I found this fine summary on Mr. Emerson, thanks to Google. It is Waldo who led us to Thoreau and later, our Garrison, to his Woebegon woods.
Waldo was a gentle soul, but a constant preacher of peace and righteousness. This is very hard to do these days solely with poems that rhyme. A limerick-forced rhyme just doesn't have a consistent potent punch of peace.
Thoreau's "Woods" are a place worth going. HIs manifest is on my wall. Some might call it prose. But I do believe it's poetic. Henry David Thoreau wrote: "....when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Live we must.
Still, more than ever now, the "love ye" clause of life is is truly a struggle for us all. Others are not us, nor are we them. Liking is never required of us, but loving is. Much of who we are was never our own decision. We're all a scrambled DNA, given us by our forebears. Yet our decisions on loving one another are still our own.
Totally agree with (and have been amused numerous times by) Jim Jeffries' take on Guns In America. Sadly and tragically, Port Townsend is no longer the world record and hasn't been for a long time - since the massacre of Las Vegas, at least. He's right about just about everything, but sadly no country can point the finger or take the high ground: both NZ and Canada, for example, have mosque shootings/massacres. Nothing on the American standard, to be sure, but tragic and horrible all the same. Speaking of high ground...I despair for America and worry all the time about my relatives living there.
Love that link to The Hopeful Gospel Quartet! I listened to several songs, patted my foot and remembered how happily my parents would have reacted to that music. I could even smell fried chicken and cornbread….
I BEG of you all to come check out my humble Newsletter, “A.M.’s Newsletter”, because I have an amazing series I call, Horizon Star Walk. On the Planet Oria, Aurora Borealis, Orion Pulsar, Ares Aldrin, and Gemini Taurus are on the run for their illegal activity, the stakes are HIGH for them all. A young Guardian of Oria, Sinsen Orbit, is hunting them down with his Officers backing him up. Will he catch them to be executed before the Queen and King of Oria, or will they successfully escape to Earth? Subscribe to find out!
Dear GK. I enjoy Posts To The Host, as I did PHC and your continued presence on the social mafia/media. Also great was seeing you live. How does one post to the host? I couldn't quite find it on your substack website, which by the way I have just, evidently, renewed for a year for $65. I am glad to support you now, partly for the many years of great shows and public radio, guessing that much of my NPR/APR support didn't make it your way or even to Minnesota/NYC. So, seeing as it's renewal time, could I ask you or someone here to remind us what the $65 Substack fee brings us? Thanks!
"Kak Tui Velik!" "How Great Thou Art!" I was really surprised, not long after the Good Lord had guided me to a local Ukrainian (immigrant) Pentecostal church, to hear the congregation singing How Great Thou Art in Russian! There's a long history behind it. In the early 1900s, a Ukrainian immigrant got off the boat, took a train "out West" to Chicago, and ended up on the streets. Fortunately for him, he ran across a sidewalk preacher who directed him to the Moody Bible Institute. They took him in eagerly, and after a suitable spell, he returned to the Ukraine as a Protestant Minister of God. He initiated a very "Do it Yourself" Pentecostal religious practice. One becomes a "minister" merely with the "Laying On Of Hands" by others already in the field. Baptisms are done in local streams or lakes. Most of the Pentecostals I've met, here in the US and in the Ukraine as well, are very fervent believers. In a way they had to be. If the KGB got wind of a baptism, the officials might show up and cart away everyone present. Although - there was a certain amount of flexibility, back in the old Soviet Union days. My pastor, for example, was rounded up for officiating at a baptism. The KGB officer took him into the lockup in town. Once the doors were closed, and the two of them were alone in the reception area, the officer said "There's the door." My pastor, of course, was confused. " It's unlocked." The KGB officer said, nodding and winking. As my startled friend went out the door, he found his anxious wife waiting outside. "Kak Tui Belik!," they sang to God. "How Great Thou Art!"
My being in an Ukrainian immigrant congregation has been a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea, for example, how much of an undercurrent of Protestant Christian faithfulness existed in the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
The connections between immigrants to the US and families still in the "Mother Land" can really be quite strong. There's so much "familial support" from generations in the US to extended family in the Ukraine, that $US are actually used as preferred currency there. 1 Ukrainian hryvnia equals 0.034 United States Dollar. When our "taxi driver" - a friend of Katya's mother who had a car - drove us around, she suggested that if we wanted to "Thank her", we could do so in $US. "I can get my car repaired for $100 US, but I have to take a stack of Hryvnia to do it, and we never know from one day to the next, what the Hryvnia is worth.
These days, it could be that the Ukrainian crisis is especially significant to the US State Department. There are over a million people who actively consider themselves "Ukrainian Americans" according to a recent census. My guess is that most of these people are immigrants in this generation. Beyond the "geopolitical aspects", then, of Putin's recent military decision, there's also the fact that Ukrainian-American citizens can be a significant voting block. And, because of the Moody Bible Institute, there are Protestant Ukrainians singing "The Little Brown Church in the Dell," or "How Great Thou Art", without even realizing that those hymns were initially "imports" to the Ukraine.
In geography classes, we tend to envision the world as a neat, recognizable quilt of national domains. But in reality, there can be a myriad of undercurrents, such that our ethnic ties can be much more complex than we're consciously aware of.
And now Ralph Waldo Emerson is stuck in my head as "Em." I hope he doesn't mind too much. Thank you for the good morning chuckle!
I found this fine summary on Mr. Emerson, thanks to Google. It is Waldo who led us to Thoreau and later, our Garrison, to his Woebegon woods.
Waldo was a gentle soul, but a constant preacher of peace and righteousness. This is very hard to do these days solely with poems that rhyme. A limerick-forced rhyme just doesn't have a consistent potent punch of peace.
Thoreau's "Woods" are a place worth going. HIs manifest is on my wall. Some might call it prose. But I do believe it's poetic. Henry David Thoreau wrote: "....when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Live we must.
Still, more than ever now, the "love ye" clause of life is is truly a struggle for us all. Others are not us, nor are we them. Liking is never required of us, but loving is. Much of who we are was never our own decision. We're all a scrambled DNA, given us by our forebears. Yet our decisions on loving one another are still our own.
I would gently remind Mr Jeffries that missiles are like horseshoes.
Those drones won’t just hit their targets. They’ll hit everything around it too.
Fingers crossed his neighbors don’t have guns, I guess?
Another good column GK, made my day!
Thanks for the link to your YouTube 'How Great Thou Art.' Great way to start a Monday morning!
Totally agree with (and have been amused numerous times by) Jim Jeffries' take on Guns In America. Sadly and tragically, Port Townsend is no longer the world record and hasn't been for a long time - since the massacre of Las Vegas, at least. He's right about just about everything, but sadly no country can point the finger or take the high ground: both NZ and Canada, for example, have mosque shootings/massacres. Nothing on the American standard, to be sure, but tragic and horrible all the same. Speaking of high ground...I despair for America and worry all the time about my relatives living there.
Love that link to The Hopeful Gospel Quartet! I listened to several songs, patted my foot and remembered how happily my parents would have reacted to that music. I could even smell fried chicken and cornbread….
I BEG of you all to come check out my humble Newsletter, “A.M.’s Newsletter”, because I have an amazing series I call, Horizon Star Walk. On the Planet Oria, Aurora Borealis, Orion Pulsar, Ares Aldrin, and Gemini Taurus are on the run for their illegal activity, the stakes are HIGH for them all. A young Guardian of Oria, Sinsen Orbit, is hunting them down with his Officers backing him up. Will he catch them to be executed before the Queen and King of Oria, or will they successfully escape to Earth? Subscribe to find out!
Wow! Tape recordings of almost every PHC show going back to 1974! I'm envious.
Dear GK. I enjoy Posts To The Host, as I did PHC and your continued presence on the social mafia/media. Also great was seeing you live. How does one post to the host? I couldn't quite find it on your substack website, which by the way I have just, evidently, renewed for a year for $65. I am glad to support you now, partly for the many years of great shows and public radio, guessing that much of my NPR/APR support didn't make it your way or even to Minnesota/NYC. So, seeing as it's renewal time, could I ask you or someone here to remind us what the $65 Substack fee brings us? Thanks!
"Kak Tui Velik!" "How Great Thou Art!" I was really surprised, not long after the Good Lord had guided me to a local Ukrainian (immigrant) Pentecostal church, to hear the congregation singing How Great Thou Art in Russian! There's a long history behind it. In the early 1900s, a Ukrainian immigrant got off the boat, took a train "out West" to Chicago, and ended up on the streets. Fortunately for him, he ran across a sidewalk preacher who directed him to the Moody Bible Institute. They took him in eagerly, and after a suitable spell, he returned to the Ukraine as a Protestant Minister of God. He initiated a very "Do it Yourself" Pentecostal religious practice. One becomes a "minister" merely with the "Laying On Of Hands" by others already in the field. Baptisms are done in local streams or lakes. Most of the Pentecostals I've met, here in the US and in the Ukraine as well, are very fervent believers. In a way they had to be. If the KGB got wind of a baptism, the officials might show up and cart away everyone present. Although - there was a certain amount of flexibility, back in the old Soviet Union days. My pastor, for example, was rounded up for officiating at a baptism. The KGB officer took him into the lockup in town. Once the doors were closed, and the two of them were alone in the reception area, the officer said "There's the door." My pastor, of course, was confused. " It's unlocked." The KGB officer said, nodding and winking. As my startled friend went out the door, he found his anxious wife waiting outside. "Kak Tui Belik!," they sang to God. "How Great Thou Art!"
My being in an Ukrainian immigrant congregation has been a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea, for example, how much of an undercurrent of Protestant Christian faithfulness existed in the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
The connections between immigrants to the US and families still in the "Mother Land" can really be quite strong. There's so much "familial support" from generations in the US to extended family in the Ukraine, that $US are actually used as preferred currency there. 1 Ukrainian hryvnia equals 0.034 United States Dollar. When our "taxi driver" - a friend of Katya's mother who had a car - drove us around, she suggested that if we wanted to "Thank her", we could do so in $US. "I can get my car repaired for $100 US, but I have to take a stack of Hryvnia to do it, and we never know from one day to the next, what the Hryvnia is worth.
These days, it could be that the Ukrainian crisis is especially significant to the US State Department. There are over a million people who actively consider themselves "Ukrainian Americans" according to a recent census. My guess is that most of these people are immigrants in this generation. Beyond the "geopolitical aspects", then, of Putin's recent military decision, there's also the fact that Ukrainian-American citizens can be a significant voting block. And, because of the Moody Bible Institute, there are Protestant Ukrainians singing "The Little Brown Church in the Dell," or "How Great Thou Art", without even realizing that those hymns were initially "imports" to the Ukraine.
In geography classes, we tend to envision the world as a neat, recognizable quilt of national domains. But in reality, there can be a myriad of undercurrents, such that our ethnic ties can be much more complex than we're consciously aware of.