The Rocks Will Speak...

We purchased a 2 acre lot next to our home... more to prevent an intrusion on our tranquility than anything... and lately we have been clearing some of the considerable dead-fall, trimming back treacherous, dead juniper branches, and killing the bountiful, lush poison ivy. The Texas Hill Country is beautiful, but is an uncanny combination of everything mean in Nature from both east and central Texas; prickly pear, yucca, barrel cactus, sumac, sticker vines, poison ivy, scorpions, copperheads, coral snakes and rattlesnakes... Never the less, I am like a city kid at summer camp, exploring its limitless mysteries.

I found an ancient triangular hearth built into the ground on the added acreage... and a few arrowheads and other ancient tools, and concluded that the land was once an Indian campground. And it probably was. But then, again on the new acreage, I found this peculiar, squared stone... too big for me to move by myself... a veritable cornerstone, resting for God knows how many years on the edge of our mesa, a rough geometric marker that suggested that people who worked stone had once been here. And that suggested Europeans, although Native Americans did build large structures out of stone in New Mexico and Arizona. This thing just said, “I am the only evidence of long-forgotten pioneers.”

They could have been Spanish missionaries, or Conquistadors, or way over-confident American “filibusters” starting an outpost. Anyway, this heavy, squared stone was sleeping deep in the brush, protected by a stand of poison ivy about six feet tall.

Perhaps a stonemason intended to build here... and something changed their plans. The stone would have been too heavy to relocate... so it was abandoned. Or perhaps there was a tragedy which changed their plans... and rather than being the beginning of something, it became the marker for the end of something... and it became a makeshift grave marker. Or maybe it is an old property marker... Or even all three. The answer may lie within a half-dozen strange mounds along the edge of the mesa... one straddled by some anciently dead mountain junipers, which sprouted, lived for a hundred years and then died a long, long time ago, all after the mound was made. It is marked by a rhomboidal limestone foot marker...

When I discovered the crudely worked stones, I got kind of excited... if only they could talk. But they might have told me of deadly confrontations with Comanches, or Mexican soldiers, or smallpox. If I am right, the mounds represent a small graveyard... for an ill-fated party of frontiersmen. Maybe a family; but strategically, lovingly placed in a beautiful spot overlooking the Nolan Valley, long before there were towns or cemeteries. Maybe before there was a Texas. And somebody found a suitable stone for their beloved, fallen patriarch, and squared it up, and hauled it up to the top of the mesa, and put it on this person's final resting place. A hard place to live... but a lovely spot to spend eternity.

Or maybe, on a more positive note, a nameless father of Texas placed it as his “ebeneezer stone.” Ebeneezer stones, basically monuments, were recorded in the Bible, where great men placed memorial stones to commemorate a great historic event, one where the positive outcome was attributed to Divine intervention...

I can't even sing completely through one of my favorite songs which mentions the ebeneezer stone... (Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing) It literally chokes me up every time I hear it. In my mind, and it is probably just my imagination, the first time I ever heard it was while standing next to my grandfather at the funeral of his favorite aunt, at his home church in Bradley County, Arkansas, and watching him sing it as his shameless tears whetted the floor. The name of the church? Ebeneezer Baptist Church. Planted memorial stones were part of his ancient Scot-Irish heritage, going way beck to the Celts, and their dolmens and such. People have left or planted stones to leave a lasting mark on this changing planet since the beginning. Some were huge, like at Stonehenge- but most were like this...

So now I look forward to occasionally visiting the old cornerstone, and studying and wondering about it... and meditating. It sits on an angle... almost as if it had sunk a little, or once been a standing ebeneezer stone and gradually fell over. But it is perfect now, just the way it is. **************************************************************************************************** There is something about a tangible relic to help abstract things make more sense. That old rock was hewn and planted so long ago... and nobody ever repurposed it, nobody ever moved it, (nobody could lift it!) nobody even knew it existed. But at one time, to someone, for a day or so, it was the most important project in the valley. It may have been intended, God willing, to be the cornerstone of a fortress, or it may have marked the grave of an Hidalgo, a Spanish Nobleman. But God allowed whatever it was to become a mystery, an unwritten footnote in history. A discarded cornerstone.

Or maybe, Nature just made a square rock, and it has always been there. Whatever the case, there are thousands of rocks on the earth with a similar mystery, with similarly intriguing and yet unknown stories. But I don't believe that the stone just happened. It had one meaning when it was made, and now it has another, to the one who found it. Ever since I learned about that very first sign above, I have learned to watch for messages from my Creator...

Hewn stones kind of speak to me. Especially ones that are associated with some historic place... some long-forgotten happening. I love to make up stories to explain them... But the Bible actually provides great references and allusions to memorial stones. Joshua had twelve stones placed in the Jordan, one for each tribe, as memorials for when Israel crossed the river, but the prophet Samuel is credited with raising the first official “ebeneezer,” translated as stone of help, as a reminder of God's powerful assistance in Israel's survival and victory against the Philistines. But neither of them ever heard these words... a relatively contemporary folk song, the one that always gets to me: **************************************************************************************************** Come Thou Fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing Thy grace; ************************************************************************************************* Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise ************************************************************************************************** Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above. *************************************************************************************************** Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, Mount of God's unchanging love. *************************************************************************************************** Here I raise my Ebeneezer; Hither by Thy help I'm come; *************************************************************************************************** And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. *************************************************************************************************** Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; **************************************************************************************************** He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood. **************************************************************************************************** O to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be! **************************************************************************************************** Let that grace now like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee. **************************************************************************************************** Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; **************************************************************************************************** Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. **************************************************************************************************** **************************************************************************************************** Yes... prone to wander. Prone to leave the God I love. And that is partly why we all need to plant an ebeneezer stone. It is a marker in your life to represent your gratitude and commitment to God. It means that the same God who made this incredible world can be called upon and trusted in our lives. I was lazy, so I just adopted a boulder (below)... I call it my prayer rock.

But I know what you are asking right now... Russell, that is a nice song, but what in the heck is a fetter? I knew you were wondering... it is a restraint... you know like a shackle or a chain. Slave chains were fetters. And this song is asking God to chain Himself to us! Or at least to our hearts. Imaginary chains... And I believe that a person can raise an ebeneezer in his heart as well. **************************************************************************************************** But this stone represents even more to me than an ebeneezer, as great as that was, or could be. Even with all of that great Old Testament symbolism, which spoke of planted stones as reminders, there is something greater in the stone... an Eternal, personal challenge. **************************************************************************************************** Because Jesus spoke of himself... as a the “cornerstone which the builders had rejected.” And ultimately that is what this stone means to me, sitting in a timeless jungle, abandoned and unused. It is still an ebeneezer, reminding those who come upon it that things never go as planned, tragedy sometimes marks life like the seasons... and in the end no aspiration, no achievement really matters- only what we individually decide to do with that Cornerstone. The “Chief Cornerstone.” Did we elect to build on it... or did we reject it and trust in something else? Is it laying askew in the forest of our hearts?

So many ebeneezers dot the planet... evidence of power schemes and grand visions and good intentions, many of their stories lost forever. But somehow, the legend, the history, the truth of the Rejected Cornerstone still lives. And that shady spot in my yard now has become hallowed ground to me... almost Holy. It's as if the Lord... Jesus, the Creator of the Universe and the Savior of my soul, knew all of this, all along... and arranged it, and brought us here, to give us a special home... with a special message from Christ, to be discovered nestled in the woods... Waiting... Perhaps after centuries... Knowing that I would have to kill that horrible poison ivy, and as it cleared out the stone would emerge. And, well, speak to me. **************************************************************************************************** When I see that stone... the scriptures below line up to explain what I feel running through my mind: You see, the predictions of the prophets came true, and deadly persecutions by an apostate Israel- left the building- to us. ****************************************************************************************************** Psalm 118:22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. ****************************************************************************************************** Isaiah 28:16 So this is what the Lord GOD says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken. ****************************************************************************************************** Mark 12:10 Have you never read this Scripture: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. ****************************************************************************************************** Luke 20:17 But Jesus looked directly at them and said, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? ****************************************************************************************************** Acts 4:11 This Jesus is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' ****************************************************************************************************** Romans 9:33 as it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame." **************************************************************************************************** The abandoned stone in my yard means all of this... and more; that most people miss the point of the Rejected Cornerstone... the point of those scriptures, the point which God was making through hundreds of amazing subtleties in the scriptures, the point of LIFE.

And perhaps it is a message... to me, to us; that no matter how discouraged, or old we may get, to keep on... to finish the race... to be on the lookout for new foundations upon which to build; To do whatever we can to prevent our best efforts from being lost causes or false starts... abandoned corner stones. Ruins. **************************************************************************************************** Jesus, who was the Messiah, was unfortunately the “stone of stumbling” and “rock of offense” for the First-Century Jews, who were the puffed-up builders of the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, the end-all of religious practice. But their temple was only to last for a few more decades. God was unveiling a new covenant, starting with Jesus as the eternal cornerstone of the family of God, as he had been since the beginning of time. The rejection of His Kingdom, even His profound spiritual foundations, was merely a temporary delay which serendipitously facilitated the incorporation of all peoples into His Church. And as Jesus claimed that His Kingdom was not of this world, we who believe and follow Him are conversely only passing through this world as well, and are naturalized citizens of Heaven. We are not to worry too much about earthly things. Like politics or building worldly kingdoms. As the Bible says, it is all “hay and stubble.” It will all be blown away or destroyed one day.

It is not important what stones we turn, or hew here, or where we place them, but how we prepare ourselves and others for that ultimate destination, where none of our earthly striving will matter.

Linda and I are wrapping up a minimal refinement of the top of our section of the mesa, and have another acre or so to go, which constitutes a sharp limestone bluff, covered with mountain junipers. I hope to leave a large portion just the way it is; ancient and mysterious. It is littered with ancient juniper branches, bleached white like the bones left from some prehistoric battle. And there are piles of worked rock rubble; thousands of years of fractured chert left from generations of arrowhead production. And I have found a long, peculiar pile of large, unmolested rocks and small boulders, perhaps fifty feet long, where people in the past seemed to have been trying to make some kind of crude rampart, a defensive wall, as if they were expecting an attack. If stones were not being used to memorialize, they were usually being stacked as protection from enemies. We build monuments and castles and bridges... homes and public buildings... out of stone. Anything we plan to depend on. But you never hear much discussion about their cornerstones. Its a function lost to modern architecture. The significance of the alegory of the Rejected Cornerstone was lost with it. But here, in my yard, are ancient symbols of man's warlike nature, the weapons of self-defense, the memorials to the dead, and God's oft rejected alternative of Grace and Peace.

I never had a yard before with so much to tell. Last year I unearthed a three-inch chert knife, perhaps a spear point, chipped-up and driven into the bluff with considerable force... Was it a weapon thrown at an enemy? Dulled and broken, perhaps it was impaled between the layers of limestone during a battle. When I found it, I imagined a Plains warrior lunging after a Spanish soldier, his stone blade deflected by a superior steel sword, and his weapon thrust into the ground right before he died defending his home... The typical violence of clashing cultures. If these rocks could only speak...

Jesus once claimed to the Pharisees, (the “builders,” who wanted his followers to be censored), that if somehow his disciples could be silenced, the rocks would cry out instead. I believe that, and I just wish they would quietly tell me what was going on here!

A barrage of "signs": The Mystery of the Rocking Pig...

 

I've often been accused by my friends of “reading too much into the tea leaves.” So be it. It is because I believe that God shows us signs constantly, if we are paying attention, and He might use an infinite number of things to guide us. If we care to be guided. According to the Bible, God started out man's second chance to exist with a sign, a rainbow... and a promise.

I have had the pleasure of recognizing many signs during my life. God has used road signs, folder spills and even racoons to send me thoughts and directions. I have made many “life decisions” after deep prayer and then opening up for God's direction. I have never seen a thing in the tea leaves, but then I hardly ever drink tea. God speaks to us in a particular language by manipulating things we are familiar with... in noteworthy juxtapositions that we can hardly ignore. I should write a book about it. But suffice to say that I do not believe in accidents or coincidences...

Usually, when somebody else tells me about a sign they have experienced, I feel like they are nuts. Everybody's connection and relationship with God is unique and different. I only know what has happened to me. Friends have told me of literal angels appearing, or visions of spirits or a “giant eye.” Mine are not like that. They are usually allegories drawn from nature. Or bizarre groupings or sudden appearances of symbolic features on the landscape, which if they are applied, are amazingly germane to some prayer concern of mine.

I have probably misread some, or seen significance in some random things that were not God-sent, for sure. But several times during our marriage, God has shown my wife and I a path through some difficulty after we prayed together about it. I'm talking important things, like jobs and homes and relocating across the state. And he has often used actual “signs.”

So last August when I looked up into the night sky as I often do... I've had some great talks with God while doing so... I saw an amazing configuration. I had to go look it up on the Internet. Jupiter and Saturn were very close to the Moon. It turned out that this year has been a special year, featuring a rare and unusual dance between Jupiter and Saturn, closer to one another this year than they have been in 400 years. And as they “danced” by the Moon for a few days, it was stunning.

There are astrological interpretations of the significance of these celestial rendezvous, the Moon being the mother, Jupiter the father and ruler, and Saturn the planetary representative for duty and justice and wisdom. Who knows... lots of possibilities could be extrapolated from that. But as soon as I saw these three together, I thought about the “Wise Men,” who came from the far east to find and pay tribute to the Christ Child. Again, God speaks to us in terms we are familiar with. He told the Persian astrologers that a king was coming in Judea... a possible savior of the world, as Jupiter (royalty) was passing through Leo (Lion of Judah)... Somehow a virgin was involved, because Jupiter then was associated with Virgo. It was a huge, nightly billboard pointing to a messiah in or near Jerusalem. Familiar with ancient Jewish traditions and texts they knew, the “wise men” knew that if HE was really coming, he would be born in Bethlehem.

Ironically, perhaps by design, the Jews were forbidden to study astrology, and did not get the memo. But Gentiles were obsessed with the stars, and God knew it, and He spoke to them in symbols they understood. And they came from thousands of miles away to see the Messiah. These constellations were such topics of controversy, the Parthian Kings, some with Jewish ancestry, had been overthrowing one another, claiming the signs were validating them. But today we do not even know their names. Legends still persist to this day in Iran about John the Baptist and his cousin, Jeshua, and the impact they had on Persian Magi who came back with amazing stories. It all started with well-placed, fairly easily interpreted signs.

Anyway, I ignored the Moon/Jupiter/Saturn gathering, not knowing what to make of it. But Americans might read the astronomical events as affirmation of a world leader and his bride, persons who possess wisdom and discipline and who will achieve justice and prosperity... not a bad caption for the Trumps.

But strictly hokus pokus...

BUT THEN... In mid-September... just a couple of weeks later, this incredible, giant boletus mushroom- the biggest one I have ever seen, popped up in our front yard... and not just anywhere, right outside my office window. This thing was seven inches in diameter! Mushrooms have always been messengers of coming prosperity... if you are a witch and believe such things. There were smaller mushrooms all over the yard. Then an even bigger one popped up a few yards from the first one, right in our lantana bed. I took a walk around the mesa, to see if there was some kind of mushroom Burning Man thing going on... but ours were the thickest and the biggest. But Hey, we are talking fungus here. So what, if they say this kind of mushroom gathering only happens every five or six years...

AND THEN, the weirdest thing of all. I'm sitting in my armchair at the end of the day. My brain is dead, and I am just waiting to nod off or eat supper. Then I notice... a strange light undulating on my wooden rocking pig which decorates our fireplace hearth. There is no light on in the room. So I look back, across the house to see if there is some kind of bizarre reflection which could be shooting light across the living room on to the pig. The SUN, about to go down, was shooting through a bunch of trees, over the mushrooms, through the office window, through the office, the office door, across the living room, over the top of the couch, and hitting the pig with a perfect perpendicular ray, filtered by the windblown trees outside. The next day was a repeat, but not quite as accurate, so Sept 27 was officially named Solar Pigstace Day.

But I have no idea what that means.

Alignments. Stars. I have no idea... The next day we saw a number of Indian Paintbrushes, normally a profuse spring flower, popping up along the roadside... and on our property. In September. OK, so the rains confused them. The cool weather, the four or five inches of rain... but what got my attention was the places they sprouted... often right out of a thick layer of limestone gravel. Beauty and germination in the bleakest of places. Everything seemed to pointing to the pin-point precision, the perfection and sufficiency of God's Creation. Giant fungi just a few feet from my desk... A random sun-ray threading through my house, to envelop a beloved carving at my feet. It seemed nature was doing everything it could to say, “It's OK, everything is lined up, everything is working just as it should.”

We love the deer in our neighborhood. They have forty or fifty acres to romp in on the adjoining property. One morning we saw two deer during our two-mile walk. We had walked right past them, but did not see them, and they did not run away. When we got to the farthest point of our walk, and turned around... and there they were. They were like a painting, one with the strong light illuminating her like a light bulb. I wondered how many wonderful things we walk past and never see. How many things in Nature see us, but we never see them. Whenever the deer come through the yard, we always go watch them, as if it was the first time.

When the news broke about the President and his wife having the Covid virus, I said a special prayer at breakfast. We just trusted the Trumps, and our whole country in fact, into God's hands. The God who made this wonderful, beautiful world knows all about it. His Grace is sufficient.

Just a few minutes after breakfast, I was looking out one of the east windows, and about to remark that the deer would be changing their feeding habits, with the increase of predation in the fall. About that time a six-point buck climbed up the mesa into our back yard. He stayed and grazed a long time. To me, it was God saying. “Yes, everything is under control. Enjoy this young buck, without blemish, my perfect messenger.”

Just a few days later, I noticed the semi-annual alignment of the rising sun with the skyline of Temple, Texas. Solar Pigstace was just the precursor for this beautiful sight, often obscured in the autumn by fog or clouds. But not this year... a year of signs.

I have no conclusions about these signs. They are comforting, yet quickening in a way- they say to me “pay attention!”. When God found us this place on the mesa, high above the world, it immediately felt as if we were looking across mankind, the busy world “out there,” and I felt a kind of... removal from it all. I often say that God “plucked us out” of our old situation. Linda agrees. My heart needed a rest... literally and figuratively. Now I have woods to stroll in, a favorite boulder to meditate and pray on... many animals to watch and learn from. And wild, inspiring sunsets and sunrises. So I may just be seeing more “signs” because I am constantly opening myself to them... in a place where Nature can speak quite eloquently. But then... that rocking pig... caught perfectly in a celestial alignment... as if the Knights Templar had built our house! I'm telling you, seeing that was as exciting as the mysterious alignment in the famous ancient stone tower in Rhode Island.

This world... and the Universe, are like a humongous clock, built to perfection, and even the doings of man fit into it in a marvelous way... or at least sometimes they can... perhaps when built according to God's Will. And I have to believe, that God would not send so much assurance, so much comfort to my conscious mind, if it was some kind of empty promise. The signs have been positive and encouraging. The opposite of the lies and hysteria on Network Television. Perhaps the same kinds of signs that lured the Wise men to Judea are still being broadcast today. When spring flowers burst from the rocks in September, when all of Nature testifies of God's perfect plan, and even silly wive's tales verify hope in the future, why not just go with it?

When God allowed “Cyrus the Great” to take control of Persia, it was an essential part of His plan to restore the Jews to Israel. Cyrus should be pronounced with a hard K, so the great Persian ruler was actually Kurush. Cyrus supposedly meant “sun.” So the Persian ruler was associated with the center and power and light of the Universe. And in fact for a time he served that very purpose. He was not a Jew, not a leader of the Hebrews... yet he has been remembered for millennia by them as one anointed, a liberator, a re-builder of their worship and way of life. It was during his third year in power that God gave amazing visions to Daniel, who must have somehow let him know of their content. He ultimately set the Jews free to return to Jerusalem and financed their revival. He reversed a great injustice, and prepared Israel for the return of its Messiah.

This counter-intuitive method is an established trend in God's political strategy, to often use a great leader, even a pagan one to be his agent. This was much the case in the great achievements of Constantine. Signs played a large role in these men's thoughts and deeds. They were powerful, unstoppable, disrupters of the status quo. Constantine saw a giant cross in the sky, and read “In this sign conquer.” And he did, maybe more obediently than a life-long disciple of Christ. Certainly more ruthlessly. But he changed the course of history.

From Moses till today, God has chosen to use unlikely, uninitiated messengers. His anointed leaders are rarely from the establishment, but are more often from obscure or unglamorous origins. He would pick a Peter over a Paul any day... and if he picks a Paul, he will be a broken, repentant one. And when he picks his man, no man, no woman can stand against him. When God has some big thing in mind... like setting the captives free, or salvation of mankind... or Christianizing all of Europe... he picks a strong, almost inhumanly resolute person... someone who will follow through, and not run from trouble like Noah or David.

Moses had a burning bush, and water out of a ROCK, and a staff that turned into a snake... he enjoyed lots of amazing and bizarre signs. It is doubtful that he would ever have risen to power without God's help and insistence, guided by signs. Peter, an impetuous fisherman, was the “rock” upon whom Jesus said he would build his church. Boorish and unschooled, he is still considered by many Christians to be the founding Apostle of the Faith. He was also shown amazing signs... walking on water was only one. Jesus gathered a whole gang of these kinds of men... working men, only a few of his disciples were men of letters. Action was paramount, the parables and miraculous accounts could be written down later. Talk is cheap. God loves an action man. His chosen leaders are often not men of words or gifted in speech. But they go. They do. And they usually offend everybody when they do.

Moses died without many friends. Most of the Prophets did. Doing God's bidding is basically the “foolish” confounding the “wise,” and can be very unpopular at the time; Justice to be imposed on a dark, corrupt world. Power and authority stood on its head. It's not a job for a sissy. Not a task for the insecure.

So what if Donald Trump is this kind of leader? He certainly fits the mold. If so, he will be re-elected and totally exasperate his enemies. He still has work to do. He may have no idea that his success is not him, but a greater power... who is, well, using him. No doubt God has recruited him in this quest with signs he could read- as clearly as those which prompted great iconoclasts of the past. Maybe someday he will share those signs, which put a profane, ungodly hedonist, oafish and course in speech, in a great struggle, perhaps the greatest battle to restore America's moral compass.

P.S.: Days past as I pondered whether or not to post this blog. Signs for me may have been meant for no one else. Perhaps it was all too personal, and worse, subjective. Then election day finally came. The sun came up, glorious as if for the first time. 

The eastern star... the Star of Hope- glistened above as the sun highlighted a humble Hill Country shrub, laden with winged seeds ready to fly with the wind into infinity.

AND!... And... and angels had left their doodles in the western sky... which could not help but signify (to me) the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, hanging on the cross... among thieves. He came for all of us. No matter how flawed or sinful. In seconds I was witnessing an epic light show, a heavenly illustration of the Alpha and the Omega. The great eternal truths of our universe... signs that God is near... in control, and there are no surprises in this world... for our Creator.

It easy to take heart, when you believe. It is easy then to dismiss most coincidences, and see meaning in so many otherwise mundane things. It easy to imagine that the God of this universe is speaking... through all of them- if we choose to listen... to read and receive these wonderful signs. AND HERE'S THE BEAUTIFUL PART... MANY OF THEM ARE OUT THERE EVERY DAY!

THIS is our test.

Hard times in the iris patch... but life goes on...

One of the advantages of living through extraordinary times, are the landmark moments which will stick with you the rest of your life. They might be hilarious or tragic, but they will occupy a permanent corner of your brain for the rest of your life, and each will become a self-defining tile in your life's mosaic. The way I remember the ass-kicking I took in the boys bathroom in fourth grade.

Half a dozen boys, crushed at the news just announced, did not take my sarcasm very well. All I had said was, “My parents are Republicans... we didn't vote for him anyway.”

That's right, President Kennedy had just been murdered in Dallas with thousands of Texans looking on. And these fourth graders wanted to hurt somebody. And I had been terribly naive about freedom of speech. If I had not done some fast talking, they would have surely beat me until “you are just a grease spot in the concrete.”

So one of my first “life lessons” was to not indulge in political grudges during a national crisis.

How we react, how we treat one another during these extraordinary times, the things we do with each other, will live much longer than the virus. None of us will probably know a single person who will perish from the disease, but plenty of us will experience either smallness or magnanimity in our own neighborhoods, as we all cope and watch others cope with a historic, worldwide calamity.

Standing in line, keeping our distance, shopping for “our brand” along stripped store shelves, listening to strangers tell of their troubles... bustling among masked strangers who just want to go home as soon as they can. This is your opportunity to be a “good Samaritan.” This is your test.

It's not a free-for-all until things get back to normal, and you can return to your kind self. This is your test. It does not matter how you treat people when everything is great. It matters what you do “when the chips are down.” This is your self-defining moment. You will never forget how you reacted... what you said in jest, or in meanness, or what you may have done in a moment of mercy. They will all be there to revisit, your instinctive actions to remind you for the rest of your life... that there are times when the only thing to do is to be gracious, charitable, even sacrificial, giving as Jesus commanded, the cloak off of your back.

This noble aspiration, this broad view of neighborliness, is what defines the character of the best of America, and ingrained in many Texans. We will learn once again what it means to suffer and endure as a country, and learn that we, our fellow citizens, are our best resource. Black, white, Republican, Democrat, Skinhead, Socialist, innie our outie, we are all countrymen... and we share much more in common than we differ in philosophies.

I truly believe it will be, for many of us who never faced WWII, or who grew up admiring (and paling in comparison to) the “Greatest Generation,” our own “proudest moment.”

This Blog Officially Resumes!

My grandmother's irises have adapted to the Hill Country well

It's been just over a year, since I posted in Grace Mesa. Since I posted last, we got a cat, we planted grass, deer and squirrels made our yard a daily refuge, and roadrunners and a fox have come through our back yard. Then something ate the squirrels, then the cat, and everything  got quiet for awhile! But it has been a good year, with a major obsession, as I worked on a book which was swimming around in my mind. That is pretty much done now, except for the hard part, getting it published, and I am glad to get back to blogging!

The neighboring acreage- at the end of the mesa-

It's like a mini-state park

Linda and I are very happy here, in the hills between Belton and Killeen, and there have been plenty of highlights to share. Now I can start to catch up... 

Our view of Temple, where our daughter lives

Perhaps our most precious pastime is bird watching... something that never grows old, and you are always learning something. The pageantry of watching the Nolan Valley each day, the weather, the wildlife, it has been a daily adventure.

Have you ever seen a "firedog"?

We are learning to find beauty in everything, and be grateful for each day we have together. We love the sunshine, and we love the rain. Linda has taken to retirement like a baby duck to warm water. A daily walk in the country has become the highlight of our lives. Our biggest concern before the Coronavirus hit was keeping the bird feeders full.

Painted Bunting

And that we have done faithfully.

This post is dedicated to Quintus. We never wanted him, or he us, but we grew to love being together and enjoyed each other's company. He was truly a great cat, and we have missed him.

Squirrel Justice

The squirrels at our house are a constant circus act, and provide us with amusement from dawn till dusk. We pay them well by providing all the corn and seed they can eat. We throw in a few peanuts every day. Sometimes there is water in the bird bath... So they almost always have the necessities of squirrel existence. And it is worth every nickle as this feeding frenzy keeps them off of the roof, and away from the temptation of chewing their way into our house. They have, however, started on the patio furniture.

You might say we are the mesa government... and they are the poor little squirrels trying to scratch out a living, and we help them along. After all, we live well, and in fact we have all of the money... they could not go to a store, much less buy the things that we can provide for them. It is sort of a squirrel welfare program. We are that 2% at the tippy-top that can, and should, take care of their needs. And from what I can tell, we are providing about 100% of their dietary requirements. We have carefully worked out the system, so the squirrels have their own feeder, and the birds have theirs. We want to make life fair here on the mesa.

 

Of course, there are very specialized feeders for one small sub-group, the humming birds. It is true that they get special treatment. But then their food is very cheap and low maintenance compared to the rest of our freeloaders, and nobody else wants it. It's not a perfect system, but so far no complaints.

The squirrels think this arrangement is great. They are out there every day, playing their hearts out, not a care in the world... some of them actually lay in the feeder tray like epicurean Romans, scooping the grain and shoveling it in with both hands. They tag-team that feeder, and they never miss a day. And they never complain. They never question our motives, or ask for more, or suggest that we could do more for them. They are squirrels. The never get together and vote us out of office, or call us mean names. It is a fairly peaceful coexistence with mutual benefits.

I was watching them the other day and suddenly it hit me, the beauty of Squirrel Justice. They are doing better than they have ever done before, and we have a backyard full of happy, daredevil bushytails. Even if it is an absolute dictatorship.

I thought how absurd it would be, if in some crazy acceleration of squirrel evolution, kind of like Planet of the Apes, they evolved, organized, and had elections. And the only way we could get their votes, so we could continue to live there and be their rulers, was that we had to agree to their demands. And another couple, who wanted our house, began to promise the squirrels all kinds of crazy things... I don't know where I got this crazy scenario... But the election became a referendum for more feeders, more variety of seed, and truckloads of peanuts. They ordered us to replace our dangerous electrical lines with squirrel-friendly solar panels, and to dispose of the offensive daffodil plants on the deck. Also they demanded more oak trees and a 24 hour veterinarian on the premises. 

 

Now, the squirrels have never bought their first seed. They have never done anything for us. In fact, every time I walk into the back yard, they scamper away as if I am their enemy! No squirrel has ever offered me as much as a pecan pith. And they never plan to. In this imagined hell, they have decided that since we can afford it, we should have to. And do it more. And do all of these extra things. And the competing couple, they began to gain support by accusing us of being rodent haters. I swear, we never use the R word.

Funny Huh? Ridiculous, that these cute little characters, so entertaining, but underprivileged, could be so bossy. It's not like they have ever been taxed or ever will be. They have never, will never ever carry any of the burden of their welfare. They are squirrels. You don't tax squirrels.

 

But I wondered, should these dependents, who never contribute anything to the pot, have any say about what kind of seed we buy, or how much we put out each day? Should they get to vote and control us? They have a somewhat unfair advantage, since there are many more of them than there are of us. Should they be given a say about who buys the seed, or what seed they buy, or how the mesa government manages the funds appropriated for Squirrel Justice? Of course not, they are squirrels. It was a dumb thought. I don't know how that popped into my mind.

And that's the point... squirrels are delightful fur-bearing creatures, who work hard and play hard and chisel every advantage they can out of their environment... without endangering it of course, but they never have a say about where their food comes from, or how much they should get, because it's up to higher authorities, (God and His helpers) who do what is best for them. They have no expectations to get anything, because they have never really contributed to the largess which gives to them so generously. It wouldn't be right. It would be.... nuts. And as I watch them demolish the corn every day, I cannot help but believe that they are grateful, in their own squirrel way.

And then there are people. People. People are nothing like squirrels.

Regarding the Stone

Moving to Bell County, Texas had several unexpected benefits, and for me one of the most exciting was my proximity to arrowhead hunting... I'm talkin' 'bout in my own back yard!

A worn and ancient spear point, with nine chips or dents.

 I soon learned that they were there because the mesa we lived on was some kind of Native American chert projectile manufacturing site. There were not so many points as there were broken chips and chunks of “flint” rock, strewn in piles all over our property. And there were mostly large skinning tools, makeshift stone implements, and some broken points left laying around. I scoured the property and after a few weeks found a few things that satisfied my arrowhead hunting fantasies.

 A chert knife.

 Part of the process is training the eye.

 

When I flip the ancient tool, its shape suddenly pops.

A large hide scraping tool.

I found some very cool things. And I wanted to share the coolest of all- a real find, a three inch spear point. I found it one evening after considerable searching, when I had stooped over and was scanning the ground at almost ground level. I spied a fairly dusty, nondescript inch-wide nub jammed between two layers of limestone. It was probably nothing. I had pulled scores of similar bits of chert from their primeval burial nooks, just to toss them back into infinity. But when I tugged on this one, it was stuck “fast,” as they used to say, like an ancient tooth in a petrified skull. I took the challenge.

Finally it began to loosen... and as I worked it out of its eternal resting place, it just kept coming... one, two.. three inches! WOW! (See the point above in first photo.)

Almost as quickly as I loudly guffawed, I slumped in disappointment. It was broken. It was chipped- damaged, and basically worthless. I washed it up and tossed it into my “found on the home site” chert collection. Sure it was cool. But I have gotten like so many these days... an intolerant perfectionist. We shouldn't, but we value everything according to what the guys on Antique Roadshow would say. And they would look at it and say “Too bad.”

But then, months later I looked at it again. Having recovered from my disappointment, I really loooked at it. It was large for an authentic Amerind point. And even though it was damaged, it was trying to tell me a story. And when I began to ponder it, I got fascinated. Over the next few months I had several sessions, as the old spearhead and I locked horns. I studied the various chips, the dings, all nine of them, suddenly interested in how they got there. What kind of animal might inflict such damage? There was none except maybe a large wild hog, with huge tusks, that could damage a stone point that much. But they were not imported to Texas until much later when chert weaponry had become obsolete. No, this damage was done in battle.

Someone had repeatedly knocked the large spearhead away, perhaps trying to avoid having to kill the person jabbing with it. Each time they knocked it way, they inflicted serious damage to the edge of the blade. One, two, three, four- five, six times they hit it away, or blocked a jab, each time chipping the stone weapon. Seven, Eight... until both of the “arrowhead” barbs at the base had been knocked off, as well as the very tip, until the once deadly, three-inch blade was now dulled up and down, until the thing was no longer very dangerous... and perhaps in a last desperate lunge, it was impaled into the limestone bluff where it stayed for centuries.

 The angle with which it hit the limestone suggests that it was almost horizontal, probably thrust or thrown from the hip, and obviously, it missed its intended target. It appears when it was attempted to pull it out, the shaft broke off, breaking a tab on the base "tail." This was no possum hunt. 

It was no normal skirmish between opposing tribesmen. Opposing tribesmen did not have anything so effective as the long, sharp tool used to repel this spear. And no Amerind would have been so amazingly accurate while defending himself, to hit an oncoming spear point exactly with his own, so many times. Not even if his life depended on it.

There was one huge ding, a half-inch long, concave pothole in the blade which suggested something sharp and powerful. And something harder than chert. The Amerinds had few metal weapons, except copper, which was rarely used and was not hard enough to chip chert. This effective and debilitating defense was made by a sword, probably in the hands of a Spanish conquistador. This chert blade found in my back yard is the lasting evidence of a forgotten conflict where people probably died, perhaps four or five hundred years ago. And it was not any kind of routine conflict, but one between two vastly different cultures, where one would eventually destroy the other. The men of ships and iron and horses and yes, pigs, would overcome and decimate the men of stone and leather and bison.

 

And that is what this beat-up old arrowhead was trying to tell me. This spear point was driven into the caliche long before the Texans came. Long before the buffalo had been exterminated, the passenger pigeons hunted to extinction. Long before the jaguars retreated along with the Amerinds into Mexico.

And this all made sense. Our bluff, which we know today as “Crescent Mesa,” was a source of chert for tribes in eastern Texas for many millennia. No doubt Amerinds came there from all points east to extract chert and work it into transportable “blanks,” and some camped there and made weapon points and traded them. With little convenient water, none of them stayed very long. But for that reason there were probably often squabbles and skirmishes over access by competing groups to this valuable foothill to the Hill Country. If an eastern party came there to mine the chert and was repelled, it would have to travel even deeper into the hills, which was crawling with hostile tribes, and remove them farther from home and safety. So conflicts on our bluff were probably common. It had been defended many times. 

 

And the mesa and others around it would have been the front line of defense for local tribes, who felt ownership of the bluffs and their wealth of colorful chert. Whoever “owned” the chert hills was on top of the pecking order. And they would be the first people to smite, as they claimed the place the conquistadors would have gone to shut down native weapon production. Yes the Spanish supposedly came in peace and wanted to tell the Amerinds about God, but first on the agenda would have been to try to disarm the population. And that might have been the kind of conflict illustrated by my battered flint projectile; the loser in a historic clash of uncompromising cultures.

Well, now you might understand why a normal, pristine Native American point no longer holds any mystery or much value for me. It is like an unissued military artifact. No story. No action.

Give me a relic with some character. A story to tell. The mystery. There's the value.