Not the growing

Last evening the pastor said one of his concerns in his life is battling the need to see growth, the fear of never seeing souls saved, of growing in numbers. And I sat there and thought, well, he certainly needs to take a look at me. Four years plus of blogging and the followers are up to a dozen. Not about the growing, but the growing.
The men in attendance said, in so many other ways, there has been growth. And it isn't in just numbers. But yet, we look to the outward. To see tangible results. I have long since given up in making something grow of my own accord. If the Lord so wills, He will allow it. It is for me, a growth. In the journey.
The writing, the poetry, the photography, is a growth in grace process out loud if you will. I am laying much of it out there for all to see, if they just so happen to like it or just so feel compelled to comment upon it, fine.
But for the greater part, they will not. It is not their journey. They are more interested in their own journey.
I thought today while riding the bike. Wouldn't like on Facebook, it be nice if God would 'Tag us' when He had something to say to us? Instead of us going to scripture, searching, trying to discern, if on our app we would get that little notice, and we would know.
Today at the nursing home visiting Harold, he had his facebook page up. I noticed he had nearly ninety notices where people had commented or liked something he had posted. He had never acknowledged them. He did not know what the little numbers meant. I told him he had two people wanting to message him, and nine wanting to friend him. And he lays all alone at the rehab with no one visiting him but immediate family.
We are just as Harold is on Facebook toward God. In reality, He is continually messaging us, wanting to friend us, sending comments and likes, but we are ignoring them, or just are not discerning, not aware.
So all this blogging, all this poetry, all this writing, all this photography I trust is leading me to discern, to learn to listen, to communicate with the one who matters most.

Life Cyclist

How is it in this life we measure the men? By the wealth they obtain? By the influence they have? By the fame? In my life, it has been the cyclists in my life I hold dearest. Oh, not the speed crazed lung machines we see in the Tour, not the Lances and the Floyd's, cheating and donning an artificial laurel wreath.
From a boy in Sopchoppy, it has been a life upon a bicycle. Until I got the first cycle to call my own, I rode my sisters blue Huffy, even back then knowing I did not like riding with that top tube missing, but Robert was not judging, we just had to ride, and so we did all over Sopchoppy,taking our toys downtown to try and sell.
With my own Western Flyer bicycle with the top tube and the push button horn in the faux gas tank,that blue bike took me all over Monticello, canvases in tow going across town to Mrs Groves house for art lessons, to Marks house where I first learned there were other teams out there beside Florida State Seminoles and Fred, namely a Steve and some Florida Gators. From then on, it was a fight as to who would play Steve.
By the time we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky, I had outgrown the little blue bike. The first Christmas in wonderful Wilmore, with snow upon the ground, there beside the tree that morning in our duplex, was a Western Auto gold stingray, with white banana seat, three speed stick shifter on the down tube. I was elated and could not wait for the ice to melt to ride over to Stuart and Steve's up the hill by the Asbury college golf course. Many a day chasing Joker and Penguin on that Bat bike.
The bike came to Williston in 1967 when we moved back to Florida. The banana seat was handy for carrying Rebecca to the movie, one of my first bicycle dates. It took me to Chips, to Terry's, to Randy's, to school up the street. It was replaced by a three-speed brown Schwinn English style bike. This was the days of Thoreau and journals and the life of quiet isolation, and the bicycle took me, not so much any longer with friends along, but out into the lanes and back ways in my quiet contemplation.
There was another friend in town I did not so much ride with, but he too lived a life upon a bike. Bruce was the son of the local sign painter, Milo, whose motto was, "we made signs before we could talk." And while Mr Milo was about his signing, Bruce and I were playing tennis mostly in those later years in Williston.
I was about to start driving the blue fastback Volkswagen and moving beyond the cycling years.
The brown three-speed was relegated to storage.
Moving to Lake City after college, several years into the running road races, my friends Buddy,Steve,Mike and Forest began training for the new sport of triathlon. It was then I took the blue 10 speed Schwinn out that was my sisters, who never rode, with the baby killer shifters on the stem, and began attempting to ride along on their training rides. It was soon evident girl Schwinn's would not cut it. I gave up the riding and returned to running.
It was soon after Bob acquired a Schwinn chrome-moly steel racing bike with the shifters on the down tube. It was a thing of gaudy beauty with its lilac girlish colors. What were you thinking Bob? Well, we had a common friend, Roger, who also had one of these fancy racers, a red Vitus. It was then that they accompanied me to Gator Cycle in Gainesville where I purchased a yellow Cannondale. I could now call myself a cyclist again. With this new found Thoreau-like freedom, we rode far. We rode to Live Oak to the Boys Ranch to swim in the Suwannee. We rode to Monicac, Georgia just to see the pretty lady. And so we rode and we rode. The Cannondale was sold to a lady friend and I purchased a Basso from a college student leaving UF. It was a beauty, with the Campy gruppo. It was a sad day when it was stolen, along with the Schwinn bike Roger had given Melanie, my wife for a wedding present.
With another biker friend Rick, who was my insurance agent, he was able, with knowledge of bicycles of course, to secure for me, at replacement value, in 1991, from Colorado Cyclist, another Basso bike. The Basso Gap, with the Campy gruppo, of which I continue to ride.
It was one of the saddest days ever when we learned Roger had gone on beyond, leaving his Klein and many other assorted Vitus, Trek and Schwinn bikes behind. Growing myself too slow to ride with my faster friends, with Roger gone, I rode much less. It was a special moment indeed when Liz his daughter offered me Rogers old red Trek Mountain bike. With a blue and purple frame Roger had given me years earlier, I took the two bikes down to our bike shop friend Harry and he wedded the two, making one bike. Shaun called it the Frankenbike.
And so Sunday, as I stood in First Baptist and admired Bruces red Huffy bike, I thought back to all the miles, all the friends, all the rides, and I at once wanted to ride. It did not matter if it was on the expensive Italian Basso or on the lowly Huffy. With friends in the head wind, to draft behind, or to help them, making tail winds for them, there were lessons they all taught me, lessons I shall carry, way, way again I trust up to that pretty girl, with friends, with memories carrying us along, to make the seventy mile trip that once seemed so very far alone, but a short jaunt to Taylor and then on into those Georgia pine woods to Moniac.

Sunsets same

While my friend in Gainesville was no doubt standing in front of the same tree overlooking the same lake, I was again off in search of a good view. I was racing from the Winn Dixie after stopping at the lake to look, then stopping behind the high school, then finally turning down Press-Ruth road. The skies were brilliant. I tried to get the dead turtle shell in focus along with the sunset, but without being able to lay on the ground, it was slightly off. I took many other's, but this was the one where I tried to include foreground, midground and background in the scene.
My staying away less from FB has been somewhat of a success. On learning of the death of my old good friend Bruce Smith from Williston, I reposted the Song of Williston poem, and got Melissa to share it on the Williston page. I know that as a rule, whenever I post poetry, it is ignored.
We shall see. Not holding out great hope for much interest.
I re-hung photographs on the wall today. It was sad to me when I went outside to retrieve some shark teeth for Doug Hethcoat's grand daughter, who likes sharks Gerald said, that the photo of Nathaniel and I fell from the wall, the nail pulling out, shattering all over. It was a sad metaphor for our broken relationship. The gouge was on my cheek in the photo, the spot of the kiss.

Super Moon

Last evening cleared, unlike Saturday evening, and I waited after nine until around one AM in my sisters yard in town for the moon and any intersecting planes or birds. None came, well, two actually, birds that is, but I was too slow. So I reverted to my favorite cheat. I image overlaid the moon onto a long exposure of the trees in the VA parking lot. The moon would have been in that location around five AM, but I did not want to fight the mosquito's any longer.
I am trying to quit fighting. I stay so angry all the time with various things. Lately it has been with Facebook and the fellow photographers steady stream of amazing work. Then its the friends and their silence. One thing or another.
Aaron in the beginning of his sermon hit me on the head when he said, temptation can come in many forms, one being the temptation to pride and anger when one does not get the recognition he thinks he deserves. That is exactly what has driven me, a prideful attitude to garner likes and comments, and when they were not forth coming, an anger, a bitterness, a sense of failure.
Granted, most of my work and output lately has been off. Is it any reason? The focus is off.

Flowing Well

Flowing Well
John Clare Stokes

Once beneath the magnolia I remember
as a child a flowing well,
ever bubbling upward clear and pure,
a cool place to linger for a spell.

As a child I listened in the swing
on Mrs Mary's front porch,
I could hear the faint flowing,
clear into tannin black ebbing forth,

a remnant of a lane circling,
remains from a slower time and place,
native lime rock walls of the spring,
relics of a once often visited place.

With years the home of Mary fell,
leaving only her shady magnolia tree,
overgrown became the little flowing well,
lost in Florida beside the Sopchoppy.

Who remains to tell me if there
is yet a flowing fountain trickling
down the steep bank gathering ever
clear where the black snakes whistle?

Now I am old and my memory dim,
long, long since my childhood going,
this one request I am offering,
please help me find the flowing,

carry me quickly to the flowing well,
where I can again taste the waters
beneath Mary's magnolia forever to dwell,
ever young around the fountain pure.

This is another of those all true poems. There actually was, is, a flowing well. It was there in the 50-60's when we lived in Sopchoppy. If I recall, you could drive down to it, down the steep bank off the road. It was a sulphur spring, or pipe, that was always flowing. It was beneath the huge oaks and sweet gums, cool and shady. Some day I hope to be able to spend time in Sopchoppy and take a longer look see.

damsel arise

tonight i took mamma down to Gainesville to stay the weekend with my brother Lewis. it was raining on the way home. i stopped at the New Zion cemetery to check out the name of the person who had the john deere tractor atop their grave, that i entered in the farm bureau photo contest. i came on back from the far back and again, the dove drew me in. it wasn't till seeing afterward, what appeared to be another dove rising from the trees.
today some answers came. out of nowhere, razziel, my old roommate from florida southern sent me an email saying he was thinking of us and praying. i replied. that was good to hear briefly from him. two, Nikki texted me and gave me some info on Landon at Misawa. that helped.
so slowly, things happen.
i am one to want things to happen quickly.
i want the Lord to say, damsel, arise, now, not in the resurrection.
i learned or am learning, that people just are not interested in all my verbiage and carrying on with poetry that i do. i usually do it to elicit a response i hope beyond the ordinary, easy pretty or nice, but it never happens.
today, Tom Sturch, a poet I like, finally replied to something. He liked my selfie of my eye. it was about the only like. he said, greatest selfie ever. I even included what i thought a somewhat profound statement. again, ignored. totally. what's up with people?
too much time on my hands, too little time on their hands. i often forget that i am a bum and not working, but sitting here mostly typing and posting away, way too much for my own good.

Count it all joy

Melanie and I did not ask for or seek to be where we are today. She, working at a prison with two sore toes, me, sitting on the sidelines, watching the moon. But we are where we are, and we trust there is a purpose, a plan behind the upheaval. One thing I can certainly count all joy, is, while life goes on for many, as we see the vacation pictures, the family pictures, the ongoing happy, happy times, if not for this sideline position, I would not be sitting under these heavens praying for you, praying for my son and his wife and their son.
I too would no doubt be off somewhere lost in my own happy, of which I am chief, not giving a moments notice to anyone or anybody, much less praying with any fervency.
I was thinking this morning while mowing the grass of a particular loved one, whom I often looked to for help, who has again deleted their Facebook account, and "gone under". So I was thinking that often, in our mourning of the dead, the lost, we kill the yet living. It is my tendency too, to go underground, to blame everyone and everything for my situation, coiling in like a rattler, ready to strike out at any who would come near.
Even if my son never again communicates again with us, even if my grandson grows up never knowing us, even if I always am destined to moon watch, even if Melanie always has to work at a prison with two sore toes, it will not have been in vain. For, had these trials never occurred, I would never have prayed for you.
So, they say on the 14th there is a super moon coming. The Lord knows I shall be there, watching and praying for you. Counting it all joy.

Chasing Light

Tuesday night following the men's meeting I was on my way home chasing the setting sun. It was a losing battle as I could never position myself for a good shot of the large cloud in a vivid red. This was a quick stop on the Tustenuggee Road and shot from the window. Fortunate there were no cars behind me. Cars behind me always test me as they are invariably in a hurry and do not understand why I am poking along.
It was a long trip from Ken's house on Pinemount, to 90, to Bascomb Norris, down 47, across to Tuskenuggee at I-75 on 47, over to Watermelon Park and home via Price Creek, all for this one quick stop shot. That's how it goes, chasing light.

Burning Daylight

I have been three days running riding the bike, trying to return since a layoff or practical quitting since the passing of Roger Sessler, who pretty much I could count on to show up for a ride. And they were not just the ten mile slow rides I am struggling through lately. Seventy and more. Up to Moniac in Georgia, just to see the pretty clerk. Down to Wellborn where we would stop for a drink and ice cream, catching up on all the store clerks lives.
When I first started out with Roger, he was patient, yet stern, scolding me when I followed too close, did not maintain a good draft, did not signal properly, was too abrupt in my moves, etc. He was not one to linger and go my pace, it was up to me to keep up, and he had no problem leaving me.
In the later years, it was Roger who was now the slow one and we would linger, waiting for him to catch up after struggling up a hill. I recall the Horsefarm Hundred's we rode, where I struggled to maintain his pace, falling out on the side of the road by mile twenty-five, hobbling through the ride alone. And to Rogers last century, him to struggling last with Teri Harty pacing him.
There are so many whom I miss, who no longer ride or are now too fast for me the slowing one. So I ride alone. It is best that way, for I often have to coast and glide along, catching my wind, adjusting my seat that is oh so sore, until hopefully the old muscles will respond and once again carry me to Moniac and maybe even another Horsefarm One Hundred this October in Roger's memory.

GracePrideDay

Vera of the church of the holy rollers passes out distracts

You are not cordially invited to attend, unless you fit in, the first annual church of the only way grace pride day parade. We will feature floats and marching teams mocking about everything we deem not worthy of our definition of what a true church is. We will have O'Steen impersonators on hand, smiling and squinting to the spectators, tons of cowboy church horses and riders, floats throwing money from the wealth church, folks handing out free healing cloths from the health church, a tongue speaking band accompanied by clanging cymbals, and on it will go...bringing up the rear will be the true outcasts, a great float of witnesses, certainly not members of our group, but nevertheless, the many,many not associated with Sturgeon or the impuritans or the fellows on our radio only waves or the Armenians or the catholic or the fundamentalists or the methodists or the presbyterians and even not the Baptists who do not see things our only way. Great fun! Plenty of Pride on hand. Plenty of mocking to keep you knocking on our door, begging to fit in.

Cowboy Church

The smug are at it again. Making fun on facebook of other churches. This time, the Cowboy church. Sure, they probably have Armenian ways, they are probably in "error" in many areas, but what purpose does it serve to mock them? To make fun of them?
I have been guilty of making fun of Joel O'Steen in an equal manner, using a take off on his philosophy of your best life now with, your best camera now. It's in good fun, I am sure, like these folks thing theirs is in good fun...but again, to the weak brothers, it only serves as a stumbling block, confusion.
Our pastor, Aaron Turner believes the cause of Christ is much better served by dwelling upon His love, his call, making people want Him, not spending time mocking others.
I too will try and be careful of what I put out there for all to see. Like I say, I am guilty as charged as well.

He was dear

Beginning August 11th, this photograph will appear hopefully in the Farm Bureau annual photo contest. It is one of those, judged on Facebook by the viewers likes, like that infernal Ken Rockwell contest. Just a heads up to watch for it and like, if you will.
Taken on the 30th in the cemetery off CR241, I forgot the name. I will return and get the information off the grave, who it was buried there.

Over the top

Tonight upon traveling to town to Winn Dixie, I detoured at Lake DeSoto downtown. I stopped to photograph the sunset, with a neat Aurora Borealis above the clouds. I realized the limitations I am up against using a sub par camera. I am just too lazy to drag the D3100 along which is much more difficult to achieve suitable exposure for me. Then there are the dust spots in the upper portion of the frame.
Today Carlton Ward posted his equipment he is taking on another extended photograph trip. Where do these guys get all the money to afford all this expensive gear? In sarcasm I posted on his page my Canon S110, two batteries and the little jobo tripod. I said, this is my Thoreau kit of quiet desperation. I am sure he saw absolutely no humor in it.
I just want one decent camera to carry. I do not need an arse---nal. Again...thou shalt not covet.
You can see the one photograph from the sunset tonight on my John Stokes page. My brother Lewis used it for his cover page.
Until then, it had gotten one like.
The photograph of the day for me though was of Kimberly Johnson taken at Olustee back in February. The light was grand behind her, highlighting her hair. I waited patiently for her to exhale in the cool morning, to catch her breath. Rhesa Collup called it steampunk. It only got ten likes. To say the least, I am most disappointed in the photographers, poets and artists that I have as friends. Seldom if ever do any comment or give insight or suggestions. They are too busy promoting their own daily work. Here on this blog as well. I go to the settings page and it shows one visit, maybe two. I wonder if its not my own visiting and so no one is even pulling the page up. Allow me to continue my chronicles of narcissism voyage...
On the John Clare poetry page, I posted what I thought was a good, thought provoking poem contrasting Eden and Sodom, our journey back to Eden, through the Son of Man. It got the usual one like from Melissa and that was that. I deleted it. 
On Fine Art America, I got the stats today and the same. One look from China. China? Good grief.
Neither of the two people who said they were going to order did. I knew that would never happen, but there was hope.
On a brighter note, I sold two note cards and a print last week at the gallery. That was $39 for the print and 2.75 each for the cards. I am on my way. Over the top. All downhill from here.