My Life and Its Ensuing Chaos

Some of my long-time readers--all 10 or so of you--may wonder where I've got to the last few weeks. As you know, I'm somewhat reluctant to turn the blog into a dear diary for public consumption, although I have posted what some would call artistic renderings of my life.

Let's just say for now that my life has taken a turn toward the rootless, nomadic existence that I perhaps deserve since I have lived it for so long. Cut off from the land that I still dream about, that farm in the Cumberland Valley that probably graces the notes of some old timey tune I have not yet heard, I have wandered the US by foot, car, and thumb for years now.

At times, the journey has been apocalyptic. Like that time I hitchhiked east from Santa Fe. Unprepared for the days without sleep and food, I progressively entered an apocalyptic world of Arkansas boar-hunters, speed-crazed truckers, and ominous news of escaped convicts prowling the highway I was on.

That journey that became allegorical much in the way that Petrarch would've understood, but without the apocalyptic undertones ...

Perhaps it is true that apocalyptic is the song of the dispossessed and outcast. Those who have nothing left but the fear of the Lord that they hope and pray will save them from the final ignominy: living in evil and pain for all eternity.

I must admit that I am predisposed in some way to the eschatological and apocalyptic. This predisposition explains, perhaps, my early attraction to William Blake's writings and the poems I used out to the rural newspaper filled with a rudimentary symbology hacked together from Blake, Bible, and dada.

And I said I would not resort to autobiography...

With so much happening in the world, I find it easy to resort to the apocalyptic, especially in times when personal stress, despair, and uncertainty coincide with wars and rumors of wars. Yet, the personal must give way to some form of analysis that tries to make sense of such things that the simple-hearted can only find terrifying, though their heart of hearts clings to love and fear of the Lord.

I will perhaps attempt to undertake that analysis in the following days and weeks. If you're out there, drop a note ...