June 21, 2020

“Father’s Day”

By Jim Culp

Father’s Day is a fairly modern celebration honoring paternal bonds and the act of fatherhood. Today, here in the United States, we celebrate Father’s Day for the 110^th time. Father’s Day, in some form or another, was celebrated in Catholic Christian countries as Saint Joseph’s Day dating way back into the Middle Ages. We, as citizens of the United States of America, did not start this tradition until 1910. For the past 110 years, Father’s Day has evolved into many household customs, and like many holidays here in the USA, they may be religion based or not. Some respect the old traditions; like “Sunday of the Forefathers,” where God told Abraham "In thy seed shall all of the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). Many others just like to honor their Dad, Step Dad, or someone who raised them. I fall into the latter category.

My Father (who I still call “Daddy) was a man raised in South-West Texas. He was the son of a cowboy, a mason, and a rancher. When he was 22 years old, he married a beautiful girl, Mary Ann Bristow, who was 17 years old by 5 days (see Photo #1). The lovely couple would enjoy a marriage of just 20 years, but would have seven children. Oldest to youngest they were: Deborah, John, Cynthia, Thomas, Mart, David, and James. My Dad wanted to be a soldier in his younger years. He attended a military academy, but was refused service in the active military because he suffered from a birth defect known as “ventricular septal defect,” or to put it plainly, a hole in your heart. He turned to civilian aspirations, and worked many types of jobs. Later, he started driving tractor trailer rigs (see Photo #2) in various modes, but finally settled on long hauls from El Paso to the West Coast.

In 1969, my Dad died of a massive heart attack, and the Culp kids were left with one parent for a long period. I was just two years old when Daddy passed, and can scarcely remember anything about it. The hole in my life of not having a real Dad would affect me for the rest of my life.

In June of 1972, my Mom remarried. William George Lesperance was a man 9 years older than my Mom, and about as different from my Dad as you could imagine (see Photo #3). “Bill,” as he was known to most, was a big man. He had a thundering bass voice, and talked to people like he wanted to. If he felt it, he spoke it. Bill was from Stockton, Kansas, and grew up in the midst of the Great Depression. He was raised on meals that included meat only once or twice a week. He was also raised by a father that had hard and fast rules about women and children. This would transfer to the Culp house when he became our paternal figure, but that is another story for another time.

During my childhood and teenage years, my relationship with this man evolved into friendship and mutual respect. My unofficial step-father (not my law) would be just that…a father. He paid the bills, and gave us a life. He was never a “Daddy” to me. His official title was “Pop.” I loved him for what he was, and he and I were “straight-shooters” when I (and my siblings) was with him when he passed in 1997. Pop loved his grandchildren, and always enjoyed being with them (see Photo #4).

In 1989, I became a Dad. My precious little girl, Jessica Marie Culp, was born on December 16, 1989. My life would change forever, as I was just 23, close to how my Dad had been when his first child was born. I was clueless, but I did have a large encyclopedia of lessons from watching my siblings with their kids for many years. A Sergeant in the Army once told me “Culp, congrats on the kid. But let me warn ya…when you have a boy, you only gotta worry about one pecker. But now that you got yourself a girl, you gotta worry about a hundred million of ‘em.”

“Thanks Sarge,” I said. “I’m glad you made me aware of that.”

If you are a father (by blood or law) you are part of a large fraternity of men that know the joy, worry, heartache, and sheer gratitude of raising children. The key (I’ve learned) is to love your children unconditionally. They are part of you, and you are their guide in life. Happy Father’s Day.

-Jim 

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June 20, 2020

“Summer”

By Jim Culp

It is that time of year again. The weather becomes very warm, and in many areas of the Earth, quite humid. It is a time when life is at its peak, and every creature under the Sun is moving about. Even in the big city (where I currently live) it will be nothing for you to see hundreds of species of animals and plants in just one day. You’ll see the tiny insects that buzz about, crawl on the ground, and bug the living hell out of you when you are out and about. If you are fortunate enough to love in the countryside, you will likely see an even larger abundance of life, because there is less human interference. We enter into that phenomenon known as the Summer Solstice. It will begin tonight at 9:43 pm, and continue for 48 hours.

For all of us humans living in the Northern Hemisphere, our days will longer than usual. That is because the Sun is illuminating a whopping 50% of the Earth’s surface due to our position in the orbit of the big fiery ball that keeps us alive.

For us modern pagans, the solstice is the peak of life; and the celebration of Litha, or in the modern tongue, “first fruits.” It is a time when we honor the Mother Earth for her gifts to us, the fruits and vegetables that nourish our bodies and give us strength. It is also time to grow beautiful plants, gardens, and flowers with brilliant colors.

In these troubled times, it is important that we stand by our values, and help one another in keeping our health and sanity intact. If you are a first time reader, or a dedicated follower of my work; I thank you and wish you a wonderful summer, and health and prosperity to you and your families.

-Jim 

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June 17, 2020

“Changing Names”

By Jim Culp

Good Morning readers; today is a special day, no matter what your beliefs and opinions are. It’s a special day for me, because I am still alive and in fairly good health. I am drinking my first cup of coffee and reading the headlines of the local and national news. They include issues with COVID-19, riots and looting, tensions with North Korea, and many more. But the one most disturbing to me is the idea (and movement that people have started recently) to tear down statues that mean A or B, and change the names of places (particularly Military Bases) to names that are more in line with the needs of people to have things exactly like they want them.

I want to make it clear that I am not a person that wants racism or bigotry to exist anywhere. I saw it too many times growing up in the Southwest, and far too many times in my 22 years in the U.S. Army. White on Black, Brown on White, and Black on Asian…whatever, it doesn’t matter. When you base your decisions on how you treat someone using color, you are a racist. You should always try to see beyond skin color when you are dealing with people. Unfortunately, our country was called the “Great American Melting Pot” for a reason.

In the early days, the Continental United States had one race of human beings. The North American Indian (or “Native American”) was the sole race of the species “homo sapiens” that lived on the continent. No one today knows the number of them, but there were at least seven million of them on the continent in the late 1300’s. That is only a scientific hypothesis; no one knows the actual count. These, as well as the Natives of Mexico, Central and South America…were the “Americans” of the day. Then, in the 1400’s, Spanish troops “explored” the America’s, and had every intention of enslaving them for profit. By the 1700’s, Native Americans in the East fought the English, French, and British for their rights to exist. Many alliances were formed, and many were broken, having been based on lies in the first place.

I told you that story of the early days for one reason. Race and Money have always been a part of our Earth, and they always will be. How we deal with that is our charge.

Today, people want to tear down a statue of Robert E. Lee because he was a key Confederate Leader in the American Civil War. They want to rename Fort Carson because Kit Carson was a Union Officer that fought in the Mexican and Indian Wars. They want to rename Fort Bragg because General Braxton Bragg was a Confederate General in the Civil War.

These, and many other suggestions that I hear today, are the ideals of simpletons. Why? Glad you ask. Let’s take history back about two thousand years before the Civil War. Particularly, to the time when Rome became a Christian Empire based on the Emperor Constantine seeing a vision in the sky. He claimed that he saw a cross, and voice said “In this Sign, Conquer.” So in 325 AD, a pagan empire became “holy,” and the Romans began a conquest of killing “non-believers” in the name of God. In the following 1,400 years, millions were killed in the name of Christianity. A person was either a “believer,” or a pagan. It was God’s will that all persons on the Earth believe in his Son, and convert to Christianity.

Today, in the Americas, Christianity is prevalent in our societies. But I ask this question; if we are to use the ideology of today’s headlines, and tear down every monument that was built for a reason at the time, should we not also tear down all the churches and crosses, because they represent fourteen hundred  years of killing?

Should we destroy Mosques and Synagogues (Muslims and Jews both have bloody pasts, too) as well? Think about it. Forget that you are black, brown, or white. Try and educate yourself that these things are history, and to ignore history is to repeat it. When we follow a leader or a principle in ignorance, we digress into savagery and stupidity.

-Jim

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6/10/2020

“Name Calling”

By Jim Culp

Yesterday marked a true milestone in my middle age. I was frolicking through Facebook, and reading jokes and articles while waiting for a huge download to finish. It seems there was a post that I joined in on commenting some three weeks ago, and someone copied and reposted the entire conversation as a post. The author referred to me as a “Satanist” and “someone who dabbles in witchcraft.”

I laughed at this accusation, and read a few of the comments that some folks added. It seems that since I am not a Christian, I am “of the devil.”

It’s funny, I haven’t heard that crap since I was 18, and told my Mom and Step-Father that I was no longer attending church. The pastor of our congregation had told them that “people who do not do the Lord’s will by attending church have fallen into the hands of the devil.”

It always made me wonder how anyone ever came up with the concept of a being such as God, who the bible (the King James Version, anyway) describes as “all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, and always everywhere. Even when I was a brainwashed youngster, I always wondered about this, but in private. I had heroes in my comic books such as Batman, Spiderman, and the Hulk; but none of them held up to the Christian God’s abilities. So there was Thor, who was a god. He was the son of Odin, an even more powerful god. Thor and Odin had temples, but they were for priests, not parishioners. The people had their own homes, and would have small statues of their gods in them. In real life, the same applied for the Romans, who had statues of Jupiter in their homes as well.

These comics were not allowed at my church, or my church school (yes, I went to both). “There are no other gods, except our God,” they would say.

When I started travelling around the world, I learned that every country and continent had a different version of “god” or “gods.” When I took a World Religion class in my first year of college, I was simply aghast at the plethora of gods that are worshipped every day on this planet we call Earth. Earthlings (as a whole, but separate) worship a whopping 2,500 gods and goddesses. Every religion claims that their god(s) are the real one. But I digress.

For one to be a “Satanist,” one must first believe in such a creature. A Satanist defines Satan as the “Infernal Duke of Hell” and “the Black Pope,” as well as hundreds of other names. He even had an official church, called the Church of Satan; founded in 1966 by Anton Levey, and serious hippie and anti-establishment watchdog. I read his book in 2004, called the “Satanic Bible.” It was as meaningless and mindless as most religious books are. I also read the “Lesser Keys of Solomon,” a massive tome of thousands of devils and demons that Solomon (the biblical son of King David, in the Christian Old Testament) controlled all of them at some time, because Jehovah’s (God) angel had given Solomon the keys to their “cages.” These were not physical cages made of iron or steel, but ethereal cages made of God’s power. This book is called “the Lemegeton” and it allowed Solomon to summon these creatures whenever he wished, by using the spells in the book. Yes, I know…that be some deep shit.

So you see... I know more about demons and devils that most Christians ever learn in their lives. Why? Because I read books, and I study things. I don’t blindly follow a religion because someone told me it was the way, the truth, and the life.

I don’t base my life on one belief (the way my parents did) because it’s not what the human brain was designed to do. The brain is a storage shed (memory), a computer (logical thinking), and a reasoner (cognitive thought). Whether that brain is the product of 200 million years of evolution, or the seed planted here my aliens, or the creation of a god; it is what separate you and me from thousands of other species of animals. A cat knows that its master will feed it at some point in a day, and knows it from repetition of actions. What it doesn’t know is that its master paid $17 for the bag of kitty chow that it eats. A great white shark can track a milliliter of blood in a huge area of water for miles, and find the bleeding animal that left it. But what it can’t do is add 2 plus 2, or balance a checkbook.

When I was accused of being a Satanist by some idiot, I laughed heartily. I am most surely a Pagan, but I don’t follow any path of religion or spirituality unless it makes 100% sense to me. So far, none have.

So…brand old Jim what you want. But I am the same old me. I’ve never said I am perfect, and I never told anyone that they can’t believe what they want to. I chose Paganism because it made sense to me, and it still does; every day of my life. The Earth is our home, and the more we get in touch with it, the more spiritual we become.

-Jim

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