New Home for my blog

Hi,
Today I have moved my blog from www.lulu.com/bluefish to this new Blogger site. I did this because my son, who keeps his blog on Blogger, finds it easier to fix the places I screw up if I'm using the same program that he uses.

We moved the last few bluefish postings over here so this site won't look so empty.

I also write a religious humor webpage called the Rabid Fundamentalist, hence the title of this blog.

Haircut, blog & prayers

I’m scheduled to give a speech to a civic group next week and I’m getting a bit shaggy so I cut my hair today. No, I did not go to a barber shop, I cut it myself.

I have such an aversion to being touched by strangers that ever since I became an adult I have cut my own hair to avoid it. I go out in the backyard to use scissors and this little comb/razorblade thing – just one of my little idiosyncrasies.

Ginny & I skipped church this morning; we chose to enjoy breakfast out and talk instead. Then we came home for pleasure gardening, bird watching and more talk.

Among the subjects we discussed were blogs. I have encouraged her to start one herself but she keeps so many records related to her job that keeping a journal just seems like more work to her, while I find it great fun and an important element of my spiritual life.

When I was a kid I chanced to read Bram Stoker’s great book Dracula and was fascinated with the journal/diary format. I began to read published diaries and was enchanted by the real life record of what people actually experience – especially as momentous events in history take place around them.

I was greatly influenced by journals such as David Brainerd’s,, John Wesley’s, Samuel Pepys, George Fox, and a host of lesser known journalists. I began to make daily entries in a journal of my own over 25 years ago, so making blog entries naturally follows.

My youngest son introduced me to bloging back in December. I started with his blog on Bloger(http://slackv.blogspot.com/ ), then clicked the “Next Blog” button to see what caught my interest. Reading the blog postings of other people really helps me in my prayer life.

There are eight or ten writers I check on daily because something or the other they experienced appeals to me. And I find it natural to pray about the private things these folks are going through.

One blog site I visit daily is a prayer list posted by some church in another state http://twinland.blogspot.com/ I know nothing about this church or it’s members, I am not even familiar with the denomination, and I’m not too keen on “church stuff” even here in Jacksonville; but these folks face reality instead of church stuff: A kid killed in an auto accident on Prom Night, cancer, an old lady who fell, job hunting, husband in Iraq, a work-place shooting, new babies… all sorts of things that touch my heart for these people.

Their blog means so much to me; it’s such a help.

Their blog and others I read push me out of my own petty concerns and urge me to pray God’s blessing on things and people outside my narrow focus, my wife, my children, my garden, my speech, my haircut…

God’s world is bigger than me…

BUT, Speaking of ME and the big world, the morning the webalizer statistics for my www.cowart.info show that this month over 9,000 readers from 72 countries have each spent at least ten minutes on my site.

That’s scary.

Anyhow, I got carried away writing when I’d started to say that Ginny & I enjoyed a wonderful day together playing in our garden where the high hedges keep the world outside. We potted and edged and pruned and rested and talked as though the rest of the world did not exist.

Then one of the kids called saying they are bringing strangers to tomorrow’s cookout. And, of course, in a grand Cowart holiday tradition whenever company is coming, the bathroom plumbing stopped up – From Blog to Clog, the story of my life.

Posted on Monday 30 of May, 2005 [05:54:00]

Interupted Plans

I had plans for Satureday morning.

Definite, specific plans.

An old joke says, “What to hear God laugh? Make plans”.

I had plans but Ginny wanted to go to a store we frequent about once every two or three months, and since she’s limited as to which days she’s free to get to this store, I put my plans on a back burner and accompanied her to this store.

I understood her reasons for wanting to go today but nevertheless I was not thrilled at the prospect of spending a gorgeous morning inside a store.

Now, for years I’ve started many mornings with a sort of prayer of dedication that goes something like this:

“Dear Lord, please help me to spend this day wisely. Help me be where I’m supposed to be, meet who I’m supposed to meet, learn what I’m supposed to learn, say what I’m supposed to say. I want to be 100 per cent at Your disposal. Help me to be Your man today”.

Neat, pious little prayer – if I meant it.

But I usually don’t.

I have my own plans and my own intentions and what I really want is for God to make them go smooth. I hate for my plans and anticipations to be interrupted by anything or anyone.

But, today instead of being where I wanted and doing what I wanted, I was in this boring store with Ginny as she examined shelves.

Ginny, whom I love with all my heart, is a comparison shopper. Drives me nuts. I hate shopping with her. In her accountant’s head she figures whether the better buy is three 18 ounce cans for $2.07 or four 10 ounce cans for $1.34!!! And, recently she’s also begun to figure in how many grams of dietary fiber fit into her equations.

Me, if it’s got a picture of a girl on the label, I put it in the cart.
And I’m sure that FDA tests prove that things with green labels have more fiber than things with red labels.

Anyhow after a grueling time of pushing the cart around the store and standing while she calculates all this stuff in her head, I gave up and said, “Honey, I’m going outside to smoke my pipe. You take all the time you need. I’ll meet you outside”.

An odd thing happened as I left the crowded store:

The owner buttonholed me.

Now I’ve had a nodding acquaintance with this man for years but we’ve never actually spoken. In fact Ginny and I have remarked on how he holds himself aloof from his customers. All business, no chit-chat. Brisk. Impersonal. Distant.

But today this man, who barely acknowledged my existence before, drew me aside out of the stream of customers.

He said, “Men our age need to watch out for our health, don’t we”.

Ding.

Something told me that this was not a casual remark.

“Yes, we do,” I said. “Has your doctor told you something to watch out for”?

Last week he had a test. Something may be wrong with his pancreas – or it may be nothing serious at all. They gave him the test Wednesday but he has to wait over this long holiday weekend to learn the lab results.

He may be dying.

We talked for a bit as customers swirled around us.

We made arrangements to meet and talk outside store hours again next week.

Could it be that God interrupted my plans for today for a reason?

Posted on Sunday 29 of May, 2005 [05:04:26]

Troubles, There -- and Here

Last Wednesday I received word that a book on prayer which I wrote has been translated and published in Indonesia. (see my May 25th blog).

Here is a copy of an LA Times report this morning:

19 Slain as Two Bombs Explode in an Indonesian Market

The blasts on Sulawesi island also injure 32. Fighting between Muslims and Christians in the region has taken hundreds of lives.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Two bombs ripped through a busy market Saturday on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, killing at least 19 people and injuring 32, including two police officers, authorities said.
The bombs exploded in the largely Christian town of Tentena, which has been torn by violence between Muslims and Christians that has taken hundreds of lives in the area since 2000.
The two blasts hit the crowded outdoor market about 15 minutes apart, authorities said. El Shinta radio station reported that the second explosion was more powerful than the first.
"The market was packed," an unidentified caller told the station. "It lies in the heart of the town. Victims have been taken to the hospital."
Tentena is about 30 miles from the city of Poso, which has been at the center of violence between Muslims and Christians on Sulawesi, a sprawling island northeast of Java. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, but central Sulawesi is equally divided between Muslims and Christians.
Over the last five years, Indonesia has seen numerous outbreaks of religious violence and dozens of bombings targeting civilians. Such militant Muslim groups as Jemaah Islamiah and Laskar Jihad sent fighters to Sulawesi and other parts of the country to foment violence. Jemaah Islamiah, which was responsible for dozens of bombings, including the 2002 Bali nightclub attack, set up a combat training camp in Poso.
For the most part, the country has been calm since the election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in September. But fears of renewed conflict arose after May 16, when attackers assaulted a police station on the island of Seram in the Moluccas chain, killing five police officers and a civilian.
The Moluccas, to the east of Sulawesi, has also been torn by fighting between Muslims and Christians that killed thousands and forced many more to flee their homes.
On Thursday, while Yudhoyono was visiting President Bush in Washington, the United States closed its embassy in Jakarta as well as other diplomatic missions around the country, citing a security threat.
The closure occurred after an Islamic militant group posted on its website a diagram of the embassy floor plan and the location of security devices. It also offered suggestions on the best way to attack the installation.

Please pray that my little book will honor Christ and bring a bit of comfort to readers living in this horrible situation.

---

After our Friday Night Date (fun gardening, a swim, dinner out, and watching an action/adventure video) Ginny & I had one of our rare arguments.
About 11:30 I started to bed thinking she would be right with me. I heard noises from the kitchen and went out to see what was going on and found that she had decided that 11:30 at night was a great time to start washing dishes.
We had words and went to bed angry.
I asked her to check her blood sugar and we found she had the highest reading of the past five years. Troubling and scary.

Posted on Saturday 28 of May, 2005 [05:28:51]

John as a Modern Times movie critic

While everyone else seems to be caught up in the Star Wars craze, Ginny & I discovered an even greater movie last night.

At the library we checked out a DVD of Modern Times, a 1930s silent film written, directed, stared in and with a musical score written by Charlie Chaplin.

I have seldom been so gripped by a movie. At times I’d laugh till I cried and at times I was genuinely horrified, and at times I pitied the characters in their plight.

Oddly enough, this is the first full-length Charlie Chaplin film I’ve ever seen. For ages I’ve seen tiny excerpts here and there of this and that; and I’ve been told that Charlie Chaplin was a forerunner of modern comedians.

Ho Hum.

But on a whim we checked this out of the library, expecting the jerky silliness excerpts led me to expect. Instead, we ended up viewing one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen. It enthralled me.

Forerunner, hell! The guy outstrips anyone making movies today!

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My main e-mail address is still shut down in the server switch. Donald is working to repair it (when he is not moaning over girlfriend troubles or playing computer games) so, as a temporary measure, if anyone wants to e-mail me I’ll check an alternate address at johnwcowart@hotmail.com

Posted on Friday 27 of May, 2005 [04:46:56]

Mengapa Doaku Tidak Dikabulkan

"Mengapa Doaku Tidak Dikabulkan".
Isn't that a cool title!

Wonderful news:

This morning’s e-mail tells me that an Indonesian translation of a book I wrote on prayer has finally been published.

The title in Indonesian is: "Mengapa Doaku Tidak Dikabulkan"; in English that’s “I’m Confused About Prayer” or “Why Don’t I Get What I Pray For?”. English copies are available on-line at www.lulu.com/bluefish

The book takes a humorous approach to problems I myself have with praying. I really hope it contributes a modicum of peace to readers who have just about given up on God.

My book’s appearance in Indonesia comes four days after false news reports about American handling of the Koran. These false news reports have sparked riots in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

This morning's CNN reports:
The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta has closed until further notice.
“Citing terror threats, the United States closed down Consulate General offices and other government facilities, the agency said ….
"The Embassy reminds all Americans that the terrorist threat in Indonesia remains high," according to a State Department statement.
"Attacks could occur at any time and could be directed against any location, including those frequented by foreigners, and identifiably American and other Western facilities or businesses in Indonesia."…
Among the possible targets are neighborhoods where Westerners live, hotels, restaurants, churches, schools and recreational event….
Indonesia has had three major bomb attacks in the past two years: Bombings at a Bali nightclub killed 202 people in 2002, a bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in September killed nine people, and a blast at the Marriott Hotel in the capital in October left a dozen people dead.
All three attacks were blamed on the regional Jemaah Islamiah militant group agitating for a Southeast Asian Islamic state. The United States considers the organization to be a terrorist group that is an arm of al Qaeda…
The agency advised Americans in Indonesia to keep a low profile…

Makes me wonder if this is a great time for my book to appear...God knows.

If you’re inclined to pray, please ask the Lord to help my little book honor Him in this troubled place and time.

The Indonesian publisher’s website is http://www.perkantas.org/literatur_nasional/

Posted on Thursday 26 of May, 2005 [04:56:30]

Feeding Potato Chips To The Bears

A few years ago my friend, Anda, inherited close to a million dollars. Since then she’s been feeding potato chips to bears.

I’m outraged but I’ll try to talk about this objectively.

I meet Miranda (Aunt Anda, our kids called her when they were little and the name stuck) about 25 years ago when we both worked for a local magazine. She was the editor; I was a clerk. She read an article I wrote about my family and became interested; I invited her home for dinner and we’ve remained friends ever since.

Sometimes she comes to our house to hide.

Several times over the years Anda has suffered broken arms or legs. She was alone with one of her two grown children, Nancy or Marty (both now in their 40s), each time.

I once called the Elder Abuse Hotline voicing my suspicions but they would do nothing unless Anda herself would press charges.

She would not.

She always says her injuries were an accident.

Anda was forced to take early retirement from the magazine because at times each of her kids came to the office creating a disturbance. Management called security guards to put them out of the building and ban them from ever returning – so they began calling her at work demanding money dozens of times a day.

I think I can say objectively that Nancy is a drunken slut noted for picking up abusive guys in bars at a whim; Marty is a crack addict who has traded several new cars which Anda bought him for drugs. Each of them has had children of their own which were taken away by the state at various times.

A few years ago when Anda’s brother, a timber company executive, died, he left her an estate of close to a million dollars.

First thing, she paid the downpayment on a home for Nancy.

Nancy and a male friend got drunk, tore the central heat & air-conditioning unit out of the wall and sold it for more drinking money They defaulted on payments and abandoned the trashed house.

Once Nancy and a male friend made the tv news.

They went to the beach bar hopping and got so drunk they forgot where the car was parked. They waded into the surf and came out with dripping clothes to at a lifeguard station where they said that they were survivors from a boat that sank off shore – and that other people were still out in the ocean.

The Coast Guard mounted an air-sea rescue mission to search for more survivors.

When the truth came out, officials threatened to jail Nancy if the expenses for that mission were not re-paid…. Guess who paid that bill.

And Marty… well, Marty would make a Jerry Springer Show all by himself.

Anda let him live in her freshly refurbished home temporarily between jobs. He nested there about six years, brought in drug buddies, and ripped the plumbing out of the walls. As I recall, once a SWAT team was called by neighbors for a drug bust.

Heartsick over the behavior of her children, Anda decided to sell her (formerly) lovely home, to move, and not tell her children her new condo’s address.

They found her.

Anda is a Christian lady who feels that the blood of Christ was shed for all us sinners and that no person is beyond God’s love and redemption; she prays daily for her children, who curse her to her face and call her a stupid old bitch. I also am a Christian but I’m skeptic enough, and judgmental enough, and pissed enough, to feel that Hell exists for a reason.

Anda’s heart of hope keeps her trying to help her children.

Against my strong advice.

The pestering of these grown children influenced her to sell the condo and move to a very nice old folks’ home and not tell them where she’d moved.

I again helped her move to a lovely garden apartment overlooking the river.

Again those kids found her and resumed pestering and demanding money under various pretexts of needing serious help.

Anda kept feeding the bears potato chips.

Ginny & I saw her at church Sunday and we all went out for lunch.

She’s broke.

Next month, to stretch her resources, she is moving from her beautiful garden apartment overlooking the river to an efficiency overlooking a kitchen dumpster.

She needs four prescription drugs daily for a heart condition but now she can’t afford them all, so she’s stretching her medicines by only taking two every other day.

She’s given up internet access and cable tv to save money.

During lunch one or the other of her kids called six times.

My friend has been feeding the bears potato chips…

What happens when the chip bag is empty?

Ginny paid for lunch.

Posted on Wednesday 25 of May, 2005 [08:25:26]

Washday

Unless you’d like a sock by sock description of how I did laundry yesterday, I have nothing to blog about today.

Posted on Tuesday 24 of May, 2005 [04:20:42]

John Cowart, Male Fashion Model

If Esquire or Gentleman’s Quarterly need a male fashion model, I now qualify.

Yes, this weekend I have become a clothes horse.

You see, it’s like this.

For years and years now, every Friday night my wife and I celebrate a date together. Back when we were poor, our dates consisted of walking down to the river to watch the sunset, share a Three Musketeers candy bar, and talk all evening. Now that we’re affluent, we often visit the library, then go to a restaurant to drink tea, munch on fries and read our books, or talk all evening.

Well, she once commented that she liked the way a certain red-plaid shirt looks on me; so, ever since, I have consistently worn that shirt for our Friday Night Dates and on other special occasions.

The thing is that she made her comment on my red-plaid shirt back in 1968.

The shirt is not red anymore.

Besides, being a careless pipe smoker, I manage to get hot ash on my clothes and burn all these little holes here and there.

For years Ginny & I have collected clothes for a rescue mission (see my article “Brassier Hunt “ in the right-hand column of www.cowart.info for odd details) so literally tons of cloth have passed through our house.

Occasionally I’ve been tempted to snag some of the newer shirts and pass one of my old shirts along to the poor instead; but Ginny says that my old shirts are too shabby to give to the poor. She says the poor deserve better. And since I don’t see any sense in throwing perfectly good shirts in the trash, I send on the newer cloth on to the mission and keep wearing my same old shirts myself.

So I had a closet full of shirts dating to the 1960s and '70s, though some of them (Ginny says all of them) are getting a tad frayed and faded — like me..

But who cares diddle about what a writer wears?

Well, on our date last Friday night Ginny mentioned that my red-plaid shirt is not quite as attractive on me as it was back in 1968. The lower buttons now stretch to meet the buttonholes... So I decided to spend money on new cloth.

I went to a mission thrift store and in a frenzy of self indulgence bought myself NINE new/previously-owned shirts including some bearing the Ralph Lauren label. I squandered a total of $27 cash money on such cloth stuff to make myself fashionable.

I feel positively decadent.

But Wow! do I look natty.

Dressed good enough to bury.

While I was on this cloth-buying spree I also bought a couple of dainties from Victoria’s Secret and Frederick’s of Hollywood for my beautiful Ginny ....

But that’s another story.

Posted on Monday 23 of May, 2005 [00:40:05]

Saw an eagle

On our walk in Ortega this evening Ginny & I saw a variety of sparrows taking a dust bath. We think there were several species; an ornithologist would know. Expert bird watchers like us identify them as LGBs.

Doesn't that sound prorfessional? It means little general birds.

At the Ortega River Bridge park we saw an American Bald Eagle. We have seen them before, but never in such a populated area.

The other day my friend Wes, who is a nurse, told me about one of his patients, a stroke victim who spoke only Spanish. The stroke created some mental disorientation and robbed the man of speech and much of his ability to eat.In order to give him his pills, Wes crushes them up in appleasauce and spoon feeds him, urging him to swallow his medicine.

Wes speaks a little Spanish but did not know the word for "swallow" so he looked it up in an on-line Spanish/English dictionary.

The patient exibited even more signs of mental confusion.

At the end of the shift a co-worker who speaks Spanish came on duty and laughed when she realized that Wes had been using the Spanish word "swallow" the well-known bird, instead of "swallow", the eating action verb.

He'd been telling the patient something like, "There's a bird in your medicine".

No wonder there was mental disorientation.

Posted on Saturday 21 of May, 2005 [03:41:52]

Thoughts on a phone call in the night

My brother called last night from downstate to tell me that Aunt Ann is dying of cancer.

I’m not sure how to react.

Although my mother’s very large family of sisters and brothers were very close, for some reason I was always excluded from that group and since the day of her funeral in 1986 I have not received so much as a Christmas card or a phone call from any of them.

I’ve always suspected that they were all afraid that I’d be a pest and ask one of them for help because back then, in ’86, we were impoverished living in HUD housing on Food Stamps

In fact, because one HUD unit was closing, we had to move the day after Mama’s funeral and we had no place to move to! We’d located a new unit but HUD inspectors refused to pass it and it looked as though our furniture would be piled at the curb while Ginny & I and the four kids would be living in our car.

To find a place to live, the morning of Mama’s funeral I went to Congressman Charles Bennett’s office and asked him to intercede with the HUD officials who were involved in an internal office power struggle which kept them from qualifying the house I’d found.

Oddly enough, Congressman Bennett and I had been phone friends for a long time.

He’d once read an article I wrote about Jacksonville history and called me to talk about it. He was also interested in local history and we often talked about Jacksonville history on Sunday afternoons. Of course, he had no idea of my financial statis, or I of his, because it just never came up when we talked.

Anyhow, when I went to his office, he called the HUD officials and miraculously HUD inspectors found that the house suddenly qualified.

So I went to Mama’s funeral knowing that we’d be able to move the very next day.

Incidentally, over the years the Lord has prospered us so we now own our own home, garden and swimming pool. So we landed on our feet though it was tough for a while there.

But at the time of the funeral the extended family acted so afraid that I might ask one of them for help of some kind that they practically shunned me.

I understand that they took up a collection to give to one of the aunts to help with funeral expenses but I’m not sure if they did or not. I made all the funeral arrangements and paid all funeral expenses from a $ 1,500 burial policy Mama had taken out.

Several years before her death my mother had me drive her to an attorney’s office where she made out a will stipulating that on her death I was to be responsible for all her bills and expenses, and that her house and all her belongings without exception were to go to her sister, Clara.

When she died, I did ask Clara for my two bookcases which my father had given me as a birthday present when I turned 14. Aunt Clara was not too happy that I wanted my bookcases; she felt that since they were still in Mama’s house, they also should also be her’s. But she did let me have them.

After I paid all the expenses, the funeral home refunded me $32; as far as I know, no one else ever spent a penny on the funeral and I never heard a word from any of them again.

Oddly enough, Daddy’s cousin kept in touch with me for years until the time of her death.

Anyhow, I feel no animosity toward any of these folks. They are just not part of my life.

I wish them well. But their lives and affairs have not touched on mine for 20 years and the death of one touches me no more than the death of any other stranger.

Yet, my brother, who reestablished contact with me about ten years ago after a silent absence of about ten years seems to think I ought to be broken up or something over Aunt Ann’s impending death.

I pray she has an easy passage and finds eternal peace.
But I wonder why anyone bothered to notify me.

I can’t imagine that Ginny would call any of them when I die. None have shown the slightest bit of interest while I was alive. Yes, they are extended family but they do not form any part of our life, nor I of theirs.

So, I do not know how or react or what my duty is under the circumstances.

For whom the bell tolls?
I think it's just another damn bell.

Posted on Friday 20 of May, 2005 [04:55:47]

What We Really Need Is Another Coffee Mug

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Here it is May 18th and we’re drinking coffee out of the Christmas mugs again this morning; that’s the way I know its time to wash dishes.

Perhaps it’s a commentary on our long happy weekend but I washed two bowls, three glasses and 19 coffee mugs!

Except for drug dealers, Ginny & I are single handedly supporting the entire economy of Columbia.

My friend Wes took me out to breakfast at a Golden Oldie’s Diner. We were the only customers in the place and we got to talking theology as usual and laughed so hard I thought the manager might put us out.

Later we drove to that antique store where Ginny & I went over the weekend because I’d seen an electric fan there that I thought might interest Wes.(He collects antique electric fans; he’s weird). But the fan I saw did not meet his criteria as a collectable. How was I to know?

Anyhow I bought a surprise for Ginny. I wrapped it and I’ll put it in her bag when I pack her lunch tomorrow. I wrote on the package, “You Are My ….”

Inside is a coffee mug featuring Wonder Woman!

I hope it pleases her.

A Nice Lady's Blog Question

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Every morning I check out a couple of blogs that have caught my interest. Among these is one written by a refreshing young lady who bills herself as Funky Bug (http://funkybug.blogspot.com/ ).

She’s seeking an A in a psychology class and posed this question about one of her assignments:

"Do you think people believe things because they are true, or are things true because people believe them."

Although I enjoy reading other blogs, I usually don’t comment. I’m not used to this internet thing and always feel I’m intruding if I’m tempted to comment. But her question intrigued me and got me to thinking so I wrote the following reply:

Pirates buried their treasure under the old oak tree. If we believe the old map and dig, it’s ours. If we do not believe, it stays buried right where it is.

Here in my home state of Florida, the hurricanes come whether or not anyone believes the meteorologist’s warning and evacuates.

I love my wife even when I’ve acted like such an ass that she finds it hard to believe at the moment.

The AIDS virus swims upstream, even if I believe my partner’s claim to be clean.

Your Lotto number may be a winner even if you tear up what you believe to be a useless ticket.

That big gaudy brooch in Grandma’s bottom dresser drawer really is a diamond cluster even if you believe its only 1940s costume jewelry worth a quarter.

Truth is truth.

Our belief — or lack of it – marks us as believers or unbelievers. Our belief – or lack of it — has no bearing on the truth of the matter.

What do you think?

I’m interested.

Incidentally, last week in changing servers (a pox on all their houses) my e-mail address (john@cowart.info) has disappeared for the moment. Donald is restoring it but it may be down for a couple of more days. Please be patient. I’m not ignoring you.

Yet Another Happy Day -- Ginny was off work

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Another pleasant day in the garden with Ginny. We devoted our time to non-essential gardening fun: adjusting a wind chime, leveling flagstones, repotting plants – just little niceties we don’t usually have time to get around to.

But mostly we just sat drinking coffee, enjoying eachother, talking and watching birds come and go. We saw the first redstart of the season as well as bluejays, cardinals, cow birds, grackles, a red-bellied woodpecker, wrens, a red-winged blackbird, and three species of dove. Our big topic of conversation was whether they were Carolina wrens or marsh wrens – as though we’d know the difference even if they wore name badges!

And our garter snake is back; it shows up about the same spot every year. Glad to see this old friend again.

I feel a great sense of gratitude and thankfulness that God has given us such a pleasant place to rest and talk and love and pray. We’ve done nothing to deserve such enormous pleasures.

While such days do not make for exciting blog reading, they certainly do make for great living.

Here’s a quote from this morning’s devotional reading; it’s from a sermon by 18th Century preacher Charles Spurgeon:

''The wings of our hours are covered with the silver of His kindness, and with the yellow gold of His affection. The river of time bears from the mountains of eternity the golden sands of His favour. The countless stars are but as the standard bearers of a more innumerable host of blessings. Who can count the dust of the benefits which He bestows … or tell the number of the fourth part of His mercies … How shall my soul extol Him who daily loadeth us with benefits, and who crowneth us with loving-kindness? O that my praise could be as ceaseless as His bounty!
''

A bit flowery but right on target.At His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Nothing To Say

Another happy day hanging out with Ginny reading, talking and watching birds in our garden yesterday.

Today, I have nothing to say. So I won't say anything... Except here's a great joke:

Q: How many paranoids does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Who wants to know?

Another Good Day

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Why are happy days so much more difficult to write about than crappy ones?

Saturday turned out great, filled with simple chores and joys and pleasures. The day left me with a feeling of profound gratitude. Yet I’m not aware of any unusual specific thing to be grateful for. I’m pleased with the way our grown children have turned out. I’m giddy in love with Ginny. We enjoyed morning coffee in the garden watching birds at the feeders and listening to the fountain. Thanks be to God for simple pleasures.

On a somber note, there’s been another earthquake in Indonesia. I feel bad in that Ginny, Donald & I have been talking now and then for months about sending more relief to the lady we e-know there, but we have not actually gotten around to earmarking the funds and doing it.

I Had Other Plans

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As a Christian, I want to be 100% at the disposal of Jesus Christ.

That’s a general religious sentiment which sounds perfectly reasonable and, I think, rather commendable. The problem is that when it comes to specifics, I balk.

For instance, yesterday my wife and I took the day off to spend some quality time together. And we did. After leisurely enjoying morning coffee in our garden watching birds building a nest; after lingering over breakfast at a favorite restaurant; after browsing in an antique store looking at beautiful artifacts we neither need nor can afford; after snuggling for an afternoon nap which we hoped would escalate – the phone rang.

Whenever the phone rings, Ginny says, “There’s someone with plans for our life”.

My plans were interrupted.

All week long my plans have been interrupted. Then the interruptions got interrupted. If, as the church folk constantly say, God has a wonderful plan for your life, why all these interruptions?

100% at the disposal of Jesus Christ, remember?

The mental picture I have is that of an arrow in smooth, powerful flight from bow to bull’s-eye following the plan of God. On the other hand, the experience I have is that of a sputtering balloon when you let it go without knotting off the end.

I thought following God’s will meant goal setting, walking the straight and narrow path with steadfast purpose and determination.

But could it be that it’s not a march that we’re on, but a dance that we’re in?

One step right, three steps left, twirl and bow and move forward and bend backward then step right again, circle left, move straight ahead – all following the One who leads the dance in a pattern which we on the floor barely perceive.

Perhaps the interruptions in my life are not interruptions at all, but steps in the great dance.

Sounds like a pretty picture?

Nevertheless, dance or no, somebody just stepped on my foot!

A Virgin's Dilemna

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Sorry, I started to write today's entry titled "A Virgin's Dilemna" and it got longer and longer and longer till it reached six pages so I decided that rather than post it here, I will polish it and use it as a Rabied Fundamentalist column in my June 1st update of www.cowart.info

I'll try to do better tomorrow.

New Server is up; I am down

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The new server for www.cowart.info is up and running. Good bye server and computer problems forever!

It is a brave new world without error messages or downtime of blank screens, or "file not found" notices. No more frustrations. No more anguish. No more issuing appolizies or answering questions about why readers could not find whatever...

Dream world!

We'll see.

While Donald, thank God for him, has the new server up, I'm a tiny bit down as reflected in today's journal entry:

Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Another wasted day in a wasted life.
Resumed work on the Stacy Letters.
Lunch with Jennifer & Pat. Jennifer talked about how hard it will be for the family when I die.
I doubt that.
I doubt that my death will be anything more than an inconvenience for a week or so, then everyone will perk right on along, maybe stopping to curse now and then about all the crap I’ve left lying around and the mess I made of things.
I have not lived; I’ve dribbled away days and days and days.

O the joy of the Christian life!

Rewriting The Scarlet Letter

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A registered sex offender recently moved into our neighborhood. In the light of the murder of two Florida children by registered sex offenders in the past few weeks, his presence created a stir among Neighborhood Watch members last night.

Checking out flyers on the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) website at http://www3.fdle.state.fl.us/sopu/index.asp?PSessionId=1071816846& , some members found that five registered sex offenders live within a half mile of where we were meeting; 72 live within our zip code.

J. made printouts of FDLE flyers on each of the five offenders; M has distributed the flyer on the closest one to affected homes in the neighborhood. I volunteered to post these flyers, copied directly from the FDLE website, on my own site. (As a service to the group I donate a small section of www.cowart.info to Neighborhood Watch affairs).

So, this morning I spent a considerable amount of time copying pages from the FDLE site and pasting them into a Word document for posting but for some reason the photos would not show up on the server. I asked Donald to come over and help me straighten out the problem.

He was able to repair my work in short order.

I was very glad that he was also able to repair my “Dog Stuck In Tree” photo.

Then he and I discussed the morality of my re-publishing the names, addresses and photos of these criminals especially since this information is readily available on the FDLE site and since I’ve had a link to that site in MED Watch stuff for over a year.

Shades of The Scarlet Letter!

We concluded that parents in the community have been adequately notified to keep close watch on their children and that the inclusion of such photos and information again would be immoral on my part.

Warning parents of danger to their children is one thing; that’s a moral, responsible thing to do. Hassling former prison inmates is another thing altogether; that’s being an immoral busybody meddling in other people’s lives.

Life is hard and the very essence of sin is to make it harder for somebody else than it really needs to be.

We decided that what I was doing was immoral, so we deleted all the work I’d already done and did not post the men’s photos for the umteenth time.

Sometimes it’s hard to know the moral thing to do.

P.S: www.cowart.info is now up again, and the new server should kick in this week.

The Romance & Excitement of a Typical Writer's Day

I sat at the keyboard typing from 4 a.m. till 4 p.m. Got nine pages written.

In the evening we attended a MED Neighborhood Crime Watch meeting where the group discussed the usual things.

Mother's Day

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Ginny & I skipped church again this morning. Instead, we lounged in our garden and dabbled with the birdfeeders and at rooting impatiens until Donald came over announcing that our websites appear to be back up. Thank God.

For Mother’s Day lunch the kids took us out to Harpoon Louie’s where we munched on the best onion rings I’ve ever tasted.

Eve was already there waiting for us; she’d been to church expecting to meet us there. Jennifer and Pat arrived soon after.

Donald & Eve came to our house after lunch and we sat in the garden talking about computers, the trials in Kansas (a distraction of Christians from real issues), and censorship in libraries.

Eve explained her criteria for buying books at her library.

It is based more on financial considerations than book content. If you only have $500 to spend, that means you can buy this book or that book but not both.

So a primary factor is the need various readers have made known to the library’s buyer. For instance, if a school class is studying Hamlet, then it behooves the library to have Shakespearian materials on hand. If 50 library users show an interest in raising blue tic hounds, then the librarian is likely to buy dog books.

After Eve & Donald left, Gin & I went in to watch tv, a quintessential Mother’s Day movie, Field of Dreams,and I fell asleep on the recliner for hour and hours.

Our Highwire Act In Springfield

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When they make the next Spiderman or Jackie Chan movie, tell the director that Ginny and I are qualified to play the staring roles because of our agile, graceful acrobatic ability.

Today we proved it by climbing up and down from great heights, 4 to 6 feet, while wielding a shovel and digging out old flower planters and one-handedly lifting 185 pound bags of new potting soil to that great heights to plant new lantana bushes.

Considering that I weigh almost 280 pounds, am just this side of 70, and that the only climbing I’ve done for years is to climb out of bed in the morning, I think I did great…

Almost.

At one point I almost fell in the creek as Ginny tried to hoist my clumsy ass up on the bridge rail; but a wino in the park, God bless him, saw our distress and rushed over to help her lift me.

We all three fell to giggling. Poor bum looked as though it was the first time he’d laughed in ages and he seemed really pleased to be the one helping.

I could hardly balance on the highwire railing of the bridge to prance, gracefully from the pillion to the planter on the narrow railing which could not have been more that 18 inches wide. But, Wallenda, eat your heart out, I made it.

Yes, Ginny & I had great fun this morning planting lantana with a group of nice folks from SPAR (Springfield Preservation And Restoration). They were painting and sprucing up three bridges, designed by Jacksonville architect Henry Klutho in 1929, across Hogan Creek. They have undertaken this project to beautify their neighborhood.

Their website is http://www.downtownparks.com/ and they have a photo of one of the bridges on it. (My own website is still down! A pox on wavepath, grumble, grumble, grumble!)

We took turns as to which one risk his or her life climbing; one advantage of having a young wife is that, if need be, she can climb better.

We saw two delightful things as we played aerialist:

About noon a yellow bus pulled up beside Confederate Park, a hangout for many of Jacksonville’s homeless, herds of young people descended and began handing out sandwiches and soda’s to the insane, the drunk, the addicted, the AIDS sick, the depressed and the destitute, the Lord’s poor, who often rest in the park.

I was so pleased to see these teenagers acting so decently. I’m proud of them.

If I knew the name of the church I’d tell you. I did call out to one of the adult leaders asking the name of the church, but he ignored me.

Considering how shabby I was dressed and how filthy from the digging and from handling the treasures we found in the planters – I didn’t even know they made canary yellow condoms and I’m glad to see that Mad Dog 20-20 is still the wine of preference in Springfield — and that I was balanced on a bridge rail with sharp tools in my hand, the leader probably thought I belonged on the other side of the fence.

But anyhow, I’m delighted that this church is doing the right thing.

The other delightful thing we saw were ducklings. About 30 tiny bits of yellow fuzz herded by Mrs. Duck, came right up to us at the Hubbard Street Bridge.

Ginny Oh’ed over them. She looked so beautiful as she made over the little things.

I attempted to catch one for her to hold, but alas, there must be kryptonite in the potting soil because the ducks could run faster than I can waddle and they got away.

Dumb ducks!

Nevertheless, Ginny kissed me on the bridge so I had a wonderful day.

Later we went to Dave’s for lunch. Mark and Mary, waiters, had just come back from taking lunch to Jeanette who is too feeble to get out today. I was delighted that they’d take such care of the old lady who sometimes is a trial to them. I’ve resolved to start leaving bigger tips. They deserve it.

Then we went to the library and while Ginny got books, I looked over the meeting room where I’m supposed to give that lecture on Jax history so I could plan the layout for visuals…

O’ I don’t think I’ve mentioned it but a second library called the other day wanting another lecture…. Ummm, I wonder what Stephen King charges for personal appearances?

Home to nap after a happy day in the play park…. Wonder what she’d have done if I had actually caught one of those ducks???

Canary Yellow? Really!!!

John's Bag With Holes In It

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Today I’m all too aware of the words of Haggai, the prophet who said, “You earn money only to put it into a bag with holes in it”!

Well, this internet website thing is certainly proving to be a bag full of holes.

For most of the week the server hosting my website, www.cowart.info, has been down. No one can get to it.

Donald called last night saying that it may be better if we go to a dedicated server which will cost another $50 a month more than the money we are already putting into this bag with holes in it.

Holes such as the host server, domain names, ISBNs, DSLs, proof copies of my books, DVD discs, tapes & recorder for podcasting, ink cartridges for business cards and flyers, scanner, site management software – and a whole bunch of other holes.

All this to support my hobby of writing.

Maybe I should take up something cheaper.

Hey, there are golfers who spend less on their hobby than I do on mine.

They have fewer holes too.

But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Ginny, Donald & I consulted and decided that perhaps my hobby also contains an element of Christian ministry and maybe it has the potential of helping someone, so we decided to pour the money into yet another hole ( I feel like we’re buying air) and go for the dedicated server.

So, if you can’t get to my website again today, please try again tomorrow. Within a couple of days we’ll have the new server and the site will be up and running again – unless, of course, we fall into another hole.

Boy, Are They Gonna Get It!

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This morning my friend Wes told me something appalling.

Wes took me out for our weekly breakfast at Dave’s and instead of talking about spiritual matters and theology as we usually do, we got to talking about church stuff.

Wes said that a while back he’d been witnessing to a wino in the park and encouraged the man to come to church with him.

When they got there and were seated before the service, the ushers came and asked the man to leave because he was smelly and not dressed appropriately for the church service!

How ghastly!

What will be the appropriate dress code on Judgment Day?

I can’t think of a Scripture verse to back it up, but my impression is that we will all stand before Almighty God stark naked.

He will listen as we answer for the way we live, the people we hurt, the indifference we show, the words we say, the good we do not do, the attitudes we hold.

Will Christ know us?

Or will we be strangers?

It’s easy for me to get indignant about the church people who put the bum out. But do I do the same sort of thing? How many people do I brush off because they don’t fit my criteria for being members of my set? Because their presence is inconvenient at the moment?… Why, sometimes I push away my own wife and children because at that particular moment I’m involved in something more important to me than they are.

I’d qualify as an usher!

Lord, please be merciful to John Cowart, a sinner through and through.

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AGHHHHHHHHH!

My website server is down again this morning!!! It was down all weekend. It was up Monday. It was down Monday night. It was up Tuesday afternoon... And now it's down again...
Do I detect demonic influence here? Or is it a technical malfunction — and is there a difference?
I think Bill Gates hates me. He sits in his office somewhere browsing my site every day and pushing little gray buttons to screw it up. He does not do this to anybody elses's website, but he puts my server up or down like he's playing a computer game....

You know, I think I've been up way to late and I'm getting flakey... I'd go get some icecream but my wife says I'm not to go near the refigerator when I've been working all night.

She says that sleep deprivation impairs my judgement and makes me groggy; and that when you're groggy you are not supposed to drive or opperate heavy equipment... And as everybody knows, refigerators are heavy...
so I'm to stay away from it.

Good night, Everybody.... You too Mr. Gates, no hard feelings.

79Trombones Are Too Many...

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The server for my website only serves a band 76 trombones in width.

Last night posting all those photos, I tried to squeeze 78 or 79 trombones into the parade.

The cruel server strangled several of my trombonists so that the band’s width was back to below 76 and some of my pages would not post.

That, after I fought the thing all night, is the way I understand what happened.

However, Donald, who is a computer person, did something or another to adjust the band’s width and now all my files march along just fine.

It would have been so much easier if the Dummies books had just explained about the number of trombonists allowed to live on a website.

Anyhow, now that that problem is solved I’m ready to take a nap.

Read a Florida crime novel, Virgin Heat, by Laurence Shames (Hyperion, 1997). It’s about the daughter of a crime boss and her father. Shames touches on a feeling I often have about my own children but I’ve never been able to articulate. Here’s a quote:

“Then Paul Amaro said, ‘Whatever I did, Angelina, I tried to do the best for you.’

“Even to himself it sounded lame, and no less because it happened to be true. But it was what every parent felt when looking at his child and seeing the wounds, the disappointment; when looking at the world and knowing that one had done nothing to make it any less unkind, any less fickle or grudging in its comforts. Paul Amaro looked at his daughter and understood that for every pain he thought he’d spared her, another had been heedlessly inflicted; for every opportunity he’d yearned to give her, some other path had been closed off. Suddenly he felt very sorry. Not for her exactly. Not for himself. Not even for anything he’d done. Just sorry, like regret was taking him over the way spores and lichen take over the fibers of a tree that’s dying from the inside out…

“Yet the loss he felt was tempered by the memory of their talk at Flagler House. She loved him for what he’d tried to do; forgave him for what he’d done. How many fathers could expect more?”

What a beautiful passage!

While I wish I did not often feel that way, I wish I could write so well.

Sludge -- Spiritual & Physical

My website server was still down Monday. But that’s OK.

Here in the web I have at my finger tips the most effective communications system the world has ever known and here I have less constructive to say than ever before.

Essentially I feel like a spiritual paraplegic. And when I can move, it’s to do something wrong.

But enough of that whining.

I spent the day at my daughter’s house clearing rain gutters and giving her pool its spring cleaning. Between the two projects I filled about eight trash bags and a garbage can with assorted decomposing bugs, sticks leaves and other tidbits of scum and sludge….My but I’m in a cheerful optimistic mood, aren’t I?

Then, tonight Donald rewound the rubber band or whatever it is he does with the server’s computer and I was able to post the May updates to www.cowart.info So there you can find many to the photographs I have talked about in earlier blogs.

I send out a spam sort of newsletter about the first of each month to people who have shown an interest in the site. Here’s a copy:

Hi Friends,

This is another note from John to let you know about the May update to my website.

Thank you for your interest in www.cowart.info . The Webalizer April Site Stats (in the left column) show that over 13,000 readers from 70 countries spent at least 30 minutes each on the site. That’s twice as many readers as last month! Wow! Thank you. This means so much to me.

I’ll try my best to make visiting the site worth your while.

Five of my six grown children were in for a family vacation last month. They brought digital cameras and took hundreds of pictures. So you’ll find several new photo essays on the site now Including:

The Statues of Jacksonville: Donald’s photo of the Sailor Statue for the cover of my Jax history book, Crackers & Carpetbaggers, got me interested in what other statues I might find in the city and here’s a sample of what I found.

Photo’s of Sandy’s Garden:. My son Johnny took these pictures of a lovely garden we came across while looking at various statues.

Ginny & John’s 2005 Spring Garden: Pix of my backyard.

Cowart Family Vacation, 2005: 45 photos of Cowarts in their natural habitant.

Recently, I have been keeping a John Cowart’s Blog on the www.bluefishbooks.info storefront site and now there’s a link there from my homepage. I try to update this blog daily, more or less. It’s easy for you to add comments on the blog site and I’d like to hear whatever you have to say.

My Rabid Fundamentalist column for May is titled Cat Fight. It’s about — you guessed it — a cat fight… Well, the theological implications of a cat fight anyhow.

This month there are more Links For Kicks – And, within the next two weeks I’ll have a link on my homepage to an odd website Donald is constructing. It will be called Dream Library where you can tell what you dream about and read what other people dream. Sound interesting? I’ll post the link as soon as the site is up and running.

For MED Neighborhood Crime Watch members, the crime statistics for our area have been updated for May, and there’s information about what to do if you are alone when you have a heart attack.

And, as always, for you more discriminating, cultured readers, I have included even more of my tasteful, refined jokes.

Hope you enjoy it all.

John Cowart

Some Days You're The Pigeon; And Some Days You're The Statue...

“Some days you’re the pigeon; and some days you’re the statue”.

That’s what my favorite radio announcer, Dave Scott, used to say before station owners tried to introduce New Coke to the Jacksonville airways and canceled the Dave & Heather Show and I stopped listening.

Today was a statue day for me.

I have promised readers that I’ll always try to update www.cowart.info on the first of the month. So I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and began the final push to prepare the new files to add to the site.

I wrote and polished a new Rabid Fundamentalist column. I added to my selection of tasteful, refined jokes. I updated Neighborhood Watch crime statistics. I laid out changes for the home page. I made thumbnails of family vacation photos.

And among the other tasks, I put together a photo essay about the statues of Jacksonville.

Last month Donald took a photograph of the Sailor Statue on the Southbank Riverwalk to use as the cover art for my book Crackers & Carpetbaggers. That got me interested in other statues around Jacksonville so Ginny & I have been going to various locations all month long to take pictures of the Statues of Jacksonville for today’s site update.

Anyhow, I went to afterburners to prepare all this stuff to add to the site. I made arrangements with Donald to come over this afternoon to guide me through the update process.
With little sleep for days and none at all for the last 24 hours I began the update process --- Access Denied!

Our server in Atlanta is down.

I can not touch my own website until tech support does whatever they do…

Some days you’re the pigeon; some days you’re the statue.