The Realm of Angels

All Aboard!

Soon I will be at the point where the age of 70 will be closer than the age of 60. These days my perspective on life is adjusting constantly. All it takes is an event like what happened this past Monday (June 20), and this perspective has morphed even further.

Just in the past few years have I paid attention to the "Summer Solstice". In my marketing job with a Harley-Davidson dealership, I created an event called the "Summer Solstice Shindig." What better than the longest day of light to have a party! It was then also propitious that June 20th fell on a Saturday. Then there is the full moon. For a much longer time I have been fascinated with full moons. As a kid growing up in Miami, Florida, the convergence of the full moon and a high tide cresting would bring a wonderful bounty of shrimp from a catwalk of the many bridges over Biscayne Bay.

June 20, 2016 fell on Monday and at the same time with the June full moon that Native Americans dubbed "Strawberry Moon" because of it's often pink color as it rose over the eastern horizon and it's arrival at the prime of strawberry harvest.  I just happen to pick  up a  TV weatherman making a reference to the rare occurrence of the two coinciding on the same date. I do not believe in coincidences only miraculous glimpses of the hand of God bringing gifts to his children.

I wanted to learn more. I was in seeking mode. First of all I learned I was present on this earth the last time this event occurred.  It was in 1967 and I was a 15 year old rising sophomore boarding student at a military school in Tennessee. It was also during what has become known as "The Summer of Love."  I was totally unaware then of the syncing of celestial events and their significance. I will pray now for another summer of love in 2016.

I also learned that I am blessed to have been on this earth for two of these rare happenings and will not be here on terra firma the next time it occurs.  Instead, I am assured that I will be in the realm of angels.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Amen Brothers and Sisters

Brad Bosworth

June 2016

Restoring Honor 6 Years Later

Written and shared with a handful of subscribers in September 2010.

American Train Ride

          There was this little rush of anticipation I was experiencing as my wife Becky was driving me to the Amtrak Station in Midtown Atlanta.  Part of the excitement was childish residue from memories of riding the train as a young boy. Part was from the uncertainty of what was to unfold around the big rally planned in Washington DC on 8/28/2010.  My imagination was trying to run in varied directions - one which was of a full train of the event participants who would most certainly contribute to a gathering of magnitude the likes our capital has never seen. Another thought path considered the opposite. That left leaning travelers on their way to pose a counterbalance would dampen the spirit of the moment.  When I entered the station I noticed what I never considered.  The bulk of the riders were the - business as usual - type that one might find at that station on any other Friday evening; mostly African Americans in route and on routine.

          My evolving state of euphoria was abridged the moment I walked through the doors of the Peachtree Road Building.  The TV was tuned to CNN.  It was a good news - bad news situation.  They were talking about Glenn Beck’s 8/28 Rally.  They were interviewing Al Sharpton.  It was at this point that the message from this journey of mine began to take form.  The sharp contrast of the motives of the conservative majority of our nation and the motives of the liberal left were already in plain view.

          My colorful childlike memories of train stations past were supplanted by a cold black and white of what I would have expected from a bus station.  There was an air of bored complacency waiting to cycle down into despair at any moment with Sharpton’s resentful rants offering background noise.  I could not really discern who the rally travelers were unless I wanted to use a racial template.  Later I learned that I could have used that template to point out who was going to Washington to take part in the next great event in a wave of spiritual awakening in our land.

         

         

People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord……

 Curtis Mayfield

          Struggle as I might to write without a negative bent, I must face reality and my reality tells me things are looking bleak.  The train ride was cold…literally cold.  One of the catalysts of my initial enthusiasm was the Amtrak publication that I read prior to the trip: full color pictures of glimmering trains moving across a spectacularly scenic America.  The magazine had the information I needed to take advantage of all the great amenities this service offered; the romance of interstate travel on our great country’s original transcontinental mode of movement - the engine of the industrial age.  Then the reality set in.  Amtrak is owned by the Government of the USA.  There is no hospitality and there are no amenities.  It is beaurocracy in your face!  Did I mention how cold it was? It is the temperature business owners set their thermostats to when an IRS agent visits to audit them.  I thought maybe they wanted me to get off at the next empty station.  When I finally fell asleep I had a nightmare that Obamacare had finally kicked in and I was in an emergency waiting room on an Amtrak train.  It couldn’t be hell.  It was too cold!

          Thank God for the sunlight, the Virginia countryside and hot coffee!  There is a certain peace that comes when one realizes that they have survived or passed through discomfort and conflict.  I had that peace Saturday morning August 28, 2010.  I was confident that what lie ahead at the steps of The Lincoln Memorial would be worth any tribulation endured.

          The beauty of the old Virginia farmhouses shimmering in a foggy morning mist screamed at us for a return to simpler times when truth had meaning for most people. There were two hot air balloons hanging above the valley in Charlottesville, home of UVA, a university started by a founding father, Thomas Jefferson.  Through the window of the rushing train car they seemed to levitate in space.  One was in red, white and blue colors.  Coming ever closer to our destination we stopped in Manassas.  Here in this town there was a farmer’s market bustling across the street. There I saw Americans exercising their freedom so afforded them by our sacred founding documents made possible by colonists’ ultimate sacrifice during a revolutionary war.  Just a short distance away another battlefield where the first major land battle of our pivotal American Civil War took place.  The train charged ahead carrying us to our ultimate destination on the National Mall.

“The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.”

John 1:5

          We arrived at Union Station ahead of schedule and it must be said that of all the disappointments of the Amtrak experience previously encountered the engineers more than did their job.  The train departed Atlanta late but arrived Washington early.  I had looked at the DC Metro rail map and decided to approach the rally from the north side of the Lincoln Memorial instead of from the east, since the crowd would stretch from west to east.  The first noticeable element of the environment in Union Station was the buzz of anticipation.  The Atlanta station’s submissive environment had been replaced by one with a hurried pace.  All of a sudden there was no doubt as to the intention of this crowd.  The start of the program was minutes away as was the target site.

The crowd coming up from Foggy Bottom station validated my motives for being there.  It was a large crowd with cause to be stressed but it’s character remained patiently assured, steadfast in faith.  We were caught in a gently flowing current brushed by the hand of providence. Our road ran smack into the north wall of the majestic landmark behind the stage and we could hear the real voice of Sarah Palin and take in a literal breath of fresh air and let go a sigh of relief.  And she said “We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want. We must restore America and restore her honor.”

          That moment as I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out towards the Washington Monument over the splendid sun splashed crowd I felt a wave of emotion well up and knew our journey had been validated.  It was a huge crowd enveloped by a mood best described as contented composed calmness.  Grace like a down comforter enveloped all of us.

          I wandered about the masses with the desire for a better understanding and meaning of what was taking place.  I observed.  I took photographs.  I wondered if I could ever justifiably describe what was happening. I sat down in the grass and listened.  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  Would this effort have the power to stem the tide of Godless anger and resentment that would divide our land and destroy our liberty?

“The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.”     

  Ronald Reagan 1983

          I ended up at the WWII Memorial as the program came to a close.  I met some folks from Ohio who were active in the Tea Party Patriots.  They wore identical t-shirts labeled “Portage County Patriots.”  As we sat together by the fountain the gathered throng joined into song. Amazing Grace originated from a Gospel Choir on stage accompanied by bagpipes.  We needed no Church or hymnals for the Holy Spirit was with us. 

Many of us were in Washington a year ago for the 9/12 march.  Then we were protesting the impending health care legislation, what we now call “Obamacare”.  Last year the energy of the crowd was focused on letting our lawmakers know that there was significant opposition to the proposed bill specifically and Government’s intrusion in our lives generally.  In the year since we have learned that the Government is not concerned with the “Will of the People”.  This year the crowd was twice the size of that event, which in one man’s opinion shows that a Spiritual Awakening is occurring. As has been preached in at least one southern pulpit by Andy Stanley, national morality cannot prevail in exclusion of religious principal. There can be no moral consensus in our national conscience without divine accountability. The fact that this year there were no signs and no overt chanting protestations would speak to the knowledge that we need God in our lives.  If there was a protest going on during 8/28 it was about stopping the active removal of God from the sacred institutions created by the Divine Providence of our founding documents: The Declaration of Independence and The US Constitution.

“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”  
            John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address January 20, 1961

          After the program had ended I visited the Jefferson Memorial for the first time.  On one of the walls I found this simple question.  “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?”  My answer is no they can’t.  I would suggest that the people in the gathering on the Mall this fine August day would answer the same way. So what now?  Where do we go from here?   My belief is:  that if each of us who were blessed by having had the opportunity to be a part of 8/28 takes the message to others, that if we maintain a vigilant conviction to the idea that our Country was founded by Divine Providence, maybe we stem the tide of malevolence that would tear down all the goodness that has marked this Nation since it’s inception. I pray that this story and these words are precious cargo in the freight car that brings the message to every station in the land.  All Aboard!

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

RONALD REAGAN, October 27, 1964

Amen America

Bradford Bosworth

June 2016

"Great One" and "Greatest"

A Shared Talent

When I learned from my parents that they were sending me to private school for the seventh grade I was not too happy!  I ran away from home for the first time though not far.  I stayed over at my friend Phil's house in the Morningside Park neighborhood. I did not make it there long sneaking back into our carport and the back seat of mom's car before midnight.

The school Miami Country Day was a bit of a trek being in Miami Shores. We lived in an upscale gated -actually walled- community called Bay Point right on Biscayne Boulevard. Our privileged community included well known and famous denizens of the business and celebrity world. 

I would often take the bus to school and sometimes Stevey Philbin and his father would pull over and offer me a ride. I  would learn later that Stevey's father's name was Jack and he was producer of the TV show "The Honeymooners".  That popular TV show was one of my dad Harold's favorite shows. I have fond memories of Harold, in his favorite chair, rolling in laughter in front of the TV set watching the antics of Ralph and Norton.

Amongst the kids in my neighborhood there was a girl named Nuni Pacheco.  I did not know her but of her. In Miami even in the early 60's there was strong Latin American influence. Word was that her father, Dr. Pacheco, was involved in the sport of boxing. Ground zero in professional boxing during this time was a small Gym we could see to the left on our way to surfing at South Beach. And then there was a young black man who used to take advantage of the secure privacy of our walled neighborhood to do some roadwork. His name was Cassius Clay. This young man would become known to the world as Muhammad Ali.

My father would pass on in the early days of my private school experience.  Advisers would suggest to my mom that I would be better as a boarding student than as a day school commuter. The idea that I was boarding at a school located in my home town did not sit well with me. However one of my most cherished memories of that period took place in my dorm room on a cold night in February, 1964. In the "lights out" darkness, my roommate Forrest and I listened to the crackling transistor radio broadcast of the Clay-Liston fight just across Biscayne Bay at Miami Beach Convention Center. Clay's lightning quick knockout punch was electrifying even through the small radio I held in my hand!

Years later paths would cross again. Our family would move from Miami to Hialeah, Florida. Our condominium would sit on the eighteenth fairway of the east course at the Country Club of Miami. Guess who owned a home there? The club built a rehearsal studio for Jackie Gleason and so he built a home there. The TV show was then called "The Jackie Gleason Show" and it was taped at the same Miami Beach Convention Center that young Cassius Clay had won the Heavyweight title years earlier. And I would see Gleason in his custom golf cart coming up the fairway. And yes, it had a full bar built in! Our family would get Christmas cards from his.

And then in Atlanta, 1996 as United Distributors  Account Manager for Olympic Venues I would watch, a stones throw away, as the trembling Muhammad Ali would light the Torch during opening ceremonies. In turbulent times these awesome childhood and adult experiences provided glimpses of the Kingdom we hear about from the risen Christ in the New Testament. May we find the common thread between "The Great One" and "The Greatest"!

Amen Brothers

Bradford Bosworth

June, 2016

These Simple Gifts

Shall we dance?

My experience at the Dave Matthews band concert a few evenings ago has inspired this post. The band has a logo of a nymph dancing. It could be an angel. As is everything, it is up to our interpretation. It could be reflection on one of his compositions....maybe a Dancing Nancy?

I am a big fan of  Aaron Copeland, an American classical composer. (See post: "American Treasure" 10/15). His ballet "Appalachian Spring" brought Joseph Brackett's 1848 Shaker spiritual "Simple Gifts" to mainstream American culture in 1944, a time of World War angst.  Then in 1963 Sydney Carter used the Shaker tune to write a popular Christian Hymn known in choir lofts and Church pews worldwide as "Lord of the Dance".

“Simple Gifts” by Joseph Brackett

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.^[5

On his "Lord of the Dance" inspiration Mr. Carter wrote:

"I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.

Whether Jesus ever leaped in Galilee to the rhythm of a pipe or drum I do not know. We are told that David danced (and as an act of worship too), so it is not impossible. The fact that many Christians have regarded dancing as a bit ungodly (in a church, at any rate) does not mean that Jesus did.

The Shakers didn't. This sect flourished in the United States in the nineteenth century, but the first Shakers came from Manchester in England, where they were sometimes called the "Shaking Quakers". They hived off to America in 1774, under the leadership of Mother Anne. They established celibate communities - men at one end, women at the other; though they met for work and worship. Dancing, for them, was a spiritual activity. They also made furniture of a functional, lyrical simplicity. Even the cloaks and bonnets that the women wore were distinctly stylish, in a sober and forbidding way.

Their hymns were odd, but sometimes of great beauty: from one of these (Simple Gifts) I adapted this melody. I could have written another for the words of 'Lord of the Dance' (some people have), but this was so appropriate that it seemed a waste of time to do so. Also, I wanted to salute the Shakers.

Sometimes, for a change I sing the whole song in the present tense. 'I dance in the morning when the world is begun...'. It's worth a try."^[4]

Here is one rendition:

I know a lady, a dear friend who I love deeply. She has told me that she would like "Lord of the Dance" played and performed at her wake. May we all will be dancing the tune as we enter the eternal gates of heaven.

Amen Sister

Bradford Bosworth
Memorial Day 2016

How about an encore from Copeland's Appalachian Spring?

Of Fire and Ice

Rocket or Flickering Flame?

There is no question that one of the earliest important literary influences on me was Jack London. His turn of the century depictions of the wild uncharted icy cold Klondike in "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild" were this young boy's calming distractions from the fearful realities of  nuclear blockade stand-offs and presidential assassinations.

Back in the early eighties when I was still dabbling in motor racing my business partner and I went to California to meet with an upcoming young African American driver named Willy T. Ribbs. We were going to see about representing him for sponsorship. When our meetings concluded we took a short tour of the Sonoma wine country.  There in a shop I saw and bought a  poster of the famous writer. I bought the poster more because of the quote scripted on it:

"I would rather be a  superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." - Jack London

Upon returning to Atlanta I had the poster framed. It has hung on a wall where I live for over thirty five years reminding me often to take courage. Twenty years ago shortly after the Challenger explosion one of my favorite Sports Journalists wrote a column about the disaster. It is one of the best pieces of journalism I have ever witnessed. Reprinted with permission from the AJC.Enjoy

****

Why seek the fire when fire kills?

BYLINE: KINDRED, DAVE  STAFF  
DATE: January 30, 1986 
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution 
EDITION: The Atlanta Constitution 
SECTION: SPORTS 
PAGE: E/1 

The seven dead astronauts held the risk in the palm of their hands, and they found it to be light. They went to the top of a rocket to ride the fire into the sky. So many others had flown away from Earth and come back that their acts of courage became routine, not worthy of our full attention. Is this the 8:50 a.m. express shuttle to Mars or what?

But now we have seen the consuming fire. And now we weigh the risk in our hands, and it is heavy with death. And we ask why. Why ride a rocket into the sky?

We want to understand what reward can be worth the risk of death delivered by a computer glitch or by an icicle falling against a square of tile. If we civilians came to think of rocketry as routine, the astronauts knew better. They knew cataclysm was a heartbeat away. Yet they walked to the firestick happy.

We have seen the videotape a dozen times. The five men and two women walked out of a building, dandy in their hero suits of blue cloth with belts, zippered pockets and insignia patches. Their walk was jaunty, even cocky. The laughing teacher strode in lockstep with the fliers, the seven of them electric with joy, and they climbed into a van for the ride to the rocket. We never saw them again.

We saw the fire lift them. The teacher's students in New Hampshire wore party hats as they cheered the rocket's ascent. President Reagan later would tell the nation's school children, "The future belongs not to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave." We know that. But still. Why does a teacher/wife/mother seek fire when fire kills?

`To be on the wire is life'

"The Man put us here - and He'll take us," the great race car driver A.J. Foyt once said. "That's a square deal if I ever heard of one. When your time's up, it's up - not before, not after." So Foyt races at age 50. He has been burned and broken. He has seen death and wondered why.

"In '57, I had a good friend killed. And he just laid on the track while we went by. The thought went through my mind whether I wanted to go on. I had to know in my mind if I wanted to do it. I went on. You just have to accept life the way it is."

And now, at 50, Foyt says he races for one reason. "It's fun."

Even at 70, Karl Wallenda went back up on the high wire after a fall killed two members of his family and left another paralyzed.

"To be on the wire is life," Wallenda said. "The rest is waiting." And he, too, died falling from the wire.

We search our experience for understanding. If we would know why a man rides a rocket, we should look at men who pursue risk. We should look at race car drivers. To speak of the seven dead astronauts on the sports pages is not to diminish them as scientists and explorers of ineffable courage, pioneers as trusting/wary of the rocket as Columbus was of his ship. Theirs was a grand work, not a game, and yet they share with racers a spirit vital to man.

They are using the gift of life

They pursue risk, they face it, they even need risk to define themselves as people using the gift of life. America's love of the underdog is emotional commitment to the idea that putting ourselves at risk is a fine thing, maybe even noble if we do it well.

To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting.

"Why does A.J. Foyt race?" said a Tennessean named Gary Baker, a lawyer who races cheap stock cars. As drivers, there is no comparing Baker with Foyt. But as men, they share an instinct common to the best of us, common to the seven dead astronauts.

"Foyt races for the same reason we all do. It's a challenge. To go fast, that's the challenge. It's just in some people. It's like climbing mountains. Some people think that's silly. But to a man who lives to climb, it's not silly."

Jonathan Swift wrote, "May you live all the days of your life." To do that living, test pilots "push the sides of the envelope," those unknown borders of their work where man and machine are at risk. Race drivers "run on the ragged edg e," their machines teetering on a balance of friction and power that once lost may never be found. Wire-walkers and jet jockeys, race drivers and astronauts share with sculptors and composers and ballerinas the dream that lifts them up, the dream that a man, by reaching, can touch the stars.

In a chunk of marble, a sculptor sees beauty. A ballerina floats in dance born of physical agony. So did the seven dead astronauts live all the days of their lives. 

****

Is it our's or God's will that should propel us to acts as these astronauts? Are our efforts for our own edification and fame or to extend the magnificence of our Creator. Surely they become notable when the purpose becomes divinely one, unified in the purpose of mankind's awakening. Don't we all contain the flickering flame of a divine pilot light waiting for ignition bringing the shining light of Truth into the world.

Post Note: I was so moved by Mr. Kindred's column that I wrote him a letter of appreciation and sent along with the Jack London quote. And he graciously wrote me back a note I keep and cherish to this day.

Amen Mr. Kindred

Bradford Bosworth

May 2016