10.31.2026 – realizing faith is both

realizing faith is both
ineffable, tangible
beating of one’s heart

This morning’s Chicago Tribune has an opinion piece by Mr. Colin Fleming titled, Linus Van Pelt’s belief in the Great Pumpkin encourages us to be sincere (Click for a PDF of the column).

Mr. Fleming writes about Linus Van Pelt and the Great Pumpkin that:

Most of us know how this goes. Linus spends Halloween night in the pumpkin patch with Sally Brown, who has a crush on him, while the other kids are off at a party and trick-or-treating. The Great Pumpkin doesn’t show, and eventually, a freezing Linus is fetched back home by his sister Lucy and put to bed.

Linus is an exemplar of sincerity who numbers among our wisest figures in popular culture because of his realness. Linus doesn’t perform. He believes and tries to understand, realizing faith is both ineffable and as tangible as the beating of one’s heart.

How often are we our unfettered selves? How often do we say and do things just for a desired outcome?

For Linus, the Great Pumpkin is less about toys and more about being true to one’s self. Halloween is treated as his blind spot, the day each year this Socrates of the gang makes a fool of himself and misses out on treats. Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s jape-loving beagle, goes so far as to prank Linus and Sally in the pumpkin patch by acting as if he’s the Great Pumpkin by rising from the tangle of vines.

And yet, Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think. This is someone with passions. Interests. Linus would be wholly unaffected by an algorithm.

How many of us now take our cues from what is pushed into our faces and talk about what others talk about? There is peace in Linus’ pumpkin patch, living as a lover of Halloween, for reasons likely different from most people’s. He has stripped himself of performative excess and is only himself.

I rate Linus as hero-like.

Born in 1960, I cannot recall a time when I wasn’t aware of and wanted to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Watched it over and over again.

Screamed as the networks butchered it to make time for more commericals.

And never ever doubted the sincerity of Linus.

Linus is an exemplar of sincerity who numbers among our wisest figures in popular culture because of his realness.

Linus doesn’t perform.

He believes and tries to understand, realizing faith is both ineffable and as tangible as the beating of one’s heart.

Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think.

This is someone with passions.

Interests.

Linus would be wholly unaffected by an algorithm.

I rate Linus as hero-like.

Faith doesn’t need to be fully verbalized to be intensely real.

It bridges the gap between the mystical and the physical. You may not be able to fully explain what or why you believe when asked to describe it, but you experience its presence as undeniably and continuously as your own pulse.

It is an essential life force, unseen and undefinable, yet pulsing beneath every moment.

All held together by sincerity.

I am reminded of the Bible story in the Book of Genesis where God tells Abraham he is going to destroy the city of Sodom and Abraham makes a deal to find fifty righteous people in the city and save the city.

Then Abraham asks to change the total to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, then 10 and then two angels show up to destroy the city so Abraham could not come with 10 good men.

What if we went looking for 50 sincere people in this Country today.

Cynicism.

That’s what you find.

Cynicism from the top down.

But Linus keeps going back, seemingly unconcerned with what others think.

I too, rate Linus as hero-like.

10-30-2026 – free yourself from your

free yourself from your
vanity, greed, recognise
deep companions, friends

Reading The Guardian feature, The Books of my life, where people get to talk about the books that had impact on their lives, I was intrigued in todays column titled, Philippa Gregory: ‘I read 100 of the best 18th century novels – the perfect author’s apprenticeship’ where novelist Philippa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) was asked: The book I reread … and she responded:

Great writing gives any experience a significance, and a good novel can take us into another place and time.

I read and reread Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea, whenever I need comfort.

It’s a book that is far away from my own concerns and yet entirely about the human struggle to own the person you love, when you know that cannot be achieved, to free yourself from your own vanity and greed, to recognise those who are your deep companions and friends.

At the same time it’s a deeply engaging story about a gossipy, vain theatre director in his retirement home at the sea.

My go-to rereads would include all the Hornblower books by CS Forester and Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny but this weekend I am looking for something new as I will be having a slow weekend in the low country with plans to kick it off with flu shots this afternoon.

I have loaded up The Sea, The Sea for this weekend.

Truly I would love to free myself from my own vanity and greed, to recognise those who are my deep companions and friends.

Been deficient in those endeavors of late.

I shall sit by the sea and read The Sea, The Sea and we shall see.

10.29.2026 – we guess no angels

we guess no angels
are contented to be blind
things may not be seen

Adapted from the poem, The Jig of Forslin by Conrad Aiken (The Four Seas Company: Boston, 1916) in Part IV: (1) where Mr. Aiken writes:

Now, unless persuaded by searching music
Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind,
We guess no angels,
And are contented to be blind.
Let us blow silver horns in the twilight.
And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green,
To find, perhaps, if while the dew is rising,
Clear things may not be seen.

Stuck in the loop.

Do over.

Do loop.

Loop.

Death spiral.

Never ends.

Now, unless persuaded by searching music

Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind,

We guess no angels,

And are contented to be blind.

Let us blow silver horns in the twilight.

And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green,

To find, perhaps, if while the dew is rising,

Clear things may not be seen.

10.28.2026 – strange light sun made

strange light sun made
in the water meant good weather
so did the clouds shape

Adapted from:

The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the gray blue hills behind it.

The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple.

As he looked down into it he saw the red sifting of the plankton in the dark water and the strange light the sun made now.

He watched his lines to see them go straight down out of sight into the water and he was happy to see so much plankton because it meant fish.

The strange light the sun made in the water, now that the sun was higher, meant good weather and so did the shape of the clouds over the land.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952).

Atlantic Coast of Hilton Head Island, SC – Rip Current / High Tide Warnings in effect 10/28/2026

10.27.2026 – memory is when

memory is when
you look back, answers float in
to who? what? when? where?

Memory is when you look back
and the answers float in
to who? what? when? where?
The members who were there then
are repeated on a screen
are recalled on a scroll
are moved in a miniature drama,
are collected and recollected
for actions, speeches, silences,
set forth by images of the mind
and made in a mingling mist
to do again and to do over
precisely what they did do once —
this is memory —
sometimes slurred and blurred —
this is remembering —
sometimes wrecking the images
and proceeding again to reconstruct
what happened and how,
the many little involved answers
to who? what? when? where?
and more involved than any
how? how?

Scroll by Carl Sandburg as published in War Time under New Section of The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1970).

Celebrated Halloween at work today and little goodie bags of candy were passed out to everyone.

I undid the twisty on my goodie bag and poured the candy out on my desk there, with the chocolate, were two rolls of Smarties.

For most people, they were just two rolls of smarties.

For a lot of people I know, they would be the keys to memories.

A whole lot of memories.

Memory is when you look back …

and the answers float in ..

to who? what? when? where?

For myself, I look at a roll of smarties and I am back in church.

Not just any church, but Berean Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan where this one member, Mr. Berg, came every Sunday with an old cloth Old Kent Bank bag, filled with rolls of smarties.

Once church was over, every kid and not a few adults made their way over to this guy to get their Sunday roll of smarties.

It was such a part of Sunday that Mr. Berg became the honorary Grandpa of the entire Church and was universally addressed as Grandpa Berg.

As I remember it, if I was nearby, I would get in line myself.

This went on for years and I found myself married to Mr. Berg’s daughter.

We had 7 seven kids, and getting their Sunday Smarties was as much of their day as any other kid and maybe more so as they called him Grandpa BECAUSE he was their Grandpa.

Enjoy these memories a lot.

Miss that man more.

Memory is when you look back

and the answers float in

to who? what? when? where?

The members who were there then

are repeated on a screen

are recalled on a scroll

are moved in a miniature drama,

are collected and recollected

for actions, speeches, silences,

set forth by images of the mind

and made in a mingling mist

to do again and to do over

precisely what they did do once —

this is memory —