Monthly Archives: March 2023

A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow (Part II)

(Note:  The following post is not by a preacher, just a regular person who reads the bible and tries to apply prophecy to what is going on in the world and share it.  There is a tremendous blessing in store for those who turn away from this world of evil – and come to God.  Anyone who has their eyes open can see some pretty awful times ahead, and there’s only one Way to be prepared for what’s coming.)

Try and imagine, put together in your mind, all of the confusion and chaos in the world right now.  At this writing, there are serious riots going on in France – those have graduated to fires and violence.  The French have for a long time served as a barometer of the level of tolerance of free people, or people who would be free, in the world.  Now the nation of Israel is seeing streets filled with people who have had enough of their government.  Germany seems to be following suit.  There’s little more that can be said for the open rebellion against God that is going on with the parades that celebrate abominable behavior, madness in the form of gender lunacy, and in-your-face Satanic performances like the opening ceremonies of the Cern collider and Gotthard Tunnel.

Man-made affronts to God are not the only things to consider as the earth reels toward destruction.  The earth’s magnetic poles are wandering away from the positions where we’ve always known them to be toward what appears to be a complete reversal of the earth’s polarity, and as it happens, the whole magnetic field is growing weaker.  There are charts out there that show the decreasing strength of the field over time, and it’s getting much weaker now.  That field is our protection from solar and cosmic radiation, and just over the last few days the earth has endured a significant solar storm, the severity of which cannot be explained from recent solar flares, because those flares were relatively insignificant.  The only explanation that seems to account for the magnitude of the disturbance (auroras were seen in Florida!) is the weakness of the earth’s magnetic field.  There are several science outlets who are saying the same things, one of which is an especially knowledgeable scientist at the YouTube channel, Suspicious0bservers – Earthquakes | Space Weather | Cosmology – Your Mind is Your Weapon who does a much better job of describing what is happening than I can, but I’m sure it’s another serious wake-up call from God for us to get prepared for some bad times.  This is a very intelligent scientist who I’m sure is able to connect the dots all the way to God, in spite of his “scientific” background.  He seems to have a growing understanding of God’s hand in things that are occurring, if I’m reading him correctly.  He also observes that inexplicable psychological aberrations are becoming a major issue due to the effects on our minds being bombarded with radiation – look at the craziness in the world, especially among our leaders!

The earth is experiencing storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, and other natural disasters of inexplicable ferocity and frequency in the last several years, and these are only the beginning of sorrows.  For crying out loud, the Mississippi, Euphrates, Colorado, Danube, Nile, and other major rivers of the world are going dry!  It’s obvious for anyone who has open eyes, that our God is not pleased with our conduct.  There have been many times in the past when God brought devastation upon humans of this earth when their behavior became so egregious as to bring His wrath down upon them.  The slaughter of the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf (think Wall Street bull), Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood of Noah, the earthquake at Christ’s crucifixion, and other instances when people who suffered the wrath of God who were supposed to acknowledge God’s preeminence and His commandments – all happened.  We are at such a time now!

Back to our own insane determination to bring destruction on ourselves, there is a discussion going on about Russia sending nuclear weapons to Belarus in response to the recent threat of UK sending depleted uranium ammunition to the Ukraine.  This is significant!  The nuclear genie is slowly but surely being squeezed out of the bottle, and it won’t go back in.  According to an increasingly accepted interpretation of Revelation 18, and as I wrote in A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us – Folk Potpourri the United States (the modern Babylon?) will be utterly destroyed in a horrible and devastating fire event.  A nuclear bombardment fits the description, although there are other things which might also cause the destruction described, such as an asteroid hit, or solar ejecta from a massive coronal mass ejection, which would get to earth essentially as a type of devastating meteor shower, but the way things are shaping up, and because of the mention of kings of the earth standing at a distance for fear of her torment, which I believe is referring to radiation, I think it will be a nuclear strike.  (author’s note: kings of the earth standing at a distance for fear of her torment might also mean leaders of other nations putting distance between their policies and Babylon’s fearing their own destruction by the same enemy).  Either way, whatever remains of Babylon, she will be utterly alone.

The world that was described in the above mentioned post probably wasn’t accurate though, because the bible speaks of such total devastation of Babylon that there will be no survivors at all.  For those of us who live here and face annihilation, the way to survive is the same – we must repent of our evil ways and ask for forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  It’s the only way through this terrible time that’s surely coming upon us!  Think about the days of Noah – he had been forewarned, so he absolutely knew what was coming and tried to tell those people to change their ways, and they laughed at him until it was too late. It’s sad to imagine those hapless souls finally coming to their senses and wading out through the deepening water only to find the doors of the ark were closed. Jesus told us the world will be the same just prior to our own destruction.  Will people at last come to their senses only when they see the huge mushroom clouds?

There is a serious war going on in the Ukraine in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and injured.  Only a precious few people actually know what that is really all about, but from the way all of the western leaders are prostrating themselves, it is obvious they have been given their orders from the real leaders who themselves serve Satan and operate behind the curtain.  The whole of them are beasts with no concern for human life.  More on them later.

Think about it.  There have been train wrecks, contaminating vast areas of the country but largely ignored by our leaders and their equally conspiratorial media.  At this writing, the state of Mississippi has just endured massive tornado damage with dozens of people killed.  Hundreds of thousands of American citizens are living on the streets of major cities in drug-addicted squalor.  And our “president” is only interested in whatever more he can authorize to send to the most corrupt government in the world in Ukraine. What is sent there is solely intended to increase the death and destruction.  Does that make any sense at all to you?

All you hear from our congress is also whatever more can be done to support the murderous regime in Ukraine, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons, and our citizens continue to look the other way, waiting for suspicious balloons or the latest Hollywood sex scandal.  Maybe we should be in the streets like the French, the Germans, and the Israelis.  Frankly, I’m starting to believe we deserve what we have coming, and that isn’t going to be pretty.

The earlier post mentioned above attempted to get people’s attention to what is actually going on in our world, and what it is leading up to for some of us.  It was posted on other websites and it actually was viewed by readers in many countries, so at least it got out there, but I’m afraid the message might have fallen short of what the post was trying to get across.  The word “unimaginable” was not in that title for no reason.  This world is careening toward the edge of an abyss never before experienced by humankind!  How do we know this?  It’s in the bible!  That sacred text so many of us claim to believe, to honor; now listen with your heart to what it says, (Rev6:8), “So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him.  And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”

With the sword:  The sword mentioned in the verse obviously includes all of the ways humans will be killed by the ravages of war, especially nuclear war. With hunger: The aforementioned post attempted to provide imagery of how horrible the rampant starvation will be in a post-apocalyptic world, but I fear it doesn’t come close to describing the actual horror, both of suffering devastating hunger oneself, and watching fellow citizens, family members, pets, etc., starve literally to death!  With death: How, you ask, does an entity kill with death?  Ever heard of typhus?  Look it up.  I’m not a doctor, but I’d wager there are plenty of other risks associated with being around, and drinking water contaminated by, a lot of rotting flesh, of which, with some portion of a fourth of humanity already dead, there will be plenty. With the beasts of the earth:  It’s arguable here that John is speaking here of murder by human beasts. In chaotic times of anarchy with no law and order. Murder, which is already rampant, will undoubtedly be commonplace.  Human life, scarcely valued now, will become totally worthless to these beasts.  Second and third-tier nations whose hostilities were held in check by threats from “superpowers” (who by then will all have suffered some degree of devastation), will also be free to settle scores with now unprotected enemies. There will be mass death and murder on a scale never before experienced. We already hear of many people being killed so their organs can be harvested to keep such beasts alive.  One fourth of the people of the earth today is around two billion souls!

Forewarning of macabre days of unimaginable sorrow is handed to us in the bible and will be a time of unprecedented tribulation.  In all of our lives we endure some degree of hardship, so we have an idea of what the word means, but “unimaginable” means we cannot conceive of the terror and despair of the great tribulation that is about to be visited upon us. (Matthew 24:21), “For there will be a tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

This was spoken by Jesus Christ himself, so its veracity and the weight cannot be questioned, nor indeed fathomed by us mere humans, who have never had occasion to envision the horror of existence that this world will suffer during such a time.  A time of incredible darkness, despair, not knowing where the next bite of food will come from, or if there will even be a next bite of food.  At that point, people won’t even know if there will be a next breath!  Overwhelming stench of death and sickness, poisoned water – people dying of thirst will know that to take a drink of it will be to die an agonizing death – will be rampant.  Once beautiful forests dying, along with all of their creatures, everywhere eyes of the dead staring vacantly into that next world.  It will indeed be sorrow on an unimaginable scale…

When the angels start pouring their bowls of affliction and sounding their trumpets, things are going to degenerate into horror of which humanity has never witnessed.  But if one refuses to give in to fear and despair, there’s hope:

Revelation 14:14,15:  Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat one like a Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.  And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”

There is one body of believers who believe and hope that Jesus will return to collect His people in what is scripturally described as the Rapture, and that body believes it will happen prior to the great tribulation.  Many others share in that hope, but aren’t all in agreement of the timing.  Exactly when the rapture will occur in relation to the tribulation is one of the scriptural issues that has been debated seemingly forever.  The one thing we can be certain of is that “The Rapture” will occur; He will harvest His people from this place of despair and trouble for that next life, the real life – of wonder, peace, and joy, which will itself be unimaginable.  Scripture says so, (1 Corinthians 2:9) “For eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 

If it has never entered into the heart of man, that means it has never been imagined.  If it has never been imagined by all of the billions of people that have existed since it was written, that suggests that it’s truly unimaginable.  Nevertheless, it will be a joyous time for those who have decided to trust Jesus!

For now, we live in a world where a time of great sorrow is indeed upon us.  We are moments in cosmic time away from the abyss of nuclear catastrophe designed by the enemy of God and mankind, to throw all of God’s creation into a morbid chaos of death and despair.  A time is coming of unparalleled fear not experienced by human beings in all of history.  Nothing can be done to stop it, it’s infallible scriptural prophecy – and Satan is in charge of all the people in place who could prevent it.  Their minds are taken, and anyone with eyes can see their total insanity.  They are drunk from the cup of madness. (Isaiah 29:9), “Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunk, but not with wine; They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.” (Jeremiah 51:7) Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, That made all the earth drunk.  The nations drank her wine: therefore the nations are deranged.

The good news is that there is a way to get through it!  Though we often stumble as if we walk in darkness, not seeing the things over which we trip, we have a precious Helper.  In this world of darkness, there are many clever obstacles laid in our paths that we cannot see without a Guiding Light to reveal such things for what they are.  Situations constantly arise in our lives in which we do not realize at first will lead us to distraction from God, but Jesus is always there to show the right Way to His beloved.

In the 14th chapter of Matthew there is the story of Jesus walking on the water out to the boat where the disciples were, and Peter, astonished at what he was seeing, asked Jesus if he could walk on the water and come to Him.  Jesus permitted him and as he began, he was able to walk on the water toward Jesus, but at some point, Peter lost his concentration on the Lord and began to sink into troubled waters and fear.  Jesus then reached out His blessed hand, in an act which should take a preeminent place in the mind and heart of every Christian, to take Peter into His care, preventing him from falling from His grace, in the passage represented by sinking into the dark water of the sea.  That’s what He does – that’s why He’s Jesus – Yeshua, our blessed and beloved savior!  When we lose our concentration on Him because of all of the turmoil and despair of the terrible events taking place in the world, He reaches out His hand to take and hold us in His care and protection.  He loves us with an UNIMAGINABLE love!  We must focus on Him through whatever of these hard times we have to endure, and we will be just fine!  It’s also important to remember that Peter only started slipping into the sea after his faith weakened.  Why that happened is not made clear, but if Peter could have kept his focus on Jesus, it’s doubtful he would have gotten into trouble.  Another lesson for us to hold onto and cherish!

As we anticipate terrible things coming our way, and terrible times are coming, you can count on it! It’s imperative that we find Jesus Christ and hold fast to Him to lead us through the perils we face.  There’s no reason to fear – though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil – we shall get through it with Him.

Squatters Out By the Wet-Weather Creek

Today is a mixed bag of weather here in the Ozark woods.  A few years ago, my grandson Matthew and I built this really cool little cabin up on stilts out here on a wooded hillside and it has a nice roof so if the rain starts, Dusty, my faithful old border collie mix girl, and I should be able to stay dry if we get the forecasted cloudburst today.  I went all out and ran electrical circuits so I can plug the building into a small portable generator and have a porch light, interior light, and receptacles for temporary low power loads like this laptop I’m writing this post on, and the music box. 

I started out with this thing as if I was just going to make some sort of lean-to for a deer stand, but my daughter Casie, Matthew’s mom, got wind of what I was doing and decided to apply her engineering background; she started by making “helpful” suggestions, and the next thing you know Matthew and I are up here hanging plywood sheets way up in the air using the backhoe bucket as a crane, eventually building a Marriot Hotel.  We put these neat little windows complete with screens in the walls, double walled and insulated it, and as mentioned, ran wiring and installed lights and receptacles.  It’s a wonderful place to retreat and get away from the house and noise.

Retreat in the Woods

During construction as I was putting up the interior walls and before installing the door, a little mama wren found herself a nice cozy spot inside what was to become an insulated space between the interior and exterior walls.  Of course, once I realized she was interloping on my cabin and had brazenly claimed my wall for her nest, I had to halt that part of my construction, and before you knew it, there was a lot of raspy screeching going on in the nest, and that poor little girl worked as only a loving mama can, fetching grubs and grasshoppers for them, and somehow, she managed.  I had other areas of work to do, so I got used to hearing them and watching as she, at first kind of apprehensively, darted in and out to feed them and take out the trash.

Mama checking on the little ones

I managed to peek in the nest once, and thought there were three gaping little mouths, but I tried to stay away as much as I could.  Mama got to where she didn’t mind me being in here at all.  This all went on for a couple of weeks, and then one day she flew in, and it was a bit odd that she used a different entrance than she had been using.  She didn’t go to the nest but stood on the very top of the wallboard in the opening under the roof and chirped until the little ones came out of their nest one at a time.  She flitted outside to a nearby tree and continued to chirp and call for them until there were four (I didn’t see all of them when I peeked in earlier) little fledglings in a row on the wallboard trying to work up enough nerve to make the jump out into the unknown.  One by one they clumsily jumped out and flitted and fluttered into the tree from where she had called, banging into the trunk, but somehow hanging on.  Before long, she was flying ahead of them as they all found their tiny wings and within just a few minutes they mastered the art of flight! 

Mama, with babies in tow headed down toward the wet-weather creek, and that’s where they were when I heard the last of her chirps and flight training instructions.  I never saw them again, at least that I know of.  I came back inside and started to remove their lodgings, but not knowing much about wild birds, I decided to leave the nest in case they needed to come back, maybe to sleep in the night, but they never did.  They were gone for good. When I started removing their little nest, I found myself thinking and wondering if they might have memories of their infancy there and resent having their childhood home torn down, but I realized that wild critters don’t necessarily have attachments to things like us people do.  At any rate, I quickly found that I really missed their fussing and mama coming and going – I didn’t realize how attached to them I had become until they were gone, but my consolation was that they were out in the wild as nature intended, chasing their own grasshoppers, and finally I could finish that wall!

Empty and quiet after the squatters left

I’ve been posting about spring lately, but I just can’t get enough of this nice warm weather and green shoots are just beginning to show up on most of the trees.  I get just as excited when the fall colors burst onto the scene, but for now we get to anticipate springtime and it looks like there’s going to be quite the dogwood show, maybe as beautiful as we had in 2021.  Maybe that little mama wren will find another cozy spot nearby to raise more babies.

Enjoy the spring ya’ll!

Thoughts on Creation on a Beautiful Spring Morning

before publishing…

Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these…

* We are where we are because we haven’t tried hard enough to be somewhere else.

* If you don’t like your situation, as long as you have breath in your body you are free to change it. 

*People who conduct their lives in obeisance to desire for riches are the saddest and yet harbor the potential to be the vilest of all creatures.

* Keep in mind that this body we inhabit causes us much despair and grief and is surely to be discarded on that day when our spirit is freed – like an animal that has only known life in a cage.  The face I see in the mirror is not me, it’s simply a part of this container in which my spirit dwells until that freedom arrives.

I walked out into the woods yesterday to take a long drought from a new cup of God’s creation – it was a beautiful early spring morning with a plethora of songbirds singing like they demanded to be heard.  Indeed, I spent a lot of the morning listening to them.  They sang of greenery beginning to transform twigs and limbs, as heaven is about to reveal a majestic dogwood bloom.  Their song welcomed a gentle breeze from somewhere south that has come to visit our obscure Ozark hollow. The song indeed brings with it a gift of warmest elation that only a morning of God’s springtime grace can provide, but mostly it allows me to understand and appreciate that I am truly a blessed soul to be in the hallowed company of the Lord Jesus on this glorious day.

An aged crow came near and watched as I pondered events going on in the other world.  This modern time in which we find ourselves has brought the ability to hear of and see things happening in faraway places which people never could do before. Sadly, nowadays most of this news is not good.  The old crow behaved as though he knew what I was thinking.  Did he share my sympathy for those who cannot enjoy the rapture of a fine spring morning because they are ensnared in conflicts over which they have no control?  Was he wishing, as I was, that there was some way to make peace in places devastated by war and end the needless death and destruction?  Maybe a way to bring food to the tables of the destitute and hungry?

A lemon-yellow butterfly gently wafted by on the breeze in search of early flowers, at first glance seemingly oblivious to the vanity and evil of the travail we humans bring upon ourselves.  It further reminded me that there is another aspect of this existence, one that is served to us from another place – a place of peace, of wholesomeness, and of serenity where God-given wisdom demands that we should seek to be, a place where the spirit can prosper.  I wondered what, if that beautiful little insect could talk, it would say to me, but then I became astonished to realize that it was talking – saying profound things I could indeed hear, but only when I listened closely, for it was actually my own heart speaking without words, of things I already knew, but to which I hardly gave deserved thought.

The gravity of events in the world is beyond the ability of most to comprehend, but the pain of those on the receiving end of such terrible events, who often lose their (often piteous) earthly possessions, their cherished homes, but most of all their loved ones – taken from them by untimely deaths at the hands of other human beings – must be unbearable. Their grief consumes all of us whether or not we choose to acknowledge our part in it.  As the blood of Abel cried to God from the ground, so the blood of murdered innocents in diverse places cries to any and all who might join, or at least empathize with their pleas for justice, that is every member of the human experience, including those who understand nothing beyond foolish celebrity gossip, sports, or decadent fast foods.  The question my butterfly asks is, “Are there any who will listen?”  Sadly, I do not have an answer for him.  Do you?

A poor carpenter’s son once said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”  That’s the same God who creates crows and butterflies, and with His mighty breath, sends us a springtime breeze.  He’s the One who continuously beckons us with subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle messaging that urges us to listen to our inner selves where dwells the heart on which He has written laws by which He intends us to live.  If we all could find the courage and determination that also comes from Him, we could work together to put an end to those conflicts and bloodshed would undoubtedly cease.  What an incredible honor – to be recognized by all of heaven and earth as a child of the Great and Almighty – the Most High God!

The creatures and forests of spring ever bode a hopeful time, a time of joy and reverie heralded by new sunny days of warmth and optimism.  We have opportunity, as tiny green shoots emerging from dormant twigs, to seek the Creator from whom all blessings flow so that we might blossom into the beings that He has always intended us to become.  We have for now, the opportunity to seek Jesus Christ, whose sovereignty, love, and friendship we would do well to invite and to inculcate in our lives.  He is the only answer in these troubled times.  The ONLY answer.  I know this because of all the springtime creatures, the birds and butterflies, that kept screaming it in my ears this morning.  And because there are horrible things happening in this world that would not be happening if we only listen to the wisdom God put in our hearts. That wisdom can be understood and appreciated by actually living in and taking our rightful place as part – indeed the crowning essence of – His creation, among the birds and spring flowers, and our fellow human beings which we should regard as nothing less than precious, according to His own wisdom and grace.

Men of ill repute have arrogated to themselves unmerited authority, and vast earthly fortunes. They gather in dark halls to shuffle the cards and deal misery and Godlessness to multitudes, even nations, of the less fortunate who can only attempt to play the miserable hands they are dealt.  Needy and destitute people in faraway places, even in our own country, plead for relief and yet they suffer and starve, because the “gods” to which they plead are not gods at all. 

God, the Father of Jesus Christ, to Whom I pray gives relief in the form of peace in my heart – peace and comfort which is multiplied and displayed in its fullness upon the majestic arrival of springtime!

Get right with Jesus and enjoy the spring and His abundant love while there’s still time!

The Duff Mill Chronicle (part 2)

So the day finally arrived; the first day of hunting season, and to say Earl was excited would have been an understatement. He wound his way back to the old driveway he’d used to go to the old woodsman’s house, and this time he went further on down the overgrown road past the place. He noticed as he went by that it didn’t look like the old timer was home. In fact, it looked as if no one had even been there for a very long time.

It was a fine, cool autumn afternoon with sunshine that seemed to portend a good hunt. The weather forecast that morning had predicted a cold front would come through the area, and although the wind might cause the deer to lay up and not stir, if there would be any rain, the dampness would at least quieten the leaves he’d have to walk through. The old road was getting muddy, and even though it had been fairly dry of late, this was one of those areas where the ground just never seemed to get completely dry, so his truck did a lot of spinning in the ancient ruts, especially going up the many hills through the woods.

He found a bit of a clearing where he parked, and grabbed his pack and rifle, and set out to look for deer signs. Finally he was walking on what he was sure was a game trail through the ever-thickening brush, and for the first time he began to get a weird feeling, almost like he was being watched; like he wasn’t alone in those creepy woods. After what seemed like miles of that overgrown trail, he began to notice an area of unusual darkness in the thick woods up ahead. Was it some kind of dilapidated building out here in the middle of nowhere? It sure seemed to be, but what? As he approached he could make out the dark upright remains of what used to be a house, and it looked as though it had once been a big, two story building, now rotting and in disarray. The windows upstairs were all broken out, leaving black portals that felt like eyes watching for unsuspecting intruders into its domain.

The place gave Earl the creeps, it had an evil feel, and as he saw the old road, now only a trail, went on past it, he trudged ahead, trying not to look, but there seemed to be some irresistible attraction that kept drawing his gaze to that horrid house. As he was passing the closest point to the house, he saw a couple of aged crows complaining to each other in a huge sycamore tree. A few ochre leaves fluttered in the light breeze, and as Earl looked up into the tree, he noticed that clouds were starting to drift in ahead of the cold spell. He picked up his pace, both to try and get where he was going before the weather got bad, and to get away from the spooky place. A few starlings fluttered from the brush and finally! He was past the old house! He knew the weather was about to take a turn for the worse, but his attention was spurred back onto the hunt when he came upon a tree rub, where bucks rub all the velvet off their antlers which takes the bark off small saplings; it diverted his thoughts from the eerie woods, at least for now, and back to the big buck for which he’d come here.

As Earl stealthily walked further into the vine-infested darkness, he remembered the odd way the old man looked at him when he asked for permission to hunt there, and he remembered that he’d wondered what that was all about. It wouldn’t be the last time he gave it thought. A quarter of an hour after he passed the creepy old house, the wind started to pick up and the air rapidly began to cool. The cold front had arrived, and with it, the sky began to darken as the first of the rain began to come down. Earl’s hunting clothes were fairly weather resistant, so the light rain didn’t immediately bother him, but he knew it would soon get muddy, and walking would become difficult, but of more immediate concern, the gathering darkness of the woods seemed unusual, even for a storm, because it wasn’t all that late. He could still see fairly well though, and after all the trouble to get here, he wasn’t ready to give up on that deer, besides with the rain soaking the woods, his walking through the leaves was, as expected, much quieter.

About the time the game trail he’d been following played out, he noticed something odd – a very old moss-covered concrete wall, or what was left of it. It was out through the dark woods, and he could see that it was high near a corner and irregularly eroded as it stretched through the darkness until it reached the ground. If Earl had known it, he would have recognized this as being the last trace of an ancient drying oven for lumber, but he had no idea of the sordid history of the Duff Mill that once operated in the very place where he now stood.

A crack of thunder rumbled off to the northwest, and Earl started to grow concerned that he’d get caught out in the coming storm, hours away from his truck, and there was no way he was going to take shelter in that creepy old house he’d passed earlier. He wasn’t necessarily superstitious, but there was something extremely unsettling about that house! He began to look around the concrete wall to see if there was anything resembling cover around it. It had indeed become very dark for that time of the evening, but as he searched for shelter, a sudden flash of lightning revealed a tangled mat of thick vines draped inside the corner of the wall. It wasn’t exactly waterproof under the snarled briars, but he might be able to spread his poncho, which he always carried in his pack, over the vines and it might keep some of the rain off.

As he began to make his way towards the wall, he heard a solitary old crow nearby, but instead of the normal cawing cry, he could swear the crow was screeching “no, no!”, and the calls seemed to grow more insistent as he moved in the direction of the old wall. “NO! NO!” This was upsetting, to say the least!

He stumbled on through the darkness in the rain, which was by now getting heavier, he tripped over something about knee-high, but it didn’t feel like a tree stump – it was harder, like a rock, and sure enough, as he looked down through the tall weeds, he saw that it was a slab of limestone. In the gloom, he could make out that it had been shaped by someone long ago and obviously placed there. As he reached down to feel of what appeared to be a flat side, his fingers traced crude chisel marks in the stone which, even though they were by now illegible, revealed that it was a very old grave marker – and another lightning flash revealed that there were more of them close by, some standing eerily and others leaning this way and that. Still others were lying in dark and lonely mounds, which he now suspected of being ancient burial sites, and to make matters even spookier, in places, the ground had been washed away over the years and in the brief lightning flashes, he could see what he thought might have been bones of long-dead inhabitants washed out of shallow graves, scattered and mingled among the mossy cold rocks.

The rain had grown into a torrent as he hurriedly pulled the poncho out and did his best to drape it over the vines in the corner of the old concrete wall and crawl under it, with lightning flashing all around, and then all he could do was wait until the storm abated. By now he’d decided to call off the hunt, as it would probably be too late to resume it after the rain stopped, and he was soaking wet and thoroughly tired of this spooky place. He kept hearing weird noises, almost like some kind of unhinged raspy laughter, but he tried to convince himself it was the thunder and wind playing on his imagination. The old graveyard was playing mightily on his thoughts too.

It was getting late in the evening, still a couple of hours before normal dark as the rain began to subside. The wind was still gusty, and Earl, somewhat shaken by the events of the day, looked out from under his crude shelter to see if he might be able to get out of there without drowning. It was still raining lightly, but had grown very cold, and he was wet. Just as he was about to gather himself together and leave, he noticed a movement out in the gloom. There was someone – or something – silently moving out there just a few yards away! He knew there was no way it could be a living person out there in those decrepit woods in the storm, but it didn’t look to be an animal either. It almost resembled some kind of greyish mist, sort of drifting through the dark brush, but with definite form and purposeful movement, and he ducked back under his shelter thinking that he’d glimpsed more than one!

A sudden chill came over him that wasn’t coming from the cold air as Earl was beginning to realize this place was inhabited by something he’d only heard about or watched in horror movies. Prior to this dark and eerie evening, Earl had never given much thought to the supernatural, but he now knew he was witnessing something horrifying. And he was afraid – afraid of something unknown – something old, dark, and unexplainable.

Flashes of lightning lingered after the storm had passed, showing he was in a mess of tangled vines and thickets interspersed with a few very old hardwood trees, some with late autumn leaves stubbornly clinging to thin branches and undulating in the strong breeze, they almost looked like spidery fingers clawing at the dark air. It was by now late evening, and Earl realized that if he was going to get out of that dreadful place before it got too dark to see, he’d have to get himself together and start moving, so as hard as it was to come to grips with crawling out of his makeshift shelter and moving through that horrifying cemetery again, he had to get going. The noise that sounded like laughter he had been hearing didn’t go away with the storm, in fact, it seemed louder, as if it was coming toward him.

While Earl sat there shivering, trying to get his nerve up to leave, his mind went back to the evening he stopped and asked for permission to hunt on that property. He was beginning to think he understood now why the old timer acted so surprised that someone would actually want to go out there into those foreboding woods. There probably had been others who had seen things here, maybe things as terrifying as what Earl was experiencing, but why didn’t he warn Earl? He did say something about not letting the sun go down on him in those woods, and now Earl knew why, and if it was going to get spookier after nightfall, Earl didn’t want to be there, so he crawled out and just left the poncho, grabbed his gun, and began to pry himself out into the deepening evening.

So far no more spooky apparitions were moving around, and as the storm moved away, it actually got a little lighter, and Earl was both thankful and apprehensive, because the waning daylight allowed him to get a better look at the old graveyard, and he really didn’t want to see any more of it. Yes, those were bones he had seen earlier, in fact there were a few skulls among the bones lying face up, staring with empty eyes that he almost felt like were watching him as he hurriedly moved through. In one especially dark corner of the area, Earl couldn’t help but feel and especially sinister presence lurking in the blackness. This seemed to be where the unsettling laughter was coming from, and Earl made haste to get away.

He finally got through the old cemetery and back to the game trail he’d come in on, but as the evening darkness grew, he realized he still had to go back by that awful old house. He wished he knew those woods better so he could figure out a different route back out of there, but as it was, he had no other choice. It was icy cold now, and he was able to see the gloomy dark old house with the black windows glaring down at him from some dark upstairs bedroom that hadn’t been slept in, at least by a living soul, in scores of years. He hoped it was his imagination, but there seemed to be a dark grey mist drifting out of those windows, long without panes or sills. There were vines growing up the walls, over the doors, and dead limbs fallen from surrounding trees embedded through the roof in places. There was no way to get through the tangled vegetation and get into the old house, even if someone wanted to. Yet there seemed to be a strange glow emanating from one of the downstairs window openings, almost as if there was an old lamp burning inside! Earl could have sworn he heard that same evil laughter he’s heard down at the old graveyard.

Earl could see his breath in the gathering darkness, and he found himself panting as he tried to avert his gaze from the window with the impossible light inside and he wanted to throw down his rifle and cover his ears to block out the insane laughing – by now he was actually running and on the verge of panic. The sun was going down and he was still a long way from his truck! He looked behind him on the trail and to his horror, he saw what appeared to be a vivid apparition of an old woman standing there leaning on an ancient garden hoe, silently motioning for him to come back, and her hands and arms were soaked with blood! As horrifying as the sight was, Earl felt an overwhelming sadness at her visage, but he did not stop to try and figure out what it was about.

Soaked to the bone and exhausted beyond belief, Earl reached his truck and shivering and shaking, he finally fumbled his key into the door and climbed in. The wheels were deep in mud which had washed down the old road in the storm, and he wondered if he was going to be stuck there. The creepy laughter had subsided, but he could still hear it far away now. He couldn’t remember a more relieved moment in his life than seeing the interior light of his truck and hearing the engine start. After rocking back and forth in forward and reverse, he was able to get the vehicle moving and turned around. After much slipping, spinning, and sliding, he found himself approaching the old cabin where he’d stopped, it now seemed like ages ago, to talk to the old man, and to his amazement, the cabin was gone! Completely and utterly not there! In fact, there were giant oak trees growing in the very spot where the cabin had been! Earl had been set up for this whole thing, by someone, or something, returned for an encounter with the living from long ago!

Earl spent a lot of time in the ensuing years wondering just what those ancient oak trees out there had witnessed long ago. He found out bits and pieces of information about the old mill and settlement where he’d chanced to have his adventure, and after some time was able to piece together just what he had happened upon. As for me, well, I’m amazed at the things a person can overhear listening to idle conversations during a rained-out golf outing.

Enters the Wonder of the Ozark Spring

Early spring in the Ozarks.  I’ve finally found the place in the world I’ve been looking for all of my life.  It’s a place where you can walk outside and as soon as you get through the door, you’re in the early springtime woods.  You take a deep breath of late winter and watch spring songbirds starting to show up, they’re tuning their whistles and chirps getting ready to find mates to help build summer homes somewhere among the thickets. Twigs and branches already have swollen nodes waiting to bloom, slight tinges of ochre-green and light brown are beginning to paint the hardwood forest patiently waiting for the last frost to pass away north.  Sometimes if the timing and temperature is right, fogs can appear on the land and it can be pretty with bright sunshine above glinting off trees and twigs and sun rays stabbing through to shine on remnants of frost on the ground.

Out in the wild parts, black bear cubs will soon take their first tentative steps behind sleepy and hungry mamas out of the darkness and into a bright world of things that need to be explored and climbed.  Feathered mothers-to-be are already negotiating with nature’s realtors for prime locations to build and deposit this year’s egglings, all the while cheerfully singing and checking grocery locations for places to find fare to cram into little open beaks surely to be hissing and squawking for attention soon.   

We’re getting plenty of late winter rains and the wet-weather creeks have been running aplenty, which is good news for a nice dogwood bloom to follow in April.  They will complement the forest décor of red bud (which is actually beautiful pink, but pink bud just doesn’t sound as catchy as red bud).  I’ve heard those red bud blossoms make a tasty jelly, but haven’t tried it yet.  The dogwoods are especially pretty if the timing is right and they bloom just before the greenery gets going, because if they are late, they’re harder to see for all the new green leaves.  If they do their thing nice and early, the woods can resemble rivers of white and it’s spectacular – one of my favorite sights that occurs in the woods.

A lot of people don’t pay it much attention, but if you look carefully at the oaks as they begin to put on new leaves, the new shoots can be as red as black gums in the fall, they’re just not as big and showy as fall colors.  We have a tree or shrub around here, I think they’re called autumn olives, they put on tiny white flowers that smell close to the same as gardenia, just not nearly as loud, but if you get close enough, they’re a real treat to sniff.  That’ll be a bit later though.  In late summer those little trees put on a red fruit about the size of a bb that’s really tart but sweet.

Before long, there’ll be flocks of high-flying snow geese in endless v patterns – thousands of tiny white honking specks flowing across an indigo ocean, itself a beautiful marvel to behold.  They know where they are headed – to fields away north. When they come through this area, they are usually so high up you can barely see them, but it’s worth the squint to watch and hear their show.

It won’t be long now and there’ll be several little spotted white-tail fawns wobbling around the woods, chasing mom for a bit of milk here and there, and curiously nibbling at new grass shoots.  Daffodils and dandelions are already showing off – along with forsythia they are the first colors to appear in the spring.

Lots of trouble going on in the world of people these days, and I write about it, but there’s always a balance with good things created by God for us to enjoy, and I would be remiss not to mention the things for which we should be thankful. Spring is almost here. Get outside and breathe.