Tag Archives: disease

The Road to Diamond, Day 168: Resilience

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 15, 2025, Parsons, TN- In the open garage of a country home, I set the box containing a plant, that was gifted by my hosts in Oley, PA to mutual friends who live about two hours east of here. As I was getting ready to pull out of the circular driveway, one of those friends pulled in on the other side. A joyful hug and fifteen-minute catch-up ensued. I learned that friend’s husband, suffering from a serious disease, is showing signs of resilience. Time will tell if he pulls through, though given his wife’s persistence and determination to treat the disease with natural medicine, it is entirely possible that he will.

My hosts in Oley said that my visits are those of encouragement. That does my heart good, as my energy is geared that way. It always has been my mission in life to help others realize their goals; my own goals, not so much, though being on my own, these past fourteen years, has tempered that self-abnegation, a fair amount. I suppose that is only fair.

I made a brief return visit to Broad Porch Coffee House, the most recent successor to Artful Dodger, the former Harrisonburg cafe where a couple of long-gone friends helped me get my bearings and reclaim my own worthiness as a human being, some twelve years ago. Broad Porch is a busier place than Dodger was, but I get much the same vibe. After a brief breakfast, I was on the way back south. The plant had to be delivered, today, and in one piece.

I checked out downtown Roanoke, a city I have pretty much bypassed on previous drives down the Spine. It, and Staunton, the next town south of Harrisonburg, would be worth a day or two of exploration each, on future backs and forths. From Roanoke, down through Bristol and the out skirts of Knoxville, plant and I continued. In Crossville, we found her new home, and the above conversation took place.

Now, I rest, in the crossroads of Land Between the Lakes and Natchez Trace. Not far from here is Loretta Lynn’s Ranch. As I now have a different mission, getting to my little family’s place in Grapevine, tourism is off the agenda. There’s a lot to do around Parsons, according to a fellow guest who frequents this motel, but I will save that for later, as well.

The bright orange flower and the resilient couple will keep on showing the world that life is ever about bouncing back-God willing and the creek don’t rise.

Facing the Dark

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

December 9, 2020-

A few days ago, I took breakfast at a cafe whose owners subscribe to a more dated world view, one more widely expressed in the American West, of the 19th and early 20th Century. There are many good things about the Old West- Respect for others, unbreakable honesty and “My word is my bond”, parents who stood tall for their children. The immediacy of frontier justice, however, may have worked then, but it is now a tool of dark forces.

I felt a bit sluggish, most of today, until my chiropractor adjusted me back into shape. It underscores just how much more I need to ramp up my stamina. While I continue to monitor my temperature and vital signs, as long as COVID-19 remains a nationwide threat, thus far I feel no symptoms. I practice CDC-recommended hygiene, prudently, and know that stressing wellness, and not panicking, are what will get us through in the long run. It has been hard to say farewell to thirty-one people this year, but others have had it far worse. In the end, the darkness of coronavirus will be sundered, by policies and practices of wellness and medical treatment.

Depending on one’s point of view, either the will of the people is being honoured or it is being flouted. I have been told, by fearful individuals, to keep my views on the state of this country to myself, as if silence will stop the worst of things from happening. Truth is, only vigilance will do that and vigilance requires following the laws of the land. The darkness of wishful thinking, combined with the darkness of censorship-both institutional and individual, will cause only continula heartbreak.

The darkness always prepares us for the light that will follow, if we pay attention. In twelve days’ time, the planets Jupiter and Saturn will appear as one, in the southern sky. They will remind us that darkness, though it occupies half of the twenty-four hour day, in time of winter, is no more than the absence of light.

The darkness of ignorance cries out for knowledge. The darkness of disease summons us to better slef-care and wellness. The darkness of fear and hate asks for understanding and a safe way forward.

We can, and will, move into the Light, but it will take a great deal of forebearance and caution, on all sides.