I have returned to the scene of my youth and childhood. I am now living in the farmhouse, which was once the home of my grandparents and great-grandparents before them. The farmplace has been in the family for over a hundred years.
It takes a lot of getting used to stuff that I have not been exposed to in a very long time. Living in Texas since 1981, I am not weather-proofed for Autumn in Iowa. It is already the kind of cold that is actually winter cold in Texas. Harvest is finishing up. There’s a lot of dust and ragweed pollen in the air to reignite allergies of olden days. I haven’t seen any ring-necked pheasants, but I have seen deer wandering through the cornfield stubble. Those are Autumn images I used to live for because they herald the coming of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, Halloween comes first. These are things that, as a Jehovah’s Witness, I wasn’t supposed to think about from 1995 to 2014. I can think about them now.
I am living in the house my parents and grandparents lived in before me with the older of my two sisters. My wife, not divorced from me but separated from me by a job she’s not ready to retire from for four more years, remains in Texas in possession of her strict Biblical faith. The Witnesses are good people, but being away from them is liberating since I am a Christian Existentialist, and being considered an atheist by their measure can be daunting.
Of course, President Pumpkinhead has killed off the soybean and corn markets with his beloved tariffs, and we may face losing all our farm income… and eventually the farmhouse. He is using AI jet planes to poop on protesters in his TikTok imaginaries. And he is also firing all special education teachers, drilling for more toxic oil, and working hard to kill off the biosphere. So, the end of the world is coming soon. At least Edgar Cayce predicted that once the Builder had brought destruction to the government and country, the Mender would arise and lead the population to heal and reunify in a hatred-removing campaign for love and renewal.
Who knows where it goes from here? But we shall see who decides and what we can choose to happen next.
Catch a Falling Star 