"You're still blogging? Who still blogs?"

In the fall of 1994, I dialed into a friend's bulletin board system for the first time.  If you're wondering what that is, or was, a bulletin board system - BBS for short - was a computer system that you could phone into with a modem and share messages, download files, play games... it was a taste of the Internet way before most people had any access at all to the "information superhighway".  They were something like CompuServe, America Online, and other commercial services of the Eighties and Nineties, but they tended to be much more local.

BBSes were almost always the projects of hobbyists.  My friend Mark's BBS, which he named NEXUS, eventually had five phone lines.  That's five different people who could be dialed-in at a time, conversing or playing games with each other.  It was something that blew my mind and it made me wonder what things would be like once full-bore Internet arrived (which it did several months later).

It wasn't long after discovering Mark's system that I had an idea, if he was up for it.  Would it be possible to set aside part of the BBS for my own use?  The notion that had gripped me was to have some "op-ed space" on the board.  A place that I could write for, on whatever topic struck my fancy.  It would be like the letters of mine that the News & Record published on a semi-regular basis.

Mark thought it was a terrific idea.  And yes, such a thing was possible.  And that's how Knight's Corner was born.  It was my own little niche of the online world.  A place where I could share thoughts and opinions.  I used Knight's Corner to talk about a little bit of everything: the 1994 elections, a review of Star Trek Generations, sharing a recipe for Chex snack mix (one that includes assorted nuts)... lots of other topics.  I would post a new Knight's Corner every week or so.

Then in January 1995 Mark's BBS and several others were featured in a newspaper article.  The reporter made mention of Knight's Corner.  Within a few days NEXUS saw a lot of new users, dialing in from all over the Piedmont area.  And it was so amazing, all those people who were now also reading my stuff.  It was almost intoxicating.  And it made me wonder all the more what it would be like once I was on the real Internet.

I mention all of this because there's a paper trail that can be established going all the way back to late 1994, that I've been writing for online consumption this entire time, on and off for over thirty years.  When I started classes at Elon I learned how to make webpages, and I "migrated" Knight's Corner to my account there, for all the Internet to see.  I kept that up until I graduated, and then I found hosting on a free service.  Less than a year after that I was invited to join the staff of TheForce.net, and I wrote a lot of original pieces for that site, and was getting read by a daily audience numbering in the tens of thousands.

And now it's this blog, which I've been maintaining since early 2004, pretty much continuously apart from a little less than two years between 2016 and 2018, when I was traveling across America with my dog and then taking some time to address a few personal issues.  Even then though, I was posting some stuff for friends to read on Facebook.

So that's the vast majority of my life that I've been writing for an online readership.  It's a part of my personal legend now.  I'm not happy unless there's a keyboard and an online connection nearby to be a gateway for my thoughts.

I write.  It's what I do.  I have been writing like this ever since my English teacher in my freshman year of high school told me that it was a gift that I have.  I've done my best since Mrs. Rutledge told me that to make the most of it.

At least three times in as many months recently, I've been met with some incredulity when I've said that I have a blog.  People can't believe that that sort of thing is still being done in this day and age of social media.

Maybe there is some disdain because I'm being old-fashioned.  "Blogging"?  That requires actually reading something.  It's not moving images, it's not sound.  People aren't taking the time to read anything anymore.  Instead it has to be slickly packaged in something possessing motion and noise.  People expect their senses to be assaulted by sensory input.  And merely reading words doesn't satisfy that need.

I know that.  I accept that.  And that makes me want to blog that much more.

Media changes.  It always has.  Ever since the pharaohs dictated their decrees to be recorded in hieroglyphics.  But the meaning, the pure thought behind the visuals, that doesn't change.  It's not how the thought is expressed, it is that it's expressed at all.

So it is that I choose to employ a purer method of conveying my ideas, and ultimately myself.

I've experimented with posting video.  Perhaps I need to try that more.  I don't think I'm terribly un-photogenic.  I've made appearances in public and on television, talking about everything from bipolar disorder to digital copyright law, and I can present myself masterfully enough (I like to think so anyway).  But there's something about words that are permanent and immutable and can be appreciated again and again, and again.

Most modern media is designed to elicit an immediate response.  And that's not really what I'm out to engender from anyone.  I believe in being thoughtful.  I like for the recipients of my media to take some time to think about what it is that I've come to say.  Instead of being forced to hurtle on to the next thought without time to ruminate upon what I've just said and need them to consider.

In the end, I believe that my blogging will be of more permanence than any TikTok video or picture posted on Instagram.  We've been using textual sharing of information, in some form or another, for going on six thousand years now.  What I do with this blog isn't too terribly removed from the Gutenberg press, or illuminated manuscripts, or parchment, or papyrus scrolls.  It's just a refinement, several generations on, from impressing clay tablets with cuneiform.

I love my audience.  I'm very thankful for that.  It may not have readers in the millions or even the hundreds of thousands.  But then, I don't necessarily write for the masses.  I write for people who will truly appreciate what it is that I am bringing to the table and the conversation around it.  That's the way I've always been, looking back across the decades of my life.

It may lack the numbers that it once did at the height of blogging.  But I choose to continue blogging nevertheless.  And one never knows.  It could be that what I write today, will be read by many more people in the years and decades to come.  Like I told a fellow writer for Elon's student newspaper, when I gestured toward the bound volumes of past years' editions: I don't just write for the people today.  I write for them too: the ones who come after.  I write in a way that I hope leaves a good impression upon them.  That is especially why I write what I do.  My audience is potentially vast.  Much more so than what I can perceive today.  And I owe it to them to give them my very best.

Yes, I still blog.  I know I'm not the only one either.  But even if I were, The Knight Shift is my own little piece of acreage on the Internet.  It's my well-tended garden, as Samwise Gamgee would put it.  Made and built-up with my mind and my own two hands.  I intend to keep tending to it for as long as I can.  Indeed, if something were to happen to mine I've made arrangements for friends to post about that here.  And there is even an "end of the world" post that I've specially composed for when the apocalypse happens.  One final bit of myself to share with readers before the end of humanity.  I don't think that's macabre.  I just like being prepared.

So to anyone who's wondering why I have The Knight Shift and if I'm going to give it up because people aren't reading blogs anymore: I've no intention on going anywhere.  And if the muses of technology are kind, these words will endure long enough to be read by whoever may be interested in my eccentric life generations from now.

I like to think so, anyway.

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Thoughts about the "One Big Beautiful Bill"

There is both jubilation and lamentation abounding tonight following Congress's approval of President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill".  Personally, I have some mixed feelings about it.  I'm not going to let the shrill hysteria coming from some quarters persuade me that it's an entirely bad thing though.

I think the thing I've heard most from those opposing the budget is that it's going to starve "millions" of people.  And that it's going to deprive many others of necessary medication.

Well, let's see what someone who has in times past been on government assistance for food, and medicine, and has worked in the public sector as a mental health professional, has to say about the "One Big Beautiful Bill".  You ready for this?  Because you may not be expecting what I'm about to speak about it.

Okay, here we go...

The public food assistance is horribly abused.  A lot of people are on it that don't need to be.  Cut them out and there will be MORE assistance for the ones who do need it.

America is the only country in history that can not only produce more than enough food for its own people, it can also feed entire other countries.  That's a pretty good system if you ask me.  Not "perfect", that is not possible and never will be.  But nobody is going to starve because the "Big Beautiful Bill" was passed.  This of all countries is a place that doesn't have to worry about people going hungry.  If they need food they CAN get it.

I know!!  I've had to get help myself.  There are food ministries and other charities that are dedicated to providing sustenance.  It may not be the choicest food but it will feed and stave off hunger well enough.  Enough to hold out and wait for the bad times to end.  It's what I've had to do.  As rough as times have been, I believe enough in America to have faith that we shouldn't be defined by our circumstances.  A lot of people here have been reduced to near nothing, only to come back stronger than ever.  The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't intended to be a hand-out... but it will be a hand-UP to those who need it.  We aren't meant to be wards of the government.  Get some help when we need it?  Yes.  But that shouldn't be forever.  A person should want and be driven to achieve more than that.  It's certainly been one of my motivations.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't going to starve "millions" no matter how much people on the left claim that it will.  It won't deprive anyone of medication if they need that.  I've worked in the healthcare industry, in the public sector, and I have faith that people won't be losing services.  The bill is going to slash wasteful spending and make things more efficient though.  What resources have been there already, are going to be better allocated.  I for one am not worried about how it's going to impact mental health services especially.  That is arguably the most critical medical need that government can allocate resources to.  Take care of the mind and a lot of other things are alleviated, like substance abuse and homelessness and malnutrition.

We can't tax ourselves into prosperity, though that has been the core belief of modern liberalism for many, many decades.  And we are taxed to the breaking point already as it is.  We need tax cuts, very much so.  We need spending cuts too, and be wiser with our expenditures.  We can't keep going as we have been.  That has been found to be foolishness.  We have only been hurting ourselves.  Cut taxes, eliminate the waste, and watch the revenue come in.  It worked forty years ago and it will work today too.

It didn't have to be this way.  We could have avoided all of this.  We could have been more demanding of the representatives we sent to chambers of legislation from town council on up to the Capitol in Washington.  But it's better to willingly face reality now, than be compelled to confront it under harsher circumstances.

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"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

 Something I read on a news/politics discussion forum last night that has stuck with me almost 24 hours later:

"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

Isn't that the truth?

As much as things are wrong and we want to make them right, the sad fact is that this is a fallen and corrupted world.  No matter how much we long for it and try to bring it about, there is no lasting good.  There might be some temporary reprieve, it seems.  But it never lasts.  Wickedness will always prevail, at least until such time as Providence sees fit to directly intervene in our affairs.  Indeed, it seems that the more we strive for good, the more that effort is corrupted and brought to ruin.

What do we do, then?

Do the best we can.  Accepting that that's the best we can do.  Deceive none.  Let your "yes" be yes and "no" be no.  Seek wisdom and discernment.  Bind not yourself to the spirit of party, which is invariably reduced to collective foolishness.  Do not trust in governments of men: however well-meaning their beginning, though it may take centuries they will always let us down.  Don't trust in men.  Trust in God instead.  We should dedicate our efforts to Him. The good work is ours, but the results are forever His.

Those of wicked device in this world seem to be all powerful.  But they are as mortal as any of us.  They will pass in time.  Their realms will pass with them.  And in due time, a better world will be brought forth, wrought from holy Hands.

The earth isn't going to produce justice.  That is true.  But we can do what is within our power to seek justice.  Knowing that we will fail but having satisfaction in knowing that we at least tried.

It's how I try to live, anyway.

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Donald Trump, the Confederacy, and Honor

Over the weekend I watched Gettysburg, the 1993 Civil War epic film about the Battle of Gettysburg.  It's one of my most favorite historical films, although at more than four hours long it's really not one I can afford enough time to watch often.  But for some reason or another I felt led to see it again.

Maybe I sensed that I was needing to watch it anew.  That the time was coming soon to bring it up in conversation.  That opportunity comes tonight, after reading how President Donald Trump is restoring the name of seven military bases back to their original names that honored Confederate officers from the Civil War.  The bases had been re-named by the Biden administration to be more "neutral" or "politically correct".  The venerated Fort Bragg became the vacuous-sounding "Fort Liberty", f'rinstance.

Now, to be accurate about it, the Trump Administration is not directly restoring the original Confederate namesakes.  Fort Bragg was originally named after General Braxton Bragg.  Fort Bragg 2.0 gets its monicker from Army Pfc. Ronald Bragg, who earned a Silver Star for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge.  It's a clever way to re-brand the forts to their first identities.  And I think it's a magnificent end-run around an ideology that cares not for the things that matter, like history and heritage.

And honor.

Something that has struck me every time I've watched Gettysburg, which was based on Michael Shaara's richly-researched 1974 novel The Killer Angels.  It's how the men of the Union and the Confederacy respected each other.  That, despite how they were on opposing sides of a bitter conflict.  The Civil War was ultimately founded in the few errors made by the Constitutional Convention: namely the issue of slavery.  That manifested itself in time into the issue of states versus federal government, but I greatly digress...

The Civil War was going to happen.  It's a wonder it didn't break out thirty years earlier during the Nullification Crisis.  But there is not a doubt in my mind that conflict would break out eventually.

But that isn't what the men, and women, on either sides of the fighting wanted.  They each wanted the right thing to be done.  Unfortunately it took a violent thrashing-out to decide who would determine that.  It was an unenviable situation that truly pitted brother against brother, literally and figuratively.

Back to Gettysburg, the film and what it depicts.  The officers of each side, and on down to the basic soldiers, don't necessarily hate each other.  They didn't in real life either.  As I said, they respected each other.  How could they not? They had too much nobility.  They had too much honor.

If those men could honor each other, I don't see how I can't honor them all, either.

I've heard the screeds: "they were a foreign country fighting America!"  "They were traitors!"  "They were the losers and we don't pay tribute to losers!"  Ad nauseam.

Those things are said by people who have no concept whatsoever of honor.  They couldn't care less what honor means.  They barely ever use the word at all.  "Honor" is a thing almost dying.  It seems more fitted for an earlier time, somewhen that doesn't factor in to a world of thoughtless replies and cruel memes.

The men and women of the Confederacy and Union alike, they didn't ask to be drawn into war against one another.  They were doing the best that they could with the hand that was dealt them.  It was their lot to participate in the very worst of family disagreements.  And the men of the Confederacy loved their countrymen no less than the Union loved theirs.

They were admirable, every one of them (okay, except for those like the ones in charge of the prison at Andersonville).  They played the parts given them.  And after the war, they reconciled.  They embraced again.  Decades later at the reunion at Gettysburg battlefield, the survivors of Pickett's charge went up the ridge to meet the Union defenders, only this time they met and shook hands and hugged one another.

I really can't see that kind of thing possible among people today.  The people of today like bitterness.  They thrive on hate.  They despise all vestige of honor.

The people who tore down the Confederate monuments in recent years have acted like animals of base instinct.  They have no notion of respect for those who came before us in generations past.   How could they?  Honor is an alien notion to them.

I have no problem whatsoever with a fort being named for a Confederate officer.  Or having a Confederate statue erected.  Or something like a school named after Robert E. Lee, arguably the most beloved general in America's long and illustrious history.  There can be monuments for North and South alike.  If the United States federal government came to reward pensions to veterans of both sides, we can still abide by that.

Union and Confederate.  Billy Yank and Johnny Reb.  The blue and the gray.  They both fought with honor.  And we can honor them both.

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A lesson on humbleness

Had some very good news today!  Wish I could share it but I had to sign all kinds of non-disclosure agreements and whatnot.  But trust me, it's awesome!!

During a discussion about how good a turn this is, a dear friend shared something that I thought was rather profound.  It's a notion I've never considered before and it's already greatly impacted my outlook on life.  Here it is, in his own words...

Stay humble, but let me tell you a story: When I first came into the Twelve Steps program, I was saying to my sponsor how bad a person I was.  His response was, 

"Wow. What an ego on YOU."

I replied, "That's the opposite of ego."

He smiled and said, "No it isn't. Do you know the Latin root of the word "humble"? It is "humus".  To be grounded.  Humility is the act of being neither greater NOR LESS THAN who you truly are."

Light bulb went off over my head.  Now I try to be humble.  Neither greater nor less than.

If nothing else I have learned something new to me: the word "humus" and how it's the basis of "humble".

I have been told before that I am humble.  Maybe I've been trying to be too humble.  Hence, something other than grounded.

It's a good notion to meditate upon for the rest of this evening.

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Dream report: Early morning hours of May 23, 2025

Had a very vivid dream last night.  It's stuck with me all day.  I can't get it out of my head.  Maybe sharing it will let me be free of it.

In my dream, I was in a toy store, a large one like the old Toys R Us.  And I found my way to the aisle that had the Star Wars toys.  I've actually dreamed of that a number of times.  What I do most when I dream of that is look through the massive wall of Star Wars action figures, seeing if there are any that I don't have.  And that's what I did this time, too.

But this time, as I was looking through the pegs holding the figures, I spotted something I'd never seen before.  It was a Star Wars figure totally new to me.  I pulled the figures of the peg that were between me and this new figure.

When I finally had it in my hand, it was a carded action figure of someone who I had loved dearly, and have been unable to stop loving even now.

It looked exactly like her, precisely imitated in plastic and paint.  She looked as she did on Christmas Day many years ago, when I got to her parents' house after I drove fast and got there from Reidsville in five hours, not the usual seven.

It was a Star Wars figure of one of the very few women who God ever brought into my life and I could barely stop looking at it.

It was suddenly the most wonderful, most amazing action figure that I had ever seen and I had to have it.  I was gentle with the carded figure, I wanted it in mint condition.  It was going to get a place of highest honor in my collection.

I took it to the checkout at the front of the store.  I got to the register.  And that's when the cashier told me how much it was and I knew that I didn't have that much.  I had to give it back.  I wasn't able to afford the most precious action figure that I had ever seen.

It went back to the aisle, hanging with the other figures, and I knew it was going to be found by someone who could not only afford her, but was probably better than I could ever be.

I started crying in my dream.  And then I woke up.  And buried my face in my pillow and had to hold back what could have been real tears if the meds I take for manic depression could allow for actual weeping.  I felt sad and a little angry, at myself and at God.  I kept thinking of how broken I am.  Broken in mind, in spirit, and too many times in faith.

It seems that my dreams are all broken too, in all the ways that they can be.

So much symbolism in that dream that I'm realizing since having it, about 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time this morning.  And none of it less than haunting.

Well, that's what it was.  A nice dream about a pleasure from childhood and much of the rest of my life even.  That turned into a heartbreaker that has plagued my waking hours all day.

Maybe with it out of my head, it can not have any further power over me.  I'd like to salvage something better out of this afternoon and evening.

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The night I was taken away from it all

 It was twenty-five years ago tonight that for the very first time I was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

The bipolar disorder had started during the preceding winter, but I didn't know that's what it was (it would be another four years before that diagnosis was handed to me).  I had been manic most of the winter and then the depression - what I came to call " the dark fountain" - decided that it was time for it to show itself.  The death of my grandmother toward the end of March intensified the blackness.  All I came to think about was death and dying.  Everywhere I looked I saw dead people waiting to happen.  It was a dark fountain that was smothering me, driving me to the brink.

It got bad enough that one night some friends took me to the hospital in Burlington.  The doctors there said that I was having intense depression.  They were worried about my safety, afraid that I might do something to myself.  And so it was that they signed orders to have me taken involuntarily to John Umstead, a mental hospital northeast of Raleigh.  I got to call Dad before I was to leave the hospital, so my family knew where I was going to.

A cop came in a short while later.  He took me out to his cruiser.  We were five minutes down I-40 when his radio crackled to life and he was instructed to turn back around to the hospital and pick up another patient: another "compassionate", the situation was called.  So we returned to the hospital.  The officer opened the back door and told me to come out and he said he had to put handcuffs on me.  I was horrified: I'd never been handcuffed before.  I asked if I could just stay in the car and he said that was against the rules.  So I had cold carbon steel slapped on my wrists for the first time in my life.  We went back into the hospital though the emergency entrance.  I did my best to hide the handcuffs from view, but nobody seemed to notice anyway.

A few minutes later the new patient, a young lady in her early twenties, was brought out.  The cop put handcuffs on her too.  And so he escorted us out and into the back seat of the car and we took off.

"Hi," the girl told me.  "I'm Tracy.  I'm crazy."

She began telling me about how her parents thought she was going to cut herself again.  She told me about sticking pins and needles into her bare arm.  I asked her why did she do that.  "Oh, just to feel something," she told me.  Tracy kept talking for the whole ride.

It took about an hour to get to John Umstead.  We were taken inside.  Tracy was met by two orderlies who took her down one way and I never saw her again.  The officer took the cuffs off of me and I was taken down the other way.

I was brought to a room and told to take my clothes off.  I did, behind a cloth screen so nobody had to look at me without attire.  My shirt and jeans were taken away, my shoes too.  They let me keep my underwear.  I was given pajamas and "grippy" socks to put on.

A short while later a psychiatric nurse came into the room to give me a preliminary examination.  She asked some questions.  She also gave me a series of numbers and asked me to remember them.  A little while later she asked me what the numbers were and I recited them back to her.

She asked me "Who is the President of the United States?"

Sometimes when things are dark, I fall back into using humor.  That's what I tried to do this time, because this was about as bleak as things could get...

"Hillary Clinton," I replied.

The nurse gave me a harsh look and I could immediately tell that I had answered way wrong.  I quickly told her that I was kidding.  "I'm just really nervous right now," I added.

She made a note of what I had told her.

She finished the exam.  By this point it was approximately 2 a.m. on Friday morning.  I was brought to the ward. Taken to a room.  There were two beds inside, but nobody else was in there.  The assistant told me that if I needed anything that I could come to the nurses station down the hallway.

They had let me keep my book bag all this time.  There had been nothing in it but my Bible.  I sat up on the bed and crossed my legs, and took out my Bible and held it close to my chest.  I started rocking back and forth, my Bible a talisman against the night.  Whatever gets you through the darkness.  I tried to pray, but the words would not come.  All I could think about was that I was two hours away from home, in a part of the state where I knew nobody.  I was in a mental hospital, the last place that I had ever expected to be.  The depression was playing on the edges of my mind but I was too frightened and confused to really let that overwhelm me at the moment.

I looked out from my window.  There was a darkened courtyard beyond the glass.  I stood there, and suddenly thought that this was like that scene toward the beginning of The Godfather Part II, where the child Vito Corleone is locked up in the room at Ellis Island because he's too sick to proceed on to America.  Looking out his window at the distant Statue of Liberty, young Vito starts to sing.

I was locked up too.  Away from the world that I knew.  But I couldn't sing.  

"Especially," I reminded myself, "not in Italian."

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I'm starting to feel like this guy...

And hey, I've got a dog too.

The Tramp.  Charlie Chaplin's classic character.  Seemingly forever making his way from one set of experiences on to another.  A life of un-sedentary misadventures.  And that's where I've wound up once more, also.

I've had to find out the hard way that my training and experiences in regard to working with adults in the mental health field, do not necessarily translate into something that can also work with some children.  And neither is my academic background as a student of secondary education pedagogy, plus time spent teaching middle schoolers, very adaptable toward helping young people with severe special needs.

There is much more that could be said about what happened but I'll keep those thoughts to myself.  I believe that I was giving it my best, and I can hold my head high about that.  I'm a very hard worker, I always give something not less than my greatest effort.  A lot of people will attest to that.  But as friends have reminded me in the past two days it's not a perfect world.  I have to try to remember that.

In the meantime, I'm trying to keep hold to my faith.  Trying to cease questioning myself about if I am not thankful enough, because I truly believe that I was thankful and still am.  Is all of this some kind of test from God?  Is He wanting to see how well I hold up under the pressure of it all?  Is He entertained, by watching me holding on by my fingernails for the past few years?

I know.  What I'm going through right now isn't peculiar to me.  A lot of people in recent years have had to struggle.  Many are having it even worse off than I'll ever know.  There again, I should be thankful.  For the time being I still have a roof over my head.  I'm not feasting every night but neither am I starving.  I have my beloved dog Tammy (who is lately determined to drive me batty with her new ball that she keeps getting stuck underneath everything!).  Mental issues aside I am in very excellent health for someone who will be 51 next month.  Some don't get to say such things.  So I suppose on a level playing field, I'm doing all right, more or less.

I just wish that I could once again have a career with meaning and purpose that would provide for my needs.  I'm not interested in being "wealthy".  It doesn't take much to make me happy.  And I'd seriously love a real crack at having that.

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For anyone in a relationship...

Writing my book compelled me to examine a lot of situations that have come about in my life.  Especially where other people are involved.  I've forced myself to take a long and hard and on occasion very difficult look at how I've related to them.  And that includes all the times... all of them... when I have wound up hurting others.

I had a feeling from the start of writing this over ten years ago that my book would in many ways be an act of penance.  That feeling was not unwarranted.  In the end, the manuscript I finished two months ago is replete with the longing for atonement.  I have sinned against God and I have brought about grief to so many people.  And I had I been a wiser person, maybe some or even all of that could be avoided.

It would be easy to say that the bipolar disorder was the cause of it all.  Yet that's not entirely accurate.  Yes, being a manic depressive has complicated relations with other people.  It has wrecked havoc with my thoughts and my emotions and brought me down so many times.  It turned me into someone who was the furthest thing from the person I really am.  But in the final analysis, it was my own weaknesses that brought about ruin.

I see now where my greatest failing was to communicate.

I've only been in two relationships during my lifetime.  One of them resulted in marriage that ended in divorce, the other was a dating relationship that lasted a few years before it also ended.  Each of them could have benefitted greatly if I had not been so withdrawn in sharing my thoughts and feelings and desires and fears.  I thought that I was strong enough to not have to do those to the utmost.  And that was was a great mistake.

I don't know if God will ever let me be in another relationship.  It would make me very happy if He does.  It would have to be someone very special.  I know the kind of woman who I am looking for.  I haven't found her yet.  If she exists and somehow our paths were to cross and we end up in a place where we find that God is leading us into holy matrimony, then I want to be completely open with her.  I need for each of us to do that with one another.  Including sharing our weaknesses, as hard as that might be to do.  I didn't do that before.  Maybe if I had realized that a long time ago it would have prevented a lot of anguish and heartbreak.

I should not have tried to do it alone.  A relationship is two people, come together, out of mutual love and respect.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition this is taken to mean that a love culminates with a man and woman become as one in the eyes of God.  That means the totality of each person, given to God and to one another, lumps and all.

Maybe it took going through decades of pain to come to a point where I could realize that.

If you love someone and are committed to that person, respect them and trust them enough that you can be open with them.  About anything and everything.  Especially about your weaknesses.  I believe that your beloved will understand.  And that he or she will fully accept you.  Being in love means you have each other's back, no matter how ugly or broken things may seem.  But you can't get through that without complete and utter honesty with one another.

That's just something I'm feeling led to share tonight, while looking over a particularly grueling chapter of my book.

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A new op-ed every week: About that first one...

So last weekend after vowing to write an op-ed piece every week this year, I composed the first of the series.  It exists, honest!  I submitted it to a site that I've got a lot of respect for.  There was some correspondence about it but the last was a few days ago.  There hasn't been any word since and it hasn't been published.

I'm going to chalk it up as still being momentum forward.  It has been more than two years since I wrote like this so I'm a bit out of practice.  What I'm going through now is "therapy" as a writer.  When Dad SEVERELY injured his hand in a farming accident forty years ago this coming fall, it was months before he was in any shape to even hold a pen.  I've been injured too, in a fashion.  What did I expect, that I would be published again after not exercising that particular region of my gray matter?

I'm going to give the site a few more days, and if they don't publish it then I'll post it here.  Meanwhile there are two ideas for essays that I have in mind.  I'm going to work on those and send them out.  And then, we'll see what happens.

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My New Year Vow: An op-ed a week

Writing is my calling.  Writing is my gift, ever since my ninth grade English teacher told me that on our last day of class.  It is something that nobody could ever take away from me.  It is something of my very own, that was supposed to always be with me.

And I’ve neglected it horribly these past few years.

I’ve been spending so much of my waking moments keeping my head above water, trying to keep from drowning because of real life matters, that I’ve not devoted anything to my passion and true career.  It simply hasn’t figured at all in my life.  It’s been more than two years since I wrote an op-ed piece, and I had to give up a plum gig at The Western Journal, things became so rough on my end.

Life was so much better when I was working as a mental health professional.  I was going in every day, getting to truly help people have more fulfilling lives.  I was making a difference in this world.  And then I could go home and spend my own hours with my writing.  And that’s the way things would have stayed had the economy not turned so wretched and forced me to find higher paying employment elsewhere.  Employment that has been unreliable, it’s turned out.

So, for the past couple of years my writing has suffered.  And then this past August I decided it was time to finally complete the memoir that I began in 2014.  For three solid months if I wasn’t working or eating or sleeping or taking care of my dog, I was writing.  I went DAYS without showering, I was so “in the zone” with my manuscript.  Until finally in mid-November the first draft was completed.

It was a grand return to form.  And I don’t want it to stop.  I’m back in the saddle again and the last thing I want to do is to find myself slid out of it once more.

So I’m going to commit myself to something for 2025: writing a new op-ed piece every week.  Hopefully for publication elsewhere, but here on this blog if nowhere else.  I need to plunge back into the fray, and involve myself again in the larger world.  Maybe if I do that my writing chops will come back full-bore.  Maybe I can also overcome the indifference to things that I have come to feel.  Perhaps it will even improve my already existing manuscript: something I have been told is good already, but I know it can be better.  And I really do want to see it on a bookstore’s shelf someday.  A story about mental illness, swindling operations, how to make a movie, and twelve months crossing America deserves a shot at traditional publication and that’s going to be a goal for this year too.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that y’all can expect some more writing here and elsewhere for awhile.  A few years ago I did a blog post each day for Lent.  If I can do that, I believe I can sit down and write a new opinion piece every week.  It may not be my best work especially just jumping back into battle… but it will be some movement forward.  And that’s what matters most.

Look for the first piece soon.

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Christmas 2024: A Tradition

Every year at Christmas I used to leave this site for a few days.  Just sort of to take in the holiday and enjoy it with friends and family.  And the last post that I would make was a reprint of column that I wrote for Elon's student newspaper.  It kind of became a holiday tradition of mine to publish it again, now twent-six years after it first ran.

I'll be honest.  I'm just not feeling much of the Christmas spirit this year.  There are a lot of reasons for that, which I haven't talked openly.  Maybe if I share this, it will make me feel better.  Perhaps it might lift up the hearts of other people who deserve to be happy.

Well, here it is.  Merry Christmas.  See y'all soon.

Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories

Chris Knight
Columnist

 
     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.

     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.

     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:

 
Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…

 
     Ahh... you know how it goes.

     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.

     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.

     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!

     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!

     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.

     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.

     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.

     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.

     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.

     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”

     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.

     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!

     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.

     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.

     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.

     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.

     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.

     And then they kneel.

     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?

     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.

     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.

     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter and all the customs that come with Christmas.

     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.

     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.

     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.

     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.

     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.

     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?

     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.

     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.

     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.

     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.

     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

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A Christmas Story: The movie about who we were, and could still be again

I have a lot of fond recollections stemming from A Christmas Story, that 1983 film about nine-year-old Ralphie Parker (delightfully played by Peter Billingsley) and his ever-hapless quest to obtain a Red Ryder air rifle.  I was in fourth grade when this movie came out and we - Mom and Dad, my sister, and my best friend Chad and I - saw it on its opening day, at the movie theater at the old Carolina Circle Mall in Greensboro.  A few weeks later our Cub Scout troop made an outing one Saturday and saw it, so A Christmas Story is the first movie that I saw more than once during its theatrical run.

Then a few months later, in the weeks leading up to my tenth birthday, Dad started hinting that he had a special present for me.  He wouldn't tell me anything about it.  Mom did tell me that he had told her and that she had thought it was going to be a real treat.  Well, we had my birthday party at Roll-a-Bout skating rink in Eden, and almost my entire class came.  The last present to unwrap was from Dad, and my anticipation by then had intensified dramatically.  I took the wrapping off at one end and saw the word "Daisy" and knew instantly what it was.

It was indeed an official A Christmas Story edition Red Ryder air rifle.  With a compass in the stock and that thing that tells time.  And when my classmates saw it they all started singing "You'll shoot your eye out!  You'll shoot your eye out!"

What a beautiful time that was, for all of us.

I still have that Red Ryder rifle, too.  More than forty years after Dad gave it to me.  It's in excellent physical condition and a few years ago I got off a few shots from it.  It works perfectly.  It, along with the telescope that I got for Christmas in 1982, are very precious artifacts from my childhood, and I've kept them in great working order all this time.

I don't yet own a "major award" but it's safe to say that my life, especially at this time of year, has been touched by this movie.  In some profound ways and others, more subtle.  And with growing older has come ever-fresh appreciation for A Christmas Story.  And maybe it's because I'm a life-long student of history...

This is truly a special film and that it is set in 1940 makes it even poignant.  1940 was the last Christmas that America got to have before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  That event marked the United States' final and irrevocable entry into world affairs.  After that attack, nothing was the same anymore.  We became a very different people.  We had to.  There was no choice but to "grow up" and accept that we had a role to play in the matters of mankind.

A Christmas Story is not just a tale about one family.  It's about who we all were as the greater American family.  A Christmas Story depicts one boy's playful plight in the final days of American innocence.  There would be no Christmas like that again, ever.  That was the last Christmas that a kid like Randy could get a toy such as a metal zeppelin, symbol of German industry that it had become.

I've wondered sometimes what happened to the characters of A Christmas Story the next Christmas, as people from sea to shining sea prepared to go to war full-bore.  What a completely different holiday it would have been for each of them.  The Parkers and their neighbors emerged from the Great Depression seemingly none the worse for wear.  How would their holiday be with the gloom of global conflict hanging over their house on Cleveland Street?

That last shot of Ralphie holding his beloved Red Ryder air rifle, when he says that it was the best Christmas present he ever got... he's not kidding.  When he tells us that, he's really saying to us that this was the final time he got to have Christmas with childlike wonder and that his BB gun is a precious relic of that time in his life.  I haven't seen the recent sequel but it wouldn't surprise me if Ralphie kept his Red Ryder after all these years, as a sacred trophy of his childhood.

A Christmas Story is a movie about who we were at our very best, before the larger world intruded upon our relative peace and calm.  It is a memorial to a bygone era of American society that there has been no going back to.  But I like to think that there is still a bit of that spirit at work amongst us.  Movies like A Christmas Story play a part in keeping the flame going.  And it is for that reason which I believe makes A Christmas Story a true classic film.

In the end, A Christmas Story is about something wonderful we once had, and have lost along the way.  But I like to think that somehow, we might still have it again.

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Well, it is a fantasy movie after all...

This is one of my favorite scenes in motion picture history.  From the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian.  Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has just freed Subotai (Gerry Lopez) from certain death.  Here we see them having dinner together.

I'll let the scene speak for itself.

It's two fast friends, enjoying a meal in each other's company.  And the conversation turns to religion.

There is no bitterness or anger.  Not an iota of hatred between the two men.  They are simply discussing their respective faiths: Subotai's in the Four Winds, and Conan's belief in Crom.

I like to think that Conan and Subotai each give the other something to think about.  Conan certainly seems impressed by the point Subotai is making about "the everlasting sky".

Conan the Barbarian is a fantasy movie.  It is very tragic that people in real life can not speak to one another about their differing beliefs without descending into scorn and hatred.  We don't think anymore.  We only react.

I don't believe that either this candidate or that one is bringing about division among the people.  The people seem to enjoy the division.  It gives them hatred of others.  It justifies their desire to destroy people who don't believe as they do.  They like to hate.  They enjoy it when someone else is hurting.

"The other candidate" is merely the rationale that they use to justify their bitterness.  Hate is a personal choice on the part of the individual.  I believe that of the candidates for President there is only one who has expressed the desire and ability to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially in regard to the Bill of Rights.  The other candidate does not and indeed has long expressed contempt and disdain for the Constitution.  But I am not going to "hate" that candidate for it.  I choose to not cast a vote for that candidate, and to support the candidate who I have many reasons to trust will honor the Constitution (especially in matters such as the border issue).

But I'm not going to get sucked into unwise wrath toward anyone about it.

Conan and Subotai.  Sitting together eating Lord knows what, talking about their theologies.  And appreciating each other.

Like I said, one of my favorite scenes in a movie.  So much that can be taken from watching it.

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Power or Wisdom? Stop asking God to interfere with politics

In searching around for churches in this area, obviously I'm looking at their websites.  I'm studying a few things, particularly their various statements of belief.  In that regard I'll simply say this: there are already a number of places of worship which I regrettably cannot enter.  It would be like bringing a blowtorch aboard the Hindenburg.

No disrespect to those places is meant.  I believe they and I worship the same God.  We differ however in aspects of that which while ultimately meaningless, are as unavoidable in this carnal realm as they are indicative of the imperfect nature of the church as the body of Christ upon this earth.

As I was saying, I'm perusing the websites of places of worship.  Looking for certain qualities.  And with the advent of streaming video I'm now able to watch and listen to recent sermons.  Sort-of like the Esper machine: getting to search a place without actually being there.

(Wait, did I just make a Blade Runner reference...?!?)

So a few nights ago, with nothing else to do (because of tech issues keeping me from my AI work, grrrr...) I was back at ogling church websites.  I literally have told Google to search for "churches near me" and it produces a map with every place of worship and, if available, their website addresses.  How convenient!

There is one church a few miles away from here that I didn't know anything about, other than it's a Baptist congregation unaffiliated with any larger contingent of the faithful.  I read over the site, and didn't find anything that would be objectionable.  It went down on my list of possible places to visit.  And it would have likely stayed there until I got around to checking it out in person...

Then I watched this past Sunday's worship service and listened to the message being preached.

Folks, there are very few things that will have me more walking out, however impolite it may seem, than a sermon that turns blatantly political.

Especially as "conservative" as the message I listened to.  Because conscientious conservatives really ought to know better.

The entirety of the pastor's message was about the evils of liberalism.  I don't mean liberalism in the spiritual sense, which would have been fine and even expected to be touched upon at various times.  No, I mean liberalism as in the temporal notion.

It was using the authority of the pastor to abuse the name of God for the furtherance of a political ideology.  Something I have LONG believed is wrong.

So it is that this church gets a hard pass from me.

It's like this: I believe that each of us as citizens has the responsibility to choose our leaders in representative government.  But it is WRONG for those with spiritual responsibility to decree who it is that his congregants should vote for.  And that is what I saw in this message.

What should a pastor or other minister preach about politics, then?  I do not believe the issue is completely off the table.  I don't believe that the elders of yore would have thought so, either.

I also don't believe that it makes a difference to God as to who we ask Him to favor in our elections.  Asking Him to please let Donald Trump win in November is going to mean as much to God as is asking Him to let the Patriots win another Super Bowl.  Indeed it's even more ridiculous to ask Him to favor some candidates over others.  Doing so would violate the concepts of free will and choice.  God has given us choice all along.  He has also given those of us in the free world the right to choose our leaders.

For good or ill, the onus is upon us, and not God, to well pick our representatives and executives.

So, if a minister has some authority to expound upon political matters, what is left if the endorsement of candidates is wildly inappropriate?

How about this instead: rather than trying to sway his listeners to vote either this way or that, a minister instead leads his flock in seeking WISDOM toward making their choices at the ballot box.

Isn't that what we as Christians should be seeking in all of our matters?  That God might liberally (pun shamelessly intended) pour upon us the capacity to discern wisely and to act upon that wisdom with a resolute mind and determined will. 

Should not that be what we are to pray for, instead of for our favorite candidates winning at the polls?

We can choose to have wisdom.  Or we can choose to crave power.  We have been doing the latter for so long that we've practically forgotten about wisdom at all.  And we have suffered for that.

It is not God who has inflicted the metaphorical poxes upon our land.  He is merely letting us have what we vote for.  Free choice, remember?

I would posit that it has been a lack of lusting for wisdom which has brought America to the brink of calamity.  And it has been many if not most of her Christians who have greatly encouraged that folly.  It is the Christians of this land who should have been the very first to appeal to Heaven for wisdom and discernment.  That is the vessel of true power.  Not power itself, which we have deluded ourselves into believing we must wield.

Because in America at least, God has already granted her people all the power that they could possibly require.  But how to exercise that power?  That is something that we should have been petitioning God for all along.

Would it at all hurt us to start fervently oraying for change of hearts and minds instead of obsessively praying for change in Washington?

I know what is that I am praying for.  And it is not for a candidate to win.

I will pray, that the people of this land lay aside their appetites for force and power.  And instead that they would use the authority granted them with discernment and wisdom.

God WILL grant us those things, if we ask Him.

But He is not going to be moved when we ask Him to interfere directly with the politicks of these United States.

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