she had. Back at her now-abandoned apartment near New Orleans's Lake Pontchartrain, the floodwaters had destroyed all of Dorothy's belongings, including every stitch of clothes she owned. The only things she managed to save were the two things that were dearest to her: Her mother and her cat. Dorothy's car was parked in the hospital's garage. At any time she could have fled for safety, but her sense of duty and humanity kept her at her station, doing everything she could for patients who, for the most part, were complete strangers to her.

After three long and harrowing days, National Guardsmen finally arrived in Humvees to evacuate everyone. Their instructions to Dorothy and the hospital staff who had remained behind were loud and clear: They were forming a fast-evacuation convoy comprised of the employees' vehicles led and flanked by the Humvees, and they would be making a high-speed "run" for the Crescent City Connection, the twin bridges that connect greater New Orleans to the city's West Bank. Dorothy and her co-workers were told not to stop for anything, to drive up on the sidewalks if a downed tree blocked a street, but not to stop for anything under any circumstances. What a sight it must have been to see Dorothy's little Chrysler PT Cruiser sandwiched between desert-fitted fighting vehicles equipment with 50-caliber machine guns and troops carrying M-16 assault rifles.

When the convoy reached the twin bridges it encountered a military checkpoint, setup to prevent rampaging looters from crossing the bridge and endangering the city's West Bank. With a quick glance, the troops manning the checkpoint realized that Dorothy and the others were no threat and waved them all through. As Dorothy drove through the checkpoint, with her mom and kitty riding shotgun, she threw a big kiss to the guardsmen -- that's Dorothy! From here she headed west toward Dallas, Texas where she had relatives.

When Dorothy first arrived in Dallas it was hard for her to get on her feet. She had lost all of her clothes in the flood, and with no job and little money, she was forced to buy used clothing at a local Goodwill store. A hard-working professional nurse her whole life, Dorothy was personally embarrassed to do this, but a friend told her that there was no shame in it. Just as she had done in New Orleans, Dorothy did what she had to do, the whole time maintaining a good sense of humor in the face of great personal loss. Such is her innate sense of optimism and faith.

Dorothy continues to live in the Dallas area today and still works as an RN. She says she will never live in a Gulf coastal state again. (Who can blame her?) The PT Cruiser has been replaced by something newer and she flies into New Orleans only on rare occasions to visit her friends and relatives who still live there.

Dorothy never received any sort of medal or commendation for the personal and professional sacrifices she suffered throughout the duration of the worst natural disaster to strike the coastal United States. At a time when so many people were blaming other people for the city's destruction, mostly for political reasons, those silent heroes who rose above and beyond the call of duty were all but forgotten. Indeed, no single book will ever fully chronicle the deeds of charity, ministration and comfort that Dorothy (and others) rendered to her fellow citizens. It seems that only the misdeeds get the headlines in such situations.

So this is why Dorothy F. is my other hero: For standing her ground as the floodwaters rose all around her, and refusing to abandon her post for the sake of her fellow man. Dorothy, along with Dr. Gene, are my personal heroes because they both meet two of my hero criteria for who they are and what they do for others.

"We Can Be Heroes Just For One Day" (David Bowie)

My conclusions are simple. It's been said that there are no "born" heroes, but that heroes are just ordinary people who've been thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and yet rise to meet those circumstances head on, unwaveringly and without hesitation. This is as close to a definition of heroism as I can think of.

I believe that the capacity for heroism resides within each of us. Heroic deeds do not need to be large in scope. Some people are honored with the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor under fire, others receive commendations for planting our flag on the Lunar surface. But the frightened parents who rush their deathly sick child to the emergency room in the middle of the night are heroes, too, at least to their child. The little man who works behind the cash register at a neighborhood convenience store on the night shift, who's at high risk of being killed in an armed robbery but does so to feed his family, is also a hero.

As the song says, "We can be heroes," too. We all have within us the capacity for heroism, for heroic deeds, given the fickle misfortunes of Life. Indeed we are heroes every day without even realizing it: Wherever we go and whatever do, we take what we assume to be "acceptable risks" each and every day. (For some people, just stepping out the front door is an act of great heroism, as is the case with those who suffer from Agoraphobia.)

There is one thing that I believe protects us in all situations, and that is God who watches over us during our most dire trials and tribulations. The heroes who perished at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 -- many of whom still remain entombed in a watery grave within the sunken U.S.S. Arizona -- did not awaken that Sunday morning knowing that it would be their last day on Earth. Still, they manned their battle stations and did their best in the face of a great evil. In worldly terms, they did not prevail on that day. But I like to think that they all reside in a place of honor in His kingdom, forever in His care. Win or lose, live or die, Life will call upon us all to act heroically at some juncture in our lives. But God has given each of us the capacity to do this, and come what may, He is always in control of the situation.

PATHS TO ENLIGHTMENT!!!

Are you lost, wandering in a psychic wilderness, searching for your true "inner self?" Try some of these things listed below. Many of these terms have crept into our lexicon, integrating with our Collective Unconscious, within the current generation, resulting in a psychic metaframe of the shape of things today:

Acupuncture, Age of Aquarius, alchemy, alien abduction, altered states, ankh, aromatherapy, astral projection, astrology, atheism, Atlantis, aura, Ayervedic, Bagavad Gita, Bermuda Triangle, biorhythms, black magick, black mass, Brahman, chakras, channeling, chi, clairvoyance, coven, The Craft, crop circles, crystals, cult, curses, demonology, divination, druids, ESP, evolution, Existentialism, The Exorcist, fairies, Feng Shui, Gaia, Gnosticism, Goth, gris-gris, guru, Hale-Bopp comet, Humanism, horoscope, Harmonic Convergence, I-Ching, idolatry, Irisology, karma, Krishna Consciousness, LaVey, Lestat, levitation, magnets, Maharishi, mantra, Maya, medium, meridians, Mesmerism, metaphysical, Modernism, mojo, Monoism, mysticism, mythology, Necromancy, Neopaganism, New World Order, Nirvana, Numerology, OM, Oneness, One Unified Religion, out-of-body experience, paganism, palmistry, Pantheism, paranormal, past-life regression, pentagram, Phrenology, poltergeists, Post-Modernism, prana, primordial soup, prophecy, psychic hot-line, pyramids, occult, Quija, Reflexology, reincarnation, ritual sacrifice, Rosemary’s Baby, Roswell, runes, Satori, Shamanism, Sheiva, sorcery, spells, Stonhenge, Sufi, Tai Chi, talisman, Tantra, Tarot, TCM, the Third Eye, Transcendental Meditation, UFOlogy, Urantia, vampirism, Vishnu, voodoo, white magick, Wicca, The X-Files, yantra, Yin & Yang, Yoga, ZEN…

And of course, "May the Farce be with you!”

THEY DID NOT SEE

What is it within us that draws us to violence, compels us to look, unable to turn away, captivates us and holds us in its sway? Why do we crane our necks at the scene of a car accident? Why must we see? Why can we not avert our eyes?

There is something in human nature that craves horror. Like moths drawn to a flame that will burn us if we get too close, or Icarus lured to the Sun on wings of wax, we will brave fire and ice so that we might see, bear witness with our own eyes.

And so they surrounded the wooden cross as His blood trickled to the Earth.
They had revered Him, even followed Him, but now they demanded His life. In silence they watched as the Lamb they'd chosen hung before them.
With utter satisfaction, they all looked on, they had to see, as He endured their stripes and took their sins upon Himself...with a love that they would never see.

 

U.N. APPOINTS AMBASSADOR TO 'E.T. RELATIONS'

(File this story under "News of the Weird," but it's absolutely true!)

Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman may add a new job title to her resume. She is currently Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), which deals with space-related issues ranging from international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, to managing the growing problem of space debris.

According to numerous reports, Othman is to be named the U.N.'s ambassador to extraterrestrials, if and when they ever contact humanity. The post will require approval from UN scientific advisory committees and the General Assembly. (How would you like to "pad" your resume with that job description? Or would you?)

Othman, who led Malaysia's national space agency before heading to the U.N., and helped train that country's first astronaut, is scheduled to speak next week at a Royal Society event devoted to the implications of alien contact and the need for necessary political processes to be in place should that contact occur. (I didn't even know Malaysia has a space agency...or astronauts!)

"The continued search for extraterrestrial communication...sustains the hope that someday humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials," the publication The Australian quoted Othman as saying. "When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject. The U.N. is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination." (Now if only they could coordinate some of those bothersome little Earth-bound problems like the global war on terrorism.)

The publication also quoted Professor Richard Crowther, a specialist in space law and governance (space law? governance? uh?) at the U.K. Space Agency, on Othman's suitability for the job: She "is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a 'take me to your leader' person." (Does he mean that as a compliment?)

Though contact with space aliens may not happen tomorrow, the recent discovery of potentially Earth-like planets, and of the existence of life forms in the harshest environments on Earth itself, have led to an increased focus on the possibility of extraterrestrial creatures. The late physicist Stephen Hawking helped to legitimize exopolitics, which looks at the public policy implications of alien life.

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," The Times of London quoted Hawking as saying in April (2010). "The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

Othman seems to be sympathetic toward such life forms. As The Australian points out, under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, overseen by the Office for Outer Space Affairs (No doubt down the hall from the "Office for Atlantis Affairs"), members of the U.N. agree to protect Earth against contamination by taking the precaution of "sterilizing" extraterrestrials (say WHAT?!). But, The Australian says, Othman "...wants a more tolerant approach." (Well, if I landed on an alien world and they tried to "sterilize" me, I'd be in favor of a more "tolerant approach," too! And this "treaty" has been around since 1967? Who did we make it with, the aliens?)

If Hawking's thinking is correct, Othman may be in for some challenging diplomacy. Though he suspects most aliens will prove to be microbes and small animals, Hawking warns against trying to make contact with intelligent ETs. He thinks they'd likely be cruising the galaxy in search of resources or potential colonies. (No cause for concern there over planetary pillaging.)

"We only have to look at ourselves," The Times quoted Hawking as saying, "to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet." But then, perhaps Othman's time at the U.N., and that agency's long history of dealing with the fallout from humanity's foibles, make her the perfect candidate for the job.

GOING TO EXTREMES

I have a confession to make: I like "chick flicks." (Okay, I may have to surrender my "Man Card" for that admission but so be it.) But in an age of escalating violence, disasters, war, pestilence, and extinction-level events, I am growing weary of Extreme entertainment, Extreme products, Extreme points of view -- Extreme everything!

I don't know. Perhaps as I get older I just want to tap on the brakes of Life a bit and slow down. But it does seem as if the proverbial "Rat Race" is out of control and going nowhere fast. One of my fave films of the last few years is The Holiday starring Kate Winslett (of "Titanic" fame), Jude Law, Cameron Diaz and Jack Black. Why? Because it's a simple, romantic story with simple, yet entertaining elements: A good screenplay, good acting, and a good musical score by composer Hans Zimmer. That's it. And I will go so far as to admit that I even like Tom Hanks' early works with screen pal Meg Ryan: Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. Same thing there: Simple story, good actors, etc. I can relax and just take in these simple, low-key little films sans the pyrotechnics, CGI, and mass murders in vivid living color because, quite frankly, I can see all of THAT stuff on the daily news any time for free.

"Once upon a time"...way "back in the day"...this was what Americans considered "Good Entertainment." With a worldwide war at hand, coming on the heels of a crushing depression, people didn't need or want surround-sound explosions ringing their ears, or images of people being blown to bits on the silver screen. In a time of global insanity, in a world gone mad, they instead sought saneness, a reprieve from the woes of the world. They longed for peace.

So what the previous generation had for nice "wholesome entertainment" back then was the sort of chick-flick fodder that we scoff at today. But I have to ask myself: Why were such famous couples back then -- Tracy & Hepburn, Gable & Lombard, Bogart & Bacall -- considered so glamorous, and how did the classic films that those people made come to define what is roundly regarded as the "Golden Age of Hollywood?" Indeed, were Tom & Meg to co-star in another romantic film today it would likely be boo-hooed as "Film Lite," mush -- a chick flick. And yet contrast this with director James Cameron's ground-breaking Avatar: a half-billion-dollar visual romp that broke box-office records in terms of its Extreme production cost and its Extreme earnings. With an anemic screenplay, virtual acting, and CGI galore, Avatar is a hallmark of the Extreme Movement.

Of course Extremism extends well beyond motion pictures. The biggest sport in the U.S. today, in terms of corporate sponsorships and fan base, is by far NASCAR racing. I frankly don't understand why people pay top dollar to see some driver slam into the wall at Daytona and his vehicle shatter into a million pieces. Is it some vicarious release of pent-up rage, anger or frustration, that motivates NASCAR fans? It's hard to believe (at least for me) that people attend these events, and spend the coin that they do, to punish their hearing with the deafening roar of super-charged engines, and to watch dragsters speed aimlessly around oval tracks for long hours. And yet the proceeds from racing, and the thousands of fans who turn out for major events, underscore the magnitude of this Extreme sport.

I could write this dribble all day long with countless examples but I think you get the picture. So I probably don't even need to tell you that Micky-D's now has a "Triple Pounder" burger that's 1/3 of a pound of prime, USDA-inspected beef. Hence, what will be the next logically Extreme progression to follow on from this trend? No doubt a HALF POUNDER, and then eventually, a FULL POUNDER of beef sandwiched between a sesame-seed bun -- Extreme fat and carbs!

So What Is the Prognosis Here?

I suppose my desire would be for the world to take a step back for a moment, pause for a deep breath, and take a long, hard look at how over the top...how extreme...how in your face...how balls to the wall...and how maxed out everything has become. Our parents' generation knew a simpler time when there was nothing wrong with simple love stories without the gore of some Freddie Krueger type sneaking up behind a pair of impassioned young lovers parked at a dark lovers' cove, and then hacking them to pieces with a machete.

So if you ask me the Extreme Scene has been maxed out, so much so that we have all become insular people, immune to the effects of Extremism. We instinctively know better than to let our small children participate in or view things that would defile their innocent sensibilities, hence the rating systems for both films and music. But why shouldn't we believe that, on some subconscious level, all of this overkill is damaging us adults as well? With nearly every channel of modern communication now glutted with Extremism, where can one find safe harbor within their own heart and soul? Through the pursuit of religion? That's probably THE most extreme thing to define this new century: Violent religious Extremism.

Perhaps we have collectively given up on the silly old "Peace & Love" mantra of the '60s and, in this post nine-eleven world, have come to accept Extremism as the new norm, a "New World Disorder." It has to be damaging to us on some level, more so than we suspect. The human mind, like the body itself, can only take so much battering before it goes into a kind of PTSD shock or denial that builds up like a hard shell, deflecting the harsh barrages that are hurled at it every day from a thousand different sources. The big problem with this is that, when we harden ourselves to keep from feeling the pain wrought by our world, we also cut ourselves off to all the good things in life, too: Love, God, compassion, family. To become an Extremist of any sort is to embrace that other '60s slogan: "Tune in, turn on, and drop out." Only, in this case, it's not a drug-fueled counterculture but Life itself that we're missing out on. So as things grind onward toward an uncharted future, I must wonder what the next Extreme thing will be to captivate the limelight, and hijack our minds and souls.

WHEN I AWOKE THIS MORNING...

When I awoke this morning, I asked myself what is Life about? To my surprise, I found the answer right there in my bedroom.

The fan said be cool.
The ceiling said aim high.
The window said see the world.
The clock said every second is precious.
The mirror said reflect before you act.
The calendar said stay up to date.
The door said push hard for your goals.
Finally, the carpet spoke and said kneel down and pray.

'STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN' DISCOVERED

Yep, you read it right. The proverbial "Stairway to Heaven" has at last been found! The odd thing is that -- contrary to MY expectations at least -- it looks more like a construction-site "port-o-potty" than anything else! A cosmic joke? Read on...

Dateline: CAIRO, Egypt, March 29, 2010 -- A large red granite false door from the tomb of an ancient queen's powerful vizier has been discovered in Luxor, Egypt's minster of culture announced earlier today.

The carved stone door -- which ancient Egyptians believed was the threshold to the afterlife -- was unearthed near the Karnak Template in Luxor and belongs to the tomb of User, a powerful advisor to the 18th dynasty of Queen Hatshepsut, Faruk Hosni said in a statement. (And NO, I'm not making this up, even though it reads like a premise for a sequel of "Ghostbusters" combined with "Indiana Jones: In Search of the Mummy's Tomb.")

The door, which measures 1.75 meters (5.7 feet) high and 50 cm (19 inches) thick, is engraved with religious text and various titles used by User, including mayor of the city, vizier and prince, said antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.

"The newly discovered door was reused during the Roman period. It was removed from the tomb of User and used in the wall of a Roman structure," said Mansur Boraik, who headed the excavation mission.

Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt between 1479 BC and 1458 BC, was the longest reigning female pharoah. (And here I thought Cleopatra was the only female pharoah. Live and learn!)

ONCE UPON A LATE NIGHT DREAMING

Once upon a late night dreaming
HE planted a seed, a path in my mind
He framed me an idea, with detail, direction
Then branded it deep in my memory cells

At dawn's arrival it ran swift in my mind
A message so clear, slipped under my door
And I sat and pondered, amazed, unbelieving
With all He had shown me, the vision revealed

I'm alone now and adrift upon waters so still
I sit in loud silence in destiny's boat
I float on a stream with no current, no flow
The sky is clear, but my path is uncharted

And I have no paddles to heave my way along
For back in the natural I must devise that myself
But He gave me a seed, and from this comes the growth
Placed deep in my soul, on a late night dreaming

TIN CAN DAYS

I write this on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. This milestone, for me, is something of a technological confluence of things I've been pondering much of this week. The other day I was "remoting" (some say "telecommuting") from home, dialed-in to the office via a VPN (virtual private network) connection, working from my laptop which had a direct link to our company's servers. In another part of the house my own desktop PC was also purring so I could check in on CNN.com and other online interests during breaks. Earlier that morning I attended a teleconference via my cell phone with a room full of people at the main office, and still other telecommuters who had also dialed-in simultaneously. Then later in the day I watched (on my home desktop PC, in real-time) space shuttle "Endeavour" blast off to rendezvous with the International Space Station. Later that evening I read about the upcoming anniversary of Apollo 11 and it was about then that it struck me.

How matter-of-factly we've come to take the every-day gadgets of the new century, things that we use routinely without wonder, but inventions that we marvel at just the same. I am both enamoured and saddened at the same time. There's something about the forward march of progress that demands that something of the past, however cherished and prized, must die, must go the way of the dinosaur to make room for the future. When I was little I had a next-door neighbor friend named Danny. Late at night, Danny and I talked (or tried to talk) from each other's bedroom windows using two tin cans joined together with a long stretch of kite string. I can still remember the glee of yelling into the can, imagining that the taunt string was transmitting my words to Danny with perfect resonance and clarity. Danny, in turn, would yell back at me across our backyards. In theory it seemed sound enough to us: After all, didn't a couple of guys named Morse and Bell once do something similar with vibrating wires?

Of course we never did hear each other's voices...except that we were literally just next door from each other and could hear our own yelling easily enough. Still, the wonder of that simple device, the sheer uncomplicated fun of the thing, and the magical way it fueled our imaginations to believe that we could really devise a means to talk to each other with nothing more than a couple of tin cans and some string is a memory I still cherish. It said something about the inherent human need to believe, to have faith in some things, without the need for questions. No doubts ever clouded our vision back then. Perchance to dream? But of course.

Today we live in a world of eighth wonders that abound more and more each day, and are upgraded and enhanced with such rapidity that we are all running in place just to keep up. (No sooner does one buy a cell phone than it's outdated in a few months.) These things have become so woven into the fabric of our society that I can't imagine how any of us managed to live without today's techno conveniences. Still, a part of me misses those tin can days. Things were simpler and less complicated then. In the '50s the transistor radio was a big deal. Frigidaires and black 'n' white TVs with rabbit ears were big deals, too. These things were wonderfully uncomplicated for the most part, and they walked -- rather than rushed -- upon us in such a way that we absorbed them easily and readily into our culture.

But all of that changed on July 20, 1969. We, as a people, as a planet, were forever changed. A Man from planet Earth walked on the moon, left his footprints in the lunar dust, and said we had all just taken a giant leap forward. Now, as the new century and its techo wonders rush upon us, we absorb them into our lives as best we can. They do not walk, these things, but are shoved down our throats, and our lives are no longer simple but hurried along as fast as the Saturn V rocket that pushed Apollo 11 out of Earth's atmosphere and into the history books.

Ironically, I wouldn't even have a job right now if it weren't for the advent of today's technology. I wouldn't be building this blog were it not for my PC. But every now and then I think about my childhood days with my neighbor friend Danny, and I think that I would gladly chuck my cell phone and my other high-tech gadgets in the trash bin just for the chance to yell into those tin cans just one more time...and believe.

LONGING

I awoke this evening to the sound of children laughing. I peered out our front window to see several of the neighborhood kids scooting around the street on skateboards under the pale street lights. School is out and summer is here. And these youths -- carefree, alive, impassioned by the simple lure of sheer unstructured time on their hands -- were having the time of their lives, living in a perfect moment of unfettered bliss. "How wonderful," I thought. I can't even remember being that young. I do remember the days when the only standing rule from my parents was to be home when the street lights came on. And of course, after a hurriedly gulped supper, my friends and I were right back on the street again being kids, with no currency in our pockets but plenty of time to spend.

I have long imagined that Heaven will be like this: No more aging, no more aches and pains, no more jobs to get to, no more crushing responsibility on my shoulders, no more death...no more loss. We will all be as children again, free to run the streets once more. Jesus said, "Bring onto Me the little children." I await the day when I shuffle off this mortal coil, free at last, its tenant no longer.