Greetings from 6:40 a.m. last Friday. I’ve come from your past into my future to report on my conclusions from this morning’s reading and writing.
I’ve been up for nearly two hours, and I’ve just poured my third cup of coffee. All this time I have not glanced at my phone or laptop or turned on the television. For all I know, something world-changing happened while I was sleeping and I will log into a vastly different universe than the one that existed when I put myself to bed last night.
But it probably didn’t.
I still need to keep writing about a rubber duck from outer space on a mission to make first contact with Earth’s race of normal rubber ducks. I must still get out the word that this aging singer-songwriter is releasing a new album of original songs this week (your today!) and encourage people to listen and pass the word. More than ever, world-changing trauma or not, I still need to urge you to embrace the notion that our greatest calling is to love God and love our neighbors, even our perceived enemies because they also are our neighbors.
All of that occurs in an obscure little corner of the interwebs, where I have been stating my cases for a couple of decades and, in this specific corner, for more than 2,100 consecutive days — almost six years.
I still remember a podcast called “The Evil Genius Chronicles” and the host telling me that what you love is what you will still be doing even when no one is paying attention. Well, given the analytics, I clearly love doing this, because I have been making my own music for 50 years and blogging for 20, and to paraphrase President Lincoln, the world has scarcely noted it.
And that is fine. God has put a roof over my head, my dogs and I will eat today, I love a good woman who loves me, and I have family and friends who I should attend better but whom I believe I am on good terms with — good enough that they will let me know if I’m wrong.
Would I like more people to hear my songs and read my stories and my attempts to encourage people? Well, sure. But I’m going to keep on going until God slips me in a different direction or my earthly vessel finally gives in to my years of abuse and neglect.
OK, that’s what I wanted to share with you, a denizen of my not-too-distant future. I will now pour my fourth cup (my usual limit) and plug in to see what’s going on out there. Today my new album arrives, and soon I will spend a bit of time and space telling you about these 12 songs, and I will also be writing new chapters about Allen the Alien and, most of all, variations on the theme of loving God and loving our neighbors, and did I mention that we are all neighbors.
