ANGELFIRE 5-02-07 The headline I just saw said "Gas Price Rise is Fast & Furious." It seemed to me as a sequel to CNN's video Mon. morning of our fire at WW Refinery with the question asked: "What will big oil do about it?" That also fires me up, knowing I'll find the answer at the gas pump. Sunday's Daily Democrat had the front page ablaze with photos of WW's fire and I got email from friends as far away as Mt.Vernon IL and Washington state (wondering "what kind of experiments" I was doing here. That's because they recalled the chemistry lab I had out back as a kid in Mt.Vernon). But there's surely nothing funny if it's used as big oil's excuse to gouge Americans even deeper. Prices may rise "fast," but we users will supply the "furious" as our anger bursts into flame.

Maybe that dark cloud that we viewed Sat.& Sun. south of PV could signify true ANGELFIRE, which is not only the name of this column but also this writer's pen name. You could have guessed that from my website. I had asked Jeff Shultz to post it, not that I expected readers to punch me up; though it does allow for my corrections or added details missed in Tues. or Fri. morning writings. I appreciate Barry Porterfield's help also in screening out my errors, as well as headlines that capture the point that I'm trying to make. But I pop off some times with more smoke than fire. So I pray that at least it's holy smoke.

On Sat.morning here in WW our new Oklahoma Centennial Clock downtown was dedicated by over a hundred people who came out despite the scare of that big blaze visible down south. WW's highschool band played for a ceremony that began at eleven oclock (which is also this hour of world history, as I see it). The clock stands on Kerr Blvd. right in front of Ye Ole WW Barber Shop, which was in the news just weeks ago; and then echoed at Virginia Tech as a campus massacre a week later. So WW has been on the world stage of late. The fire song that I used to sing on KJCS says "Oh my loving brother when the world's on fire, don't you want GOD's bosom for to be your pillow? Hide me over in the Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me." Truly there will be a last Day of judgement on this world's wickedness. That's because the Almighty is holy and righteous, thus there has to be a hell as disposal pit for all that's filthy, unclean, rotten and corrupt. But Christ is coming to rescue His own from that doomsday. So now is the hour to "seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near." Turn away from the wicked influences all around us and let the Holy Spirit purge our minds. The Savior warned us "that no one knows the day nor the hour. Neither (He) nor the angels, but only the Father." So let us be ready and waiting with hearts made pure by the blood that He shed to save our sous, when He finally returns in glory and majesty. He'll come with spirits of the righteous and all the holy angels full of angelfire glory! Hallelujah & hallelujah

ANGELFIRE 5-05-07 Another explosion at the WW Refinery early Sun.at 3am of a steam boiler sent two workers for emergency room checkups, one then to an eye clinic. But it made no headlines like the two giant fires shown on TV across our land. The tide of news events just keeps us overwhelmed: Earth Day on Sun., then a second year of (May Day)illegal immigrant demonstrations on Mon.& into Tues. with National Day of Prayer on Wed. and then more presidential debate Thurs. by Rep. candidates (like Dems. the week before). I watched both debates, though I'm not much on politics. Critics said that Obama "won" the first and Romney the second. If Americans face choosing either the first black or first Mormon president in '08, that will be a strained election for sure. It will recall our huge column of black smoke seen last week from the two fires, rising above those units burning here at the WW Refinery. In fact, I think it would be even more radical than Hillary becoming our first woman pres. (that would only be more like our boiler explosion down here as compared to the huge fires from both tanks).

There's a story in Judges 13 about angelfire that foretells the birth of Israel's "strongest." That's what the name Samson that his mother gave him means. Her's isn't even given, but she and her husband Manoah tried to learn the name of that angel who predicted their boy's birth. He refused a hospitable offer of a meal with them and also said that his name was so wonderful it was unspeakable. Then, at his suggestion, they made an offering to YAHWEH (He Who Is) on the altar; as the smoke and flame leapt upward, the angel merged into it going back into heaven. Samson's un-named mother, experienced a very strong wonder in his birth and so named him for "strength." Certainly he prefigured the One we know as "WONDERFUL counselor, Prince of shalom, Mighty GOD." And I somehow think of my great grandmother's grave stone at the entrance to Mt.Olivet: Rebecca Jane Hightower-died May 5, 1903 "I have trusted in Thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation." Ps.13:5. Her son's marker is next to her's: E.G. Hightower- 1866 to 1929. Edward Glen would become the 7th mayor of PV. My beloved Gram, his widow, who died in '68, used to tell us how he just laid down one night, "went to sleep and woke up in heaven." That seemed a wonderful end to me as a child, and still is a wonder with questions now; maybe like that celestial person Manoah encountered who went up in flames (as angelfire). It proved his Angelhood to them! Manoah felt they'd seen GOD and would surely die, though his wife knew better. Instead they raised a son who went for Philistine females. So the LORD used him to alienate Israel from the Philistines and that false God of theirs, Baal. Samson was physically strong, but also had a weakness for women. Delilah was an extra pretty one that finally brought him down. She did it with a haircut (he said was the secret of his power). But when it had regrown, he tore down the pillars of their temple where they'd chained him, and that stadium full of Philistines celebrating his captivity all died along with him. It was a suicide mass killing; vengance or a terrible offering to GOD? Angelfire may sometimes show as revenge or as overflowing compassion. At least Samson finally drank his full cup from the LORD. Shalom

ANGELFIRE extra column On this Lord's Day I'm writing instead of listening to KJCS's "Enjoy the Music" show with Jack Pack which I enjoy so much. Just feel I must share some things that come to my awareness. Now that France has rejected their female candidate who ran for president (last name, Royal), I'll note that the visit of Queen Elizabeth II has not inspired me at all. Seems she's more interested in the Kentucky Derby with it's vast gambling and entertainment connection than into issues of this urgent hour for America. Maybe her "royalty" is just repugnant to me, since the only such reality belongs to the Lord Jesus as I see it. The greatest break for us as a new nation was getting loose from that sort of folderol. It was ok for the band to play their national anthem when she arrived, "God Save the Queen." But over here it's "My Country Tis of Thee." And they're to have a white bow tie dinner in her honor as something so very special. Everyone will dress up high class and pretend it means greatness to attend the affair. Baloney. She's here for the 400th anniversary of their British colony of Jamestown. As I read Argus Hamilton about that 1607 settlement, I surely felt he had it right. Just an economic exploitation in vivid contrast to our Pilgram fathers of 1620 at Plymouth MA. If selling tobacco was the Jamestown industrial base, it cost us dearly in these four centuries since. And I'm sure that liquor went along with it to help build the British Empire. As a boy, I used to hear adulation from my dad for the Brits, "The sun never sets on their Empire." He was proud of our English ancestory. And indeed it has been the main conveyor of democracy. Even the beginning of abolition of slavery recently celebrated in that movie Amazing Grace, showed where William Wilberforce got Parliament to outlaw it. So JMH was right in much, but worng in the superiority attitude that English people acquired. I remember them telling me when I spent a month on tour over there back in '66, "You Americans think that you won the war (WW II), but we believe we're the ones who did it." I just chuckeled and went on learning about them. When I went to the library in London, I had to sign in. And the guy at the desk was impressed with my name. "Are you related to our William Hazlitt?" he asked. I said "Maybe, but not sure." So he went on to tell me about that famous author so little known in the US.   Well it seems to me that Great Britian has dwindled down to Mini-England since then. In fact, that was the year mini skirts first appeared in Lordon, and they were shocking after the long skirts of the fifties over herre. Just the first taste of declining moral leadership into a pleasure seeking culture, as I see it. Even the Queen is sold out to it, (though her son is going to Iraq unless that is reversed). I'm glad we let our presidents lay their hand on the Bible instead of looking to any earthly royalty. So you can see no plea here for a female president of our nation. At least not yet. But I've just heard that the Queen might go into space while here, like those millionairs have done. Now that's more interesting. Michael Bloomberg?

The Daily Oklahoman had an article Sun. about Olahoma's spaceport that's being build out at Burns Flat. It's where the Sherman-Clinton Air Base used to be years ago. And may get into operation for tourists like the Queen in a year or so. Trips will be too expensive for the rest of us, but it does sound exciting as a once in a lifetime journey (instead of Mecca, the moon). But it's just for nearspace at first. Astronomers have a Chandra X-Ray telescope in orbit that found the brightest supernova yet last year in another galaxy. It's 240 million light years from our Milky Way and called SN2006gy. The star that's exploding as the SN is 50 times the size of our sun. And that's as big as possible, according to theory. Instead of collapsing into a black hole the way most end up, it's gone into a thermoneuclear explosion of matter vs anti-matter; something scientists have never recorded before. And it's just what the largest star in our Milkey Way galaxy may do in the next thousand years or sooner. It's right in our stellar neighbornood, only about 7000 light years away as I recall. Think of it, our own Supernova.

ANGELFIRE 5-7-07s It was a futile trip for us--Glen, Dallas & me-- going to LARC Sunday evening. Because of a fight between two inmates on the yard, everything was locked down, including the chapel. A stabbing had made it serious enough that we were not allowed on the grounds inside. So on the way back home, Dallas began to tell us about his ministry here in county jail. For years he's been taking Bibles and church literature to those incarcerated. But recently not even staples can be allowed because they pry them out to use in making tattoos on each other. Dallas said he has to remove them and paste all the pages back where staples are removed. I'm sure that means extra time & effort for Dallas Wade, so let's pray for his Godly labors. And also for citizens of Greensburg KA and Sweetwater OK. The tornados have done plenty of damage both places, but their worst may be yet ahead. I used to visit the latter place back when I pastored at Erick as a young minister. That was in the fifties when we had a new creek bridge to go from Erick up there. It flooded while a Sweetwater teacher was on the bridge showing his little son and daughter the sight. Suddenly the new bridge that everyone considered so safe, gave way. He escaped but his kids were washed downstream. We all joined in the days of searching. I recall that the little girl's body was recovered. Then long after the search, the boy's was found far downstream. Some years later, when I was back in Beckham county serving at Sayre, Sweetwater's high school class listed his name and honored his memory at their graduation.

Wasn't "alley oop" the cry of our doubhboys as they came out of the trench in WW I? I think it's French for "over the top," but not sure. It brought a happier note for me to visit the Superhero & Toy Museum on Saturday, What a big day of events it was in PV. And I was given an Alley Oop certificate by the husband/wife team that draws & writes that famous comic strip. Their name is Bender. I told them how I'd enjoyed "the land of Moo" as far back as chldhood (like going on a bender). They both signed it around a picture of Alley kicking his "horse," Denny (the dinosaur) as he exclaimed "I ain't no cave man." Denny looks so totally utterly astonished. That provoked my thoughts about evolution, a topic raised in asking the ten Republicans at the debate Thurs. nite: if they believed in it. Three indicated yes, led by John McCain. Four were opposite. So I may give my view on the extra column I've started for this website, where I can also refer to things not mentioned here. The hit counter indicates that enough are punching it up now (17 for yesterday). You can also re-read these published ones with the finishing touch or two that I add. Shalom

ANGELFIRE 5-12-07 A letter from an online reader was in response to my [extra] column there where I told about the supernova that astronomers are studying in another galaxy. It's an aged star that's not dying by collapsing into a black hole as usual, but going into thermonuclear explosions to scatter bits all over that remote stellar neighborhood. She sited where the Bible says that stars were placed above for SIGNS & seasons, Gen.1:14. Since such a supernov has never been detected by humans before, what if? I wrote back that it could be the very "sign from the heavens" that Christ told us to expect just before His return. Another even right here at WW was that lightning strike at the Refinery two weeks ago. We speak of mother nature to describe such things, but that was more like the Creator's finger, as I've recalled that painting by Michelangelo of life's creation, where GOD's finger is shown with a spark into the still body of Adam. We're talking poetry now, and always so when about "mother nature." If Sunday has any place for her, it will have to include the tornados, rains, and the Washita river getting perhaps out of it's banks. I cross it twice each day, and like to pronounce it's clean sounding name; but what a sight right now! (JMH has a poem to it in his "Tangled Twine" Said it was the most difficult he ever wrote because of all it's unusal rhymns) Now there's no such Bible being as Mother Nature, but the female disposition seems most apt, so we use it: the gentle gender mildly demure/ or temper tantrum that grows fiercely furious/ raging rampage that becomes wildly wicked. (understand I'm just having fun with words). Then once again touchingly tender/ especially sweet/ blissfully beautiful/ compassionately kind.

As I crossed Rush Creek beholding the full rush of it, I felt sadness about young Tre'Shon who was buried in the sand of that cave collapse down there several days ago. Niece knew him on her route and I'd seen him the times I'd be giving her a hand. Nature, the weather, or circumstance can be quite cruel at times, even though the Lord Jesus assures us that our Heavenly Father sees and cares. Foxes have their dens and birds of the air have their nests;...yet not a sparrow falls to the ground that He doesn't take note of it. "Are ye not of much greater worth than these" our Savior asked?   How much more the Father's love was for this eleven year old boy! I think of Charles Gabriel's song for Tre'Shon and all of us, "His Eye Is On the Sparrow and I Know He watches Me." It was published back in the hard times of '34 in the Cokesbury hymnal. I was a student at Lee elementary in second grade, same as Tre'Shon's recent schooling. I feel there's a sign in this Supernova I've mentioned that's for both of us. More later. Solong/Shalom

ANGELFIRE Lord's Day extra column I wrote new lines to THE OLD RUGGED CROSS to linked to "a star shall come out of Jacob" Nu.24:17 & Mt.24:30, also Mk.13:30' It's about that Supernova astronomers are recently calling "brighest in the universe:" In a galaxy far shines that gigantic star which has lived out the life nature gave. Though it's time for collapse, it shines free from elapse and exploding clear out of it's grave. CHORUS Supernova is now on display, proving death there has had a last day. See that realm out there that's been reborn and in life feel no longer forlorn.

The pope has been down to Brazil, a nation which has half of all the world's Catholics. Now so many of them are becoming evangelicals that it's a membership drain he wants to curtail. With Catholics as the fastest growing denomination here in the US, I don't think he needed to even go down there. Maybe all those evangelicals can off-set the big Catholic increase up here. So now on Mother's Day, I'm re-thining the church as being considered our spirtual mother. Is that truly a figure for it from Scripture? Since we see that Mother Nature is certainly not Biblical, what about this other maternal image? Of course Israel was the bride of Yahweh in some OT texts (i.e.Hosea). But the "children" of Israel were considered offspring of that union. My morning Bible reading was in Mk.16, which tells of the two Marys and also a Salome who came first to the tomb where the body of Jesus had been taken. So they were the very first witnesses to His resurrection. Now that suggests their "motherhood" in the faith. And II John is a letter by that Apostle to a particular church and "her children." Those two references seem good enough reasons to allow the figurative use of Mother for the church. But it's more often as the BRIDE of Christ for us who hold an evangelical belief. Of course the "children" could mean all those in that thousand year Kindgom to follow His return. So calling the future Bride our mother would be leaping forward in faith to become even now what will be, as Jesus taught us to seek in prayer (Thy Kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven). Or maybe the birthday of the Church at Pentecost, fifty days after His resurrecion, shows the Holy Spirit as mothering us even at the outset. Here's a song leaning toward that view: "GOD is our Father, Christ Jesus is our brother. And the blessed Holy Spirit is our Guide. The devil's no relation, cause we're a new creation. We are members of that family from the sky." As Paul called the church an Israel of GOD, thus we members must all have her as our mother. Solong/Shalom

ANGELFIRE 5-16-07 It was 59 years ago on Monday that the modern Israel was declared a state in the Middle East. The movement among Jews all around the world that began in Europe under the lead of a newspaper editor, Theodore Herzl, bore fruit. He was an Ausrian Jew who wrote "The Jewish State" about the end of the 19th century. It's fruition was called Zionism. Now ancient Zion had been the hill upon which Jerusalem was first built, meaning "fortification or citadel" so it came to stand for that city the Jews under David as king had captured from the Jebusites; and it's the contemporary Temple Mount where that famous mosque called "Dome of the Rock" has long stood. Legend equates Zion with Mt.Moriah, where Abraham was ready to offer up his boy Isaac as a burnt sacrifice. As Jerusalem became Israel's capitol in Bible times, it's recovery was the Jewish aim all through both millennia of their diaspora, that followed it's destruction in 70ad. Their annual pledge was "Next year Jerusalem." Even then they had to wait from May 14 in '48 till 1967 to finally gain control of it (in that Six Day War), another miracle to both Jews & Christians. As the latter, we still await our "Zion from above" and even sing MARCHING TO ZION to describe our miitant faith journey. It's the New Jerusalem seen by John in Rev.21 as "coming down from GOD out of heaven."

Monday was also when the name of NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg got into the news as a possible presidential candidate. He'd been down here in Norman to be the graduation speaker at my alma mater, and though he says "not a candidate yet," his hat is surely in the ring already. He might even show up at the debate for tonight(Tues.)in S.C. that's being carried by Fox News as number eleven. Being a billionaire, he could run without any party and finance his own campaign. And from reports on CNN, he has more support in NYC than former mayor/candidate Rudie Giuliani. America has already had a Catholic president but he might be the very first Jewish one. That could be an awsome end time omen. Just as humanity is learning of "the brightest star (Supernova) in the universe," this one from the ancestral race of our Lord Jesus Christ appears on the world stage. In the unfolding scheme of world affairs, timing is everything. And Bloomberg even looks about 59 to me, same age as America's friend in Middle East affairs, the state of Israel. Solong, Shalom

ANGELFIRE 5-19-07 The Washita was on our front page yesterday (Thurs.) flowing almost out of it's banks. It comes from up in TX and along past Cheyenne, Strong City, Hammon, Stafford, Clinton, Cloud Chief, Mtn.View, Carnagie, Ft.Cobb, Anadarko, Verden, Chickasha, Alex, Bradley, Erin Springs, LINDSAY, MAYSVILLE, PV, WW, Davis, Rayford, Dougherty, Canyon and goes on down into lakes that connect to Red River, our state's southern border. But Rush Creek joins it just past PV. So it's name sounds to me like "Wash it all," (especially Garvin county) to which I add "clean" so it takes the reverses and frustrations and breakdowns away. That's how I see Romans 8:31, the text used at Mt.Olivet for Mary Ellen Thompson's funeral: "What then shall we say...? If GOD is for us, who can be against us.?" Her younger sister, Barbara, had found those words for me in an address Mary Ellen had given to her graduating class at PV High in '58, when she was the valedictorian. St.Paul's letter has just described how the heavenly Father "works for good in all things with (as in RSV instead of "for") those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all--how will He not also along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?...Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us...".  Thurs. morning was the victory hour over such a long battle with multiple sclerosis, a dreadful affliction from which she had suffered. Life had been so full of promise when she gave that address to her classmates. And the she gained academic acclaim to start her teaching career. But then Murphey's law seemed more so than divine Providence, "if anything can go wrong, it will." I think now of how our wonderful Washita used to flood PV back in my teen years. It would flow clear into town to ruin homes and business places year after year. The high water last week brought back those memories. That chapter in Romans tells how the Creator's whole universe has been "subjected to frustration, not by it's own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of GOD. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Mary Ellen's final re-birth in a new glorified body ended her part of that pain, just as PV's been for years now free of those damaging floods. And this entire universe which began as formless and void, with darkness on the face of the deep (Gn.1:2 & 3) will be finally redeemed by it's Creator's own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (as the Spirit's work foreshowed at creation by moving over the waters). In that faith as believers, let's post Paul's query, "If GOD be for us, who can be against us?" Despite high costs for gasoline, despite repeated postal increases, despite the many immigration problems, despite crime across the land, now with global terrorism and war in Iraq, it's the graduation time text for 2007 (that even sounds like our state & town's founders a century ago whom we're remembering in these Sesqicentennial days). S'long/Shalom

ANGELFIRE Lord's Day extra For the next few weeks I plan to post my dad's poem THE WASHITA RIVER in two portions. He said it was the hardest to write of all his poems. So for Father's Day here goes:

Behold the might of the river! The Washita, roaring at flood! The terrible, turgid, Washita Reducing the labors of men To submissive and facile mud, While farmers retreat as they yield The best of their acres to feed it. The hemorrage of a nation! Draining away its blood!

Where the soil and the silt From mountain and valley and plain-- The most fertile and fecund treasure From Oklahoma's fruitful hand Is gathered and laid like a floor In a lavish and rich domain-- A wide and verdant valley Sprawling long across the land. There flows the tireless Washita In its ageless and timeless disdain.

The inexorable, laboring, Washita, Whose myriad fingers embrace The land like a thousand million Tentacles, eager to drain The furrow and footpint and channel, Then diligently to race With the burden of soil and of life To the turbulent couse of the main, Where the concourse of rivulets find In the river their appointed place.

The second half will be posted too next Lord's Day, as we condisder this familiar PV sight. (Also look at the rhymes so far)

ANGELFIRE 5-30-07 The first half of that poem The Washita River has been posted and I plan to add the rest before Father's Day. It's a tribute JMH wrote that sounds somewhat like Rev.22, "And the angel showed me a river of pure water of life, clear of crystal," though PV's river is only an earthly one. In Gen.2.10 "A river watering the garden flowed from Eden" is both heavenly and earthly. It divides into four, two of which are unknown and two very familiar. The latter are Tigris and Euphrates (in Iraq). Of course we know water is basic to life and great cities are so often on the banks of rivers. Thus the Bible's final chapter shows that river of life flowing through the midst of the City of GOD, or heaven. As I cross the Washita twice each day, I certainly notice that it's not clear as crystal. But I don't see it full of trash either, which is often the case with creeks that feed into it. And now it's back down in the river bed where it belongs. Also, it even has a whole county of the same name. So surely one of those towns previously listed is that county seat. Cordell, I believe. And of course this Washita Valley which includes PV is named for the river (which is named for an Indian tribe). Wish I knew more about the Washitas. It was really great to have that series in the Democrat about Oklahoma's history in this Centennial year. I can still recall going to CA as a teen to work in the shipyard and staying mum about being an "Okie." It was a term like "illegal alien" to the Californians back then. They identified us with the Grapes of Wrath in a novel John Steinbeck had written. I can also recall the dust storms that drove those Okies to leave their land back in the thirties. But we lived up in Garden City KA then, where the dust would just turn daylight to twilight and make driving impossible; though we heard it was worse down in OK. Yet our Okie history has been a river of blessing since then. Even the worst has been turned around for the best. The OKC bombing by that filthy rotten home grown terrorist (whose name I avoid) has put this Heartland of America on the global map. Now OKIES are okie-dokie everywhere. And football fame has been ours to claim instead of shame. Hey, it's rhyme time!

Another river quite famous in Scripture is the Jordan. It's where Christians from all over the world come for baptism, even if they've already been baptized. I got mine again when there in '77, though repeating wasn't important to me (though there's more on that). Still we think of "crossing Jordan" as death, but in a positive light. The children of Israel finally got into their Promised Land by going over while the water abated, just as it had parted forty years earlier at the Reed Sea to allow their escape from Egypt. Water seems often to represent chaos, where the Spirit moves restoring divine order.

I've previously mentioned a book published last year, "The View From the Center of the Universe." It's subtitle is "Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos." The authors claim that we humans are perfectly located midway in the chain (or canal) of existence from microverse to macroverse, or quarks(smallest) to galaxy clusters(larest) material particles. Thus man with his technology has been able to behold and grasp an awareness of the entire chain, ladder of "river." To me that powerfully implies a Creator who focused on us in His entire handiwork. I've never seen the book, but read several reviews. All had a similar take on it. Back in '63 a book entitled "Honest to God" claimed that we had to abandon our three storied thinking: heaven above, hell below, and earth here between. A Cambridge University professor wrote it, John A.T.Robinson. Along with other denials, He said that heaven isn't up there, but out there, because nothing's up nor down with this new space age (and situational ethics has to replace right/wrong conduct). Everything's just in close or out there afar he said. But now I propose that with this larger view (of cosmologists Joel Primack/Nancy Abrams) we can say "up" again as toward the macroverse and "down" as back into the microverse. Thus hell would be a bottomless /eternal pit into which falling heads back down toward nothingness vs heaven as rising on upward toward shamayim (highest heaven, with GOD and all His holy angels). Shalom

ANGELFIRE 5-27-07 Here's a third try on writing this column. Completely lost it twice, from my ISP having disconnections. So rain has it's problems with service here in WW. But I expect to see the Washita briming full again as I cross over on the way to PV. Though I hate to research it's name because of linkage with those crimes against Indians that are included in it's history. My dear grandmother Hightower used to consider General George Armstrong Custer an American hero. She had a painting of him hanging in her dining room entitled "Custer's Last Stand" in 1876. As a child I went along with the notion of his bravery when those Indians wiped him out at Wounded Knee along with his troops. Yet with age I've gained a different perspective. There was another white leader four years before Custer who had made a similar attack on them and killed chief Black Kettle in the battle of Little Big Horn. But Custer's attack was called The Washita Massacre (old folks, women and children as well as warriors). Nothing honorable about that. I'm just glad it wasn't the Washitas that were being slaughtered; Comanches, as I recall, while Washitas had already just dwindled away. In fact the name Washita is considered another spelling of Wichita by some. So that's why I can't find what happened to them. Anyhow, this river is a link with our past and I've posted the poem my father wrote about it on this website. Takes several readings to get all he has said. And it has no connection to killing Indians. Memorial Day reminds us of enough warfare, so the poem by JMH is just the struggle of a river to pay all it's bills. He was a business man and that was top priority in his mind I think. At least here on earth.

As we go the cemetery for Memorial Day, be mindful of our Lords promise to return. It's our blessed hope that lifts hearts out of darkness into heavenly light. Read Hebrews 12 "looking unto Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith." Shalom